After a long hiatus, Kentucky Genealogy is back on the Internet. (I made the mistake of opting for a long-term contract with my web site host, and by the time renewal came up, I'd changed my e-mail address and never got the notice..) Anyway, we're back. Kentucky Genealogy is a mostly fee-based web site, at www.sworrel.org <http://www.sworrel.org/> , that contains several complete, professionally abstracted Kentucky marriage databases with an automatic Soundex conversion search feature. Marriage databases are available for the following counties, from their formation up to 1850: Boone, Campbell, Clark, Kenton, and Mason. Also some marriages from ministers' returns for unknown counties are included. These are the most complete and authoritative abstracts of marriages from these counties ever done: they contain information not only from the bonds, licenses, and ministers' "returns," but from "consents" filed by parents or relatives, where available (see "FAQ"). In some cases, the databases contain over 1,000 more marriages than previous compilations. The civil records have been supplemented by some religious records where the latter contain new marriages for a given county. Unlike some other genealogy databases, you don't have to know the exact spelling of a name to retrieve it: an automatic Soundex conversion searches for common variants. (This is important because the county court clerks often spelled names phonetically.) The databases make the marriage records fully searchable with one click-for all occurrences of a name, not just the bride, groom, or bondsman. Free lists of the most common surnames in each database are on the site, along with free detailed information on the documentary sources used. Additional free records abstracts for Boone County are posted on the site as well. I am occasionally available for genealogy research commissions in the central and northern Kentucky area. If you are interested, contact me via the site's e-mail address in the navigation bars. Again, it's at www.sworrel.org <http://www.sworrel.org/> .

Hundreds of hours of work have already gone into the Mason Co. marriage records. The transcribed Mason Co. marriage records are already online (free) at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~kymason/table.html We've got 1789-1892 available. Most of the work was done by Gail Childress over many years. I helped rework the data so that it could be put online and Marla polished it and posted it. Kathy -----Original Message----- From: swworrel [mailto:swworrel@cox.net] Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 4:42 PM To: KYMASON-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [KYMASON-L] Mason County Marriages After a long hiatus, Kentucky Genealogy is back on the Internet. (I made the mistake of opting for a long-term contract with my web site host, and by the time renewal came up, I'd changed my e-mail address and never got the notice..) Anyway, we're back. Kentucky Genealogy is a mostly fee-based web site, at www.sworrel.org <http://www.sworrel.org/> , that contains several complete, professionally abstracted Kentucky marriage databases with an automatic Soundex conversion search feature. Marriage databases are available for the following counties, from their formation up to 1850: Boone, Campbell, Clark, Kenton, and Mason. Also some marriages from ministers' returns for unknown counties are included. These are the most complete and authoritative abstracts of marriages from these counties ever done: they contain information not only from the bonds, licenses, and ministers' "returns," but from "consents" filed by parents or relatives, where available (see "FAQ"). In some cases, the databases contain over 1,000 more marriages than previous compilations. The civil records have been supplemented by some religious records where the latter contain new marriages for a given county. Unlike some other genealogy databases, you don't have to know the exact spelling of a name to retrieve it: an automatic Soundex conversion searches for common variants. (This is important because the county court clerks often spelled names phonetically.) The databases make the marriage records fully searchable with one click-for all occurrences of a name, not just the bride, groom, or bondsman. Free lists of the most common surnames in each database are on the site, along with free detailed information on the documentary sources used. Additional free records abstracts for Boone County are posted on the site as well. I am occasionally available for genealogy research commissions in the central and northern Kentucky area. If you are interested, contact me via the site's e-mail address in the navigation bars. Again, it's at www.sworrel.org <http://www.sworrel.org/> . ==== KYMASON Mailing List ==== Search this list's archived messages! http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl

Gail, Kathy, and Marla, you guys are the best! Thank you so much for your hard work on our behalf! Your efforts are greatly appreciated! Kathy Hines <khines1@qwest.net> wrote: Hundreds of hours of work have already gone into the Mason Co. marriage records. The transcribed Mason Co. marriage records are already online (free) at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~kymason/table.html We've got 1789-1892 available. Most of the work was done by Gail Childress over many years. I helped rework the data so that it could be put online and Marla polished it and posted it. Kathy .·:*¨¨*:·.~* Elizabeth *~.·:*¨¨*:·.

And a fine job it appears to be. Unfortunately I was doing my compilation at about the same time and originally made it available around the end of 2003. One of the problems with internet information, especially in genealogy, is that the source of the information is often not given. Thus a researcher is not able to find the abstracted information to verify and assess it himself. I presume your information is from the loose papers and books at the court house, which is fine, except that often papers, and even whole books, have disappeared over the years from Kentucky court houses. I've found that sometimes the missing information was captured in the early Mormon microfilms before it "walked off." (I don't recall that being an issue with Mason, but I'd have to check.) My sources are carefully spelled out and annotated on my web site and are reproduced below, FYI. Your compilation does not distinguish between bond and marriage dates, nor does it identify the minister when there is a marriage date; a minor issue, but most people would prefer to have the actual marriage date where available and even sometimes find the religious denomination of the minister that married their ancestors. Other advantages of my database are that all occurrences of a name can be searched in one operation for the entire period until 1850, and my Soundex search system will capture some variant spellings that otherwise might be missed, since clerks in the early days often spelled the names of their illiterate customers phonetically (using vowels that were often pretty much interchangeable). In no way do I mean to denigrate your work, particularly since I know how much time it took. And you cover a longer time span than I do, to 1892. But I think potential users should have all the facts when they decide whether or not to use my compilation in addition to yours. By the way, I don't know if you has a hand in it, but the reconfigured Mason GenWeb site is one of the best and most user-friendly I've seen for Kentucky. Mason County Sources The following KDLA microfilms [and county records] were used in compiling the Mason County database: Reel 281840 "Marriage Bonds." Filmed in Maysville, Kentucky, in July-August 1962 by the "Genealogical Society of Utah." Arranged by year (with rare errors) starting with 1789, and ending with 1805. [1795 is missing entirely from Researchers abstracts] This and the following three films contain images of the original bonds, consents, and some licenses and returns that were housed at the clerk's office as of April 2003 in looseleaf binders, arranged by year. The clerk's looseleaf collection of marriages extends to 1860. The papers are arranged by year, with an inaccurate bride/groom index preceding each year that was apparently done by the Limestone NSDAR chapter. Over the years, some of the inaccuracies have been corrected by hand. Reel 281841 "Marriage Bonds." Filmed in Maysville, Kentucky, in July-August 1962, by the "Genealogical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah." Arranged by year, (with rare errors), starting with 1806, and ending with 1819. [Many 1812 and most 1813 marriages are missing from Researchers abstracts.] Preprinted bonds begin in late 1816. Reel 28142 "Marriage Bonds." Filmed in Maysville, KY, in August 1962 by the "Genealogical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah." Arranged by year, starting with 1820, although a number of returns from later years precede the 1820 bonds. Returned to some handwritten bonds in 1821. (The first woman bondsman in appears in 1821.) Some returns began being noted on licenses in 1835. Ends with 1837. Reel 281843 "Marriage Bonds." Filmed in Maysville, KY, in August 1962 by the "Genealogical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah." Arranged by year, starting with 1838. Between 1842 & 1843 are a few documents from earlier--1796, 1797, 1822, etc. Ends with 1851. Reel 989240, "General Index to Marriages, Vol. 1, chronological order," was filmed in Maysville on 21 September 1978 by KDLA. It contains about 160 pages, including blank pages. First comes a marriage register of returns by ministers, transcribed into a book, starting with 1790. Alternate pages contain bride and groom names, followed by the minister and date. The first page of ministers and dates has no corresponding names. Some pages are out of order. For many early returns, no corresponding bonds were found, a somewhat unusual state of affairs. The early marriage register ends with about 1822. (This volume is bound, with pages in mylar sheets, in the records room in the clerk's office entitled "Index to Marriages 1" as of April 2003. The corresponding returns themselves are in a loose-leaf binder titled "Minister Returns from 1789 to 1836" and indexed in a separate loose-leaf binder titled "Index, Minister Returns from 1789 to 1836." The latter contains bride and groom names and date.) Then on reel 989240 comes the "General Index to Marriages, Vol. 1A, Chronological Order," which in fact is in alphabetical order--at least by first letter of the surname, and then by date, and covers marriages from 1800 through 1910, although there is a gap between the earliest and about 1820. It contains 336 large pages, including blanks. The "General Index" contains bride & groom names, the marriage date, and the name of the minister who performed the ceremony. One or two pages of "E's" appear to be missing [prior to internal page 84]. (This volume as in the clerk's office bound as "Index to Marriages 1A Mason County" as of April 2003.) Then on reel 989240 comes "Record of Marriages No. 2, Mason County, Ky," which begins with 1911 and extends to about 1933, in the same format, viz., groom's name, bride's name, date of marriage, and by whom married, in alphabetical order by first letter of last name, then chronological. At the end of this reel is "Record of Marriages No. 3, Mason County, KY," a typewritten list in the same format that covers marriages from about 1934 to 1949. At the very end, the list starts over again with "A's" from 1934. It was not determined if the records at the very end were additional records, or simply copies of the earlier ones. Reel 281849 from KDLA contains "Mason County, Ky. Marriage Bonds, Copied by Limestone Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution." Filmed in Maysville, KY, in August 1962 by the "Genealogical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah." Typewritten (some pages in faint type), in chronological order by year, then alphabetically by groom. There are no page numbers. It begins with a note that says "1789 ----- through 1805" [1805 scratched out and 1810 substituted in pencil]. There is no indication when the DAR list was prepared. A note on p.11 says "These are all the bonds [6 in number] for 1794, evidently there are many more, but these are all in the Court-house for that year." [There are 32 marriages in the Mason database for 1794.] Some years are duplicated in the film. Some consent witnesses were omitted in the compilation. Marriages without bonds are not recorded, i.e., those from returns only, with few exceptions. In later years, marriage dates are sometimes given. After the 1845 entries, there is a note that the 1846 through 1852 bonds are next, although the microfilm ends with the 1847 entries and says "to be continued." On each page of the DAR compilation, one marriage was checked in the database as a sample, to see if the DAR list contained any additional marriages, perhaps from papers later lost. No additional marriages were found. A slightly different list was found in the clerk's office in April 2003: it indexed the bond books in 2 vols (1789-1834 & 1835-60), but contains only the bride and groom names and the page number of each year's bond book (above. NOTE: African-American marriages for 1866-1976 were compiled and published in 2002 by Caroline R. Miller for the National Underground Railroad Museum in Maysville under the title "African-American Marriages Mason County, KY," vols. I & II. DATE OF INFORMATION: 2003 -----Original Message----- From: Kathy Hines [mailto:khines1@qwest.net] Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 6:02 PM To: KYMASON-L@rootsweb.com Subject: RE: [KYMASON-L] Mason County Marriages Hundreds of hours of work have already gone into the Mason Co. marriage records. The transcribed Mason Co. marriage records are already online (free) at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~kymason/table.html We've got 1789-1892 available. Most of the work was done by Gail Childress over many years. I helped rework the data so that it could be put online and Marla polished it and posted it. Kathy -----Original Message----- From: swworrel [mailto:swworrel@cox.net] Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 4:42 PM To: KYMASON-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [KYMASON-L] Mason County Marriages After a long hiatus, Kentucky Genealogy is back on the Internet. (I made the mistake of opting for a long-term contract with my web site host, and by the time renewal came up, I'd changed my e-mail address and never got the notice..) Anyway, we're back. Kentucky Genealogy is a mostly fee-based web site, at www.sworrel.org <http://www.sworrel.org/> , that contains several complete, professionally abstracted Kentucky marriage databases with an automatic Soundex conversion search feature. Marriage databases are available for the following counties, from their formation up to 1850: Boone, Campbell, Clark, Kenton, and Mason. Also some marriages from ministers' returns for unknown counties are included. These are the most complete and authoritative abstracts of marriages from these counties ever done: they contain information not only from the bonds, licenses, and ministers' "returns," but from "consents" filed by parents or relatives, where available (see "FAQ"). In some cases, the databases contain over 1,000 more marriages than previous compilations. The civil records have been supplemented by some religious records where the latter contain new marriages for a given county. Unlike some other genealogy databases, you don't have to know the exact spelling of a name to retrieve it: an automatic Soundex conversion searches for common variants. (This is important because the county court clerks often spelled names phonetically.) The databases make the marriage records fully searchable with one click-for all occurrences of a name, not just the bride, groom, or bondsman. Free lists of the most common surnames in each database are on the site, along with free detailed information on the documentary sources used. Additional free records abstracts for Boone County are posted on the site as well. I am occasionally available for genealogy research commissions in the central and northern Kentucky area. If you are interested, contact me via the site's e-mail address in the navigation bars. Again, it's at www.sworrel.org <http://www.sworrel.org/> . ==== KYMASON Mailing List ==== Search this list's archived messages! http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl