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For the first time, I'm doing a tree for an American born person and all the research I need is around the 1800's to early 1900's.
I've only ever done it for English trees and made great use of FreeBMD, the GRO information and have always quickly been able to confirm who married whom and when!
So now I need marriage information from the late 1800s. Is this information not public record? Does it vary state by state? All of a sudden I feel like a kindergarten student. Would appreciate some advice! I have a membership to ancestry.com. The search on that thing is driving me bonkers.
Record availability varies not only by state but sometimes by county. Marriage records are usually found at a county level, though as mentioned, many are available online. What areas are you researching in?
I don't mess with the slider bars on ACOM, I just click "edit search" and then use the drop down menus to define how exact I want the search for each field.
For the first time, I'm doing a tree for an American born person and all the research I need is around the 1800's to early 1900's.
I've only ever done it for English trees and made great use of FreeBMD, the GRO information and have always quickly been able to confirm who married whom and when!
So now I need marriage information from the late 1800s. Is this information not public record? Does it vary state by state? All of a sudden I feel like a kindergarten student. Would appreciate some advice! I have a membership to ancestry.com. The search on that thing is driving me bonkers.
If you can tell us what state they lived in then we can give you more specific tips.
Unlike UK where one can look at Freebmd for the entire country, in the U.S. vital records are kept by each state separately. And, in some cases, i.e. New York City, their vital records are kept independently of NY State.
Knowing what state your family lived in will allow us to give you specific databases to search vital records, old digitized newspapers & much more.
Besides the federal census that is done every ten years (& is currently public through the 1940 census) many states also did their own state census. Many of these state census are available, some on Family Search & some on Ancestry.
Agree that www.familysearch.org is wonderful & sometimes better than Ancestry. That being said, Ancestry does have some databases that FamilySearch does not & vice versa.
You could search the vital records by city or state. Do a search on Niagara, NY for the year and limit it to marriages in Ancestry. Forget about that annoying slider bar.
If you can narrow down the specific county where the marriage likely took place, search for their website (usually include county name and "Clerk of Courts" or "County Clerk"). They may have information on where the records are stored, and they likely have a process where you can send them money and they will search for the record for you. Some states also do this (<state name> + "Vital Health Records").
Q4. Where can I get a copy of vital records (marriage, birth or death record)?
Answer:
Vital records are filed with the local municipality in which the event occurred. For example: (A) If you purchase a marriage license in Lockport, NY but the ceremony is performed in Niagara Falls, NY you would obtain a copy of the marriage certificate from the Lockport City Clerk where the original is purchased. (B) If an individual lives in North Tonawanda, NY but expires while hospitalized in Buffalo, NY the death certificate will be filed with the Buffalo City Clerk and you would contact them for copies of the certificate. To obtain a copy of your birth certificate, the record would be with the registrar in the municipality where the hospital is located. Link to the contact information for the cities towns and villages in Niagara County.
If those don't go back far enough, you may have to search for church records or newspaper announcements.
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