Perry County, Alabama Marriage Records (1820-1900)

The following compilation of about 13,600 marriages consists of all the listings in Perry County Marriage Books 1820-1832, 1832-1839, 1839-1851, 1851-1863, 1863-1866, 1867-1876, A (1876-1886), B (1886-1894), and D (1894-1900). Book C was skipped by the Probate Office.

In the period 1824-1826, for unknown reasons, a block of about 90 sequential marriage records was not entered by the clerk into Marriage Book 1820-1832, leaving blank pages in their place. By consulting the Marriage License Books for that period, about 90% of these records have been recovered and have been entered into the database. The entries have been italicized for these records.

Like many handwritten documents, the Perry County marriage books are occasionally difficult to read, due primarily to the penmanship of the various county clerks. As a result, "best guesses" of many letters were made, in consultation with the marriage book indexes, and occasionally with census records. The names of the brides and grooms are as was found. No effort was made to correct obvious spelling errors.

Two dates are shown for each marriage. The License date is the date when the Clerk of the Court issued the marriage license. The Marriage date is the date of the actual ceremony. This date was entered into the marriage book under the licensing text by the marriage official (minister, justice of the peace, etc.). The minister had to come to the courthouse to sign the marriage book and indicate the date of the ceremony. Occasionally he failed to do so. This is indicated by the entry (license only). Occasionally the minister signed the marriage book, but failed to indicate the date of the ceremony. This is indicated by the entry (undated). A number of errors in the date entries were noted in which the license date was later than the marriage date, rather than earlier. The result of all these errors is that for many of the marriages of this time period (particularly in the early years) we are not completely sure of the date of the marriage, or whether a marriage was held at all. It should be noted that although most marriages were performed within a week of the license being issued, there were occasionally long gaps (over a year in a few cases) between the issuing of the license and the date of the actual ceremony. After mid-1865, licenses were not individually numbered, therefore page numbers are indicated instead.

After the Civil War, marriages for the former slaves were officially recorded for the first time. Perry County did not maintain racially separate marriage books in the period of this survey (1820-1900).

Please report any significant errors to the compiler (Lee Adair) at: [email protected].

Discount Meridia