Madison County

EXPLANATION OF MARRIAGE RECORDS DATA AND MARKINGS

 

The marriage records listed on this website were transcribed about 10 years ago. During the transcription process, 'corrections and additions' were made without distinguishing the changes from the original record. Many records presently contain information that was not part of the original record. As of April, 2010, the marriage records were being revised to comply with the information listed below. It is estimated that the records will come into compliance in about four years.

Data Integrity:  It was the intent of the Madison County Coordinator to transcribe the marriage records exactly as they were written in the Marriage Books held by the Madison County Recorder's office. So, If errors were made in the original record, those same errors will appear in this transcription. Anything you see in the postings written in black font is exactly as it was written in the Madison County Marriage books, subject to our interpretation of the handwriting.

Subsequent to the transcription effort, the County Coordinators have added additional information such as full names where only initials were given in the original records. Red Font was used for any data added by the coordinators. So, if you see red font used in the record of your ancestor, be aware that that part of the data was not part of the original records. Data in red font has not been sourced and could be incorrect. It should be considered a clue and not a fact.

In some cases, where surnames were grossly misspelled in the original records,  a complete second entry with the correct spelling has been added to better enable the researchers to find their ancestors. Where this was done, the corrected surname has been added in Red Font enclosed in  Brackets.

Date Highlighted in Green:  Sometimes, Madison County residents went across county lines to get married. Those marriages would not be found in the Madison County Marriage Books but might appear in the local newspapers. In those cases, we have added the information found in the newspaper account (or from whatever source) and highlighted the date in green.

Linked Marriage Date:  If you come across a marriage date that has a web link associated with it, clicking on it will take you to the newspaper account of the wedding. Most were a simple one or two sentence paragraph but a few were much more elaborate.

Multiple Marriages:  If a person was married more than once, the number of the marriage will be presented in parentheses.

Maiden Name in Multiple Marriages:  If a person was married more than once, the name usually entered in the marriage record was the last married surname. The maiden name was given in a separate line in the Marriage Book. On this website, multiple marriages for brides are entered in two ways, both as the maiden name and as the previous married name. Here is an example:

Lathrop, Charity E.

26 Dec 1865

Raymond, Edward W.
Lathrop, Charity E. (2)

25 Aug 1887

Kellogg, William (2)
Raymond, Charity E. (nee Lathrop) (2)

25 Aug 1887

Kellogg, William (2)

Names in Quotes:  A name inside quote marks is a nickname and is accompanied by the actual name.

 

 

Maintained by Judy Wight Branson
and County Co-Coordinator Kent Transier
This page was created in Sept. 2002.
This page was last updated Wednesday, 27-Feb-2013 16:14:13 CST .