I've found MD marriages from as far away as Indiana, Alleghey and Cambria Counties, PA. Your comment of "no wait, no questions asked" is probably more realistic than the issue of money or blood tests. Blood tests and license are fairly recent requirements and Preachers would marry a couple for little or nothing. I always check the birthdate of the first born child against the marriage date of any MD marriages for out-of-staters ;-) ----- Original Message ----- From: <My2greys2@aol.com> To: <WVPRESTO-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: December 15, 2001 2:26 PM Subject: Re: [WV Preston County] Prestonians marrying in Oakland MD | In a message dated 12/15/2001 2:02:33 PM Eastern Standard Time, | Tiggerpunt@aol.com writes: | | | > If any of you are looking for the records of the marriage license of your | > ancestors who you thought may have been married in Preston county, but | > haven't found them yet, Check out the Garrett Co Md Court house. | > Oakland Maryland was and probably still is the marriage capital of the East | > | > Coast and Preston Co WV. There was not a 3 day waiting period or blood | > test | > in the early times, With money be in short supply, most weddings in Preston | > | > Co and the Northern part of WV were performed in Oakland. After 2 years of | > | > searching, I found my grandparents were married in Oakland in 1927. The | > record records the names of the bride and groom, their ages, the towns in | > which they lived and the name of the minister. It did not list the parents | > | > names. | > The B&O train went from various stops in preston co to Oakland. Among them | > | > were Masontown, Kingwood, Tunnelton, Newburg, Rowlesburg and of course | > Terra | > Alta and Aurora. | > | | Hi, fellow listers! | | I can testify to this! My maternal grandparents were from Lewis County, WV | and after looking for the place of their marriage for five years, I was about | to give up! I had seen somewhere that a lot of people went over the state | line to Oakland, MD to marry so on a whim I called Garrett County and guess | what!? They had my grandparent's marriage recorded there! Since then I have | found many of my Lewis County ancestors marrying in Garrett County! My guess | is that as long as there was a train a betrothed couple could hop from their | town of residence that got them up to Oakland in a day, they took advantage | of the no-wait period and no-questions asked procedure! So from now on, when | I can't find a marriage taking place in a particular county, I automatically | go to Garrett County and most times I get lucky! Also, just as a note, I | have been told that often people from Virginia, Pennsylvania, and all over | Maryland, went to Garrett County to marry. | | Merry Christmas everyone! | Claudia Pell-Salvatore in Northern Kentucky | | | ==== WVPRESTO Mailing List ==== | Social Security Death Index Interactive Search | http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/ | | ============================== | To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: | http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 | |