CHEROKEE CO., NORTH CAROLINA
MARRIAGES THROUGH 1905
1906 - 1930
Abstracts by: Joy Locke
Please send corrections to me.
MARRIAGES THROUGH 1905
I have done this project because of the many connections between Monroe County, Tn and Cherokee Co., NC. NAMES
MARRIAGES 1906 - 1930 NAMES
Many thanks to my friend Judy for the loan of her microfilm on Cherokee Marriages.
These are the books covered:
Cherokee Marriage Register-White-1869-1902
I couldn’t find the books at the Cherokee Co. Courthouse, perhaps they’re being kept in the NC Archives. I listed many names with no returns. So after the year I typed “lic. date” for actual license date. I have no idea if they actually married or not.
Cherokee Marriage Register-Colored 1871-1906
Cherokee Marriage Register-Colored and White 1872-1939
I used a combination of several sources. The “Southwestern N.C. Gen. Soc. Quarterly”. Also the list they have of some marriages found in the NC Archives. Mostly I used the above microfilm. I found many discrepancies between the sources so I chose the information on the film. I also used census and death cert. information from Ancestry.com to confirm some names. The Quarterly marriages missed several years in the 1880s as well as others. I also went to the court house in Murphy to look at the loose marriages for those years previous to 1869. The Cherokee County Courthouse burned during the Civil War period losing their records. I was puzzled by the ones the Quarterly gave that were before that period. I viewed the records and realized some people came to the courthouse and re-registered their marriages. It would have as an example: John Doe married Jane Doe ca 1845, then dated it in 1866. Maybe for purposes of pensions some did this.
If given more time perhaps I could have gotten so much more from these loose records. They often included parents’ names. The loose records are so fragile! I wish they could be preserved and filmed for future use. A few of the ones in the Register book included the information on parents, so you will see those. I have added ages where there weren’t any given before in the Quarterly. There were actually a few marriage bonds with the groom shown but an empty place for the bride’s name.
A few years back I did short abstracts from Bob Barker Civil War Research that he abstracted mostly from Union pensions from soldiers who served in South-east Tenn. and Western NC. They are a great source. In those papers were many marriages for Cherokee Co. I added those marriages to this book putting a single “*” next to the names to denote the source as Bob Barker’s abstracts. I only used the ones not found in the film nor the courthouse. I put two “**” next to names from the few loose marriages found in the NC Archives. There weren’t too many by the time I eliminated like names.
I use “?” marks when I simply wasn’t sure. Here are some abbreviations after the names:
C – Colored
B – Black
Y – Yellow
Ind. – Indian
M – Mulatto
These are the books covered:
Cherokee Marriage Register-Colored and White 1872-1939
Cherokee County Marriage Register 1872 - 1967
I couldn’t find the books at the Cherokee Co. Courthouse, perhaps they’re being kept in the NC Archives. I listed many names with no returns. So after the year I typed “iss. date” for actual license date. I have no idea if they actually married or not.
I used a combination of several sources. I found many discrepancies between the register books. Any time you transfer information from one register book to another there will be mistakes. There’s another set they use in the court house also. Many of the names were different as well as marriage dates. I used census and death cert. information from Ancestry.com to confirm some names. Even ages following names were off so I usually put it as such: 30/34. In a few cases the groom’s name was totally different. In the notes column I put the other marriage date. This was a really frustrating project. The reason I bought the next register on film was because I realized many marriages weren’t in the earlier book for the 1920s. My recommendation is to get copies of the original loose marriage records at the court house or order them from the NC Archives, who has them on film. If you can correct me on any of these please do so.
I use “?” marks when I simply wasn’t sure. Here are some abbreviations after the names:
C – Colored
Ind. – Indian