Genealogist preserves marriage records

Janet Frey, an employee with the Geneaological Society of Utah, used a digital camera to record marriage licenses from the archive room on the first floor of Bedford County Courthouse. (Photo by Kimberly Warren) [Click to enlarge]

Frey, who lives in Pleasant View, northwest of Nashville, said that the Genealogical Society of Utah works closely with the Tennessee State Library and Archives to preserve fragile historical records. In some states, the society must work with each county individually, but in Tennessee the state helps the process. The Geneaological Society of Utah keeps a copy of the records in a vault and supplies a copy to the state, which in turn makes a copy available for local use, typically in the nearest public library.

The records kept in the courthouse history room are folded and packed tightly into storage drawers, a situation Frey said is less than ideal.

"The records are so tight in the drawer that you tear them getting them in and out," she said.

She said it would be better to store the records in folders -- which would also have made her job easier because it would have provided a visual cue to when one sequence of records ended and another began.

Frey noted the work of county historians Tim and Helen Marsh in extracting information from the records and praised their accomplishments in publishing various books listing such information. One reason she stopped with the 1976 marriage records is that Mrs. Marsh was using the records past that point for a research project, and Frey didn't want to inconvenience her. But Frey said the compilation done by researchers like the Marshes differs from what she and GSU are doing in making a record of the original document itself.

Established in 1894, according to its web site, GSU is "an incorporated, nonprofit educational institution entirely funded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Although Frey is a seven-year employee of the society, some of its work is done by missionary couples.

Mormons have a special interest in genealogy because of their beliefs, but have traditionally been active in cooperating with other researchers and sharing their findings with society as a whole.

GSU maintains the web site familysearch.org, which is a research tool for those attempting to learn more about their family histories. As GSU adds more and more information to familysearch.org, the free site could eventually, said Frey, become more valuable to individuals than for-profit sites like ancestry.com.

The site could even help generate revenue for the local governments which house the records, said Frey. As FamilySearch.org puts more and more indexes of records online, that could direct historical researchers to individual counties looking for the actual records.

Frey said GSU is looking for volunteers to help index some of its records online. The volunteer is e-mailed a batch of records to index and can proceed at their own pace. Several different volunteers are assigned the same records so that their results can be compared and possible errors weeded out.

Frey said she hopes to return to Bedford County for future record preservations projects.