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| Green Berry and Caroline Hicks Jowers, my paternal great grandparents |
Sometimes in this family history journey I'm on, surprises pop up and a typical response is "What in the world!" This happened to me last week.
I'm taking a genealogy class at my local community college in Murphy. It's called "Searching for Your Family History on the Internet." It's the third time I've taken the class, and no, I didn't fail the first two times. There is always something new to learn. Websites add more records and information. New websites appear. Also, each time I've been at a different place in my research and knowledge, and what I heard a time or two before is finally getting through.
The class topic was the website FamilySearch.org. The instructor used Alabama, County Marriages, 1809-1950 (among others) to demonstrate how to search/find information on FamilySearch. I used that opportunity to search in class for marriage records for Green Berry Jowers and Caroline Hicks, my paternal great grandparents. I can tell you I was super excited when this time I found photos of the actual records. I downloaded the images right there in class to look at later when I got home. However, what I found when I looked more closely was a bit disconcerting. Check out the images below to see if you can find my concern.
I already had a transcribed index with marriage information I copied a few years ago. Green Berry was transcribed incorrectly.
Name: Grancerry Jowers
Spouse: Caroline Hicks
Marriage Date: 20 Feb 1864
County: Barbour
State: Alabama
Performed By
Title:
Judge of Probate
Performed by
Name:
J S Williams
Source
information:
Jordan Dodd, Liahona Research
© 2011, The Generations Network, Inc.
Alabama Marriage Collection, 1800-1969
Source Information:
Ancestry.com. Alabama Marriage Collection, 1800-1969 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations
Inc, 2006.
Original data:
Alabama Center for Health Statistics. Alabama Marriage Index, 1936-1969. Alabama Center for Health
Statistics, Montgomery, Alabama.
Dodd, Jordan R., et. al. Early American Marriages: Alabama to 1825. Bountiful, UT: Precision Indexing
Publishers, 19xx.
Hunting For Bears, comp. Alabama marriage information taken from county courthouse records. Many of these
records were extracted from copies of the original records in microfilm, microfiche, or book format, located at
the Family History Library.
Dodd, Jordan R., comp. Early American Marriages: Alabama, 1800 to 1920.
Description:
This database contains marriage information from selected areas of Alabama from 1800-1973.
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| Barbour County, AL Marriage Index - Green Berry Jowers and Caroline Hicks are on the left side page, third from the bottom |
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| Marriage License - Green Berry Jowers and Caroline Hicks are on the bottom right page |
Can you see why I'm a bit concerned? Did you notice on both records that no marriage date is recorded??? What in the world is that all about? It looks like I've got some digging to do to find out if/when they got married. Personally, I think it's just a matter of when. Just another mystery to try to solve.
An added note of interest, the Barbour County, AL Marriage Index also has other Jowers men listed: Berry Jowers/Emma Stricklin (1888, Berry is Green Berry's son), Hilliard Jowers/Sarah F. Gary (1867, Green Berry's brother), H. N. Jowers/Sarah Williams (Green Berry's brother). I don't know the relationship to the other Jowers men listed.
