Marriage records (also called certificates or licenses) are created and maintained by county probate courts. They are recorded from the date of the county’s creation and typically provide the names of the bride and groom, the date, and place of the marriage and the name of the officiating authority. Occasionally marriage records also include place of residence and birth, age, and/or names of parents. Marriage records prior to 1899 (OL93 p309 sec.6390) generally do not give the names of the couple's parents.
How you search for records depends on the county of the marriage and the time period of that marriage. There is no statewide index to marriages, so you must know where the marriage occurred in order to find the record. If you don’t know where the marriage occurred, check the U.S. Federal Census to see where the couple was living just before or after the marriage. They may have been married in that county. Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org have census records online, allowing you to search by name. Those services are available on the computers in the Archives & Library. Print indexes and microfilmed census records are also available in the Archives & Library.
The Archives & Library has marriage records from some Ohio counties, but not all. Please note that the time period that our marriage record collections cover vary depending on the county. To determine if we have a certain county’s probate court records, do a keyword search in the Online Collections Catalog. For example, search: Knox County Probate Marriage.
For marriage records not in our collection, contact the local Probate Court or county archives to find out where the records are housed. Also, check the Online Collections Catalog for indexes done by county genealogical and historical societies. Having the index citation will help you when contacting the county's probate court to request the record.
