Title: Restored Hamilton County Marriages 1850-1859

  Indexed by Jeffrey G. Herbert, Hamilton County Chapter, Ohio Genealogical Society, Cincinnati, Ohio 1998.
  Description: 2v, viii, 852 p. ; 28 cm.  ISBN 078841075X
  Cataloging Information:
    Topical subject: Marriage records--Ohio--Cincinnati
    Topical subject: Marriage records--Ohio--Hamilton County
    Geographic term: Cincinnati (Ohio)--Genealogy
    Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton co. Call #: 929.377177 qH536r1, 1998a
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Salt Lake City Family History Library Information: Language English
   FHL US/CAN Call Number: 977.177 V2hj 1850-59 pt.1-2
   FHL US/CAN Film __ Item _
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Includes: an alphabetic index of Grooms (p. 1-__) and alphabetic index to Brides (p. __-__).
Example:
      Abrams, John      Kremling, Mary      18 Jan. 1883      RRR      
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Introduction from published book:

Important Note to Researchers
It is important that the user of this index take a few minutes to read this introduction in order to get the most from this index, and to understand why a name may not be found, or if it is found, where to find additional information.

On 24, March 1884 a great tragedy struck Cincinnati. A riot started that evening in the downtown area and resulted in the burning of the Hamilton County Courthouse. This fire destroyed many of the records that had been kept previously in the courthouse, one of which was marriage license applications and returns. Apparently many of the 'older' records (before 1860) were stored in another part of the courthouse and did not sustain as extensive damage as those from the period 1860 until March 1884, however, the license returns before 1860 have entire month gaps where there are no records surviving.

The reconstructed licenses at the courthouse today for the ten year period from 1850 until 1859 comprise close to 75% of the total licenses applied for during this time period. This index is an attempt to reconstruct as much of that data as possible for the time period from January 1850 until December 1859. This index contains over 30,000 marriages which occurred in Hamilton County during the 1850's.

The primary base of information for this index is the restored marriage license applications and returns that are still available at the Hamilton County, Ohio Courthouse. An additional source of information is the newspaper, Protestantische Zeitblatter, which published some marriages in a few select German Protestant churches starting in January 1853. For this newspaper, the date when the notice appeared is under the 'Date' column, and page number where the license appears is in the 'Code' column.

To try to compensate for some gaps in the restored marriage licenses available at the courthouse, and also to help the researcher locate additional sources of information, church records were checked, when available and permitted, and these are so indicated in the code column. In the cases where the code indicates a church, this is the actual date when the marriage occurred. When the code indicates a newspaper date, this is the date when the marriage license application appeared in the newspaper. In most cases, the marriage occurred within a day or two after the license was received.

The issues of the Protestantische Zeitblatter are located in the Newspaper and Magazine Department of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County located at 8th and Vine Street. Many of the church records as well as the reconstructed marriage licenses have been microfilmed and are available to be ordered at any LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) library. These film numbers are listed on the following pages. Copies of the records from Catholic churches in Hamilton County are located at the Archives of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

There may be a great deal of spelling variations in the way a first or last name may be spelled. This might be due to the 'americanization' of a name after the immigrant lived here for a few years. Also most of the church names where not written in English during this time. All of the German protestant churches kept their records in German and used the old German script style of handwriting, which makes interpretation very difficult. Almost all of the Catholic churches kept their records in Latin. In addition, some common spelling variations to watch for, are the frequent interchangeability of the letters 'C' and 'K' (e.g. Carl/Karl)

The unique German letters and their usual English equivalents are listed below as an aid to the reader. Any unique German letter that was recorded, would be translated as found below.

' ä ' translated into English as 'ae'

' ö ' translated into English as 'oe'

' ü ' translated into English as 'ue'

' ß ' translated into English as 'sz' or 'ss'

Some examples are as follows: (Schäfer = Schaefer), (Schröder = Schroeder) , (Müller = Mueller) , (Bußmann = Bussmann) . Letters with an umlaut are sorted alphabetically* as if they came after the letter 'Z' (i.e. ... u,v,w,x,y,z,ä,ö,ü,ß).

* Note: in the online index, the German letters are sorted with the English.