Katherine, May I have a marriage bond lookup please for Marmaduke D. MITCHELL b. c1782 and Mary Bradley Tupple/Tuttle b.c1787 m. c1800-1810. Thank you. Steven -------------- Original message -------------- From: BenbowKD@aol.com > I did receive one image yesterday, so maybe there are a few more out there. > > Meanwhile, judging by one response, perhaps I was too specific, and confused > people in the process. I want to make dead-sure we're all on the same page > here. > > I don't have immediate access to the bond images themselves, as the bonds > themselves are located two hours away in Raleigh. I live an hour away from > Guilford, and I also work. I'd love to spend a day every week in the NC > Archives -- nothing would make me happier -- but that's not possible. So, in > the > meantime, while we accumulate more bond images, I will list the personal data > from the bond, according to the various abstracts I have on hand. That will > allow us to build a list of online data, while still working to acquire > images for as many of these bonds as possible. But abstracts can be wrong. > One > of the reasons to acquire the images is to be aware of the variations, such as > the clerk's spelling of a surname one way, and the groom's spelling of it > another way. Or whether the groom signed with an "X." That tells you > something important about the groom. It's always better to view the actual > bond (or > any other document) or an image of it. > > There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of marriage bonds for Guilford > County. Some people may have assumed I was going to obtain and post all > these images myself. I really do wish I could do that for all of you. But I > won't live long enough to do that, although I do come from a long-lived > Scots-Irish family, whose members stay active and live at home -- and often die > there > -- into their 90's and 100's. Besides, I do have my own family research to > do, in my few leisure hours. And we all have brick walls to work on. > > If I don't have a personal family interest in getting a particular bond > image myself the next time I go to Raleigh, the person requesting a look-up -- > if > that person wants to do so -- can pursue the matter in one of a few > different ways. Rick Saunders has offered to obtain digital images at a > reduced cost > if someone makes a contribution to GCGS. That's due in large part to his > generosity, and also to the fact that I don't want this project to hurt their > revenues. Rick lives and works in Salt Lake City, and can obtain digital > images very easily and inexpensively from the microfilm at the Family History > Center. Or you can travel to Raleigh yourself, and view your ancestor's bond > in person, and obtain a digital image or photocopy. I've done that, and a > color digital image shows all the wonderful color tones of the paper and the > ink. Or you can find a researcher based in Raleigh and ask them to obtain the > desired image for you, whether color digital image or photocopy. Whatever you > do, I would appreciate your submitting the image, or a scan of it, to go > along with the basic information we have on the website. See the earlier e-mail > for details on file size, etc. > > All I'm trying to do here is find a way to improve the availability of > marriage bond information, and I also want to improve the quality of the > available > data, by creating a way to post the actual images on the website. Images of > documents signed by your ancestors are important in a number of different > ways, including the fact that you can compare handwriting from one document to > another to see if your John Smith on the marriage bond is the same John Smith > who signed some other document. Never be satisfied with an abstract when > the original document still exists. > > Questions, anyone? So, I will look up and post the data for one couple per > person. I also urge you to go beyond that and obtain the image for a > particular bond by whatever means you prefer, and then submit it to Guilford > County > NCGenWeb, in order to help your cousins out there. > > Merry Christmas! I'm off from work today, and I need to go start vacuuming. > > > > Katherine Dick Benbow > County Coordinator, Guilford County NCGenWeb > _http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncguilfo/index.html_ > (http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncguilfo/) > > > > **************************************See AOL's top rated recipes > (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004) > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > NCGUILFO-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in > the subject and the body of the message