California Free Marriage Records

By Ben Kingsley


California is an open state which means that the residents of the state have access to their personal documents. CA marriage records are one of the documents that have been opened according to the Freedom of Information Act.

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 make sure that there are no delays in the retrieval process, requesting for a copy of a marriage certificate online improves the search. With the Internet, the search can be done even without going to any offices making it convenient for many. Another good thing about it is that the document can be obtained faster. There is no need to wait for hours, days or even weeks in order to get a copy of the said file.

Many websites now offer to obtain the document for you. Some would allow you to get marriage records free of any charges, while others can only do the search after you pay for the processing fee online. There are websites lets their users test their system before they are urged to pay. It is up to the user if they want to pay for the service or not.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment