APG-L Archives

Archiver > APG > 2006-03 > 1143581003


From: "Mills" <>
Subject: RE: [APG] how to indicate marriage license contains error
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:23:23 -0600
In-Reply-To: <44280FAC.10532.1C87516@localhost>


Fred wrote:
Marriage license states
>The State of Alabama, Jefferson County.
"This certifies that I have solemnized Marriage between
Mr. [name] and M [name] according to law, at Fairfax in
said County and state, on the _____ day of [month]
193_."
>The town of Fairfax is not in Jefferson County, AL.

Fred, are you looking at the original marriage license? Or a recorded copy?
Or a certificate someone filled in, copying info from the recorded copy of
the original? Or an abstract someone has published or circulated or put
online?

Considering the blanks you left in the above extract of the document, there
would appear to be some difficulties in reading the script. If you are
indeed examining a photocopy of the original, could it possibly be
FairFIELD--a well-known Jefferson County site?

According to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (http://geonames.usgs.gov/)
the only "Fairfax" sites ever identified for Alabama are all in Chambers
County. As others have pointed out, that is nowhere near Jefferson County,
so we're not dealing with a county-boundary change (which you also should
not be dealing with anyway amid research in the 1930s).

The GNIS data for Alabama was compiled by W. Craig Remington, Cartographic
Research Laboratory Director at the University of Alabama. It's hard to find
an Alabama site that Remington missed. (Indeed, he is so good at identifying
historic sites that he has done much of the GNIS work for other states as
well.)

Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
Tuscaloosa, Alabama




This thread: