Where might a couple have married if not where one expected them to wed? Family tradition often preserves the place of marriage along with an approximate or definitive wedding date. Researchers occasionally come upon a stubborn set of nuptials that just don’t want to be discovered.
One thing to consider is the birth of the first child. That is usually an identifiable event either through a civil birth record or a church baptismal registry. While we know that conception always preceded delivery it may not have been preceded by matrimony.
Broaden a time range for a wedding. It is very likely that doing so my discover a formerly difficult record to find.
Broaden the range of locations that might have served as a place of marriage. For example a couple that lived for years in Hell’s Kitchen did not marry in New York City. They were single and not enumerated together in the 1910 federal census. However, just months later Thomas Moore wed Mary English in West New York, NJ. This record was found in the NJ marriage index and quickly explained why no record could be found through the Department of Health or the City Clerk in NYC.
Caroline Herzing was married twice and both were a challenge to track down. First, she married Peter Stephan and started a family with him in Brooklyn. Surprisingly once the Archdiocese of New York sacramental records went online a wedding was transcribed that stated they had married in Manhattan in 1887. It identified both sets of their parents.
Several years later after she was widowed she remarried to an Albert Stevenson. The similarity of her married surnames made it no easy feat to identify what her children’s surnames were. She wed Mr. Stevenson in 1901 in New Jersey. This explained why no record had been found in NYC despite her appearances in their census records.
John McGinn married Lillian Waters in Jersey City on 27 Jun 1937. Francis Xavier McGorry and Anne Borkstrom married in NJ in 1941. Both these men were native New Yorkers whose siblings married in NYC.
If your ancestor’s life event is missing or they are missing from a census, consider they may be just across the state border in the Garden State. They may not have left the Empire State for NJ but consider it. These were three dimensional people that lived in a real world. They were born, married and died. If you are not finding a record it might be because you are searching the wrong city, the wrong county, the wrong state and a few times even the wrong country.
Some couples like the McGinns and the McGorrys settled permanently in NJ but others like the Stevensons and the Moores resume their lives in NYC very shortly after their nuptials.
If you are not finding a record try something new and outside the box a few miles away. Age requirements or other legalities may have incentivized or necessitated a wedding away from home.
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