Wyandotte County, KS Historical Museum

Researching at Local Repositories

Wyandotte County Historical Museum, Bonner Springs, KS

It’s not often that a county museum Wyandotte County Historical Museum holds the original marriage license and marriage affidavits.  But, the Wyandotte County Historical Museum  is the repository of the Kansas City, Kansas marriage records as well as other towns within Wyandotte County.

Recently when looking for a marriage record you can probably imagine my surprise when I received a negative response from the County Court House, the Kansas Historical Society in Topeka, and the Kansas Room of the Main Library in my attempt to locate these original records.  My last resort was to check the Trowbridge Research Library at the Wyandotte County Historical Museum located in Bonner Springs, Ks.

Being familiar with local repositories is always a plus; and having researched at the Trowbridge Research Library before, reminded me that they had a few original records plus cemetery records and newspapers from the 1860s.  I’ve also referenced their index of wills, and tax rolls which span from 1869-1905.  But, what about marriage records?  Could there be a chance that original marriage records were also archived in the small cramped research space of the Museum?

Trowbridge Research Library

Having already exhausted the well preserved ledgers of indexed marriage records at the Wyandotte County Courthouse, it was clear they did not house the original applications and affidavits, with the intimate details.  These were held at the Wyandotte County Historical Museum not indexed or alphabetized) from before the 1860s. These marriage records are surprisingly well preserved with the full affidavit and relevant marriage license in tact.

Kathleen Brandt

a3Genealogy@gmail.com
accurate, accessible answers

(This is an updated article of same name dated 2 Jul 2010).