Friday, March 21, 2014

California Free Marriage Records

By Ben Kingsley


CA marriage records better known as California marriage records are one of the many documents of the state that has been opened to the public. This is in line with the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act. With this, residents of the state have the freedom to access their marriage licenses anytime they have a need for it.


Marriage records in California are requested by the residents to use in a number of ways. It is one of the documents used as reference when updating the family history tree. Genealogy research would usually refer to this type of document in order to completely update the family tree. Marriage certificates are also important documents that the government would require when processing any transactions in a government office. Insurance related matters and the declaration of assets and properties of a couple are the most common transaction that requires a copy of a marriage certificate in order to proceed. Filing divorce or separation would also require a copy of a marriage certificate to have the separation processed.

The information that can be found on a California marriage record originally has only the basic details such as the names of the bride and the groom and the details as to when and where they got married. Also, the names of the witnesses and the official who declared them husband and wife are indicated on the file. Now, this has been expanded. A marriage certificate now would have the maiden name of the bride and the personal information of the couple such as their birth details, occupations, address and nationality. Furthermore, marriage certificates now would contain the names of the parents of the couple along with their birth details.

California has started to record marriages since 1850 but only marriages since July 1905 are releases in the state. Unfortunately, marriages that took place from 1987 up to 1995 were not indexed by the state. This means that certificates from this period has to be requested at the county where the couple got married. When requesting for a copy of a marriage certificate at the Department of Health under the Vital Records Section, a $14 processing fee has to be paid. This fee is not applicable if the request was made at the county of origin. When requesting for a copy of such document, one has to know the basic details of the record being requested. This information has to be indicated on the application form to avoid having problems during the retrieval process. If it is not possible to request it at the office, a mail order can be sent to the state office but one is expected to wait for days before the result of the request can be delivered.

To avoid any delay in the retrieval process, one can take advantage of the Internet since marriage records of California can now be obtained online. This method helps obtain the document without putting much effort into it since the document can be requested at home and in just a few clicks on the mouse, the results of the search are displayed.

One can choose to get marriage records free or to pay for the retrieval. Several websites lets first time users to test their system without any charges. This lets the user to see what the system can do and it can let them decide whether to look for another site to obtain the marriage certificate or pay for the next use.




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