California Divorce Records

Although not as common a tool to use, some people use free divorce records for different reasons. Free divorce records are a great way to help fill in missing gaps in family trees or other genealogy records. If you need to look up your ancestry, California divorce records can be a great way to track down these records for you or someone you are dating.

It may be surprising to think of using California divorce records for history, as divorces were not as prevalent prior to this generation. Believe it or not, California divorce records have existed for quite some time now. Divorces may not have been as common, but they did occur. In fact many times they were kept much more discreet so you would not know until you looked for free divorce records.

How Free Divorce Records Help
Ironically, California divorce records may also help you find out about other branches of a family tree you did not know about. Someone in your own family may have been married before or after the marriage, you know about. There could even be children from those marriages, and using California divorce records will help you find out all of this information.

You may hope that California divorce records do not turn up a truth about someone in your life presently that you do not want to know about. In other words, your free divorce records may alert you to find out someone you are involved with has been married before. Of course the opposite may be true. You could be using California divorce records to find out if the person you are considering marrying is actually divorced or still married. This is important to know, even if the truth may hurt.

CA Divorce Records

Getting Your Free Divorce Records
There are many ways you can try to go about getting your free divorce records. Luckily, California divorce records are available to the public in most cases; unlike how they are in some states that do not make these types of records open to the public. This should mean that your free divorce records search in California would be relatively easy. Of course, for some states it may be easier to find records that date back further.

Although California has a long rich history, it can be difficult to track down records from certain dates. This is due in large part to the great San Francisco quake of 1906. Believe or not, many records were lost or destroyed because of this event. Included in these documents were many California divorce records. While this does not mean it will be impossible to find these records, it may be more of a challenge.

You also may want to try different methods to obtain these records. For instance, you can try finding them at the library, in person at a courthouse or online through multiple options. The trick is not to give up because these types of free divorce records could give you all the answers you need.