For all of us dating, we need to know how to access online marriage certificates fast. It may sound pessimistic, but this is reality.  Half of all marriages end in divorce and that is only the statistics for first marriages. When you start getting into second and third marriages, the statistics get worse. We need to know up front if the person we are dating is divorced and how many times.

The Old Way of Searching Marriage Certificates

Back in the old days, if you wanted to know if someone had been married before you had to ask the person and trust he or she would give you an honest answer. If they lied, you had no real way of knowing. You could hire a private detective to search through endless stacks of documents in dusty old buildings but that would cost tons of money. Thankfully, this is not the case anymore!

The New Way to Search Marriage Certificates
Now all you need is a computer, the Internet, a credit card, and the person’s name. You go online to the marriage records database and type in the person’s name. Of course, the more information you have, the better results you will get. Age is always good because that narrows the field down quite a bit. The city and state also narrows down the field.

Once you narrow the results down to a single name, you click submit and voila! You have the results for the man or woman you are looking for. It really is that simple. All the skeletons are out of the closet. You now know how many times the person you plan on dating has been married. (Then you can jump over to the divorce record site and see if they are actually divorced.)

Search FOIA Made Easy
Combine the Freedom of Information Act with the Internet and you have the easiest way to check the background of anyone you date. Arm yourself with the person’s full name and go online.

You can check:

• Marriage Records
• Birth Records
• Death Records
• Divorce Records
• Adoption Records
• Property Records
• Vital Records
• Background Records
• Criminal Records

Start your online marriage certificate search today. The records are out there waiting for you. See what you can find.

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Recently, my husband received a notice that he was due an inheritance from when his mother died several years earlier. However, he needed to prove his ancestry through a marriage records search to do so. This may sound a tad strange to some but it is not that uncommon when family inheritance comes to play.

Tracing Genealogy through Marriage Records

My husband is Native American and that is why he needed to search through the marriage records to prove his family history. His mother had died and was receiving checks through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

My husband had never been registered with the tribe and therefore was not eligible under tribal law to receive the inheritance money unless he could prove his ancestry and enroll in the tribe. In order to do so, he had to trace his Indian blood. This means he had to search marriage records.

Finding Marriage Records

When you look for marriage records, you need the bride and grooms last name. This is generally easy, as you know your parent’s name. Remember that you will need your mother’s maiden name. You will need to look in the county and state your parents were married. You can do a quick search online. Online databases make looking for this information quick. It should only take you a few minutes at most.

You will also want to look up each person individually. While you will know if your parents remarried, when you start going deeper into the family, it never hurts to check grandparents. I uncovered that my grandmother was married at 13. She got divorced and married my grandfather and never told a soul!

Finding Birth Records

Once you have the marriage records, you will want to look for birth records. When you see their birth records, you can find out information on the parents. The birth records will list the parents’ full names. This will give you a chance to start tracing back the family roots. The birth records will also list the occupation of the parents, which is also fun to look through.

Creating a family tree does not have to be a long tedious project. Long gone are the days of shifting through shoeboxes and newspaper clippings. Anyone can start tracing their roots quickly and easily with nothing more to go on than their parents’ name. They really don’t even need that.

If you have your name, you can start there. Start tracing your genealogy today through marriage records search. It is quick, simple and fun. You never know what you will turn up.

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Many people meet others online and that leads to unknown factors but that does not have to be the case when you do a marriage license search along with other public records searches. Recently, a friend of mine met this great guy online and wanted to meet him for lunch. I am the skeptical type, so I wanted to check him out before I let her go.

Marriage License Search

Before I let my friend go meet up with some stranger, I wanted to make sure this guy wasn’t married. After all, what is the point of meeting with a guy who has a wife and kids at home? We went online and imputed his name in the marriage license search. It came back with ten names. Neither one matched the city or state. So, we thought we were good on that. The guy hadn’t been married. I was satisfied he had not lied to her about that.

Criminal Background Check

Some people may call me paranoid, but this is my best friend we are talking about and her safety means the world to me. I do not want my friend to go out with some deranged killer. Even if he is not a deranged killer, I do not want to her to go with a criminal period.

On the same website, I clicked over to the criminal records. From there, I entered his first and last name again and clicked search. I had to select which one was him based on his age and where he lived. We discovered he didn’t have anything wrong with him but you never know. This time he didn’t.

Sex Offender List

The easiest thing to search for is sex offenders. Federal law says all sex offenders must be registered. I went online to the national family watchdog registry and typed in his name. Then I selected the state. Thankfully, his name did not come up but if it did, you can bet she would not have gone.

More Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Records

Thanks to FOIA, you may uncover marriage license searches and do it all in the privacy of your own home. You don’t have to hire your own private detective to get the info that you need anymore. You never have to wonder if someone is telling you the truth again because you can check yourself.

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A marriage license record falls under the Freedom of Public Information Act (FOIA), which means you have the right to access the information. However, you have to know how to gain access to that information in order to retrieve it.

Despite popular belief, there is no magical database that has all the records you could imagine in one central location. All records are easily accessed if you know where to look and how to ask for the information. Fill out the right forms and provide the right data, and you will be granted access.

Requesting a Paper Marriage License Record

Many times, you will only need a paper marriage license as proof of marriage. Some companies require a paper marriage license to change the insurance plans or benefits. Military personnel need the paper license to add the spouse to the life insurance policy. Some women need the marriage license to change how their name appears on their driver’s license.

You will need:

• The Groom’s name
• The Bride’s Maiden name
• The County where the wedding took place
• Certificate Number (helps but not necessary)

In most cases, you will have to send in the information or go in person. However, even if you go in person you are not likely to receive the information the same day. Rarely, are any of these services offered online as a government service.

The county will look up the record and send the information to you via mail. You can request the information be sent by certified mail at an additional charge. You can expect to wait several weeks for the paper marriage license to be sent to you.

Searching for a Marriage License Record Online

Many people do not need a paper license. They are just looking for a marriage record. They want to know if a boyfriend is married and sometimes they are just curious about their own past. They are looking up their own family’s marriage records. In these cases, searching online is much easier.

You will need:

• Bride Name or Groom Name
• Age of the person (helps)
• City (optional)
• State (optional)

The more you know about the person you are looking up the better. For example, when you look up John Smith you will find many matches because that is a common name. However, if you know that John Smith is 25 and in Brokenarrow, Oklahoma, then you have just narrowed down your search.

Start searching marriage licenses records today. The information is out there and is available to everyone. What used to take hours searching through dusty records now only takes the click of the button.

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