Georgia Marriage Records Online

By Claire Dowell


The State of Georgia started to maintain marriage records since 1805 under their Probate Court. The court is the office in-charge of accepting and making marriage applications official. In 1952, the Vital Records office began to also maintain Georgia Marriage Records. However, they only have records of marriages that occurred until 1996.

A request form is available at the Vital Records Office or it can be downloaded from their official website. If you want to make a request, you should be able to at least provide the full names of the spouses and the date and place of the marriage. Once the request form is filled-out appropriately, you can submit it personally or send it through mail to the Vital Records Office. It costs $10 for every certified copy of the records and an additional $5 for extra copies. The fees are payable by check or money order only. There no refunds given even if no records are found. Expect that the return period of your request will be quite lengthy because often times government offices are undermanned.

A marriage will only be considered valid if there is a marriage license. The license can be acquired at the Probate Court and the couple needs to apply for it at the same time. If one of them is under 18 years old, their parents need to accompany them to the court. Only the bride and the groom have the right to see their marriage license. Their respective attorneys can also see it.

Marriage records are deemed as public records. That means that the public can request for the records any time. In other states, a full marriage record can only be accessed by the bride, groom, legal representatives, and other individuals or groups specified by the court. In Georgia, they are not deemed as confidential, which means that whoever submits a request for the records can view everything that is on it.

Today, the records are now available online through various private search tools. The court allows them to disseminate the records as long as proper procedures are observed. There are search tools that are for free and there are those that have corresponding fees. There are several online search tools available. Each search tool vary on how much information they can provide, you have the freedom to choose whichever you like depending on what information you want to retrieve.

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