HI Carla , In reading this , I noticed you are researching the Massey line . My maiden name was Massey I descended from John and Lydia Massey who lived in Haywood County. John was a rev war soldier. I believe he was also related to a Hezikiah Massey of Granville county. Does any of this sound familar? Chris Massey McGahee ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carla Tate" <tategenie@hotmail.com> To: <ncwake@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 10:58 AM Subject: Re: [NCWAKE] Wake Co. marriage licenses > > The reason the Archives form probably says they have marriage records up > to > 1868 is that it is not normal for counties to send their actual marriage > licenses after 1868 to the Archives; they usually retain them in the > county. > Laura Riddick, the Wake Co. Register of Deeds, is a former Archives > employee. When she needs space in her office, she send her older stuff to > the Archives, which is just a few blocks away. She has done this with all > the older deedbooks. This is a real problem with the deedbooks, because > the > Archives has had to store them offsite. It took me over a year to get > access to the actual deedbooks, and the microfilm of them at the Archives, > the Family History Center and the Register of Deeds office is unreadable > in > many, many cases. I finally got my favorite archivist to agree for me to > E-mail him with the numbers of the deedbooks I wanted, and he went in his > pickup to the other building (closed to the public), picked them up and > brought them to the Archives for me to transcribe (for my Massey book). I > found that in 98% of the cases I could read the original deeds when I > could > not read the microfilm. > > I did not know that the Register of Deeds office had retained copies of > the > marriage licenses on microfilm and have not seen the microfilm myself. > But > I routinely seek out the original documents anyway beause of the reading > problems mentioned in the previous paragraphs. The original Wake Co. > marriage licenses up through 1930 are now at the Archives (although they > probably aren't for most other counties). These are also probably there > on > microfilm; when the Archives microfilms records I think they usually give > a > microfilm copy to the original office that sent them the records; and I > KNOW > the Family History Library does that. > > One other thing. I have found A FEW marriage licenses listed in the > indices > at the Register of Deeds that do not exist at the Archives (or are grossly > misfiled). (This is not usual.) In most counties where I've researched in > NC, the original marriage licenses are available for anyone to pull in > cabinets, and the Register of Deeds in Franklin Co. has talked to me about > her concern that people will steal the documents (there is no staff > working > in the room where the licenses are stored) or misfile them when they put > them back. I recommended to her that they send them to the Archives where > staff are very careful about keeping control of the documents. The last > time I was there (several months ago), she had not done so. In Franklin > Co. > and in Johnston Co. I have found at last 2 deedbooks that have disappeared > that the Registers did not know were missing. These deedbooks have been > microfilmed, but when the microfilm cannot be read, this is really > disconcerting. > > The Family History Library is in the process of digitizing its microfilm > to > put this stuff online. I hope to see this in my lifetime. > > Carla Tate > > _________________________________________________________________ > PC Magazine's 2007 editors' choice for best Web mail-award-winning Windows > Live Hotmail. > http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_mini_pcmag_0507 > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > NCWAKE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message