California Marriage Records are maintained by the California Department of Public Health under their Vital Records division. Some states do not have a central repository for vital records but California has them all in the Department of Public Health. Some files can also be found at the County Recorder’s Office. The department accepts request through mail only which is payable by money order only for an amount of $14 per request. Regardless of whether a record is found or not, the department will not issue any refund and the payment made will remain in their possession.California is an open record state and that means that any individual can request for the records provided that they oblige to the requirements. An outside party may request marriage records of other people but they will only be provided with the basic information.
There are two types of marriage records in California. There are authorized copies and there are the informational copies. Authorized copies can be accessed only by either of the couple involved in the marriage. They can also be accessed by their representatives and those who have the permission of the court to do so. Authorized copies can be used as a legal document in a legal proceeding. Another type of marriage records are informational copies. Based on its name, it only serves the purpose to provide information. They can be accessed by parties outside of the couple. Informational copies are marked ‘INFORMATION, NOT A VALID DOCUMENT TO ESTABLISH IDENTITY”.
Before a marriage record is approved, a couple needs to secure a marriage license. Unlike other states, the State of California does not require an individual to be a registered citizen to be able to file and obtain a marriage license. But an individual who has been married before should be able to provide a document that will prove that his or her previous marriage has already been legally ended. Once the license is granted by the court, it will only be valid for 90 days from the day that it is issued. If the couple does not marry within that time, the license will lose its validity and the couple will have to secure another one. Both the couple are also required to be present on the day of the marriage and not have one of the couple be represented by another person.
Marriage records are also identified as public marriage records or confidential records. Public marriage records can be obtained at the Vital records Office while confidential records can be obtained only at the County Clerk’s Office where the marriage records were originally filed.
Requesting for the record through public offices takes quite some time to return results because of the protocols that they have to go through. That made online records providers the more popular option for obtaining Records of Marriages. Searching for the records through their database is proven to be a much faster and more convenient method. And since their databases are linked with other databases as well, they are able to provide a search result that is packed with useful pieces of information. They do render fees but that is not for the record themselves, but for the expenses in retrieving the records. They are recognized and authorized by the government, so there is no need to worry about law infringements, whatsoever.
