FOUND! Marriage license for Simmin & Mary Drucilla

Actually, it was never lost. Just mislabeled. Mistakes do happen.


There's a wonderful resource at FamilySearch.org called the Historical Record Collection. Here's the URL:


https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/list


If you look under Alabama Marriages, 1816 - 1957, you'll find two marriages in Bibb County listed for our Mister Edins. 


The first marriage for Simon A. Edins was on December 31, 1868, to Lou Barrett. Her full name was Louquincy Barrett, called Lou or Lucy. She was born about 1846 in AL and died between 1870 and 1875. She and Sim had one son, James Blakely, born August 1870 and died March 15, 1888. 


The second marriage for S. A. Edins was on January 29, 1874, and the bride was J. C. Honeycutt. 


HUH???


At first I thought, "Was Simmin married three times, a time I didn't know about???"


My fragrant cousin said, "Nah, it's probably the marriage to Mary Drucilla, but the transcriber made an error. We'll find out when we get to the Bibb County Courthouse."


When we got to the Judge of Probate's office, we made a beeline for the marriage records. Sure enough, she was right—kinda. The CLERK had made an error. The license with its original capitalization reads:


"You are hereby Authorized To celebrate the Rites of Matrimony between S. A. Edins and J. C. Honeycutt..." up top. 


Down below it says:


"Know all Men by these Presents That We, S. A. Edins and J. C. Honeycutt are held and firmly bound {as bondsmen}....to...the Marriage of S. A. Edins and Miss Sillia McGuire..." The date was 26th of "Jany", 1874. 


So not transcriber error, but clerk error. They do happen. Which makes me think that there's an error on Mary Drucilla's death certificate where it says "Georgia Smith" for "Mother" instead of "Britta Ann Green." I hope so. But that's another blog entry entirely!