Black Marriages

     At one time the late Barbara Scott, a well known and well respected Black historian, had a list of Black marriages in Gallia County given to her by a friend. They were handwritten and in pencil. Barbara Richards used this list to type and alphabetize those names putting them in a more convenient format. The purpose at the time was to make it easier and faster for Barbara Scott to search the list at the Emancipation Celebration held in the fall of each year.
     As it turns out all of these names are actually found in the Gallia County Genealogical Society, OGS Chapter marriage books compiled by Michael Trowbridge. All Blacks were simply marked with a (C) by his or her name. As the work had already been done to compile them as Black Marriages we decided to place them here thinking they might be convenient for others to browse through.
     As far as we can tell both the man and the woman had a C by their names indicating both were Black or not. It has not been indicated in these records whether there was a C by each name or just by one and/or the other. In other words, there could also have been included interracial marriages and the only way to tell would be to look at the originals.
     There are copies of the originals at the Gallia County Genealogical Society office. Permission to publish these on our website was granted by Dorothy Casey of the John Gee Black Historical Center and also by Barbara Scott’s son, Christian Scott.
     The format on the website includes the groom, bride, date of marriage, the person who performed the marriage, volume and page in which the court record is found and a final page number which is from our marriage abstractions by Michael Trowbridge.

     To access the database click on the Black Marriages link below.