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Ways to Locate Former Spouse


Finding a Respondent (Your Former Spouse)
Additional Questions to Assist in Finding Your Former Spouse
Tools / Websites to Assist in Finding Your Former Spouse
Tribunal Assistance


Finding a Respondent (Your Former Spouse)

It is a strict requirement of Canon (Church) Law that the Tribunal Office notify (through certified and regular mail) the Respondent (your former spouse) that this process is occurring. Failure to contact your former spouse can result in the entire process being declared invalid. Normally a person can be found using the Internet. If all means to locate your former spouse have been exhausted, the Tribunal can attempt to contact your former spouse through a family member, such as a parent or sibling. However, contacting your former spouse through a c/o (care of) address could delay the process since extra attention must be given to ensure that your former spouse has indeed received the notice. IF using a c/o address, specifically indicate whose address it is. If, after exhausting the means provided in this document, refer to section entitled: Tribunal Assistance. It is NOT recommended that you use a private detective or a paid locating service without first consulting the Tribunal.


Additional Questions to Assist in Finding Your Former Spouse

To assist you in finding your former spouse, consider each question. Refer to the tools/websites in this document.
  1. Is there anything about the behavior or lifestyle of your former spouse that would make you think that your former spouse might be deceased? Describe all efforts of your search.
  2. If there are any mutual friends, former in-laws or other relatives of your former spouse with whom you are still in contact, find out if they know where your former spouse is. List whom you contacted, giving this person's name, address, telephone and the relationship to your former spouse and their responses.
  3. List the places that your former spouse has lived in chronological order, starting with the place of birth to the last known address. Be as detailed as you can, listing street addresses, city, state, etc.
  4. Provide the full names of both parents of your former spouse, including the mother's maiden and current name. List the places that the parents of your former spouse have lived in chronological order, starting with their place of birth to their last known address. Be as detailed as you can, listing street addresses, city, state, etc. Describe all efforts made to contact them.
  5. List the full names of all siblings of your former spouse and their spouses, along with their last known addresses. Give the approximate ages or approximate date of birth of the siblings. Describe all efforts made to contact any of them.
  6. If there were children born of the marriage and those children are grown, give their current names, along with the full names of their spouses, including their last known addresses and telephone numbers. Describe all efforts made to contact any of them.
  7. List the names of schools attended by your former spouse, especially high school and college. Try contacting the schools for your former spouse's address and explain your results.
  8. If your former spouse was in military service, what branch of the military, what years of service and where?
  9. List your former spouse's last known place of employment. Try contacting the place of employment for any possible leads to the location of your former spouse and explain your results.
  10. If your former spouse was married previously, try contacting this former spouse or any children born of this previous marriage to see if they know where your former spouse is. List the names of all people whom you contacted and the results.
  11. If your former spouse remarried after your divorce from him/her, try contacting any subsequent spouse or any children born from the subsequent marriage to see if they know where your former spouse is. List the names of all people whom you contacted and the results.
  12. What other steps have you taken to find your former spouse?

Tools/Websites to Assist You in Finding the Respondent (Your Former Spouse)

Death Records

Death certificates within the past 25 years are considered protected records. Therefore, you are probably not qualified to order a certificate or record. However, you might be qualified to order a verification. There is no need to order a death certificate or death verification if you find that your former spouse is deceased at one of the following websites. Simply print out the page and present it to the priest. The two following databases contain most death records, though not all, in connection with Social Security death benefits.

Search the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) at http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com (use the advanced search). Some individual State death indexes can be found at the main page at www.rootsweb.com.

You can also search the data bank at: http://ancestry.com/search/rectype/vital/ssdi/main.htm or from the main page at www.ancestry.com.

Texas death records can be found at http://userdb.rootsweb.com/tx/death/search.cgi.

You can also write the Department of Vital Records in the State where your former spouse was last known to reside to see if there is a possible death certificate. www.vitalrec.com can be used as a tool to find the location and telephone of a State's Vital Statistics Office. It is much cheaper if you contact the State's Vital Statistics Office yourself rather than using the paid service that this website provides.

Telephone Book/White Pages

Try the telephone book for all the known places your former spouse has lived. If it is in another city or state, try contacting someone in that particular city/state who would be willing to look up or copy for you the listings of the last name. In this way, one can contact the listings in search of the former spouse or a family member.

Try directory assistance. When checking through directory assistance, always ask the operator upfront for an address and then the telephone number of the person you are trying to find. If checking in a particular city shows no results, ask the operator to check the surrounding area or the entire area code. List the directory assistance cities contacted and the results. State the results of any attempts by you or others to make contact by telephone.

The Internet has numerous white pages websites. They are not all alike. For a good search, try several different sites with different combinations of a person's name. If a man is remarried, his present wife might have the telephone listed in her name. At www.theultimates.com/white you can access six popular Internet white pages.

If you only have a telephone number for a person, there are two different, reverse searches at www.theultimates.com/white that will give you a possible address. If you have a last known address, you can use the reverse address search on this site to see who now lives at the address and possibly that person can give you a lead as to where to find your former spouse.

Property Records

If a person owns property, it is possible to find them through the appraisal records of the county in which the property is owned, even if the person does not live in that county or state. The following are two Internet sites that you can use to find a property owner in Texas:

www.txcountydata.com
www.taad.org/cad_web_links.html

Alumni Lists

Contact the high school and/or college that your former spouse attended. Some keep a list or can tell you how to get in touch with a former student. Some schools have websites. A search engine such as www.google.com can assist you in searching for college alumni lists in general or by the name of the college.


Tribunal Assistance

IF you have exhausted all means to locate your former spouse as suggested on pages one and two, the Tribunal can assist you in finding someone. The Tribunal usually can find someone without using an outside source. If the Tribunal must use outside sources, our main sources of information come from the State Department of Motor Vehicles, public documents and certain locating services. The Tribunal will assess an additional research fee on an individual basis depending on the amount of research the Tribunal has to do. The fee normally ranges from about $5.00 to $50.00.

The Driver Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) and other federal protective and stalking laws protect any information or address that is obtained from these sources. The information or address that is obtained can be used only by this Tribunal Office. We are required by law to hold this information confidential, and it cannot be released to anyone.

Providing the following information will be of great help. This information can possibly be found on the marriage application, the marriage license, the original petition for divorce, the final divorce decree or federal income tax return forms.
  1. Current name of former spouse.
  2. Date of birth of former spouse.
  3. Social security number of former spouse.
  4. Driver's license number of former spouse, including the name of the State. (If not known, give all States where the former spouse may have had a driver's license.)
IF you do not have any of the above information for 1-4, submit responses to the questions on the page entitled, "Finding a Respondent (Your Former Spouse)," to the Tribunal Office.

Additional Documents

It is extremely helpful to the Tribunal if you provide the following documents:

Marriage Application (If available)

Check with the county in which the civil marriage license was obtained for a copy of the marriage application. If this document is available, it may contain helpful information such as a person's surname, date and place of birth, driver's license number, social security number, marital status of the party, previous marriage and divorce information, parents' names and addresses, etc. It is less expensive to ask for a non-certified copy.
 

Original Petition for Divorce

Contact the District Clerk's Office for a copy of the original petition for divorce. This document sometimes contains useful information such as addresses, social security numbers, drivers' license numbers, etc. It is less expensive to ask for a non-certified copy and generally the first and last page of this document is sufficient.