There is no available record of that event. How many times have you requested a record from a county clerk, state archive or national archive and received the above response? There are any number of reasons and here are the usual culprits that I've come across. In the reasons shown substitute a year value for "yyyy." For xxxxxx substitute marriage, death, birth or divorce as needed. 1. There are no records prior to "yyyy" because of a fire, flood, storm or some other natural calamity. 2. All xxxxxx records prior to "yyyy" were destroyed in "yyyy" due to lack of storage space. 3. The xxxxxx event didn't occur in that jurisdiction. 4. The jurisdiction wasn't required to record xxxxxx event prior to "yyyy." 5. Marriages are a bit more confusing. A. The marriage normally took place in the bride's home or church and is normally recorded in that county. The couple then spent the rest of their life and raised their family in another county. B. One or both were underage, and the parents were opposed to the marriage. So they went to a nearby community in another state where they were over the age of consent and were married there. Case in point, my great-grandmother was fifteen going on sixteen, and her father had already said that he wouldn't agree to her marriage. So she and my great-grandfather went to Jellico and were married in Tennessee, the marriage bond is in the courthouse in Campbell County. If my Grandmother hadn't told me the story I would have never thought to look in Tennessee for their marriage. C. Many states recognized "Common Law" marriages. There is no place that I'm familiar with that requires registration of "Common Law" marriages. D. The marriage was performed by a circuit riding minister/preacher who for whatever reason failed to properly record the marriage in the correct jurisdiction. Surely is cornfusing ain't it? Sonny Managing the MCFADDEN and KARR mail lists on RootsWeb, the KARR and MCFADDEN query boards for GenConnect and subscribing to the VAUGHN, HILL, DAVIS, WRIGHT, COOK, GUY surname lists plus the KNOX, LAUREL, LETCHER, BREATHIT and WHITLEY County lists of RootsWeb. Personal web site: s-vaughn.com At the bottom of the page click on the "Kinfolks" button. On the insuing page click on "Continue." On the following page click on any family button that is of interest to you. E-mail to: sonny.vaughn@verizon.net or: sv@s-vaughn.com