Are all marriage records available at libraries or do you need to contact vital records?
I’ve been looking for my grandparents marrage record for years now online but to no avail. I check at our main library but nothing. I was told that the records they had were the same as vital records office, but are they. Can anyone recommend a free place to look. They should have been married in Florida around 1949-1951 but they move around a litle and no one alive remembers when or where it was. I value any info into this. Can I use their SSN’s because those were easy to find?!?!
Whether marriage and other records will be available at public libraries varies from place to place. I certainly wouldn’t expect to find my ancestors’ records in public libraries: I would always go to Vital Records offices. Libraries are not normal repositories of birth, marriage, and death records except as these might have appeared in local newspapers, which, in turn, were stored on microfiche in libraries. Today, libraries may be using different methods to store old newspapers and their birth notices and wedding announcements, plus obituaries (death notices).
But libraries should not be your first port of call. Vital Records Offices are best, and in this case, you are looking for a marriage license.