California Marriage License

By Ben Kingsley


For those who require supporting documents to prove their identity or change of status, a marriage record is an excellent supportive document, as it is issued by a government agency. Marriage records have no expiry just like birth, death and divorce records and can serve a person well. They can use the document to prove a child's legitimacy, to be able to change one's name, and as a genealogy document to add to family history. To obtain marriage records California, it is best to know if you are eligible to get an authorized or an informational copy of the marriage certificate. Informational copies are available to the public and serves only as informational copy, meaning that any third person or parties can access the record. However, it does not have any power and cannot serve as a valid document. An authorized document, on the other hand, can serve as a supporting document and access is limited to several individuals only.

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 private or confidential marriage certificates, one can check out the County of the Clerk's Office. Confidential records are restricted to the registrants themselves. The cost of the marriage indexes from the State is about $14; however, the cost may differ from one county to another. It is best practice to call the office to get the latest fee schedule.

Those who are eligible for authorized copies under the California Health and Safety Code include the parties indicated in the certificate, parents or legal guardians, their kids or grandchildren, husband or wife, adoption agencies and law officers who need the document in the performance of their work.

To get a copy of the records, download the form available from the site and include all the necessary documents. The sworn statement must be notarized and incomplete requests will not be processed. Payments should also be attached to the request form. Payment can be made via US drawn checks or money orders. The State's Vital Records division and some counties do not accept cash and credit card payments.

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




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