Free Columbia County Divorce Records

In the State of Georgia, divorce records are documented by each county and then forwarded to the state’s central repository for vital records which is the Georgia Department of Public Health in Atlanta. The department started to maintain divorce records in June 1952. If you wish to obtain a copy of a Columbia County Divorce Records, you can submit a request at the department but you will only be given an informational copy. If you want to get a certified copy, or a divorce that occurred prior to 1952, conduct your search locally at the Columbia Probate Court or the County Clerk’s office.

As aforementioned, there are two kinds of copies that you can obtain: a certified divorce record and an informational copy. A certified copy is given only to the owners of the records, their lawyers, immediate family, a judge, and members of the law enforcement agencies that have the consent of both the court and the records’ owners. Certified copies contain all of the details of the divorce case as approved by the presiding judge. In it you can find the basic information such as the name of the couple, the date, and the place where the divorce was finalized. It also contains the terms and conditions of the case such as the custody rights of children, division of assets and liabilities, reason of divorce, and many others. Informational copy is not an official record. Its only purpose is to provide information such as to verify if a divorce was indeed granted or not.

To begin a search, obtain the request form for divorce records at the agency you chose to conduct your search. Provide all the required particulars of the form such as the name of the couple, your relationship with them, your reason for requesting a copy, your contact information, and others. After completing the form, submit it back to ther agency personally or through mail, along with the corresponding fee.

The fee is $10 per copy and $5 for every extra copy. Fees are non-refundable regardless of the outcome of the search. The return period usually takes a couple of days to a couple of weeks. To avoid making the process a lot longer, verify the information the accurateness of the information that you write on the request form.

A certified divorce record is the only set of records that is recognized by the court to verify the validation of a divorce. It needs to have the signature of the judge and the parties involved for it to become official. Without the signatures, the divorce becomes null and void, thus making the couple still officially married to each other. In the even that a divorce is finalized and one or both ex-husband and ex-wife decides to give marriage another try with another person, he or she must present the official divorce record upon the application of a marriage license.

Another method for obtaining a copy of a Columbia County Divorce Decree is through private websites that are in the field of maintaing and providing such records to the public. Of course, you must first verify if they have authorization from the court to do whatever it is that they do and if they have a good reputation as information providers so you will not be wrongly informed or run into any trouble with the government in the future.