Wedding Wednesday - William Washer and Ida Sharp, 1876 - Part 2

On returning to Kentucky after completing their marriage vows in Illinois^[1], William and Ida Washer were required to register their marriage in Livingston County^[2]. This requirement generated a one line entry in the marriage registry for Livingston County, Kentucky in 1876^[3]. An extract of that data follows:

Date of Marriage	Aug 19, 1876
Groom's Name.	William P. Washer
His Residence.	Livingston Co. Ky.
His age.	21
No. of his marriage, 1st, 2d, or 3d, &tc.	1
His Occupation.	Farmer
Place of Birth of Groom.	Ala.
Place of Birth of Groom's father.	Tenn.
Place of Birth of Groom's mother.	Ala.
Bride's Name.	Ida B. Sharp
Her Residence.	Livingston Co. Ky.
Her age.	15
No. of her marriage, 1st, 2d, or 3d, &tc.	1
Place of Birth of Bride.	Ill.
Place of Birth of Bride's father.	Pa.
Place of Birth of Bride's mother.	Ky.
Place of Marriage.	Golconda, Ill.
Remarks.

Commentary:

The 1876 Livingston County marriage register consists of two pages^[4] and lists 76 couples who married within the year. The entries are not sorted by date and appear to all be handwritten by the same person. At the end of the list, the county clerk added his signature:

"A Copy Attest
John L. Vick clerk
Livingston County Court Ky."

There is a discrepancy between the Illinois marriage license and the Kentucky marriage register regarding the marriage date. The August 19 date from the register is probably a copy error and the July 19 date on the Illinois marriage license, affidavit and certification, is the correct date.

There is also a discrepancy regarding Ida's age at the time she married. It was reported as 16 in Illinois and 15 in Kentucky. Ida had to affirm her age as 16 with an affidavit and a witness under Illinois law. By Kentucky law^[5], a marriage valid in another state was accepted as valid in Kentucky. The marriage did need to be recorded in Kentucky but for that her age was not a consideration. Since she wasn't concerned about meeting a minimum age requirement, it is likely that Ida supplied her actual age, 15.

The marriage register entry tells us that William P. Washer was a farmer. That detail was not recorded on the 1880 U.S. census for W.P. Washer^[6], perhaps because neither William or Ida were directly queried by the enumerator. That occupation is also consistent with the debt of three land notes he owed to his father-in-law in 1884^[7].

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1. Pope County, Illinois, Marriage Book D: 26, license 994, William P. Washer and Ida B. Sharp, 1876, marriage affidavit, license and certification; County Clerk's Office, Golconda. [See Wedding Wednesday - William Washer and Ida Sharp, 1876 - Part 1] ^↩
2. Bullock, Edward I., et al., compilers, The General Statutes of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, (Frankfort, Kentucky: S. I. M. Major, Public Printer, 1873), p. 517, Ch. 52, "Husband and Wife," art. 1, §13; digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com: accessed 22 October 2014). ["The certificate shall be filed in the clerk's office ..."] ^↩
3. Livingston County, Kentucky, Marriage Records, unpaginated register, 1876, William Washer-Ida Sharp; digital images, "Kentucky, Marriage Records, 1852-1914," Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 21 October 2014), image 11; citing Kentucky Birth, Marriage and Death Records (1852-1910), Microfilm rolls #994027-994058, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort. ^↩
4. Ibid., images 11-12. ^↩
5. Bullock, Edward I., et al., comps., The General Statutes of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, p. 515, Ch. 52, art. 1, §6; ["If valid in another state, then valid here."] ^↩
6. 1880 US. census, Livingston County, Kentucky, population schedule, Carrsville Mag. Dist. #5, enumeration district (ED) 84, p. 375D (stamped), p. 24 (penned), dwelling 208, family 208, W. P. Washer household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 November 2012); citing National Archives micro-film publication T9, roll 429.
[See Census Sunday - W. P. Washer household, 1880 U.S. Census, Livingston Co., KY] ^↩
7. Livingston County, Kentucky, Will Book C:92-93, William C. Sharp will, 2 June 1884; recorded 7 April 1885; County Clerk, Smithland.
[See William C. Sharp's will, 1884, Livingston Co., KY] ^↩