About the marriage records

What you’ll find

This index brings together:

• 8,762 marriage bonds, dating from the 1780s to 1868.
• 5,662 marriage licenses, dating from 1867 to 1912.
• 78 additional marriages known only from notices in the Hillsborough Recorder.

The bonds and licenses were recorded in the Orange Marriage Books held by the Orange County Register of Deeds. You can search for a marriage under either the groom’s or the bride’s surname.

Our sources

The bonds and licenses were indexed from Mark Chilton’s transcriptions of the marriage books, published on his blog, Wandering through the NC Piedmont:

• Marriage Records of Orange County, North Carolina, 1780–1868
• Marriage Records of Orange County, North Carolina, 1867–1911

Each entry includes the marriage book and page Chilton cites. His notes are not reproduced here, but when he identifies a related Recorder notice, the entry links to that newspaper issue.

We also compared the bonds, entry by entry, with three other published transcriptions:

• Frances T. Ingmire’s Orange County, North Carolina Marriage Records, 1782–1868.
• Brent H. Holcomb’s Marriages of Orange County, North Carolina, 1779–1868 (1983).
• Betty Mayes’s USGenWeb Archives transcriptions (1998), preserved through the Internet Archive.

When these sources differ on a name or date, the entry shows the alternative readings. We have not reproduced their narrative text or silently corrected one source to agree with another. Consult the original record to investigate a difference.

The newspaper entries come from our own reading of the Hillsborough Recorder, 1820–1879, through DigitalNC. Some notices are difficult to read in the scans, so each entry links to the newspaper page. When a notice appears to describe an indexed marriage but gives different names, the connection is marked as probable.

Finding the original records

At Orange County Public Library: The Wall Local History Collection has State Archives microfilm of the original bonds, arranged by the groom’s surname across ten reels, numbered 60002–60011. Marriage records for 1851–1866 and registers for 1867–1872 are on reel 60001. Licenses are on reels 60003 and 62001–62004. Each index entry identifies the relevant reel.

On FamilySearch: A State Archives abstract lists the bondsmen and witnesses for each bond. North Carolina Historical Commission staff and National Youth Administration workers prepared the abstract in the 1930s; the Genealogical Society of Utah typed it in 1936. Each bond entry links to the FamilySearch page where its abstract is expected to appear.

FamilySearch’s North Carolina, County Marriages collection also includes indexed bonds and licenses with images. Each entry links to a search for the couple. A free account is required to view images.

At the Register of Deeds: The Orange County Register of Deeds holds the marriage books. Its online marriage index begins in 1940.

Using the index

A bond does not prove that a wedding took place. It documents the couple’s intention to marry, backed by a bondsman’s financial guarantee that there was no legal impediment. When a marriage book, register or newspaper notice gives a wedding date, the entry identifies it separately.

The surviving records are incomplete. Couples could marry by banns without obtaining a bond, and some bonds have been lost. A marriage may have taken place even if you cannot find it here.

Try different spellings. Names follow the spellings recorded in the marriage books. The same person may appear under several spellings, while two entries for someone named John Thompson may refer to different people.

For bondsmen and witnesses, consult the source. Their names are not included in this index. Look for them on the original bond, its microfilm image or the State Archives abstract.

Cohabitation registrations are indexed separately. Marriages registered in 1866 by couples formerly enslaved appear in the records of enslaved people.

Found a possible misreading? Let us know.

Search the marriage records →