Follow Friday: Jackson County (KC) Missouri Marriages

This week the resource I'd like to highlight is Jackson County Missouri's Marriage Database.  Jackson is the second largest county in the state, and home to Kansas City and Independence.

 You can retrieve the marriage record as a PDF or Tiff document.

Everything is up-to-date in Kansas City.



Sorry, I couldn't resist.  But it's accurate. The records cover the years 1826 to current date.  There are a few entries listed for April 20th, though only a few of the documents are available to download yet for the records after April 15th.

Still, for these records that are less than a week old, you have the following information available free online:

And if you are willing to wait a week or so, you should be able to download the marriage license and application.  There is a box on the application for social security number, but naturally, it has been whitened out.  It appears to be the only information that has been censored.

I wish every county did this.

I'm sure there are some who would rather the information on their marriage license wasn't publicly accessible.  And these individuals shouldn't file for a marriage license in Jackson County, Missouri.

There's also an Official Public Record database that goes back to 1963. 

There are lots of different types of records here, including Birth Certificates and Death Certificates.  However, there are only 41 matches for Death Certificates in the year 1963, and only 30 matches so far in 2010. There are a total of 48 birth certificates in the database, with January 1963 being the earliest, and September 2009 being the most recent.  Still, if your research takes you to the area, it may be worth checking out.