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Gottagetthrough (original poster member #27325) posted at 12:46 PM on Friday, December 13th, 2019
I have been doing genealogy recently. I have a subscription to a genealogy website and have been playing on that a bit. Yesterday I got a little curious about an acquaintance who fed me a strange story about their past. Basically they claim to be a widower but the story is fishy.
I looked them up and can find they were married but no death certificate of their spouse. I also looked for something that would say they were divorced and couldn’t find anything.
I did a white pages search and found the name of their “dead” spouse, which is fairly uncommon, living about 2 hours away. They also had a section, this person is associated with,,.” And they were associated with the “widower”
Is there anyway that I can check divorce or death records to see if this person is actually still married to their “dead” spouse? I have interactions with this person on a regular basis and if they are lying (they came up with a big story and told me this unsolicited... I never asked ,”hey, have you ever been married before?”) I will curb my interactions to the bare minimum.
[This message edited by Gottagetthrough at 8:28 AM, December 13th (Friday)]
Superesse ( member #60731) posted at 3:34 PM on Friday, December 13th, 2019
Both divorce and death records will be public records, although divorce proceedings (the sordid details) in my state at least might be sealed. If you can narrow down the location where he lives or last lived through free online data banks, then you can try contacting the counties and/or states department of vital statistics or whatever they call it by email or phone. For people currently living, these kinds of records aren't generally kept online, and to get a copy of one, there will be a fee. I still want to find my mother's marriage certificate to her 2nd husband, but it is held at the state capital in another state, and I would need to send them an inquiry letter and a check, just to see if they even have it.
I did luck out once, and get a copy of my grandparent's divorce decree from a county clerk in a far away state. I had to send them a check for $5.00. Money well spent: it was priceless information, as my late grandmother had never discussed with anybody why she divorced my biological grandfather, whom I never heard about. That divorce happened back in 1928, when my mother was 3, and those records were slated for destruction, after that many years!
[This message edited by Superesse at 9:39 AM, December 13th (Friday)]
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