Vital Records

Vital Records are things such as birth dates, death dates, marriage dates and other life milestones. I already knew how many children George and Mary Ann had, along with their names and dates of birth. I eventually found their death dates, however I didn't have their marriage date. I couldn't find theirs, however I did find George's parents, George and Julia's, wedding date. They were married in April of 1850. I found George's parents names through a 1900 Federal Census record. His father, George S Sparks, was born in December of 1824 and married Julia U, born in July of 1830. She was the mother of 12, however only two survived. In 1900, George H(son) was no longer living with them. I found information on Mary Ann through this census record as well, telling me she was born in April of 1861 and was widowed at this point. So, George somehow died in between the 1890 and 1900 census's. The information my grandmother gave me says he died in 1896 so it makes sense. I found that Mary Ann could read and write and was still working on the farm with her five children.

Although I couldn't find a wedding date for George and Mary Ann or George's cause of early death, I did find information on his parents as well as his wife. I also found some film numbers that could lead me to their wedding date which were from church records in Queen Anne's county. The majority of my family that lives in Kent or Queen Anne's county is Methodist or Catholic so I would assume that George H and Mary Ann would have been married in a church. The film numbers I found were the following:

Church records for the Eastern Shore of Maryland
1. FHL US/CAN Film 13149

Loan records from the 1800’s
2. FHL US/CAN Film 1605394

Catholic Church Records
3. FHL US/CAN Film 2070867 Items 8-10

If I wanted to order these records from the state of Maryland I would have to order most of them through Church Diocese Archives in Baltimore, Maryland. However, the Genealogical Society of Utah has some of the film in Salt Lake. Vital Records were recorded on a state level in 1860 and 1880.