How to Find Family History From Marriage Certificates

Using official records to research family history.

Where do I come from? It's a question that penetrates all levels of your being--spiritual and physical. Who, when at last presented with the information, cannot help but feel fascinated by the legacy of those who preceded them. When it comes to family legacy, you can learn about your heritage in many ways. There's direct experience, family legend and the bits of information preserved in records. Marriage certificates are useful forms when researching family history. The details presented on marriage certificates do not reveal the whole, but do tell part of your family heritage story.

Things You'll Need

• Credit card for fee payments

Instructions

1. Track down a copy of one of your great-grandparent's marriage certificates. In order to find a copy of your ancestor's marriage certificate you will, prior to your obtaining a copy of the marriage certificate, need to know: the full name of the groom, the full name of the bride, the date of the marriage, and the place of the marriage (if the marriage took place in the United States this means knowing town or city, county, and state). To retrieve a copy of the certificate you will need to submit a request to the state Vital Statistics Office where the marriage took place. You can also perform a records search online using family research websites, including free ones like Family Search and commercial ones like Ancestry.com, to dig up even more information.

2. Use the information supplied on the marriage certificate to fill in a few family history details. The type of information recorded on your ancestor's marriage certificate will depend upon where and when the marriage certificate was issued. In general, all marriage certificates list the full name of the groom; the full name of the bride prior to marriage; the date of the marriage; the place where the marriage took place; and who solemnized the marriage. Some marriage certificates go beyond this cursory information and may also list any of the following: the name of the bride and groom's parents (sometimes just the name of the father); the occupations held by the persons getting married at the time of the marriage; the occupations of the fathers of the bride and groom; the hometown residences of the bride and groom prior to marriage; the age of the bride and groom; whether or not the bride and groom was single or a widower prior to this marriage; the race, color or "class" of the individuals getting married; among other things.

3. Draw on the information supplied on the marriage certificate to generate new family history research leads. For example, if you learn the names of your four great-great-great grandparents from your great-great grandparents' marriage certificate, you could follow up on that by then trying to find your third great-grandparents in various records (census records, and so forth). Or if you learn from the marriage certificate that your second great-grandfather was a lawyer, you could follow up on this information by trying to uncover records of some of the cases he was involved in. Every bit of information you gather helps to paint a fuller picture of your family history.

References

• Vitalrec: Marriage Licenses
• North Carolina History Project: History of Marriage

Resources

• Family Search
• University of Virginia: Example of Late Nineteenth Century Virginia Marriage Certificate
• Ancestry.com