Source Information

Ancestry.com. Saline County, Missouri Marriage Index, 1820-1881 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2001.
Original data: Ellsberry, Elizabeth Prather, comp. Saline County, Missouri Marriage Records, 1820-81. Volumes 1-4. Chillicothe, MO, USA: Elizabeth Prather Ellsberry, c1965.

About Saline County, Missouri Marriage Index, 1820-1881

This collection of marriages adds to the growing number of databases in the Ellsberry Collection. The database was compiled by long-time researcher, school teacher, and professional genealogist Elizabeth Prather Ellsberry. It includes more than 4,400 records of marriages performed in Saline County, Missouri between 1820 and 1881. Researchers will find, at a minimum, the names of both bride and groom and the marriage date. Abbreviations used in the database include the following: J.P.=Justice of the Peace; G.M.=Gospel Minister; M.G.=Minister of the Gospel; Jus. S. Co.=Justice of Saline County Court. All persons listed were residents of Saline County and were married in the county, unless otherwise stated.

Ms. Ellsberry began genealogical publication in 1958, when she published her own family history, The Warrens and You. In researching her own family, she found that libraries needed additional information from cemetery records, wills, land records, probate records, census records, etc., to help people with their family history. Ellsberry decided that she wanted to help by publishing books that contained solid genealogical data. She taught school for 34 years, but on weekends and summer vacation, she would travel around to different courthouses and cemeteries, recording the information she found. She also corresponded with several researchers and helped them in their research. Ellsberry self-published more than 300 books, and most of them are available for sale.

Most of the compilation of these books took place between 1958 and into the 1970s, so the recorded information should include the cemetery and/or courthouse records of that time period.

Address:

Ms. Elizabeth Prather Ellsberry
P.O. Box 206
Chillicothe, MO 64601