I love finding bits of Milwaukee history and now more than ever they're easy to find online. I was reminded of that when, while headed to the Milwaukee Public Library's online collection of historical photos of Milwaukee, I noticed that the Milwaukee County Marriage Certificates collection.
The description says, "In the 1960s a box of marriage certificates created between 1822 and 1876 was found at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. The certificates and accompanying documents were filmed in 1966. The Milwaukee Public Library owns a set of these microfilmed marriage certificates. The Milwaukee County Genealogical Society arranged to have the records refilmed, adding location citations, and volunteers created alphabetical indexes for bride and for groom."
So, of course, I clicked.
And, of course, I started by searching the names Juneau, Kilbourn, Vieau and Walker.
I found no Kilbourns or Vieaus, but a handful of Walkers, which isn't surprising.
There is the record for the marriage of Solomon's daughter Theresa (for whom he named the town of Theresa, Wis.) to Henry White.
There are a couple Laphams, who appear to be the offspring of Increase's son William.
Perhaps most interesting for this fan of Milwaukee's architectural history was finding the marriage certificate for Henry C. (aka Heinrick Carl) Koch's 1869 betrothal to Johanna Knab.
Brewery buffs should note that there's also documentation of the union between Jacob Best's daughter Anna to brewer Philipp Jung, and a certificate for August Uihlein's marriage to Emilie Werdehoff, witnessed by Joseph Schlitz in 1872, three years before the eponymous brewer died, leaving Augie in charge of the business.
Interestingly, this record includes a date (but not a specific moment) that commemorates the, ahem, "time when the marriage was consummated." Surely, this is a question of semantics.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
