Erie County Marriage Records at the BECPL

Introduction

The Grosvenor Room at the Central Library in downtown Buffalo has a collection of microfilmed marriage records spanning the years 1837-1935. These records can be in several forms: Certificates, affadavits, returns, and register entries. Certificates of consent may also be found in these rolls.

Scrolling through these film rolls can be a slow, tedious process. As I do not have a lot of time to spend when I go to the downtown library, pre-planning to optimize my time there can yield great returns in just a few hours. In fact, I sometimes plan for two trips: One to find record numbers in the index lists, and a second trip to find the actual records.

I've found a USB flash drive to be invaluable. It's much faster to scan pages of interest and read them later at home than to take the time to transcribe them using pen and paper in the library. I also use an electronic notpad on my phone to hold my current "to do" list. I can carry it back and forth between the drawers of film and the microfilm readers, and it's easy to make corrections or add information to the list.

Index to Marriage Records

These film rolls are the place to start. What I do is make a list of all the marriage records I want to find, sorted first by date and then alphabetically by last name (for both bride and groom). Using the table below, I split the list by roll. Searching the same roll for multiple names is a great time saver; if I have to load the same roll more than once, I feel I've done it wrong.

For each person I find, I record the volume and record number. I have also found it useful to record information for people with similar spellings or for a person with the name I'm searching for but with a different spouse.

By the way, for rolls 1 and 2 the justice of the peace records appear to have been written in later, using available empty space between the original 1877-1894 records. Search carefully when looking for those, as they can be scattered.

Marriage Records

After I've collected my list of marriage record numbers from the index rolls, I sort them by date, volume, and record number. This will again allow me to be efficient by not having to load the same roll twice. Then, it's just a matter of finding the correct roll and scrolling through it. I'm always careful to watch for volume changes in a roll as I'm scrolling; it's annoying to find record #347 and then realize it's from the wrong volume.

Please note that I have not double-checked the information in these lists to make sure they are accurate, so there may be errors in here.

Marriage Records (1837 - 1897):

Rolls 20-22 below partially overlap rolls 23-42 in the next group, so be sure to check those as well.

Marriage Certificates (Aug 1877 - Apr 1915):

Some of the register entries in this group for the years 1908-1915 will have matching records in the next set of rolls, as rolls 60-85 below partially overlap rolls 86-93 in the next group, so be sure to check those as well.

Marriage Records (Jan 1908 - Jul 1926):

Some of the register entries in this group for the years 1908-1915 will have matching records in the previous set of rolls, as rolls 86-93 below partially overlap rolls 60-85 above, so be sure to check those as well.

Marriage Licenses (Jul 1926 - Sep 1935):

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