From This Day Forward....

So, finally I am able to post a little about our research in to marriage records.
Where do we start? If you know the exact date of a marriage, you can easily find the records of the event in on-line databases and church records.  If it was a civil marriage, there could be a notation about the court or location of the wedding.  Church records are great for gathering more information than you ever expected, as those will contain parents' names and witnesses, too.

If you don't know the date of the wedding, but can calculate an approximate string of years, do a quick search of the newspapers from the areas around the bride's place of residence.  Of course, this does not always provide the information that you may be looking for. I would also suggest a search of the county and state records that the couple were living in during the first years of their marriage.

Newspapers can be searched on-line:

www.chroniclingamerica.org provides many digitized newspapers from across the nation
www.newspaperarchive.com is another site that provides many newspapers, but for a price
www.genealogybank.com has a wonderful database that is constantly growing with SSDI, newspapers, books, obits and documents.  This also has a fee.

Try your local library databases.  Most  libraries have a link to ProQuest.com which will guide you to a wide array of newspaper archives.

Google news archives search will produce so much from which to choose.  You will want to narrow your search after you see how much information will be matched to your initial search.

Next Friday, March 23, I will show you what you can find in on-line databases for wedding information.

NOTE:  I will be posting every Monday and Friday each week, but with shorter blogs.  This will enable me to focus on individual documents and discuss what I find in my own research, and those of my clients ( with names disguised for privacy issues ).  See ya on Friday!