Marriage records are another valuable source for genealogists, especially because churches and governments often kept marriage records before they documented other life events. Whether a civil or church authority performed the ceremony, local laws usually required that the marriage be recorded in civil records. Marriage has always been a very public covenant, recorded in a variety of ways, including banns, bonds, licenses, newspaper announcements, and church and civil records, which may state a couple's intent to marry or provide a record of the actual marriage. These records are usually stored with the clerk of the town or county where the bride resided, but some particularly early ones may be housed in the state's archives and more recent ones may be found in the state's Division of Vital Records.