Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Current California Public Marriage Records Search

By Eric Develos


Marriage is an event where two people promise to join their lives and become husband and wife. While some states have high marriage rates, the state of California is among those who have the lowest rates. Even so, there is an abundance of information in California Marriage Records if you need to refer to such documents.

The California Department of Public Health Office of Vital Records is responsible for the maintenance and management of the vital records of the state such as marriage documents. One can access documents from the year 1850 until the present. In the event that documents are not available at the state office, you can also refer to the office of the local county clerk in the county where the marriage license was issued.

Genealogy research is one of the many reasons why someone would request for a marriage document. Tracing family histories has been a common activity these days since you will not only know more about your family, you can also trace long, lost relatives. Various companies and institutions may also require this document for verification purposes. Human resource officers may require married employees to submit a marriage document so his or her civil status can be updated. Many institutions such as insurance companies may also request supporting documents such as marriage records to validate the information you have provided in your application. This can also be a part of the requirements you need to submit before being hired for a job.

Making a request for a marriage document at the Office of Vital Records requires you to follow certain procedures. After you fill up the necessary information and pay the charges, you have to send your application through mail. Informational copies of the marriage certificate are issued to those who need information for genealogy research. These are the ones usually given to most public requests. For confidential marriage records, these are issued by the office of the county clerk which issued the license. This information is limited to the parties involved in the marriage. You can also provide the complete name of the groom, the first and maiden last name of the bride, and the date of marriage in order to hasten the search. But because the results will take about 6 months, you might want to consider an alternative way of searching for marriage records. A faster and more reliable service is available through online commercial search sites.

Online searching can greatly benefit those who are not anymore residing in California but needs to have a copy of their marriage document. You simply make your request online by providing the name of the person and the location. It would be better to search using the name of the groom rather than the bride since the document may have recorded the maiden last name of the bride. The location refers to where the marriage license was approved. Online searching is faster, easier, and more convenient to use since right after you provide the needed information, you just need to click the search button, pay for the fee, and get the results. You can save a lot of time since you only need to wait for a few minutes for the results.

Free Marriage Records can be obtained by the public. However, these are not entirely for free since you still have to pay for other services like the search fee and document printing. Online commercial search sites will only cost you $19.95 per copy in return for convenience and fast results.




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