Has someone suddenly showed up on your doorstep claiming to be your spouse’s former – or current – spouse?  How do you find out the truth of the matter?  One of the ways is to locate copies of the marriage license.

Online Searches for Divorce Papers

Marriages, like divorces and births, are public records.  Some much more public than others.  However, if your spouse is secretly married to someone else or even secretly married to you, this information may be harder to dig up.

Which marriage is valid depends almost exclusively on one thing.  Which one took place first?  If you can locate a legally filed of one or both certificates, this will answer all of your questions that don’t deal with what to do next.

Divorce Filed or Not Filed?

However, the date of the marriage can become secondary if the marriage license was never filed.  This may be because the marriage took place in country where the US does not recognize the ceremony, if the person performing it was bogus, or if your “spouse” simply did not file the certificate – possibly out of fear of being caught in bigamy.

Using an online retrieval system that has access to worldwide data can give you much more concrete answers and help you move forward.  We have looked around a lot, and the best and most straightforward way to find the divorce records were on this sight.  Find copies of a marriage license to make sure the papers were filed correctly.  Good luck in your search!

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