Northampton County North Carolina Marriage Records

Marriage Records in Northampton County, North Carolina

The first thing that you will need to know if you want to find marriage records in Northampton County, NC is the exact way of how these records were gathered and maintained. In the olden days before computers, the marriage records were manually recorded from town halls or from the records office at the county seat. Many times the names of the couple and the year of their wedding were collected as well. These records were then transcribed by hand into records. The transcribers would make sure that all details of the event were accurately transcribed including the names of the couple and the wedding date. They also had to verify the names of the witnesses present at the occasion.

Since there was no computerized system in place at that time, the manual process of recording and transcribing the marriage records took many months. It also required a great deal of effort and energy from many individuals. During this long process, a lot of people tend to get sick and had accidents. Because of this, the records were not as up to date as they should have been. This eventually resulted to missing or inaccurate records.

Because of this, many of the people living in the county at that time were denied the right to file for a divorce case against their partners. Because of this, the county started maintaining the records electronically starting with the year 1980. In that year, all the marriage licenses were now recorded electronically so that the county could easily update their files. Today, Northampton County has its own County Central Data Bank which contains the most recent information regarding marriages, birth and death records, etc. These records are now accessible through the Internet.

There are different ways to search for information about someone in this county. You can start off your search by looking at the phone book under the title “Marriage Records”. If you do not have such a book in your home, you can check at the courthouses where you were born or lived. You will also find such information online and in your local yellow pages. Some of them are free while others require payment.

However, one thing is sure. You cannot perform a search on the Internet without first contacting the registrar of records. You can contact them via email or telephone. However, if there is specific information you need, it is advised that you call in person so that you can have the records properly translated. They should also be able to provide you with copies of the records in English or their mother tongue. Many places offer this service, but some may give you inaccurate information or even worse, incomplete data.

You can also visit the Northampton County Clerk of Court’s website. Here, you will be given access to the vital records of the county and will also be able to perform a search from there. This is quite helpful if you have forgotten where you got married or got divorced. You can also request for a duplicate copy of a record, which is basically an official certified copy. This should be done immediately since the last time you had a copy was more than 30 years ago!