What is the recording date on United States Marriage Certificates?

Ammon Jared Wolfert

Hey folks,

I'm branching out and helping some local institutions with som of their native indexing projects. I've been working on Marriage Certificates from the 1940's and they would like me to include something called the "Recording Date". At first I thought that was pretty clear but after looking at several images, I'm uncertain if this refers to the date the judge or minister recorded the information (e.g. WITNESS MY HAND this _____ day of ______ A.D. 19__) or in fact the date the record was filed for record (e.g. Filed for record ______ day of ______ A.D. 19__). I've attached an example for clarity.

Is the Recording Date the "26th of July" or the "14th of August"?

I'm working with the "Scribe" Indexing Platform for the Washington State Archives (https://scribe.digitalarchives.wa.gov/#) and they don't seem to have all the nice helpful features of Family Search Indexing so I've been unable to find an answer on-site, or get in contact with the provided support email address, so I thought I'd ask you friendly folks if you have any wisedom.

Thanks!

genthusiast

Both dates are recording dates (dates the certificate was written on) - but THE Recording date (as far as I know) is the date the jurisdictional official (recorder/deputy of county/province) recorded the record officially into the jurisdictional record collection (usually after the event date). So in this example - that means "14th of August". For genealogical purposes the date of event (in this case marriage "26th of July") is most important - but the jurisdictional recorded date ("14th of August") may be interesting to some.

Comment: I like the Alert tab idea. I assume that could have various options of getting Project Admin to respond to - or at least notify of - certain issues.

AndLinda

@Ammon Jared Wolfert , I agree with genthusiast that it is the 14th of August. The 26th of July is a Witness date at the time the document was filled out with the contracting parties. So on the form it asks for the "Recording date," which would be on the document as "Filed for Record," which is the 14th of August. Easier to remember sometimes when using the similar words of "Recording" and "Record".

It is always harder to answer questions unless we can have a batch number so we can also look at instructions and examples. Thank you so much for inquiring! It helps us all.

LarryClark43

It appears to me that July 26 is the Marriage date " joined in lawful wedlock" , so you would also have a date for the Marriage Date field.

Ammon Jared Wolfert

https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/427680#Comment_427680

That makes it pretty clear, thanks a ton! Also I just got my response from their support team and they are indeed looking for the date the record was filed. Thanks again all for the quick replies 👍️.