Marriage Records - A Source of Genealogical Research

By John Harvey

In the last few years, many people have become interested in researching their families and family history.

Quite often members of our historical society will get letters asking for information on the marriages of an ancestor married in Jasper County in the early 1800's. As our county was part of Baldwin County from 1802 to 1807, marriage records for these years would have to be traced in Baldwin County records.

While tracing one of these marriages, the question came up as to when the first marriage was officially performed in our county. Our county was officially created on December 10, 1807. The first ledger of recorded marriages begins on Jan 1, 1808.

As the justices of the peace usually waited until they had occasion to go to the county seat to record marriages, they had performed, this also applied to ministers, they usually had a number of marriages to record. This also means that marriages were not recorded alphabetically as they are today.

On the very first page of the ledger the first marriage recorded is that of John Waldrop to Elizabeth Barnes. This marriage was performed on the ninth day of June 1808 by Gilbert T. T. Barron, J.P., and witnessed by John Collier, clerk of court. The question then is whether this was the first marriage. On page 10 of the ledger is recorded what appears to be the first marriage. There in a group of marriages performed by Justice of the Peace, William Silmon, was the following: "I did unite in the bonds of Holy Matrimony, David Duke and Rebecca Bonner on the 5th day of January, 1808. William Silmon, J.P., Witness: John Collier, Clerk of Court".

Apparently, William Silmon was J. P. in the northern part of the county around Newborn, Farrar and Broughton. (This part of the county was given to Newton Count in 1821 and then later returned to Jasper County.) He recorded this marriage along with some twelve to fourteen marriages he performed between March and June.

Records of early land sales for the northern part of the county show the sale of land by members of both Duke and Bonner families. Records of Hopewell Church show members of the Duke family as members of the church.

Names of the judges, justices of the peace, and ministers who recorded these early marriages read like a history of our county. Ministers of the Gospel included Isham Birch, David Montgomery, Stephen Noble and Michael Durr. Clerks of Court were John Collier, Solomon Stricklin, and Thomas Glozier. Judge of the Superior Court was Johnson Strong. Justices of the Peace were Gilbert T. T. Baron, Charles C. Cargile, Zephaniah Harvey, Peter Tom Gautier, John Zachury, William Silmon, William Scott, C. Cothran, Luke Williams, Avington Williams, Josiah Carr, William Green, Jarrel Beasley and J. H. Slaughter, all served in the years 1808 - 1814.

This was a period of great movement of people into the new lands just given over to Georgia by the Indians, so many of the Justices probably served a short time and then moved on to other areas across the south. Many of the families passing through our county eventually moved on to Arkansas and Texas.

In some cases, there were marriages between second and third cousins and on rare occasions, there was the marriage of first cousins. This is perhaps understandable when we realize that often there were few who were available for marriage on the frontier.

Additional Comments:
Transcribed by Suzanne Forte (suzanneforte@bellsouth.net) April 2005, from copies of articles contained in the Monticello News. There articles were prepared by Mr.
John Harvey and published in this newspaper during the 1970's and 1980's time frame. Some were under the title "Jasper Reflections", others "Bicentennial Bits".
Permission has been granted by Mr. Harvey for use of these very valuable and informative articles.

Copies of articles provided by Benny Hawthorne.