US Marriage registration records, how to find what they contain ?

[OnDoutside]

I've been doing some amateur sleuthing for people over the years, and the biggest issue I find is finding what these marriage records actually contain. Most cases on places like Ancestry, I only see that a couple were married on such a date, but nothing else about the marriage license. Is there a site where I could see this information. In Ireland, they have scanned most of the marriage registration records, so it's a bit easier to piece things together like this

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1874/11233/8118382.pdf

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Not on point to your inquiry, but marriage records gave me invaluable information.

I found my paternal grandfather registered twice within three years to marry two different women. At first, I guessed he was a bigamist. But he broke off the engagement to marry my grandmother. Since was 1904, the jilted bride sued him for Broken Promise, to the tune of $264,000+ in today's dollars. (It was 1904, and it created a scandal, making the jilted bride unmarriageable.) The registrations got me so far, and newspapers.com took me the rest of the way.

[OnDoutside]

2. That IS a cool story ! Every family needs (and probably has) some story like that :) Actually re OP

I did find something through familysearch.org and it gives everything I could hope for.

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/How_to_Find_Massachusetts_Marriage_Records

eg https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N4F6-CK2

[wnylib]

3. Yeah, after considerable searching

in every possible location, my aunt and I concluded that one set of my great-great grandparents never did marry. They had 3 children, then split up (no divorce record), and each went on to a different partner (again, no marriage record).

Explains why my great-grandfather had his mother's maiden name.

Shacking-up in the 19th century! Wonder why they never made it legal.

[OnDoutside]

4. I wonder would be that there were so many people flooding into an area, that a couple could just say

they were married and people wouldn't know not to believe them ?

[wnylib]

5. They had a small farm in northwestern PA.

My great grandfather was their first child, born in 1877.