Marriage Records at the Banks County Courthouse

I have taken vacation days from work the past two Fridays to visit the Banks County Courthouse. The Probate Court Office maintains marriage records. Although some marriage records were transcribed by Jesse Julia Mize in her History of Banks County, Georgia book, I am not familiar with any other media available online or in print that lists the marriage records. So, the only option is to go to the courthouse to look up marriages.

The marriage ledgers are heavy and large, about the size of poster board. This requires that the books be laid on a special counter angled for reading. The problem with this is that, as a researcher, I must spend hours on my feet standing and flipping through pages. I use a laptop to record the data I find, but this process is strenuous on one's back! Rarely can I spend an entire day researching since my body says time to stop before my mind does.

I spent a total of about 8 hours in two days there but didn't make a lot of progress because the majority of my time is spent flipping books or pages looking for individuals. I'm starting to think a better process might be to take digital pictures of the pages and then view them later. However, I'm not so sure my digital camera will give me the detailed resolution I'll need to be able to read the pages later.

I've already learned it's easiest to create a spreadsheet file on my laptop with the groom and bride's names, and approximate marriage date, in advance of arriving at the courthouse. I then sort the records to match to the ledgers. For example, Book A has marriages from 1859 (formation of the county) to about 1873, so I'll sort my marriages in chronological order first and then add a column to match to the appropriate ledger book date range and sort again by alpha. It's tedious but saves time in the long run.