Hawaiian Marriages-Divorces and Deaths



The islands of Hawaii had been a territory of the United States for a long before it became the 50th state on August 21, 1959. The main islands are Hawaii, Lanai, Oahu, Maui, Kahoolawe, Molokai, Kauai, and Niihau. Before it was a U.S. territory the islands were an independent kingdom from 1810 to 1893 and then an independent republic from 1894 to 1898 when it was then annexed by the United States. So there is a good deal of records of the people who have lived on these islands especially from the late 19th century into the 20th century.

On the Ulukau Hawaii Electronic Library online site are genealogical listings to assist researchers. The site starts with a listing of marriages on different islands and covering various time periods. One of the major collections is the marriages on the Hawaii Island from 1832 to 1929. You can click on the link to find the surnames in alphabetical order; such as page one is ‘Aarona to Aceron’ range of names. It can be viewed two different methods. One is an extracted text of the information, giving the names of the couples; date married, the district location and the book and page of the recorded ceremony. The other method is a digital scanned image of the information, providing the same information. If a letter ‘k’ appears next to a name, it refers to ‘kane’ or male. Using the full names, location, date along with book and page can make receiving a full copy of the marriage certificate easier from Hawaii‘s State Archives.

To make the search even simpler there is a search box in the upper right corner of the page. Putting in the surname of ‘Johnson’ produced some 388 entries, most for marriages, but some for the other indexes available.

Those additional indexes besides marriages include divorces in the various circuit courts of the islands, citizenship and naturalization records, deaths and probates in circuit courts, along with deaths and Wills in circuit courts.

One of the other interesting listings is for passports from September 1874 to June 1900 in an alphabetical index. These passports give their passport number, the person’s full name, the date and the ship they traveled on to Hawaii.


So if there is a chance you had ancestors on any of the Hawaiian Islands in the 1800s and into the early 1900s, it is worth investigating the availability of some vital records.

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