Pat, The information for John and Ruth Ann Coggburn Stephens' marriage came from the 1870 census; as well as mortalities, those who'd been married less than a year from the date of census had to be recorded by the census taker. That source should be listed at my GEDCOM, too (3rd link below my signature). Since those records before 1885 are gone, unless someone has a copy of the license tucked into a family Bible somewhere, there's probably no way of knowing how many marriages Thomas actually performed. One collateral line of my family had a lay minister who performed marriages, and I guess they've got a list which he kept in a book. (I've not seen it) Which is one big reason why old books are worth going through, even if they aren't worth much money-wise. Lots of people stuck important family papers in them. V ListMom for MO-AR-WRV http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~moarwrv/ http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gregvonda/ http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/~vondak/