Tuesday, 6 August 2013

California Free Marriage Records Online

By Claire Dowell


The California Health Department keeps records of California Marriage Records. However, they are not permitted by the court to provide certified marriage records to the public because that task is given to the exact county Clerk of Court that finalized the marriage. It is essential that a marriage is documented because they support the validity of a marriage, they contain the original last name of the bride, and they can also be used to trace the family tree of a person.

A person may request for public documents, including marriage documents. However, if a person wants to request the documents of another person, he or she will need the permission of the couple. Even with the permission of the couple, that person will only be given a marriage certificate because certified copies are only given to the couple, their lawyers, and other parties that are specified by the court. Certified copies contain the complete details of a marriage document. Certified copies can be used in a legal proceeding, while marriage certificates only serves as basis for information.

Marriage certificates contain the basic details of a marriage which includes the name of the bride, the groom, when and where they were born, the place of marriage, and many others. Other details of the files are kept hidden from the public in accordance to the bride and the groom's right to privacy.

Public offices that store public documents run their own official websites. The documents are encoded and inserted into a database. Despite running their own websites, public offices still take awhile to process transactions because they are short in employees. Thankfully, the court permits some online search tools to also make the documents available to the public upon request. The documents that you get from the official websites of public offices are identical to what you will get from online search tools.

Online service providers are either for free or they impose certain fees. Both types are capable of supplying the basic details of a marriage files except those that impose certain fees provide more information each time as long as they are available. There is also an option for you to become a member by paying a one-time membership fee. Once a member, you can do as many searches as you wish. If you are searching for only one file and maybe a few more, you may just pay for every file that you search and not register as a member anymore.

It is important to check if a marriage record has a Marriage License included in it. Without a license, a marriage will not be considered as valid even if a ceremony was carried out. A county Clerk of Court is the public agency in-charge of granting a license. Once a licensed is issued, it will only be effective for 90 days. Once it surpasses that period of time, the license becomes useless and the husband and the wife needs to apply for another one. If a person has been married in the past, a divorce record is required for a license application to be accepted.




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