Apparently my kinfolk decided February 1888 was the time to get a marriage license in Hancock County, Illinois. In fact, three consecutive licenses were issued to my aunts and uncles in the latter part of that month.

• 8967–Feke Johnson (Janssen), sister to my gg-grandfather.
• 8968–Tonjes Goldenstein, brother to another gg-grandfather.
• 8969–Anna Goldenstein, sister to Tonjes and my gg-grandfather.

The Goldenstein siblings were married on the same day (the Sunday after they obtained their license) by the pastor of the Immanuel Lutheran Church south of Carthage, Hancock County, Illinois. The Harberts-Johnson wedding took place in Carthage and was officiated by the pastor of the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Before viewing the records and actually reading them, I used the cover sheet of the returned licenses to create the chart. Of course that cover sheet technically contains secondary information in regards to those dates as the actual date of issuance, marriage, and filing, are on the original record. This cover sheet really is not the actual record.

I had no reason to doubt its accuracy and used it simply because it was easier. The dates were later confirmed with the actual records.

However, if the returned license was missing and this was all that was available, I would indicate that my source was not the actual returned marriage license but was this cover sheet. Sources need to be cited accurately.

When I noticed that the dates of return were different, I speculated that the officiant was not the same for all three marriages. Sure enough the licenses returned on 23 March 1888 were for the marriages officiated by Bernard Geissler and the marriage license returned on 12 March was for a marriage officiated by Conrad Kuhl. If the complete records had not been available the differences in the dates would have suggested a different officiant. Fortunately that sort of speculation was not necessary in this case.

The Goldenstein siblings marrying in Geissler’s church (Immanuel Lutheran) is not surprising given her relationship to the pastor (she was his sister) and the fact that the Goldensteins had a married sister who was living in the area and also attended the church. All four parties to the Goldenstein marriages indicated they were living in Bear Creek Township–close to where Immanuel is located.

The Harbert-Johnson marriage was slightly more of a surprise as I expected that it would have taken place at the Immanuel church as well as Feke had maternal relatives (an uncle and an aunt and their respective families) who were already in the area and attending there. It is possible that she was working as a hired girl in Carthage (the county seat) at the time of her marriage. There were other German families there and work of this type would have been easier to find there than in the predominantly rural area where Immanuel was located.

The proximity of the marriage records is a mere coincidence–except for the Goldenstein ones. The Harberts-Johnson family and the Goldenstein families were not connected to each other in any way until my grandparents married in 1941.

But in reviewing these records I was reminded of the importance of analyzing dates for clues and in not making assumptions.

And in looking at the adjacent records. Always look at the adjacent records.