This volume brings together, for the first time, the two types of records which exist for early marriages in Bath County, Kentucky: marriage bonds from 1811 to 1850 and marriage returns from 1811 to 1852. Marriage bonds, in early Kentucky, were roughly equivalent to the modern-day marriage license. They constituted a legally binding contract of marriage, with at least two parties (usually the groom and a male relative of the bride) agreeing to pay a fine if the wedding did not take place. Marriage returns were sent to the county clerk after the wedding by the person who had performed the ceremony. They were entered into the marriage book at the county courthouse. In the early days, after Bath County was formed from Montgomery County in January 1811, there was no standard form for marriage bonds and parental consent; records preserved and microfilmed at the Kentucky State Archives are the individual slips of paper that families sent to the county clerk. The material in this work is alphabetically arranged; an index to buried names and an appendix of Bath County marriages, performed by Rev. J. P. Howe from 1795 to 1826, will help readers in their research.
Paul McClure
(1994), 2015, 8½x11, paper, index, 222 pp.
ISBN: 9781556139529
101-M0952
