Choice of Wedding Venue

Microfiche copied at The New York State Archives in Albany

The entry for this marriage is interesting.  This is the New York State Marriage Index for 1938.  New York City maintained its own records at this period of time (and still today).  Yet the marriage of Joseph Leary to Regina Engman was recorded at the state level with New York City as the location.

Also note that this is an unfortunate indexing system for marriages, especially because you do not have quick access to the actual marriage certificates.  Only one party to the marriage is listed.  You can order the certificate for a fee and wait to see who the other person is.  Otherwise, you need to know the last name of the other person in order to verify that you have the correct people.  In this particular situation, I had the name Joseph Leary, son of Jacob Leary and Mary Sanderson.

1940 United States Federal Census
Ossining, Westchester County, New York
Ancestry.com

Jacob was 23 years old in 1940.  His wife, Regina, was 25, and they had a one year old child.  So we would look for a marriage from 1940 backwards.  December 4, 1938 fits well for this time frame.  The index entry for this marriage does not provide us with the name of Joseph's bride.  We only have Regina's first name from the 1940 census.  So how did I find Regina's corresponding entry?

I found Joseph Leary's exact day of birth in the New York State Birth Index:  February 2, 1917.  I plugged this date into my Family Tree Maker software.  Up pounced new, little, shaking leaves.  I found a family tree giving Regina's last name as Engman.  I located a Regina Engman in the index with the same date of marriage, location, and certificate number as Joseph Leary.  A match!

Then I sprinkled that family tree online with the exact date of marriage and the certificate number.