There’s a published “marriage book” for a county where I have quite a few ancestors. The book was made by using the local marriage records contained in the county records office. The book indexes the names of the bride and the groom. Other names are not included.
The original records from which the published marriage book was compiled are online. FamilySearch and Ancestry have indexed the records as well. Do I need to view the book and look for my relatives for whom I have already searched in the actual records and in the indexes at
FamilySearch and Ancestry?
Probably not to be perfectly honest–but there is a caveat. What I should do is track for whom I have searched the originals and the online indexes. I should also indicate how I searched the originals. Did I manually search all the records item by item or did I search only the indexes that were created by the original creator of the record? Is it possible that they missed an entry when their index was made? Is it possible that FamilySearch or Ancestry made an error or omission when creating their index?
If I have manually searched the marriage records item by item myself, then I likely don’t need the published book. But…I still might want to at least read the preface and see if it makes any commentary about the records that I do not know.
4 Responses
You might not have to buy the book. If your local library doesn’t have it, they might be able to get it for you via inter-library loan (ILL). Some libraries don’t lend genealogy books – my library system does not. But some do, and if nothing else, they can copy pages from the index for you. Then you can request the pages you need, often for free.
Good reminder about interlibrary loan!
Good point!
I have an experience where I need the books. I have 3 volumes of cemetery records for Warren County Indiana. With Find a Grave, one would think that I don’t need those books. However, in at least one case, the tombstone has disappeared. Thus the books may be one of the only surviving records.
Cemetery transcriptions are a great example of the earlier the book, sometimes the better.