California Marriage Records Available Online

By Ben Kingsley


Birth, death, marriage and divorce records are important documents because they are issued by the government and thus have the authority or validity to serve as supporting documents. Marriage records California, for one, can serve to establish a person's identity; it can also prove the legitimacy of any child born under the marriage. For some, these records can also contain information that may be relevant to a person searching for his or her ancestors or genealogical family. Now, to be able to obtain these records, the law usually requires an affinity or relationship between the parties involved and the person requesting the information. An example would be one requesting for marriage records California. Marriage records are categorized into 2 - authorized and informational. They contain the same information but authorized copies can serve as valid documents whereas the informational copy is for information purposes only and cannot be used as a supporting document. Authorized copies are restricted whereas informational copies are available to the public.

To obtain copies of the records, one must determine if the record they want is available from the California Department of Public Health Vital Records Division or CDPH. Public marriage indexes are available from the Vital Records Division. For those who want a certified copy of the public marriage record, they must visit or contact the County Recorder where the marriage was granted. Public marriages are open to the public. Currently, the CDPH has indexes for marriages that occurred from 1949-1986 and 1998-1999; the rest of the records are available from the County Recorder's Office.

For confidential marriage records, the records are only available from the County Clerk's Office. The two married individuals are the only ones who can get a copy of the confidential marriage record. Each certified copy costs about $14 when one is requesting via the State's Office. Cost for the records from the county differs and as such, one should contact the County for the updated fees.

Those who are eligible for authorized copies under the California Health and Safety Code include the parties indicated in the certificate, parents or legal guardians, their kids or grandchildren, husband or wife, adoption agencies and law officers who need the document in the performance of their work.

To get a copy of the records, download the form available from the site and include all the necessary documents. The sworn statement must be notarized and incomplete requests will not be processed. Payments should also be attached to the request form. Payment can be made via US drawn checks or money orders. The State's Vital Records division and some counties do not accept cash and credit card payments.

Processing time can take from 6 months onwards due to the high volume of requests that CDPH receives. For those who need the marriage and divorce records urgently, the fastest way to do so is to order online. Most states now offer online self-service for public records. In addition, other third party vendors also offer public record searches, which is the fastest way one can obtain the records. California has 58 counties all over and if one does not know where the marriage license was issued, it would take them some time to find the records. With online search, it would only take a few minutes or hours.




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