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From:
Subject: Re: Courthouse Ledgers
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 08:17:12 EST


All courthouse ledgers and journals have to be considered as derivative. I
will give an example of why it is important to remember that they are.

In Franklin County, Ohio, the original slips of paper from the ministers
from the early 1800s were still in existence until the courthouse moved to a new
building some years back. The clerk told me, which may or may not be true,
that they were lost off a dump truck taking old paper to the new building.

So the original return and consent slips are not longer in existence. The
information was originally copied into marriage books in the courthouse.
However, the books contain serious errors as to names. They also did not include
any of the early consent slips.

Before the original slips were lost, the DAR carefully extracted all
information from them. The DAR published four volumes with compiled information
from the county marriage books, the county index to marriages, the consent
slips, the return slips and showed the differences between them. There are major
differences in the names in the records. I have had occasion to investigate
several instances where the DAR information shows the county marriage books to
be in error. In each of these cases, the county record was wrong on the
names and the DAR was right on the names.

Although most of the time the county marriage book is the best source we can
find, this is not necessarily true and shows the necessity of evaluating our
sources carefully.

June Byrne
_http://members.aol.com/junebyr/sites.html_
(http://members.aol.com/junebyr/sites.html)
or
Daytona Beach, FL

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