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As with other Massachusetts vital records, changes have occurred over the years as to current location and storage of divorce records. In general however, Massachusetts divorce records since 1922 are located at the county probate court in which the libellant filed.

Also, and this is very important, divorce records are generally filed in the county where the couple last lived as husband and wife - not necessarily where they last lived at the time of the divorce.

A statewide index, from 1952 to the present is available at the Massachusetts Department of Health's Registry of Vital Records in Boston. Unfortunately, as with many indexes, this statewide index is known to contain errors and omissions. It is only an index. The actual divorce files are, for the most part, still located at the county probate court or in offsite storage facilities. In addition to the statewide index, each county probate court maintains an index to that court's divorce records since 1922. There is no statewide index covering 1922 to the present.

Before 1922 and as far back as 1887, divorce cases were heard in the various county Superior Courts, such as Suffolk County Superior Court.

The Massachusetts Court and Judicial Archives, located in the same building as the Massachusetts Archives in Boston, has some docket books which index pre 1922 divorces for Hampshire, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth and Worcester counties. However, most of the divorce files themselves are either still located at the county Superior Court in which they were filed or the records are held in offsite storage facilities. It can take weeks to get some of these files.

Again, the state archives has only the index, not the actual files.

Before 1887 and as far back as 1786, divorce cases were handled by the Supreme Judicial Court. These records are indexed in Law dockets. Both the indexes and the files are held by the Judicial Archives at the Massachusetts Archives.

Records prior to 1786 and as early as 1639, were heard by a variety of courts within the state and in most cases, the originals are held by the Massachusetts Archives.

Researchers at MassVitalRecords.com provide divorce record retrieval from 1922 - 2009 in Bristol, Norfolk, Middlesex, Suffolk and Worcester counties.

If you'd like us  to process a divorce file request, please go to our divorce file request form. 

Upon receiving payment of your order and depending on the location of the record, we generally ship records within 7 - 21 business days, or less. 

Additional Massachusetts Divorce Links:

Mass-Doc Retrieval, PO Box 529, North Easton, MA 02356-0529
Tel: 1.617.249.0323    Fax: 1.800.699.0249    E-Mail: services@mass-doc.com

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