Free Divorce Records: How They Work

By: Robert A. Coffman|LRL Editor 

Despite the common notion that marriage is a sacred thing, more and more people are separating these days. The cases of divorce have increased tremendously over the last couple of years. In the United States, divorce rate is approximately 3 per 1000 of total population. Calculating the statistics, studies show that there are over a million divorces that United States witnesses every year. In point of fact, they are considered as part of the very important public records that are required by law upon the individual state authorities.

There are certain measures that every divorce goes through. For once, divorces usually commence upon official filing of the request, next there are the due proceedings and legal course and in the end, it concludes with the final decree. Every procedure concerned with the process of divorce are accounted and filed. The files and records of the divorce proceedings and terms are uploaded in the system of the central state repository and these files are preserved both for the interests of the public as well as the government. These free divorce records are also used as references and information sources from time to time. The filing and documentation of free divorce records officially started from the 1967 following the back of the Freedom of Information Act, 1966. Nonetheless, it can be noted that states have already implemented such on a country level prior to this period.

For several states, the fundamental statistics or records office are not allowed to issue certified divorce documents copies. This makes it nearly impossible to obtain free divorce records. The offices can only provide confirmation whether a divorce was granted in the state. All requests are redirected to the court office initially responsible for dealing with the case. Some of the records which can be obtained are called the "Divorce Decree" and "Divorce Certificate". They are in general available without any cost or only minimal as payment for the admin and search service.

The typical information that are included in these free divorce records are the personal information of the parties involved in the divorce along with the information about the child or children involved. These free divorce records also contain information concerning the event that took place, the division of the assets, reason behind the separation, who won the child custody and so forth. With considerable exclusion of cases that classified as confidential or closed as denoted by court orders, these divorce records are taken into account and considered as public information.

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