The first in a series* of posts mining the data found in North Carolina marriage licenses:

• Reka Aldridge‘s father George W. Aldridge was the brother of my great-great-great-grandfather John W. Aldridge.
• Wayne County clerks sometimes listed mothers by maiden name, but more often didn’t. Dora was a Greene.
• I don’t know what black Methodist churches were in Fremont in 1912, but R.R. Grant possibly served Salisbury AME Zion Church. The church is still active, but recently suffered a devastating fire. (Five minutes later: Or not. R.R. Grant appears regularly in the Journal of the North Carolina Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the 1912 city directory for Fremont lists him as Methodist minister. In other words, he and his church were white. Were the Aldridges members? Did they sit in a designated pew? How did that work?)
• Witness Eva Aldridge was the bride’s sister. William J. Boswell appears in the 1910 census of Nahunta township, Wayne County, as a married, 30 year-old house carpenter. Ezekiel B. Bailey, 23, white, appeared in his mother’s household in the same township.

• Robert and Mary Eliza Balkcum Aldridge‘s youngest sons, Robert Jr. and Joseph, married relatively late. Joseph Aldridge was 16 years older than his first wife, Lou Berta Manley.
• Holiness Church.
• Witness Johnnie Aldridge was Joseph’s nephew, son of John W. and Louvicey Artis Aldridge. W.M. Manley was Lou Berta’s father. “Robert Hob” was possibly Robert Hobbs, who appears in the 1910 census of Grantham township, Wayne County, as a 24 year-old farmer.

• William Aldridge was the son of J. Matthew and Catherine Boseman (or Simmons?) Aldridge. His father died in 1868.
• The ceremony took place at Edward Simmons, whose identity is not clear to me.
• Richard Boseman was the son of James and Tempsey Locus Boseman. James Boseman appeared in the household of J. Matthew and Catherine Aldridge in the 1860 census of Buck Swamp, Wayne County. (James may have been Catherine’s brother.) Richard married Lillie Mae Aldridge, Matthew and Catherine’s daughter. Eddie Budd was the son of Haywood and Phereby Simmons Budd. There were several Bryant Simmonses, but this was likely the son (1831-1890) of James and Winnie Medlin Simmons.

• Of course, George Aldridge knew full well who his mother and father were, and both were living when he married Dora Greene in 1884. I see this omission a lot. Laziness or “who cares?” by the Register of Deeds?
• Benjamin F. Aycock was later elected as Republican state senator.
• It’s difficult to read the names of the witnesses, but neither appears to be a known relative of George.

• This is Robert Aldridge Jr.‘s second marriage. His first, to Ransy Pearsall, was in 1903.
• Frank “F.B.” Daniels appears in the 1910 census of Goldsboro, Wayne County, as a 20 year-old white lawyer. George F. Vann appears in the 1910 census of Stony Creek township, Wayne County, as a white, 20 year-old farmer.

*Actually, this languished in the Draft queue for a few weeks, so it’s not first anymore.