Friday, July 13, 2007

California Marriage and Divorce Indexes on Ancestry

The California Marriage Index (1960-1984) and California Divorce Index (1966-1984) are now available on the www.Ancestry.com commercial database service.

The 1960-1984 California Marriage Index (4.8 marriages) is the Brides Index (alphabetical on the Bride column) and contains in columns (left to right):

* Groom surname
* Groom first name
* Groom middle initial
* Bride surname
* Bride first name
* Bride middle initial
* Age of Groom
* Age of Bride
* Marriage County Number
* Marriage Month
* Marriage Day
* Marriage Year
* Registrar County Number
* Registrar Certificate Number
* State Registration Number

The online index at Ancestry.com is helpful in that you can search for either the bride or the groom, and the Ancestry index provides the County name (that corresponds to the County Number). There is a link so that you can see the image of the actual California Index with all of the above data.

This 1960-1984 Brides Index has been online at www.vitalsearch-ca.com for some time, until recently. Now it is a Premium Search item behind a subscription wall. They also had marriage records from 1949 to 1959 until recently - that too is behind a subscription wall now. The 1960-1984 Groom Index and Bride Index are also available on microfiche at many Family History Centers.

The 1966-1984 California Divorce Index (over 3.5 million divorces) is alphabetical by Groom's Name and contains columns (left to right):

* Groom Last Name
* Groom First Name
* Groom Middle Initial
* Bride First Name
* Bride Middle Initial
* Type (I don't know what this means)
* County of Dissolution Number
* Dissolution Month
* Dissolution Day
* Dissolution Year
* County Case Number
* State File Number

I have not seen this Divorce Index before.

Having these indexes online will facilitate 20th century research somewhat. Obviously, it would be wonderful to have ALL marriages and divorces online, but we'll have to wait for that, I think!

3 comments:

long island divorce lawyer said...

With this, anyone can access divorce records in the state. This will lessen the processing time and costs compared to requesting the records from the courts.

divorce attorney las vegas said...

I haven't seen this online before, either. Thanks for sharing, Randy!

west palm beach divorce lawyer said...

Culture indeed is a major contribution to the divorce cases in whole. Countries that have a deep religious context have lower divorce rates.