What primary records exist for Jill Biden’s 1970 marriage and 1975 divorce (marriage certificate, divorce decree)?
Executive summary
Contemporary news reporting and biographical summaries consistently state that Jill Biden (then Jill Jacobs) married William “Bill” Stevenson in 1970 and that a civil divorce was finalized in 1975, but none of the provided sources attach or reproduce an original marriage certificate or a divorce decree for public inspection [1] [2] [3] [4]. The available coverage thus documents the events through secondary reporting and official-sounding phrasing (“divorce granted” or “divorce decree issued”) rather than by producing the primary vital records themselves [5] [3] [4].
1. What the reporting consistently says about the 1970 marriage
Multiple reputable outlets and reference works report that Jill Tracy Jacobs married William Stevenson in 1970 while she was a University of Delaware student, with several accounts specifying February 1970 or describing her as 18 at the time, and these accounts are presented as factual background in profiles of recent developments involving Stevenson [1] [2] [3] [6]. Biographical summaries in Britannica and long-form profiles in outlets such as The Guardian and AP repeat the year and context of the marriage, using that timeline as a settled biographical fact [2] [1] [7]. Those pieces, however, cite the marriage as a matter of public record through reporting rather than reproducing an original marriage certificate in the article itself [2] [1].
2. What reporting consistently says about the 1975 divorce
A cluster of news stories published amid the 2026 reporting repeat that a civil divorce between Jill Biden and William Stevenson was finalized in 1975, with several outlets specifically saying the divorce decree was issued in May 1975 or that the divorce was “granted” in May 1975 [5] [3] [4] [8]. Major national outlets including The New York Times, NBC, AP and People echo that timeline when summarizing Jill Biden’s early adult life and the chronology that led to her meeting Joe Biden in March 1975 and later marrying him in 1977 [8] [3] [7] [9]. Those repeated statements constitute strong secondary-source consensus in contemporary reporting [8] [3] [7].
3. Where the primary records are in the reporting — and where they are not
None of the provided sources print, link to, or cite a scanned image, certificate number, or clerk’s office filing that would constitute a marriage certificate or a divorce decree as a primary document; instead they rely on biographical narrative, contemporaneous newspaper reporting, interviews, memoirs and court reporting to state that the marriage and divorce occurred in the years cited [5] [6] [4]. Because the supplied reporting does not reproduce the original marriage license, marriage certificate, divorce filing, or the formal divorce decree, the primary records themselves are not presented within the material reviewed here, and their existence in public archives is therefore not demonstrated by these sources [5] [3] [7].
4. Conflicting claims, questions raised, and reporting context
Some commentators and a piece in Catholic World Report raise questions about details and ecclesiastical procedures connected to the later 1977 Catholic wedding and whether any pre-nuptial investigations would have examined Jill Biden’s earlier marriage and its civil resolution, and that piece also references contemporaneous press items that discussed her status as a divorcee [10]. Separately, reporting notes that Stevenson has in recent years disputed elements of the public narrative and made allegations about the timing and nature of relationships around the split—claims that have been reported but do not substitute for or produce official vital records in these articles [10] [8]. The media pieces that recount dates and the issuance of a “divorce decree” reflect consensus reporting but not archival presentation of the primary documents themselves [8] [4].
5. Conclusion and limits of the evidence reviewed
The available reporting reliably places the marriage in 1970 and the civil divorce in 1975 and repeatedly uses the phrase “divorce decree” or “divorce granted” in May 1975, but the primary documents—an actual marriage certificate or a certified divorce decree—are not included, reproduced, or specifically cited in the sources provided, so their physical location or archival references are not established by this set of material [5] [3] [4]. To confirm the existence and exact wording of those primary records would require consulting Delaware vital records or the relevant county court clerk’s archives, steps not documented in the reporting assembled here [2] [1].