FL Marriage License Records

Posted by The Popular News Today on Monday, October 8, 2012

By Claire Dowell


When talking about marriage, make sure you do not forget Florida. They hold one of the highest marriage rates in the United States; in fact their average is higher than the whole nation. Florida has a marriage rate of 9 out of 1000 people, higher than the nations' 7.5 average. You can check the statistics by referring to the Florida Department of Public Health, Bureau of Vital statistics who stores and maintains Florida marriage records.

They have been keeping marriage records dating back from 1927 up to the latest index. Anyone can access marriage records because they are considered as public records. Marriages licenses are filed at Clerk of the Court office and then forwarded at the office of Vital Statistics after the marriage is done for permanent filing.

Both the groom-to-be and the bride-to-be should file for a marriage license and they should do it at the same time. Licenses are granted to whoever wants to marry in Florida even if they do not live in Florida. Each must present 2 kinds of ID - first is a photo ID issued by a state or federal office, and the other one may be a social security number or an alien registry number. If either of the soon-to-be-wed is below 18 years old, a parent's consent is required. $93.50 is charged for a marriage license in Florida.

A marriage certificate can be obtained at the Vital Statistics office. Complete a form and provide all information you know about the marriage such as the couple's names, date and place of marriage, and state filed. If you are not sure of the year that it happened, provide a range of years to be searched and pay the corresponding fee of $2 per year searched. A certified marriage record cost $5. Additional requests for copies of the same record will cost $4. Normal processing time is usually 2 to 3 weeks. A "RUSH" option is also available to cut the processing time to 3 to 4 days but with an additional fee of $10.

No refund will be given to you even if no record is found in the office. Only a certified "No Record Found" will be given instead. For records prior to 1927, you can access them at the county Clerk of the Court office where the marriage was filed.

If you want to access files outside of Florida, refer to websites that legally issues public records like marriage records. Their database contains public files gathered from different trusted sources. There are sites that are FOC (free-of-charge) and some are fee-based. Choose fee-based sites as they are provide a better quality of search results.




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