[or-roots] researching statewide marriage returns

[SAWYER Layne G]

OR-Rooters,

Here is the second post from the series appearing on Oregon State Archives Facebook account

RESEARCHING MARRIAGE RECORDS IN THE OREGON STATE ARCHIVES - PART 2

Statewide marriage returns are marriage records that were created by the state's Health Division. They used a standard form that was filled out based on information provided by the county (usually the county clerk's office) after the marriage had taken place. The Archives has two chronological sets of marriage returns:  a small set that spans the years 1906-1910; and a larger set that spans the years 1946-1965. Each calendar year the next year is released, so the 1966 marriage returns will be available to researchers in January 2017.

MARRIAGE RETURNS, 1906-1910

This smaller set of marriage returns includes statewide marriages for this five year period.  It's been our experience that this set of returns does not reflect a total and complete record of Oregon's marriages during these years.  It's likely that some marriage documents were not provided to the state by the counties.  It's also possible some marriage returns were lost by the Health Division at some point in the past. Nonetheless this represents the largest collection of early statewide marriages on record for Oregon.  Today's image shows a typical marriage return record from this record series.

The nice thing about these records is that they provide a place to record information such as the bride and groom's occupations; birthplaces of the bride and groom as well as their parents; the person's race (stated as "color"); and the number of marriages for each person.   This information was not typically recorded on the counties 'records of marriage, so these records can be valuable to a family history researcher; plus, researching in these records is easy!  Simply search the Oregon Historical Records Index (http://genealogy.state.or.us) on our web site, as all of these records have been fully indexed and are part of that searchable database.

TOMORROW:  Statewide marriage returns for the years 1946-1965, and how to request copies of marriage return records from the Archives.

Again I apologize for not being able to include the images but hopefully you will glean some useful information and perhaps decide to check out our Facebook page.

Layne Sawyer
List Mom
Oregon State Archives


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