Many of us have wondered at some point – could my partner possibly be married? For one individual, the nagging suspicions started when the guy she was dating began mysteriously disappearing for hours on weekends and being evasive about meeting up¹. Naturally, this led her to wonder if he was already married.

This is a common predicament many can relate to. You may be head over heels for a celebrity crush and wonder about their relationship status. Perhaps after a few dates, your gut starts telling you something is off with Mr. Too-Good-To-Be-True. Or the relationship progresses, but your partner is acting shady. You get that unsettling feeling – is there a hidden wife or husband?

Whether it’s curiosity, avoiding scams, or protecting your heart, you owe it to yourself to uncover the truth. Luckily, with the right tools, it’s not too difficult…

1. Find marriage record information with BeenVerified

BeenVerified is a powerful background search tool to help you find evidence of marriage in existence. Depending on the availability of information, you’re likely to find marriage licenses, records, and/or certificates. A BeenVerified report also provides you with details about family members, photos, and social media profiles which could help you tease out whether someone has been wed.

1. Go to BeenVerified People Search.
2. Enter the person’s name, phone number, email address, username, or home address, then click SEARCH.
   
3. You’ll receive a robust background report on the individual. This may contain available public records such as marriage record information, relatives, neighbors, assets, and other details that could indicate the person’s marital status.
   

2. Look up marriage records with PeopleLooker

When you want to dig out hidden truths about people, you may want to give PeopleLooker a try. Just enter a name, and then PeopleLooker will gather the associated public records and build them into a background report. From there, you can check out their relatives, social profiles, associates, assets, etc to gather clues about someone’s marital status.

1. Go to PeopleLooker’s official website.
2. Provide the name and location specifics of the person whose marital status you wish to search, then click SEARCH.
   
3. Sit tight as PeopleLooker searches its public record sources. Once it hits a match, it will gather the available records into a report for you, which you can explore to tease out if someone is married and whom they could be married to.
   

3. Find someone’s marital status with Spokeo

Spokeo is a powerful people lookup engine founded by four Stanford University students. It started out by pulling data from various social media platforms. Over the years, the site has evolved into a very sophisticated one, collating both public and government sources of data.

When you perform a search on Spokeo, usually more than one match will pop up. You can skim through the free basic information to determine the person you’re looking up, then click on the easy-to-read report to find out if the person is married and to whom.

1. Go to Spokeo People Search.
2. Plug in the name/email address/phone number/home address and hit SEARCH NOW. If you’re not sure about the subject’s family name, you can leave it blank.
   
3. Spokeo will generate a report containing all matching information of your search.
   
   Spokeo delivers the basic information for free, but if you wish to uncover the full report, you’ll be required to pay a membership. Again, you can opt into the 7-day membership trial for just $0.95. During this period, you’ll be able to run unlimited searches and access unlimited reports.
   

4. PeopleFinders – Quick, no-hassle search

PeopleFinders is another well-reputed people finder engine that allows you to trace an unknown number and dig out in-depth information about the person. The lookup address won’t require you to sign up (which means no logs of your search), and the process is quick – all it takes is just a couple of minutes.

1. Go to PeopleFinder’s official page.
2. Enter the information of the person whose marital status you wish to find out.
   
   Hint: You can also click Advanced Search to narrow down your search and get more accurate results.
3. Wait a while as PeopleFinders generates a report of all up-to-date information about subject.
   

Method 5: 6 signs someone is married

No matter how good a married person is at lying and hiding, eventually, they will leave traces that give away their double life. Below are the 6 most common signs you may be dating a married person. You can check them out one by one and see how many of them align with your situation.

Note that these signs are only empirical clues that indicate someone may be dating you amidst marriage, no smoking gun thereof. So you can only use the list as a reference.

1. S/he has a wedding ring/tanline on the ring finger.

This is a huge red flag. When you see a wedding ring on someone’s ring finger, just shy away with a 10-foot pole – the person is married. Skillful liars may take the ring off their finger, so you can recall the day when you two first met – did they have the ring on their finger (any chances s/he forgot to take it off)? Also, a tanline may suggest that he’s long been wearing a ring (although the person may also have recently separated or divorced, which is a different story).

2. Unusual hours for dates.

Do you have the same hours for meetup week in and week out? Last-minute dinners are not his thing? Rendezvous get canceled very often? No holiday trips? This is a string of questions but you know why. Married people have a lot of obligations and responsibilities which take up huge chunks of their spare hours (home before 10 pm/picking up kids after school/taking kids to soccer lessons/household emergencies/family day etc) and make them less available.

3. Abnormal phone behaviors.

This starts when he or she refuses to give you their number even though your relationship has gone much beyond. Does he/she save your number and how do they name it? One quick way to find out is to dial the person’s number when their phone is in your field of vision and see what name pops up. You may also need to take heed when they’re too secretive with their phone. Does he have to tilt his phone screen away from you, or make sure you’re out of earshot before picking up the call? Does he drop a conversation for seemingly no reason or randomly disappear in the midst of texting? Does he often have to whisper on the phone or when you call him, you always get voicemail, to which he only replies the next day? When you get a yes to most of these questions, it’s time to sound an alarm.

4. Odd meet-up locations.

If he or she never invites you to their place or anywhere near where they live, nor do they share with you their favorite hangouts, it’s worth pondering over your relationship or whether your lover has been hiding things from you.

5. You never get introduced to his family/ friends.

If you’re in a relationship, you’ll eventually be introduced to your significant other’s family or circle of friends. However, if they’re reluctant to do so, chances are that they already have a “significant other” at home – you’re kept on the side while the family/friends in the dark.

6. The person pays all things in cash.

Paying in cash has no faults in itself, and most people alternate among credit cards, debit cards, cash, and the like when paying for things. But if a person chooses to pay for all of your dates in cash, he/she may be hiding the charges on the bills or debit card statements from their spouse.

Method 6: Manually find proof of someone’s marriage

1. Google it

Everyone has been on the internet and left their fair share of traces, so you can try searching to see if you can dig out some useful information that may point to a person’s marriage. Useful information may include tax records (that reveals a spouse’s name), mortgage records (that gives out the spousal property), other people that are related, etc.

But as mighty as Google is, it does not just spit out someone’s marriage records within a couple of searches, so you will need to get inventive with your search. You can start with some basic information such as name, phone number, then vary your query with a few more criteria to narrow down your search.

2. Check social media

Social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn) is a good way to find clues about someone’s marital status. Sites like Facebook allow one to publicly display their relationship status. If that info is not available, you can scroll through posts and pictures to see if there are any signs of a romantic partner, and how recent they are. You may also need to determine if the posts seem genuine, as some people create fake profiles to hide their real life (e.g. posts with a spouse and kids). If someone claims to never use social media, they may be hiding something.

According to an online discussion², some members post a few favorite wedding pictures. Others create entire online photo albums with hundreds of images from the event. A few enthusiastic folks even upload their full set of 1,000+ wedding pictures across multiple posts.

The breadth of content varies dramatically between people. But the point is – that fragmented clues about marital status often sit publicly online. A wedding picture here, an album link there. Perhaps no outright relationship status, but visible indicators worth inspecting further if determining if someone got married.

Method 7: Find marriage records from government data

Another good way to find out if someone is married or has been legally married is to search government sources of data for marriage records.

To request marriage records from government sources, make sure that you’ve got hold of the following information, otherwise, it’s a no-go:

• the place where the marriage took place (so that you know which county website/office to go to),
• full names of the couple,
• the place of marriage or even the date of the marriage,
• Any other relevant contact information such as a phone number.

Every state has its own procedures for registering marriages and they own regulations on how the information is available: Some states may upload marriage records online while others require you to visit the local courthouse and request in person. So you can

1. Search marriage records through an online database. National Center for Health Statistics, which provides links for people who want direct access to vital records such as marriage is a good place to start.
   
   OR
2. Visit the local courthouse and request a copy of someone’s marriage record.

When you request government data, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• You may be charged a nominal fee for access to the record.
• If you’ve managed to find a marriage certificate, also make sure to check divorce records too. The two matters are separate and just because you’ve found proof of someone’s marriage doesn’t mean that the marriage is still in effect.
• In states such as California and Michigan, secret or confidential marriages are possible. Couples can choose to shield their marriage license and certificate from the public unless a judge comes to intervene.

However, if you don’t know the exact date or location of the marriage, it can be very difficult to track down the records. A forum member described spending hours searching various county clerk websites to no avail when the precise details were hazy³. While government sources offer the most official marriage documents, limited information makes them harder to obtain.

How We Chose Our Recommended Search Methods

When researching the best ways to uncover marriage records, we first considered some telltale signs that someone may already be hitched. However, we realized these signs are not concrete proof on their own. They offer clues for further digging rather than definitive answers.

We explored free manual approaches like sifting through Google and plowing through social media profiles. These can occasionally turn up nuggets about a person’s relationship status. But they involve lots of effort, and uncertainty, and may miss key details that full records would show.

Ultimately, we found that dedicated people search services are the most reliable route to marriage licenses, certificates, and background specifics. User-friendly sites like BeenVerified, Spokeo, and PeopleFinders compile extensive public records and extra data into comprehensive profiles. This makes it much easier to see someone’s marital status, relatives, properties, and more.

While these services need paid memberships, they simplify the search process significantly. Their depth of coverage also means they are more likely to turn up elusive marriage documents that casual manual searches could miss.

So in summary: Signs of secrecy and casual digging make decent starting points. But for fast, conclusive proof of marital status, we recommend turning to professional record search sites. Their expansive access offers the clearest confirmation of whether someone has walked down the aisle.

1. r/datingoverthirty [Fluffypinkcandi]. (2021, July 28) How can you tell if a man is married, especially in online dating? [Online forum post]. Reddit.
   https://www.reddit.com/r/datingoverthirty/comments/ot6sft/how_can_you_tell_if_a_man_is_married_especially/ ↩︎
2. r/weddingplanning [Kerfluffle2x4]. (2023, May 08) How much of your wedding album do you post on social media? [Online forum post]. Reddit.
   https://www.reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/13buzrl/how_much_of_your_wedding_album_do_you_post_on/ ↩︎
3. r/Genealogy [rightahair]. (2022, May 19) Finding a marriage certificate without knowing the exact date or location? [Online forum post]. Reddit.
   https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/usqw94/finding_a_marriage_certificate_without_knowing/ ↩︎