Marriage licenses have been issued and required to be on record since 1818. If you are interested in looking up Indiana marriage records for any reason, especially for genealogy or family history records, you can find the records online. Some marriage records in the state of Indiana were written by hand and kept on record in a log book. It's best to research marriage records by accessing online databases and also by visiting archives of Indiana. Plenty of web sites online can help you out with research.
Marriage licenses however do not fall underneath the state's jurisdiction prior to 1818. Marriage certificates have been issued as a requirement since 1818 and will be issued by the county clerk's office. If you are searching for Indiana marriage records before the date that marriage certificates were required to be on record, it is a good rule of thumb to find those records through each county in which the marriage took place. Quakers in Indiana, who are an exception to the rule, between the dates of 1820 and 1940 were not required to get a marriage certificate from any county due to their religious faith. Finding marriage records for your ancestors who were Quakers can be found in the county clerk's office or throughout Quaker records in Indiana.
Before 1940, a residency requirement was mandatory for brides residing in a specific county in Indiana. Since then, the requirement was waived. When finding marriage records in Indiana, you should know that marriage licenses give you specific information. This information includes the name of the bride, groom, the date when the marriage took place and the person who performed the marriage ceremony. Some marriage records that you will find, especially ones that occurred in 1882, will not only list the bride and groom names but also their age, birth dates and the names of their parents. With the age of the parents present, for people wanting to continue a genealogy search can find this information useful.
Through an Indiana marriage records search, marriage records can be found through searching records by first or last name. Since most women will change their names when they get married, you can search by the maiden name of the bride. Another place to take a look through marriage records is through the Indiana Genealogy Society where they have a marriage indexing project. The results for the index include over 100,000 records.
When purchasing vital records or marriage records through the Department of Health an application is filled out and sent back in. Most likely, you will need to find the marriage record through individual counties located in Indiana. The standard price or fee for a certified copy will run you around $10 and $4 for additional copies. When requests are sent in through the mail, you can expect that the processing time will take 3 to 4 weeks. If you want more of an expedited reply, purchasing the marriage records from VitaChek which is a third party site can give you results much quicker.
To obtain an Indiana marriage record, follow the instructions below:
Step 1.
Determine the county in which the marriage took place. Certified copies of marriage records may only be requested directly from the county Superior Court or Circuit Court.
Step 2.
Go to the Indiana Trial Courts and Clerks website and click on the specific county you need. This will provide the proper contact for that county court.
Step 3.
Contact the county Superior or Circuit Court and inquire their procedure, restrictions, and fees for requesting a certified copy of a marriage certificate.
For more assistance, please contact the following department:
Indiana Department of Health
Vital Records
PO Box 7125
Indianapolis, IN 46206-7125
About Indiana Marriage Records
Indiana marriage records are filed with the County Superior or Circuit court in the county that the marriage takes place. These records are kept permanently at the Clerk's Office, and all requests for certified copies must go through the specific county court where it is maintained.
Indiana Marriage Record Databases
Indiana State Department does maintain an index of all state marriage records dating back to1958. Marriage index information only contains the name of the bride and groom, as well as the date of the marriage. Limited marriage index information has been put together in various databases available online. You can search the Indiana State Library for a list of databases to try and locate marriage index information from limited years.
Availability of Online Marriage Records
While certified copies of marriage records are only available through the county courts, you can place a search online for a verification of marriage through VitalCheck.com. Additional fees apply for this service.
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