Documentation of a marriage record in historical perspective

The authors present the peculiarities in the documentation of information about marriage in historical periods, from pre-revolutionary Russia to the present. In different periods of country's development, the change in the management system has always been associated with a change in the state system of record keeping, which determined the rules for documentation. These rules also influenced the documentation that records the facts of people's life. The novelty of the research lies in the joint use of historical, source-based and documentary methods that allow us to consider the changes that have occurred, to identify natural connections in the registration of information about marriage, as well as the types and structure of enclosed documents, the appearance of stable requisites for their registration. As a result, comparative characteristics of the marriage certificate in different periods are given.