Saturday, June 26, 2010

Cass County, Nebraska Marriages now online

I'm very pleased to report that the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society (GOGS) has added a site for Cass County (Nebraska) marriages. Once you click on that link, entries are listed in alphabetical order by surname under "Pages."

Right off the bat, I found an entry for my great-grandfather's brother, William D. Kelly, Jr. and Mary "Mollie" Kelleher, as follows:

KELLY, William D.; 22; md.: Mollie Kealeher; 24; C2 Feb 1885 p 433

Mollie's surname was frequently spelled incorrectly in many records, so the misspelling here is no surprise.

What IS surprising is that the couple also took out a marriage license in neighboring Lancaster county to be married on February 10, 1886 [Lancaster county marriage records, Book 7, Page 5 - Lincoln Lancaster County Genealogical Society searchable database]. That record gives William's age as 23 (a year older) and Mollie's age as 22 (two years younger!).


Clearly, the couple took out a marriage license in both counties. The Cass county index site states, "Our site is merely an index to marriages, and we include those who got a license, but did not actually marry (or at least they didn't return the license to indicate they did".


Had the couple planned to marry in Cass county in February, 1885? Did they actually get married in Lancaster county in February, 1886?

According to his tombstone, their first child, Willie Kelly, was born March 4, 1886 and died December 14 of that year. Did they marry a year before Willie was born or did they marry three weeks before he was born? And if they married in 1885 in Cass county, why did they take out a marriage license in Lancaster county a year later?

It's another family history mystery to be solved, but going back to the original source documents for both marriage licenses may shed some light on the mystery.

As it turned out, William died in 1889 at age 38. Mollie married his brother, Michael C. Kelly, a year and a half later, again in February (February 7, 1901).

I want to thank the diligent people at GOGS for adding Cass county marriages to their ongoing list of projects. In addition to Cass county, the Society also has some online indexes for Hall, Rock, Sarpy, Thurston and Wayne counties, as well as the Omaha death, birth and marriage indexes. Nice job!

2 comments:

  1. I followed the link in the first sentence. It takes me to another blog post. I googled it, fut don't get any hits that fit that of a database. What am I missing?

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  2. Thanks for the comment, Leslie. The database entries on http://cassmarriages.wordpress.com/ are listed under "Pages" and are in alphabetical order. I'm so used to how their pages are organized, I didn't think about it. I apologize for the oversight and will update my original post with that instruction. I appreciate you visiting my blog.

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