ATTENTION ALL MICHIGAN RESEARCHERS

As posted yesterday, today was my birthday. To celebrate, we had a large family gathering at my uncle's house. My grandfather's younger sister (my great-aunt), Eva, was there, and I asked her where she got married. I noticed the last time I was at the St. Clair County Courthouse in Michigan that I had found most of her siblings' marriage records, including my grandfather's marriage to his second wife, but I had never found Aunt Eva's marriage record. She said that she and Uncle Karl had gone down to Angola, Steuben County, Indiana, to get married because they did not have to wait there to get married. They could get the marriage license and get married all in one day. Uncle Karl was working seven days a week at that time, so they did not have a lot of time. Based on their ages, I'm assuming this was in the early 1950's (forgot to ask the date). But this struck a bell. I remembered that my great-grandaunt, Alvina Florence Pemberton, had married her second husband, Arnold Frederick Distelrath, in Angola on 21 Jan 1956. I would not think this so strange if Angola were right on the border of St. Clair County, but it is several hours away. Then I found this article on the Albion, Michigan, website, which confirmed what my Aunt Eva said about couples flocking there to get married because of the no-wait marriage laws. I also know that my Uncle Jim's mother, Christine Elizabeth Chatterson, married her second husband, George Edward Mason, in South Bend, Saint Joseph, Indiana, on 21 Apr 1954. According to usmarriagelaws.com, the whole state of Indiana has no waiting period.

The point of this is that if you have Michigan ancestors and have exhausted your search for their marriage record in Michigan, maybe it is worth checking out the Indiana border counties. The border counties are LaPorte, St. Joseph, Elkhart, Lagrange, and Steuben. I'm not exactly sure how long the no-wait law has been in effect, but according to the Albion, Michigan, article, it was in effect at least as early as the 1930s.