Treasure Chest Thursday - Post 226: 1861 Marriage Record of "David Smith" and "Abigal Vanse"

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is the 1861 marriage record for my second great-grandparents, "David" Smith (sic) and "Abigal Vanse" (sic):

The transcription of the information in this record is:

1.  Full name of husband:                                        David Smith

2.  Name of father of said husband:                       Ranslow Smith

3.   Name of them other of said husband:              Mary Smith

4.  Occupation of said husband:                              Farmer

5.  Residence of said husband:                                Rolling Prairie Wis

6.  Birthplace of husband:                                       Jeff Co N York

7.  Full name of wife previously to marriage:      Abigal Vause

8.  Name of the father of said wife:                        Samuel    "

9.  Name of the mother of said wife:                     Mary Ann  "

10. The time when the marriage was consummated:  April 4th 1861

11.  The place, town or township and county, 

       where the marriage was consummated:        Rolling Prairie Dodge Co Wis

12.  The color:                                                           White

13.  By what ceremony consummated:                 Judicial

14.  Name of person pronouncing marriage:          E U Baily

15.  Residence of person last named:                      Rolling Prairie

16.  Name of person signing the certificate:           E U Baily

17.  Date of certificate:                                              April 4th 1861

18.  Date of registration:                                           May 2nd 1861

The source citation for this record is (crafted using the "Vital Records (FHL/GSU Film) template in RootsMagic):

Dodge County, Wisconsin, Marriages, 1860-1865, 1842-1852: page 195, David Smith and Abigal Vanse marriage entry; FHL Microfilm US/CAN 1,275,941 (accessed 30 July 2014 by Finn Hansen).

I wrote A Nice Surprise - "David" Smith and Abigail "Vanse" Wisconsin Marriage Record two weeks ago, and noted that the record was on a Family History Library microfilm.

My friend, Finn Hansen, who lives in the Salt Lake City area and visits the Family History Library regularly, emailed me and graciously offered to look up the record for me the next time he visited the FHL.  Finn did the task on 30 July, and immediately sent the record image to me.  He noted that "this record was on the first foot or two of the microfilm reel ... how often does that happen?"

I love it when I get some help from a genealogy friend!  I greatly appreciate Finn's excellent work here, and really enjoy his friendship and our regular contact at Salt Lake City conferences.  I owe him a lunch for this effort!

I debated how to cite this record because the names of both parties are wrong.  I know it's the right people - Devier J. Smith (1839-1894) and Abigail Vaux (1844-1931) - because the names of the parents are correct and the marriage date and place match the Smith Family Bible record I have.  I decided to cite it using the names on the record rather than the correct names.

I wondered in the earlier post if the handwriting was so poor on the record that the FamilySearch indexers may have guessed.  The handwriting on the record above is fairly clear - it is clearly "David" and "Vanse" or "Vause."  There may be the actual certificate given to the happy couple that has poor handwriting that this county recorder copied from.  It may be an inattentive recorder also.  

Since this is a county record taken from some sort of certificate, it is a Derivative Source, with Primary Information and Direct Evidence of the party names, marriage date and place.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/treasure-chest-thursday-post-226-1861.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver