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I vis­ited the Durham County Register of Deeds, 200 East Main Street, Durham, NC 27701–3649 to sur­vey their mar­riage records. The office is quite acces­si­ble. It is in the mid­dle of down­town Durham, with ample, rea­son­ably priced park­ing in a park­ing struc­ture next door. The Register of Deeds is in the base­ment of the old cour­t­house, directly across the street from the mod­ern Durham County Government Building.

Access to the records is remark­ably open. The records room is located behind the pub­lic recep­tion area. One of the clerks lets you in to exam­ine the records on your own. There is good light in the street-level base­ment where the mar­riage records are in open fil­ing cab­i­nets. A table, chairs, pen­cils, and scrap paper are avail­able to researchers.

The records range from 1897 to the present. Because of insti­tu­tional seg­re­ga­tion, African-American and white mar­riage records are sep­a­rate from 1897 until 1975. Older records are in plas­tic sleeves, one to a record. More recent records are in manila pouches, one per month of records.

Continue read­ing “Marriage Records Survey: Durham County, North Carolina”