This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/iJB.2ACE/682.1 Message Board Post: I don't know if I can help you but will try. I am the one who prepared the Tippah Co. marriages for use online from marriages originally done by the Tippah Co. Historical and Genealogical Society. I sorted them by both bride and groom in alphabetical order to make it easier to search for a given surname. The numbers such as 1 316 stands for book 1 page 316 where the marriages can be found in the original marriage books. Then there is a B or G to indicate that the record is sorted by Bride or Groom. This was necessary because many records do not have names, just initials so it is not obvious which is the bride and which the groom. I don't doubt that some of these marriages never took place. The groom could have purchased a license and then been turned down. The only ones you can be certain that took place are the ones where the preacher made a return on the license but I believe most did take place. In cases where there is no return the date is the date the license was purcha! sed and the actual marriage was probably a few days later. I don't know why some have no dates but by looking at the original books and finding the date of the marriages before and after that one you could get a good idea of when it took place. I don't know for a fact but would guess that the ones that don't have a day and month were ones where the clerk failed to record them and has nothing to do with weither the marriage took place or not. As for death records there were none back in the 1800's in Tippah County nor in the state for that matter. The closest thing to them are the death notices which are on the Tippah Co. page taken mainly from newspaper articles. Some were taken from probate records. The cemetery records are also online. I hope this helps. Fred