It could not be denied that the day a person gets married would rank as one of the happiest days in their lives. Marriage is a special relationship governed by a marital contract between the two parties, this is true, but unlike any other contract, the underlying foundation of a marriage contract is the bond between the two parties, a bond of mutual trust, love, respect, and commitment by and between each other. It is a bond that could only be formed after years of friendship and trust. It is supposed to be a contract that would end only when one of the parties has died.

That, however, is the ideal marriage, and, as the statistics of divorce would prove, this is no longer the truth. Three out of every five marriages in the United States would end in divorce. The fairy tale ending that both the bride and the groom had thought they had already seen when they married is no longer there. The truth is, there are many reasons for the bond of marriage to fail, but there is only one thing that the parties could do to end it, and that is the legal procedure known as divorce.

Divorce records are those records kept by a competent authority not only because they are mandated to do so by law, but also for other practical considerations. These records contain the names of the parties, the reasons for the dissolution of their marriage, and, if there is history, history of domestic violence by and between the parties. It serves not only as a proof that the parties were once married and that their marriage relationship had been legally terminated but also as a means for a higher authority to check that the required substantial and procedural due basis required by the law had been complied with.

King County was founded in 1876 and their district clerk, that local authority in the state of Texas that has legal custody of divorce records, have records for divorces granted in the county since the year 1891.

The procedure for obtaining these divorce records is more or less uniform in the state of Texas. Under the Texas Public Information Act, all public records, of which divorce records are considered a part of, are to be considered as public documents and as such available to the public after complying with the due process requirements set about by the same statute. Under this statute, the procedure for obtaining certified copies of divorce records start with a request letter addressed to the district clerk. This request must contain as much information about the divorce as possible so as to expedite the search for the records. More importantly, any fees in connection with the search must be settled within ten days after the request for payment was written, otherwise, the request would automatically be considered to have been withdrawn.

In the state of Texas, the state government could not hand out certified copies of divorce records. What the state government could do, however, is to verify the existence of a divorce. Through the Texas Department of State Health Services, the government could provide a divorce verification that would answer the question of whether or not there is a divorce. This process usually takes between ten to fifteen days to complete and costs twenty dollars. The process begins either through the internet with the use of a credit card, or through a written request addressed to the department using a free to download form available at their website.

Finally, a third option of obtaining a divorce record would be to take the search online. The World Wide Web has numerous specialized online databases within its virtual walls. These databases are easy to use and oftentimes free. In addition to their near instantaneous results of not only divorce records but also other vital records, these databases do not have long queue lines in order to use. Indeed, most of the time, their use does not even require the user to leave the comforts of their homes.