Marriage Bond Mystery

Do you have documents in your genealogy files with incomplete citations. Congratulations if your answer was no!

Unfortunately, I have documents with partial citations. One set of those documents is four marriage bonds involving Crawford family members from Kentucky in the 1790s.

• Mary Crawford consent to marry James Sellers given by Rebekah Crawford on 19 Dec 1791 in Lincoln County, Kentucky witnessed by James Crawford and Wm Sellers
• Bond of James Crawford and Nathan Douglas for the marriage of James Crawford to Martha Night on 12 Mar 1793 in Lincoln County, Kentucky. Consent for the marriage was given by John Goodpastor and witnessed by James Sellers and Samuel Sellers
• Consent of Rebekah Crawford for Sarah Crawford to marry William Sellers on 2 Feb 1796 in Lincoln County, KY witnessed by James Crawford and James Sellers
• Bond by James Crawford and James Sellers for the marriage of James Crawford and Sally Duggins on 12 Sept 1799 in Garrard County, Kentucky

My First Proof Argument

One of this week's 'Finally Get Organized' tasks involved sources, information and evidence. Ever since making the transition from PAF to The Master Genealogist, I've been working with sources. Although many of my source citations pre-date Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills, I have tried to document each piece of information tied to the individuals in my database.

I may also have written a 'genealogical proof argument' during the early days of my research when I wrote the post, 'Untangling the James Crawfords'. Even though I believe what I wrote about the various James Crawford families is accurate, I doubt it would stand up to today's standards.

Thus, when challenged to look at sources, information and evidence this week, I took that as a challenge to improve my skills in hopes of bringing them up to the levels of today's genealogical standards.

With that in mind, I elected to investigate a place instead of a person. The place, Elwood Cemetery (Elwood, Kansas), is tied to one of my ancestors, Albert Hutchinson, in that Find a Grave has Albert Hutchinson buried in this cemetery.

In two separate blog posts, Elwood Cemetery: What is the Evidence and Elwood, Kansas and the Mighty Mo, I believe I've compiled sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that there wasn't a cemetery on the north edge of Elwood, Kansas in 1896.