Perry County, Alabama Marriage Records (1820-1876)

The following compilation of about 6,000 marriages consist of all the listings in Perry County Marriage Books 1820-1832, 1832-1839, 1839-1851, 1851-1863, 1863-1866, and 1867-1876.

Like many handwritten documents, the Perry Co., Alabama 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. 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 between the former slaves were officially recorded for the first time. Perry County did not maintain racially separate marriage books in the period 1865-1876.

                              Husbands   Wives

                                 A - B       A - B

                                 C - D       C - D

                                 E - G       E - G

                                 H - K       H - K

                                 L - M      L - M

                                 N - R       N - R

                                 S - T        S - T

                                 U - Z       U - Z

 

 

To make this site as accurate as possible, please report any serious errors to the compiler (Lee Adair) at: [email protected]