>Once they don't find your marriage certificate, they will issue the Negative Statement.

Meaningless, since one could have been married in another state, or even country - a fact of which the local city or state registry would have zero knowledge.

On that absurd basis, likely more than half of actually married US citizens would be "single' because they were not married in their state (or worse, county) of current residence - we're a traditionally mobile population, especially in the "marrying years"

Now if the goal is purely bureaucratic plausible-fiction...