Marriage bonds

By mbcross on Mon, 04/01/2024 - 15:02

Forums

I have crafted this citation for a marriage bond for an ancestral couple, but I'm not sure about it. As I understand it, a marriage bond does not necessarily mean the marriage occurred, nor is it the date on which the marriage occurred, correct?

North Carolina State Archives Division of Archives and History, "North Carolina, County Marriages, 1762-1979," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C91D-S967-J : accessed 31 Mar 2024), Image Group Number 7742034 > image 361 of 670, marriage bond for Charles Johnston and Elizabeth Macon, 24 September 1807; citing Randolph County, North Carolina, County Clerk.

Submitted byEEon Tue, 04/02/2024 - 09:15

Yes, mbcross. Finding a marriage bond is not proof that a marriage occurred, although it often is all we find. As with any type of record, no one record alone proves anything. When we find a marriage bond and the courthouse records offer no subsequent "return" of the license by the minister, then we augment the bond with other records showing that the couple did live together as man and wife.

As for the citation, it does need a couple of tweaks. Your draft reads:

North Carolina State Archives Division of Archives and History, "North Carolina, County Marriages, 1762-1979," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C91D-S967-J : accessed 31 Mar 2024), Image Group Number 7742034 > image 361 of 670, marriage bond for Charles Johnston and Elizabeth Macon, 24 September 1807; citing Randolph County, North Carolina, County Clerk.

Layer 1:

NC State Archive, which you cite in the “creator” field, did not create a database called “North Carolina, County Marriages, 1762–1979.”  That is a title created by FamilySearch for its own organization of images it produced from materials created elsewhere.

The layer of the citation in which we name the couple and cite the marriage date should also include the marriage place.

Layer 2:

The Family Search database does not actually cite “Randolph County, North Carolina, County Clerk” as its source. FamilySearch did not go to that county courthouse and that office. FamilySearch imaged microfilm produced by the NC State Archives from records that the archive brought into its facility from all the county courthouses across the state. At the landing page for that particular database, FamilySearch’s citation for a Source List Entry cites only the archives.

Bottom Line:

All things considered, an Evidence Style citation (with coloration to separate the two layers) would be this:

"North Carolina, County Marriages, 1762–1979," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C91D-S967-J : accessed 31 Mar 2024), Image Group Number 7742034 > image 361 of 670, marriage bond for Charles Johnston and Elizabeth Macon, 24 September 1807, Randolph County; imaged from North Carolina State Archives’ unnumbered microfilm labeled “Randolph County, NC State Archives Marriage Bonds, Jackson–Justice … 1779–1868.”

Submitted byKathy Kulton Thu, 04/04/2024 - 11:51

Elizabeth, I'm confused... where did you find the information for the second layer of the citation? I looked at the image (as well as its indexed record) at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C91D-S967-J, and I don't see where you found that it came from 'an unnumbered microfilm labeled "Randolph County, NC State Archives Marriage Bonds, Jackson–Justice … 1779–1868.” ' 

Thank you for your advice!

Kathy, when we extract information from a page in a book, we flip back to the "title page" at the start of the book, and get our identification from there, right? 

The same principle applies to microfilm. We flip back to the start of the film to find the identifying data.

In this case, the identifying data is at image 206.  One quick way to find the start of the roll of film is to click on the minus sign in the size panel until we're seeing nothing but thumbnails on the screen (about 15-20 quick clicks). At that size, we can almost always spot the start of the film because the "front matter" of the film typically looks different from the imaged documents.

One might also ask: Should we cite the image on which that identifying data appears?  We can if we wish. But, again, there's the analogy with citing a book. When we identify the book and the page we used, we don't cite the title page. We simply report what is on the title page and then cite the specific page we used.