Ruffin Mebane and Cela, marriage registration, 1866

Husband

Ruffin Mebane

Wife

Cela

Registered

4 July 1866

Together since

1836

Record

Orange County Freedmen's Marriage Book (cohabitation register), 1866, page 204

Under a state law of 1866, couples who had lived together as husband and wife while enslaved went before the county clerk or a justice of the peace to register their marriages. This couple told the clerk when their union began.

The names of both partners also link to a search of the earlier records, but a matching first name is not proof that a record names the same person.

Source

• Mark Chilton, Jumped the Broom (Wandering through the NC Piedmont, 2022), his transcription of the Orange County Freedmen’s Marriage Book.