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