Searching For California Marriage Records Copies

Marriage records are official government documents that verify the marriage between two individuals. As marriage records are timeless similar to birth or death records, these are considered as valuable supporting documents for a number of reasons. One can use the California Marriage Records to change one’s name, prove the legitimacy of a kid and to serve genealogical purposes and others. For those who are interested in obtaining a marriage record in California, it is important that they distinguish whether what they need is an authorized copy or an informational copy of the marriage record. Authorized copies are given to those directly connected with the registrants and can serve as supporting documents whereas an informational copy contains the same information, however it is not valid as a supporting document.

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.

Under California Health and Safety Code 103526, those who are eligible to obtain authorized and non-confidential marriage records include the following persons: registrants, legal guardians or parents, kids, brothers or sisters, their spouse, law enforcers who need the document in their investigation or report, adoption centers and agents or those who need the documents in behalf of their employment.

To request for the copies, those requesting will have to submit an official request form that they can obtain from the CDPH site or the County Clerk site. All requests must include a notarized sworn statement for authorized copies of the record. The application will not be processed if the form and notarized statement is not included. Payments should be included in the requests as well. Payment can be made via money orders or checks, which are drawn from one of the US Banks. Money orders can be obtained from the USPS as well. Cash and credit cards are not accepted.

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 Records was issued, it would take them some time to find the records. With online search, it would only take a few minutes or hours.