When viewing any record or document used in your genealogical research, ask yourself:

how did this information get in this record?

how did this “record” get in the record book?

That’s essentially what we did in our post on the 1830 marriage record from Ohio. But it is what the researcher should do with any record–not just in those instances when there are two copies of the same information. Even though one of the 1830 marriage “records” is a copy, the question of the “original” record is still one the researcher needs to answer.

If you’ve not thought how the various pieces of information came to be in a record, then you’ve probably not fully analyzing it.