<< Message Board Post: I am trying to find the location of Samuel and Jessie's marriage. I have them getting married 30 July 1916; Location UNKNOWN. I believe their marriage was in Arkansas because their first child Samuel Herman Akin was born 04 March 1917 in Fort Smith. Also both Samuel and Jessie were born and raised in the Saline Co. area. If any could help me locating official documents on their marriage I would be forever greatfull. Reply: Marriage records for the Fort Smith District of Sebastian County, Arkansas have the entry pasted below for what I believe to be the people in your query. The date in this record entry is a bit hard to read in the format shown of yearmonthday all in one string of numbers, but it reads that their Date of Marriage was July 3, 1915. My source for this information is the web site for the Fort Smith (Arkansas) public library (_www.fortsmithlibrary.org_ (http://www.fortsmithlibrary.org/) ). No special codes or library card is needed for access. After accessing the library site, do the following to access the specific record for your individuals: From the home page menu at the top of the page ---> pick tab for Genealogy ---> pick tab for Indexes ---> pick tab for Sebastian County marriage records ---> pick tab for search ---> go down to grooms name and using the picker box, pick the choice "equals" and enter the surname AKIN ---> pick the tab "start search" to generate the alphabetized list of AKIN grooms. At the left side of the list, you can select the hot link beside the proper line to see/capture the specific record (line No. 11) that I have pasted below. The public library's records were taken directly from the records of the Sebastian County, Arkansas county clerk's office. Be aware that Sebastian County, Arkansas has two county seats (and thus two record districts), those being FORT SMITH (which is the one you want for this marriage record and if you need to make specific documentation of your source location) and GREENWOOD. I believe I am correct in remembering that the original (handwritten) marriage records (certificate style paperwork) are on microfilm at the library, but don't have any more information on them than what is in the electronic index available online. Yet one reason for looking at the original document on microfilm, rather than the index, might be if a name or something was badly corrupted, misspelled or letters transposed (say ATKIN for AKIN), as a few errors may have been made in the manual transcription of the records to the marriage database online. Should you have other queries for this location, notice there are some years of Fort Smith birth, death and cemetery records available in the same group of online indexes. 1915 Year Fort Smith County District O Book 4601 Page HOWARD, JESSIE Bride Name 23 Bride Age AKIN, SAM Groom Name 24 Groom Age 19150703 Date of Marriage P. C. FISHER Officiant ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com