Before taking on a background check of any kind, many people are intimidated by the amount of time they think it will take. Thanks to cop dramas and other special investigation programming, you might imagine yourself having to sift through absolute mountains of files and wrangle your way into multiple records offices. However, in the modern age and minus the television drama, searching marriage records is actually a relatively quick process.

To go about searching marriage records you just need a few simple pieces of information. You’ll want the first and last name of the party in question, along with the maiden name if it’s a woman. If you know where the marriage might have taken place, their social security number, or the date of the divorce, it will also help you find the record you want faster.

As part of paper saving initiatives and a desire to lower the cost of providing public services, most states have put their public records into searchable databases. This includes marriage and divorce records. They are accessible at any hour of the day or night, although not all of them are cross-linked.

Thus, searching marriage records should only take you a few minutes, and perhaps an hour or two at the most. At that point, if you haven’t found what you are looking for you will be well aware of the places you have already looked, which can help you plan your offline search. You will be able to move with a target approach instead of wasting hours.

Rather than shy away from looking into the past, now that you know it doesn’t have to take long, there’s no reason not to check today. With just a few clicks, you can have all the information you want at your fingertips and ready to print. In may not be as glamorous as what you see on television, but it is much faster.