Names of Persons for Whom Marriage Licenses were Issued by the Secretary of the Province of New York, Previous to 1784.

Printed by order of Gideon Tucker, Secretary of State.

Albany: Weed, Parsons & Company, 1860.

Not much to look at from the outside. The outer spine is gone, the boards still attached but a bit bowed.

You can still the embossing on the front board, and remnants of the inside leather on the spine.

Someone named Schoonmaker, an old NY name, practiced writing their name.

And some more.

Here we go.

By ordered by Gideon J. Tucker, the secretary of state.

closeup of the engraved arms on the title page.

Before this book, this information was just scattered throughout the state.

The introduction talks about how disorganized getting married could be. Actually, just the license.

Some saw a marriage license as an invasion of privacy.

The list starts with the A's.

A marriage license was issued to Abigail Van Buren and Jacobus Abeel on Oct 14, 1757.

Not much writing in this book, except a few marks in the first few pages. An impatient geneaologist?

I owned the house that had once been the farmstead for Samuel Russell and Margaret Mosher. A bit eerie to see their name here. They were issued a marriage license in Dec. of 1771.

Written upside down in this venerable book, aside from a flourishy, blotty penned "Joseph P. David Accord NY," an incomplete little ditty, possibly Schoonmaker's work.

Last night I was out rather/late twas only an innocent spree/My wife for my comming/did wait while she...