2. Finding a Birth Father - Correct Full Name

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Part 2.

The most important piece of information you can provide is a correct full name.  A correct full name with the correct spelling is very important. 

If your parents were married and your father’s name is on your birth certificate, more than likely his correct full name is on your birth certificate.  It might be that easy to find his name.  If your parents were married there will be a marriage license that may have his full name and probably his age and possibly where he was born.  So a marriage license might lead to finding a full name and date of birth.  A divorce record will have a full name, date of birth, and maybe a Social Security number, however the Social Security number may be blacked out due to privacy laws.  Every state has an office of Vital Statistics that will have birth certificates.  Only you can have a copy of your birth certificate, or your next of kin.  If you don’t already have one, be sure to request a copy of your original birth certificate.  And if you are adopted, you may request a copy of your amended birth certificate.  The birth certificate can be found  at the state  office of Vital Statistics.  If I were you I would just look that up on the internet, just Google that state, wherever it is, Office of Vital Statistics or Birth Certificate for the state you are looking for.  I guarantee you will find it.  Marriage license may be more difficult to find because they are kept in a County Court Clerk’s Office and you may have to know the year.  It’s not impossible, and some court houses now have computer databases so they may be able to look it up easily.  Many records may be found in old record books, marriage records are everywhere.  Every county has a book with marriage records, the trick is to know which county the marriage took place in.  Marriage records can be found in a County Court Clerk’s Office.  Older records will be found in a book and will have a number, and will be in order by dates.  More currently, the last ten or twenty years might be in a database.  If you are looking for really old records, those records will probably be found on Ancestry.com.

If you are searching for a marriage license and you go into a County Court Clerk’s Office, these are public records and anyone can have access to them.  All you have to do is ask the clerk to let you see the marriage license books.  Sometimes they will be in a computer and they will offer you a computer to search.  The County Court Clerk’s Office contains public records.  Anyone can walk in and search for a marriage license.  When you go to a County Court Clerk’s Office or a public library you are allowed to make copies.  Sometimes the copies will cost a quarter or fifty cents,  or maybe even a dollar.

A divorce record may be found in a County Court Clerk’s Office in the county in which the divorce occurred, so you have to go back to that county and sometimes you have to ask which clerk’s office handled divorces in the year of your divorce so there may be several places to look.  There may be several places to look, there may be different offices.    Before you go, you may make a phone call and ask which office contains divorce records for the year in which you are searching.  Assuming the mother is still alive she will know what year the divorce took place, or an approximate year.  Also, think back, was your father in your life for your second or third?  When was the last time your father was in your life, or you last saw him?  More than likely that’s when the divorce took place…..when you never saw him anymore, or when he didn’t come around, so think of the last time you saw your father, that might be the year of the divorce.  You may have to look a range of years, five years before, or five years after.  You can find a divorce record.  The more recent the divorce, the more likely you can find it in a computer.  And you can search by the name of the groom or by the wife or the husband.  You can search by the date and the father’s name. 

Privacy laws protect certain information, but there are many public records available at public libraries, archive libraries, court houses, the internet, and many public offices.  Hiring a professional investigator can save you time and money because they have the knowledge and experience to know how and where to look for information.