Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Texas Updated Marriage Records Available Online

By Christopher Evans


From 1966 to 2008, Texas marriage records number more than seven million entries. Thousands of marriage applications are being recorded every day. The record is an important document that contains the names of the couple and the date and location of the marriage. In some counties, the record can be found with the marriage license.

The record is used for various purposes. It is very useful in tracing back your family or when you are making a genealogical tree. As long as it is recorded, you will be able to find your ancestors. The document is also used in legal proceedings such as determining the legitimacy of a child or during divorce proceedings. For women, they can use it to finally change their name and adopt their husband's name. It is also used to help change other documents that will be affected by the name change such as driver's licenses, professional licenses and other identification.

Searching for your record among seven million marriages that have taken place in Texas can be a problem. If you just got married and would like to be certified, you would have to consult with a Texas county clerk. It would be advisable to consult with a Texas County clerk first so you'll know the steps in certifying your record. If you're not sure of the location of the nearest County Clerk, you can find the information online or look them up via phonebooks.

If you're looking for records of previous marriages or a marriage that took place a long time, you have better chances getting the information online. The website of the Department of State Health Services Vital statistics offers free access to marriage application indices. They will have records for search online for marriages starting 1966 to present. For records before that, you need to approach your local county clerk. If you are able to find the information via their website, the records you get are not certified records. This means that you still need to find the Country Clerk office to get them certified for legal use.

The difficulty in getting information from the department is the records size. You have to download the records for the whole year as you can't do a specific search such as specific day or the couple in the record. Once you've downloaded the whole record, you can then approximate the date of marriage and search for the name manually. It is still time consuming as you have to browse through the whole record. The record can contain a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand entries. Their online database is also limited; it only contains records from the year 1966 to present. For older records, you need to approach your local County clerk.

A better way is to access websites that offer online searches for records. Such websites offer the service for a small sum per year. Their records are up to date which means you'll be able to search for records for marriages occurred a few days ago. Instead of downloading a whole batch of records, you will be able to do specific searches of information found in a marriage license. There are even websites that offer certified records and mail them.




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