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When posting a marriage bond, one or two men agreed to pay a stated fee to cover the cost of litigation if a pending marriage had to be annulled. |
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Some southern and New England colonies and states required a bond to be posted prior to issuing a marriage license. |
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Anyone could post a marriage bond, but usually the bondsmen were the groom, his father, a relative of the bride, or close friends of the couple. |
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In some locations, the marriage bond was the first of one or two other documents to be recorded. In other places, it became the only document of record. |
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Generally, the marriage took place within a few days of the date recorded on the bond. |
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Not all marriage bonds give the date the marriage took place, but that does not mean the couple didn't marry. |
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In New England, marriage bonds were recorded in the town where the marriage took place. But elsewhere the bonds were recorded in the county. |
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Thousands of volumes of marriage bonds have been microfilmed and several hundred volumes of marriage bonds have been published. The published records can be found among the marriage record collections of libraries throughout the nation. The LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City has the largest collection of microfilmed and published marriage bonds. Microfilmed records can be used at a local LDS Family History Center. |
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