I had known my great-great-great grandfather Benjamin J. Jolly and my great-great-great grandmother was Adlena P.Slate. This I knew from the marriage record of her daughter, Mary Elizabeth Jolly. Benjamin died in the Civil War in a very useless battle, and Adlena remarried afterwards.

We could not find Benjamin and Adlena's marriage record any place. When the federal government was on furlough that year, I determined to work on genealogy since I couldn't go to work. We went to the courthouse and I found this unindexed book of marriages. I checked each name carefully. Finally I came to this page and carefully checked each name when my finger stopped and wouldn't move any more! My husband and I read the entry. Benj'm Jolly and AP Slate (way her name is in all records almost) and their marriage date and parents and place of birth. It almost took my breath away. We've been searching for the marriage record 20 years before I found it. I venture we probably overlooked the entry as many times as we had gone to the courthouse because the book was unindexed. We probably said because time was short and it was unindexed, it had nothing in it for us.

I found out Ben's father was Archibald and his wive was Mary. This led us to find their marriage record.