“I believe Obama’s story is correct that they were in fact married in February of 1961; and I think the most logical course of events is that the marriage occurred in Kenya where it would have been valid.”
The location of the wedding was Honolulu Hawaii, where they both were students during that semester. Nothing happened in Kenya. She was never there.
So where is the marriage certificate/license application? That's a public record, and in most places, at least in '61, marriages, and births, were announced in the local paper. Still are in some places. Where's that record, which is independent of any action the couple/parents might take. (Except in the case of an unwed mother, whose name and the very fact of the birth might be "suppressed" to protect the privacy of the poor left in the lurch wench, not that I'm saying that applies in this case)
You know she wasn't a student the winter semester--she dropped out of school at the end of the first semester. It isn't clear to me what happened to him. But that is certainly an issue to look at.
I haven't looked through all the posts since last night. But as to the Sec. 1409 issue, there is a clear record of the divorce, together with a recital of the pleadings of the grounds for divorce (a statutory version of the burdensome marriage). So there is a divorce case file somewhere and typically counsel recites the location of the marriage in the file. So we need to get the divorce file and read the papers there which may shed some light on the place of marriage.
Under the circumstances, they were not going to spend the money on hiring counsel to complete a divorce proceeding unless they were married.
I am told, but again have not researched the legal question, that a bigamous marriage is only voidable, not void--that is it takes a legal proceeding to dissolve it even if contracted illegally in the United States. So wherever they were married, Obama is not illegitimate offspring and does not appear to get under Sec. 1409.
Thus his citizenship still would need to come, either under Sec. 1401 which would require his citizen parent to have resided in the U S for five years prior to his birth and after such citizen parent reached age 14 or 16 which Ms. Dunham-Obama by definition did not, or because he was born in Hawaii of which as yet we have seen no real indication that he was.
Do you have any evidence of any nature that is the case?
If you can't come up with some off the cuff, the way you locate it is go to the local library and find copies of the December 1960 and January and February 1961 copies of the local Hawaii newspapers; locate the Vital Statistics pages; and look for a marriage in any form of Barrack H. Obama and Stanley Ann Dunham.
Meanwhile, I am looking in Mombasa and Nairobi and bet I find a record before you do! Best of Luck.