Category: Carman line

Database Updates January 2020

Updates for both Conrad-Todd-Garrison-Carman and Flenards in New Jersey databases. Ancestry.com had a half-price sale on subscriptions, so I’ve been busy.

98 people added or updated in the Conrad-Todd-Garrison-Carman database:

22 people added or updated in the Flenards in New Jersey database:

On this day: Orville Garrison & Naomi Carman wed

Marriage license of OW Garrison & NE Carman
My grandparents’ Elkton Marriage License (click to view full size)

On July 24, 1937, my grandparents Orville W. Garrison & Naomi E. Carman were married in Elkton, Maryland. My grandmother told me this, but unfortunately I did not know enough about Elkton to ask for more of the story. It turns out that Elkton was known as the place Philadelphians went to when they eloped or otherwise wanted a quick marriage. Unlike neighboring states, Maryland did not have a waiting period for marriage at the time.

The Boundary Stones blog has a brief overview of Elkton as the place for quickie marriages. According to that article “couples didn’t have to wait to use their marriage license in Maryland, but they did have to have a church service as part of the ceremony,” which might explain why my (as far as I know) irreligious grandparents were married by a Baptist minister. (My grandfather’s family were mostly Methodists. My grandmother’s were a mish-mash of various Protestant denominations, none of which were Baptist, and Catholics.)

I do know that my grandparents had waited to get married because they had both been out of work due to the Depression. So, perhaps after they got jobs, they just couldn’t wait? I do know it was not a “shotgun wedding,” as my mother was born a little less than a year later. It was also not due to the rashness of youth as described in the blog article above. My grandmother was 32 and my grandfather was 29, both had worked since adolescence and my grandfather had already been out west and returned, so they were not young people “first experiencing freedom.” I will probably never know why my grandparents ran off to Elkton to get married instead of waiting 48 hours to get married in Philadelphia, but it’s interesting to know they were a part of east coast history.

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Sources:

Maryland. Cecil County. Marriage Certificates. Clerk of the Circuit Court, Elkton. Orville W. Garrison & Naomi E. Carman, 1937.

“Elkton, Maryland: The Quickie Wedding Capital of the East Coast,” by Krystle Kline. Boundary Stones: WETA’s Local History Blog, https://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/.

On this day Johann David Hornef born

Image of Otterberg Germany with the Abbey Church center
The Otterberg Abbey Church (center) where the Hornefs were baptized and married. (image source)

On this day in 1754, my 5th great grandfather Johann David Hornef was born in Otterberg, Bayern (Bavaria), now of the Rhineland-Palatinate state of Germany.

He was the son of Wendel Gottlieb Hornef and Maria Louis. He married Susanne Weber in Otterberg and they had at least seven children there.

His grandson, Jacob Hornef, emigrated to Philadelphia in 1846 with his wife Katherina (née Faber) and infant daughter Catherine who would later marry Elon Carman.