HI Sandra and I have one marriage that we can't believe didn't get filed. It was likely Tempie Howard's father married her as Michael Howard was a JP and married several other of his relatives, including his sons. We are sure they were married because they feature in church records after that time, in Houston Co. I feel if they hadn't married they would have been shunned. Is this marriage certificate likely to have been a loose paper not filed or pehaps just missed when they did the Marriage books. It was likely this marriage was prior to 1868. I guess we are lucky that we have found so many of the other dates and information. Billy, Thanks for the information, Gaila snip Prior to the GA Code of around 1868, most GA counties kept their marriage records in no particular uniform arrangement. However, after 1868 and the Reconstruction Period, things started to fit a particular pattern of order. Starting in the early 1900s, there was a detailed marriage application to fill out prior to marriage. This gave the names of the parents, where they were born, how old they were, etc. These records are locked in a long storage room in the basement of the courthouse.