Arkansas Co AR Marriages 1893-1993

Alternate Titles

• Early Arkansas Co AR Marriage Index 1893-1993

Description

Hunting For Bears Genealogy Society collects and maintains large databases of early (predominantly pre 1900) marriage records from all fifty states. We are currently processing these records and will have them on line as soon as they are ready. We do two things with these records: One, we publish these records in County Marriage Record Books, (over 2,000 to date) and on CDs. We no longer publish on microfiche but have a fairly complete inventory of our collection up to 1980. Two, surname searches of these large computer databases have been available to individuals since the late 1960s via the U. S. Postal Service and now e-mail. We search our marriage indexes on a state by state basis and provide the results via e-mail or computer printout. The Hunting For Bears marriage data collection as of about 1980, was the world's largest collection of U.S. marriage records in private hands. Eighteen states of data were availble for surname searches and were offered for sale on CDs in conjunction with Automated Archives(c). Family Tree Maker(c) personal genealogy software bundled the H.F.B. marriage data with their product and sold tens of thousands of the various packages. The H.F.B. marriage data was crucial in making FTM(c) the most popular genealogical software in the world. The same collection was included in Ancestry.com's(c) initial data searches, playing a significant role in its rise to the world's premier genealogy data search engine. That was the 1980 collection, the 2010 collection dwarfs it in comparison. This book is part of that 2010 collection. It is maintained in a data base structure to provide the highest information density. Each marriage is contained in one line. Each party in the union is included in the alphabetical listing. Using the records in a database format and listing both participants in the alphabetical sort was so unique in 1960 that the U.S. Government has granted Hunting For Bears a (c)copyright on the collection in both print and later electronic and microform format. Several things we are considering in the immediate future are; e_books to buy, loan or free downloads, books available through instant publication, and books on line. Oh, the name and logo, Russell, as Nick was called in his youth, loved puns. The newspaper genealogy column that he began writing in 1951, Hunting Your Forebears, quickly became Hunting For Bears and the bear and hunter logo was created. When available, record location information such as county book and page number may be included as well as age, birth or death dates, race, gender and information about prior marriages.

Description

The format for this series of books was designed specifically to address an extreme weakness in genealogical research methodology as it existed in the later half of the last century. The primary component of this solution was an extremely large data base of records which could be accessed via computer instantly to provide location of additional existent and more complete records needed by researchers. Marriage records were uniquely the form of research in need of this additional research methodology. Several barriers to this project will be lost to the fog of history unless mentioned somewhere so here are a few; A few County Clerks were naturally obstinate. The worst two were Parish Clerks in Louisiana, one of Assumption Parish, who would not allow our elderly collection team any access to the records unless they stood at the counter and hand copied the data. The books containing the dates were in a separate book and to see it required an individual retrieval and put back for each marriage. A neighboring parish, Ascension, arrested and prosecuted my wife and I for conducting a legal bingo (the mayor himself had issued the permit) to raise funds to continue the data collection process when the inheritance my parents had left, run out. Another involves an deceitful lady named "Annie" and the Mississippi Genealogy Society who seemed to have no problem with taking the data that HFB had trained and paid teams of reseachers to travel to each local county courthouse, collect the data, process it and publish it. Annie and MGS later publishes it on the internet and locally in print form thereby, negating any chance of recouping any of the expenditure put out in accruing the data. I first became aware of Annie's attitutude toward data colleced at other's expense when I found she had done the same in the LaGenWeb, where we were both web page file managers. Nick and Dorothy Murray had expended tremendous effort establishing directly or indirectly over half of the Genealogy Societies in Mississippi and two-thirds of those in Louisiana, and had trained and hired many of these new enthusiasts as team members in their data gathering project. To have several of these "researchers" betray their friends and mentors in this manner is inexplicable!

Subjects

Series Statement

• One of the HFB Early Arkansas Marriage Series