How to Trace Past Divorces
June 3rd, 2009
Most public records in the US don’t go back further than 1900 AD, but that does not mean some are not out there. There are all types of vital records that you find when searching, including marriage, birth — death and divorce (and, yes, there is a difference). These can be helpful, as you have to prove that you are divorced when you want to remarry, but can also assist you when you want to find out more about your family history. These can help with a dead end or to correct information already found.
There are a few reasons why marriage records are so important when you are tracing your family tree. Your ancestor may have married a few times, which can make matters uncertain. You may not know through which husband or wife you should go. When the ancestor you seek is from a first marriage (which is often the case in past generations), you may not realize that without finding divorce records. You could wind up searching the wrong last name, leading you to ancestors that are not really yours.
When you cannot find someone, divorce records can help because children can be listed on those records. That means this could be the one place where you can find that child, and as well, the real father or mother. Divorce records tend to change with marriages, so that first marriage may not be listed where the last one would be. If you can’t find their last (or first) name, then you’ll want to look through those records carefully — to see if there was a mistake made somewhere!
You can find public records online where you find other types of public records. You can use the search engines to research the name of someone along with the tag divorce or divorce records. You are going to get a variety of results. If you find that (their first name|this name|their last name|their middle initial, for instance, was listed on a genealogy site, this might be where you want to look initially. Those are generally where this information can be found first.
If you want to minimize a lot of time and dead-ends when searching, you can always see what a paid service can do for you — that’s why I mentioned the Intelius background check service earlier. These can find the records that you need to learn about past marriages/divorces that have an effect on the direction through which your family tree should go to be sure your findings are mathematically calculable.
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