Marriage Records

Although marriage is, in a way, the most private and personal of human relationships - the bonding of two individual lives and minds into an exclusive, intimate partnership that is theoretically intended to last lifelong (and, by some religious beliefs, beyond life) - the wedding ceremony itself is a matter of public record and recognition, and the marriage records generated become part of the permanent public domain. These marriage records can be searched for by anyone possessing the basic information needed to identify the specific event - the names of the bride and groom, although the date of the wedding is also useful.

There are several reasons why people might want to find marriage records. One of the major individual motivations for searching out wedding records is for genealogical research. Finding the weddings that built one's family tree is rather like discovering the puzzle pieces needed to complete a complicated, interesting picture. Marriage records can also become important during divorce proceedings, exceptionally thorough background checks, and disputes over marriage details.

Online sources for marriage records are one of the most accessible wellsprings of such data. They can be accessed from anywhere on the globe where a computer and an Internet connection exist, and they have the advantages of being extremely quick and convenient. Typing "marriage records" into a search engine will reveal hundreds of companies clamoring to offer one their services in tracking down the exact matrimonial event one is interested in. Besides their speed and ready availability, these online sources possess another virtue - they collect information from all the states of the Union into one place, meaning that if the exact place of marriage is unknown, they can save much 'leg work' in finding the marriage records on state-specific sites.

The drawback to online public records websites, however, is that many of them are paid - even those which advertise themselves as being free, since the search itself is free, while access to the results is not. The searcher is then left with a dilemma - whether or not to pay for the search results sight unseen, with no way to tell whether the marriage records desired are actually available, or what the quality of the provided information will be. The viewer is left with the choice of gambling on the accuracy of the results, or choosing another search method.

An alternative is to turn straight to the source - the Vital Records Office of the appropriate state, where the marriage records are actually filed and stored. State government websites will contain information - and, most likely, printable forms - for requesting various types of public record information, including marriage records of weddings carried out in the state. Since the information is semi-confidential and usually requires payment of a fee, the request forms must be sent by mail or fax, or delivered in person (in which case, identification such as a driver's license may also be required). Fax requests are often the quickest way to obtain the desired records if applying in person is not possible (as, for example, if the marriage took place in a distant state).

Information obtained through a Vital Records Office is not as rapidly available as online information, and can cost nearly as much, but it does have the virtues of accuracy and legal validity to recommend it as well. Or, the searcher can combine the two methods, using Internet sources to determine exactly what information should be submitted to which Vital Records Office - a few straightforward steps which will deliver the needed marriage records to the searcher's hand.