Free cook county illinois divorce records
With the county seat of Cook county being the City of Chicago and the rest of the county being divided into thirty townships, the population of well over 5 million people make it the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles, California. With Cook County containing more people than the total population of over half the states in the Union, public record keeping is a massive undertaking. With genealogical research being so popular, there are no free Cook County Illinois Divorce Records. The Cook County government only considers vital records to be birth, marriage and death records. It is only these records that are easily researchable from Cook County. There is also the caveat that copies of these records can only be used for genealogical purposes. Cook County does not allow their public records to be used by individuals for any other legal or court matter and will stamp each copy of obtained records with this information.
Divorce records are kept by the Illinois Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Records, 925 East Ridgely Ave, Springfield, IL 62702-2737, and it is from them that a request for divorce records must be made. Requests can be mailed to that address with a completed Application for Verification of Divorce Record and a check or money order for $5.00. regular mail requests may take from eight to ten weeks for processing. There are more expensive methods for expediting delivery. Most methods of obtaining a Divorce Record from Cook County will also require proof of identity. By FAX request, the Application for Verification of Divorce Record must also be accompanied by your credit card number and expiration date which is used to cover the verification fee, a handling charge of $8.50, and the $19.50 UPS charge for delivery of the document. You will need to provide a daytime phone number, your return address, a written signature, along with a legible copy of your photo identification. Even if applying for the divorce record in person requires the presentation of a valid photo ID before the information is released and it will still require a minimum of two days for the document to be mailed out.