How can you find a marriage date for free?

Answer 1

Okay. I'm going to assume you mean that you want to find the date when someone ... say, your great-great-grandparents or something like that ... got married, rather than something else really creepy.

The sad news is that information is worth what you pay for it, and reliable information is unlikely to be free.

You could try searching online (using, say, Google) to see if a distant cousin has posted a genealogy chart that includes the information you want. Again, accuracy-wise, this may be a bit dodgy.

The government (in the United States, this is done at the state level) probably maintains a department of vital records that can issue you a copy of the marriage certificate. This will be more or less guaranteed accurate, but it won't be free (and, depending on the state and the time period, may not even exist... it's not terribly uncommon for southern states, when asked for records prior to 1865 or so, to mumble something about "damyankees" and tell you the records were destroyed in a fire).

One resource that may seem odd, but: the Mormon church maintains extensive genealogical records, and you can go to one of their Family History Centers or even register online to search their databases. They don't charge for this and you don't have to be a Mormon yourself. I've put a link to their genealogy site in the Related Links. At the Family History Centers (if you live in or near a major city, there's a very good chance there's one not too far away) they even offer courses in how to do genealogical research.