Indiana Marriage Collection, 1800-1941

DESCRIPTION:

This database is a collection of Indiana marriage indexes covering various years and counties. To see specifically what is included in this database (counties and years covered), please see the bottom of this page. This collection is comprised of indexes created by two agencies - the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Jordan Dodd of Liahona Research (who extracted information from records on microfilm at the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah). Information contained in these indexes includes:

• Spouses' names
  
• Marriage date
  
• Marriage county
  
• Source information
  

For the source information you will see either "Works Progress Administration" or, "Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah" (for entries created by Jordan Dodd). If available, a microfilm number is provided for records from the FHL. Likewise, the WPA entries provide original record locations, as well as book information (title, volume, page number), useful for finding individuals in the printed versions of the WPA indexes.

Note: You may find duplicate records of the same marriage in this database, with the only difference being the source. These records were not removed because Ancestry.com wanted to provide the most amount of information about a marriage to the customer.

History of Marriage Records in Indiana: Marriage licenses became mandatory in 1800. Beginning with the formation of each respective county to the present, the county clerk's office has issued and kept marriage licenses and certificates. Both marriage transcripts (1882) and marriage applications, beginning in 1906 (with additional family information), may have been used in various counties. Prior to 1940 it was necessary for a couple to obtain a license from the county in which the female resided. If an ancestor's marriage record cannot be located in Indiana, check the Cincinnati marriage records. Cincinnati was a "Gretna Green" (no-questions-asked marriage locale) for Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.

About the WPA Records: The WPA began to index vital records, county-by-county for the entire state of Indiana, but the agency was abolished before the indexing was completed. The WPA index includes marriages for eighty-six of the ninety-two Indiana counties.

About the FHL Records: The marriage date provide in these entries is usually the date of marriage as given in the original entry. However, when no marriage date is given (e.g., the "marriage return" was not provided to the record keeper), the date of the license is used. In a few cases, a marriage will be listed twice, but in two different counties. This most often happened when a couple obtained a license in one county, but were actually married in another.

Counties and Years:

This list shows the counties and corresponding year ranges in which the majority of the records included in this database fall. You will occasionally find records for other years not listed here. These other years may be typos, or there just may not be very many marriages for those years and counties represented in this database and therefore, are not included in this list.