A marriages list built on two tests, with a sample roster of real marriages

A marriages list is only as good as the rule that admits a row. This one publishes the rule first, then runs it against marriages that are documented well enough to test it.

What to take away

The two tests, and why marriage needs its own

Marriage leaves a document. That is the whole difference between this page and a separations list, where the event usually leaves nothing at all.

A marriage that was registered somewhere can be asked for. A marriage that was only reported cannot. So the floor here is a record, and the first question about any row is which office holds it.

The second test is about people. A person qualifies as a subject in their own right, or the row does not run. That test is applied per person, never inherited from a spouse.

A public role means one of three things: elected or appointed office, published work in your own name, or sustained press coverage of your own work. Marriage to a public person does not supply it.

The legal treatment of a public figure turns on what someone did to enter public debate, not on who they married.

Sample roster and named cases

These are real, checkable marriages. Run the rule against them before trusting it.

Sample roster scope: United States marriages from 1945 to 2005 in Illinois, Arkansas, New York, Nevada, and California, plus one Canadian marriage in Quebec.

The last row is the one that matters. It is a marriage, it is registered, and the record is easy to get. The rule still excludes it.

Now the case the rule loses. Take a marriage between two private people, registered in a county whose index is open, where one later becomes a governor. The rule includes the row, dated to the marriage, and many editors would rather it did not. That is what having a rule costs.

What a record cannot prove

A marriage certificate proves that an office recorded a marriage on a date. It does not prove the couple is together, happy, living in one place, or still married.

A divorce decree is a separate document held by a separate office, and a docket date is not a decree date. A filing shows a case was opened. Only the decree closes it.

Where a marriage is documented at all, a jurisdiction made the document for its own purposes. In the United States that means state and local offices. The National Archives routes researchers on vital records to the state where the event happened, and there is no national index.

Coverage is therefore uneven by design. Clark County, Nevada and Davidson County, Tennessee index differently from Cook County, Illinois, and none of them index on the same schedule. Treat that density as a fact about the offices, not about the years.

Retention, and the spouse problem

A row leaves when the retention rule says so, and the rule is written down before the first row. On-request removal sounds kinder and is worse: it makes the list a function of who asks loudest.

The spouse problem is the other half. A person who married into a public family has a registered marriage and no public role. The rule keeps them out, and the row is written around the public spouse only.

That is not a privacy claim. It is a statement about what the list is for.

How to check any roster you are handed

Use the same two tests on someone else's list.

A roster that fails the first box is a list of coverage. The evidence tiers behind these checks are ranked in the ladder of source types.

Where to query marriage records

Start with the state vital records office for the event, then the county clerk or recorder for the specific marriage. For the rows above, query these offices.

• Illinois Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Records. Cook County Clerk for Chicago.
• Arkansas Department of Health, Vital Records. Washington County Clerk for Fayetteville.
• New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Office of Vital Records.
• Westchester County Clerk for Rye and Mount Vernon.
• Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, Office of Vital Records. Clark County Clerk for Las Vegas.
• California Department of Public Health, Vital Records. Alameda County Clerk-Recorder for Oakland.
• Quebec Directeur de l'etat civil.
• Ontario Office of the Registrar General, for Canadian marriages outside Quebec.

A roster built from reachable records is a map of which counties answer requests, not a complete national list.

The reasoning that keeps a record from absorbing everything it can reach is set out in the notes on what a record should hold. The wider argument about membership and order in list pages is in the notes on listing.

The main guide to marriages sets out what a certificate establishes and the narrow claims it supports.

Common questions

What does the sample roster cover?

The sample roster covers the marriages listed above. The rule transfers to new cases; the roster is the part a reader can check now.

Why name couples in the sample roster?

Because a rule that has never met a real marriage is a preference. The Obamas, the Clintons, the Bidens, and the actors above are documented well enough to test it, and one row shows it excluding a marriage it could easily have kept.

Can a spouse ask to be left out?

A spouse who is not a public figure is not in the list to begin with. The retention rule above covers anyone who is.

How often does the rule change?

When a case defeats it, and not on a schedule. A rule changed because a specific marriage broke it, with that case recorded, is a rule that improved.