Divorce Public Records

From LoveToKnow Divorce

If you are researching your genealogy and want to learn about whether anyone in your family tree was granted a divorce, public records can provide you with the facts you need. You may also need to have a divorce record search conducted if you are a U.S. citizen planning to marry outside of the country. There are a number of resources, both online and offline, available to you to help you find the information you need.

You can order divorce records online, by mail, or in person.

How to Find Divorce Public Records

If you are looking for information and you live close to the state capital, you can contact the State Archives office for help finding the information you need. To order a record, you will need to provide the following information with your request:

Name of the county where the divorce was granted
Name of the court
Names of the husband and wife
Case number
Date (or approximate date) the divorce was granted

You may not have all the details before you start looking for divorce public records. If this is the case, ask whether there is an index that you can use to look up the information you need. Another option when you need to fill in blanks in the information you have is to contact the circuit court for the county where the divorce would have been granted and request that their personnel conduct the search for you. (You will need to pay a fee for this service.)

Ordering Records Online

Rather than either visiting a Vital Records office in person or mailing in a request for public divorce records, you can order this information online. You can find out whether a person has filed for divorce and whether the legal dissolution of the marriage was granted. A copy of the divorce decree is included in the fee that you are charged for the service.

The more information you can provide when requesting an online search for public divorce records, the more likely it is that you will get the information you need quickly. In addition to the names of the people involved, you may be asked to supply the following information:

Date of divorce
State/county where the divorce was granted
Type of final decree granted

Depending on the state involved, you may be asked to provide information about your relationship to the parties you are seeking the divorce records on. You may also need to share the reason why you are requesting the records (personal use, family history, etc.)

Where to Order Divorce Records Online

DivorceRecordsUSA.com provides copies of records from the United States, as well as Guam, Northern Mariana, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.
CivilRecords.org allows site visitors to type in the name, approximate age, city and state of the person they would like to find records for. A preliminary search is conducted at no charge to confirm that you will be able to find the information you need. If you decide to order copies of public divorce records, marriage certificates, birth or death records, you will be charged a fee to do so.
VitalChek.com provides birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates from across the United States and Puerto Rico.

Statement of No Marriage

If you have decided to get married and the wedding will be held in a foreign country, you will need to obtain a document entitled a "Statement of No Marriage." Both the bride and groom (if each one is a U.S. citizen) will need to have a search conducted through state records to confirm that neither one is currently married before they can enter into a marriage elsewhere. The search will cover the years from the age of 18 to the present.

In a situation where either party was previously married, he or she will need to produce a certificate of marriage and of the divorce in addition to Statement of No Marriage before the wedding can take place.

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