Marriage records are one of those record groups that is a staple in genealogy research. After census records, birth and death records, genealogists always look for marriage records.
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| Marriage License Certificate, located in the Loose Marriage Records Collection at Houston County, Tennessee Archives |
Most marriage records are recorded in large volumes or books and are referenced by Book and Page #. Did you know there could be another set of marriage records called Loose Marriage Records?
Loose Marriage Records are a record source that a lot of archives, historical/genealogical societies and libraries who hold Manuscript Collections have on their shelves. These records are called loose because they are documents separate from the bound volumes and are considered the working papers or accompanying papers of the marriage licensing process. These files can hold just about anything but most of them have a copy of the original marriage license among other records.
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| Marriage License located in Loose Marriage Records Collection at Houston County, Tennessee Archives |
In the Houston County, Tennessee Archives & Museum we have these types of records dating from 1871-2010. Our files have such things as parental permission to marry letters, blood test results, letters from clergy stating the couple went through pre-marriage counseling, etc.
Loose Marriage Records can hold interesting and unique records not found in the bound volumes. When a genealogists contacts or visits an archive they should ask the archivist if they have Loose Marriage Records. Hopefully the archive will have an index that can be quickly checked to find the surname the researcher is looking for in the loose marriage records.
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| Parental consent form located in Loose Marriage Records at the Houston County, Tennessee Archives |
This group of records is just another example of hidden treasures in many of our archives. Some of these records have been microfilmed but very few are online.
The next time you are at an archive researching in marriage records, don't forget to ask if they have Loose Marriage Records, you might surprised by what you find.
REMEMBER: IT'S NOT ALL ONLINE, CONTACT OR VISIT AN ARCHIVE TODAY!!
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