On March 24, 1884, a great tragedy struck Cincinnati. A riot started that evening in the downtown area and resulted in the burning of the Hamilton County Courthouse. This fire destroyed many of the records in the courthouse, including marriage license applications and returns. Apparently, many of the older records (before 1860) were stored in another part of the courthouse and did not sustain as extensive damage as those from the period 1860 until March 1884; however, the license returns before 1860 have entire month gaps where there are no records surviving, and some records are missing first or last names. Since this index is concerned with the time period before 1850, it is important to note that there were several previous fires that completely or partially destroyed the courthouse.
This index contains almost 23,000 marriages which occurred in Hamilton County before 1850. The primary base of information for this index is the restored marriage license applications and returns that are still available at the Hamilton County Courthouse. To try to compensate for some gaps in those records, and also to help the researcher locate additional sources of information, church records were checked when available and permitted.
Many of the names in church registers were not written in English during this time. All of the German Protestant churches kept their records and used the Old German script style of handwriting, which makes interpretation very difficult. Almost all of the Catholic churches kept their records in Latin.
This index is arranged alphabetically in two sections, first by groom and then by brides.
Jeffrey G. Herbert
(1998, 2007), 2020, 8½x11, paper, alphabetical, 2 vols., 654 pp
ISBN: 9780788410390
101-H1039
