Divorce records

Why a divorce file is worth the search

A court divorce was a lawsuit, so it produced the usual papers of a court case: a petition or complaint, the other side's answer, testimony, and a final decree. Petitions often state when and where the couple married, and many name the children. When the federal government first collected divorce statistics, it asked for the place and year of the marriage and the number of children, which shows how routinely these facts were part of a case.

Divorce papers can also explain gaps in other records. A woman who disappears from her husband's household in one census, or who remarries while her first husband is still alive, may have a divorce behind her. From 1880 the federal census had a marital status column that could mark a person as divorced, which is one clue that a decree exists somewhere.

Divorce by act of the legislature

In some of the older states, divorce began as a matter for the legislature, not the courts. In Virginia, the only way to get a divorce from 1776 to 1826 was to petition the General Assembly. County and city courts began granting divorces in 1827, but the legislature still accepted divorce petitions until 1852. The Library of Virginia notes that while the legislature was the only route, only about a fifth of petitioners obtained a divorce or legal separation.

Connecticut also granted divorces by legislative act. The State Library says many divorces before 1900 were granted by the General Assembly through a special act, and its statewide divorce index includes divorces granted by the General Assembly from 1655 to 1915.

Legislative petitions can be rich. The Library of Virginia describes petitions that came with court papers, affidavits from neighbors about a wife's good character, and statements from doctors. Even a petition that was refused is worth reading, because it still names the couple and the place, and some give the date of the marriage. Look for these papers in the state archives, filed with legislative petitions or private acts. In Connecticut, the State Library points to its General Index to the Private Laws and Special Acts, which can be searched by name.

Divorce in the courts

Over time, divorce moved into the courts. Which court handled it varied by state and period: a superior, circuit, or district court, a county court, or in some states a court of chancery. In Connecticut, for example, many divorces were handled by the Superior Court located near where the couple lived, and the State Library warns that divorces may be filed in with that court's general records rather than kept as a separate series.

Older court files have often moved from the courthouse to the state archives, while more recent ones stay with the court clerk. Connecticut's guide advises that the superior courts still hold the 20th-century indexes, so a call to the clerk for a file or docket number is a good first step.

When the federal government first gathered national divorce statistics, covering 1867 to 1886, its agents found 2,624 courts that granted divorces, and they reported that some records had already been lost to fire or flood. So a missing file is not proof that no divorce happened.

Absolute divorce and legal separation

Not every decree ended a marriage completely. Records distinguish absolute divorce, which ended the marriage, from limited divorce, a decree that separated the couple without fully ending it. The national statistics compiled in 1887 tried to count these two kinds separately, and a later federal report noted that limited decrees did not give the parties the right to remarry.

This matters for family history. If an ancestor received only a legal separation, a later marriage may not have been valid, and the first spouse may still appear in records as a husband or wife. Read the decree to see exactly what the court granted.

Reading the file

Old divorce papers use their own vocabulary. The person who brought the case may be called the petitioner or plaintiff, and in older records the libellant. The federal reports of the period seem to have used libellant and party to whom granted interchangeably, and kept many figures separately for divorces granted to husbands and to wives.

Grounds were set by state law, and the federal statistics recorded the cause for each divorce. The Virginia petitions described by the Library of Virginia tell of drunkenness, abuse, and desertion. Testimony can be painful to read, and petitions were written to persuade, so treat the charges as one side's account. The facts around the story, such as the marriage date, the children's names, and the places the couple lived, are usually more reliable than the accusations.

Look carefully at any mention of property, inheritance, custody, or support. One Virginia wife asked for a divorce partly so that a husband who had left her could not claim the property she had inherited from her father. Details like these can lead you to deeds, estate papers, or guardianship records.

When the divorce is not where you expect

People did not always divorce where they married. The federal statistics recorded both the county where the divorce was granted and the place where the couple had married. In 1880 about one divorcing couple in five had married outside the state where they divorced, and that share grew over time, partly because of divorce mills, places where many people from other states went to be divorced. If a couple vanished from local records, check courts in neighboring states and in the places known for quick divorces in that era.

Local newspapers are also worth checking for reports of divorce suits. A short item can give you the court and the date, which makes the file much easier to request.