Marriage Abstracts

Acadia Parish marriage records date back to the founding of the parish in 1887. The Society first published their cross-reference index of marriage licenses around 1997 and donated the books to the Acadia Parish Library. In 2005 the Acadia Parish Marriage License Index was published in five volumes. Each volume was divided in two parts, containing similar information in both parts.

Part I is sequenced alphabetically by the prospective groom's name and provides the license date and number, the name of the prospective bride, and, if applicable, the book and page where the information is recorded.

Part II provides the same information, but is sequenced alphabetically by name of the prospective bride.

Volumes I through V of the Index included listings of records from the following periods:

Volume I (1889-1930), containing index of 13,670 records, pub. August 2005
Volume II (1931-1950), containing index of 11,303 records
Volume III (1951-1970), containing index of 10,349 records, pub. October 2005
Volume IV (1971-1990), containing index of 9,732 records, pub. October 2005
Volume V (1991-2004), containing index of 6,996 records, pub. October 2005

The Index was the first step in developing our series on Acadia Parish Marriage Abstracts. Also during 2005, our volunteer Susie FAUL, in her work of abstracting funeral records, began abstracting marriage information from records held by the Acadia Parish Clerk of Court. Through her persistent efforts, by November 2006 we were able to publish our first volume and our list has grown, as follows:

I (1887-1900), containing 2,311 abstracts, published November 2006
II (1901-1910), containing 3,076 abstracts, published February 2007
III (1911-1915), containing 1,691 abstracts, published April 2007
IV (1916-1920), containing 2,235 abstracts, published May 2007
V (1921-1925), containing 2,186 abstracts, published June 2007
VI (1926-1930), containing 2,156 abstracts, published August 2007
VII (1931-1935), containing 2,339 abstracts, published May 2009
VIII (1936-1940), containing 2,755 abstracts, published August 2009
IX (1941-1945), containing 2,823 abstracts, published November 2009
X (1946-1950), containing 3,374 abstracts, published December 2009

Earlier court records contained less data, but as the years rolled by more information was collected by the Clerk of Court. We tried to record and publish a sizeable portion of the available information.

Abstracts are arranged sequentially by Marriage License Number and are in chronological sequence, for the most part. From time-to-time the license date may not fall squarely in sequence with the license number assigned. To aid your research, each volume includes an index that cross-references the named bride and groom to the applicable license number. We have attempted to provide the following information, if included in the source record:

License Number, Date and Location (Book and Page) of License
Names and Ages of Groom and Bride
Residence of Groom and Bride (typically, the parish/county and State)
Names and Residences (typically, the parish/county and State) of Parents
Date and Place of Marriage
Name and Title of Official presiding over the marriage
Names of Witnesses to the marriage
Remarks (typically, others signing for the bride/groom, names of others named in the document; or, the fact that the actual license could not be located by the abstractor.

Note also that, in many cases, an "(X)" may appear after some names to identify those people who made their mark in lieu of a signature.

These unofficial abstracts have been assembled as an aid to family historians researching Acadia Parish families. If you have any other purpose for researching this information (e.g., legal research), you are encouraged to pursue your search through official sources, (i.e., the Acadia Parish Clerk of Court).

In using this information, keep in mind that the License Date is the date that the license was issued, not the Date of Marriage; and, not all licenses resulted in a marriage. Typically, the marriage would have taken place within 30 days of the license being issued. Also, in some cases the abstractor was unable to locate a completed marriage license. While there is a possibility that there was no marriage, we recommend that, at this point, the researcher assume the document was misfiled and not readily available to our abstractor.

While court records are public records, the right to inspect, examine or copy them is governed by law. Should this index identify a document of potential interest, you are encouraged to contact the Office of the Acadia Parish Clerk of Court to determine availability and associated costs of providing copies of the document. Contact information is, as follows:

Acadia Parish Clerk of Court
P.O. Box 922
500 North Parkerson Ave.
Crowley, LA 70527-0922
Phone: (337) 788-8881

CORRECTION OF ERRORS

We have tried to accurately translate and/or transcribe the information to the database. Should you find a reference to a document of interest, we highly recommend that the data presented here be verified against the official records held by the Clerk of Court. If you find an error in the index, please let us know so that we can note the correction.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are thankful to Robert "Robby" BAROUSSE -- Clerk of Court for Acadia Parish- and his staff for their cooperation and support in allowing us access to this information. Without their support, this series of abstracts would not have come together as it did. Of course, all the access in the world is of little value without the support of at least one volunteer willing to dedicate their time, energy and other resources needed to abstract the records. That lone volunteer is Susie FAUL who has, once again, single-handedly undertaken this enormous task and is in the process of transcribing records for future volumes.

We also thank our Society volunteers: A. P. "Red" QUEBODEAUX for his work on editing the database and for the book layout; and, Thelma RICHARD for her work with coordinating printing requirements, book sales and related inventory. As always, we appreciate the cooperative relationship we have maintained with the leadership and staff of the Acadia Parish Library, to whom we have donated copies of this book for use by library patrons.