Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: February 14, 2026

Prompt: “It’s Valentine’s Day – a day for lovers! We all have hundreds of love stories in our ancestry. What was the great love story of the ancestors in your family Tree?  What wedding had a great story in it?  Choose one ancestral couple. Share how they met (if known), when and where they married. Note how long they were married. Highlight something that suggests affection or partnership.”

Introduction

I have and adore a photo of my great-grandparents’ 60th anniversary party. It shows them surrounded by dozens of their great-grandchildren. Great Grandpa is holding me.

Discussion

They were married another six years after that party, so if you ask anyone in the family, they made it to 66 years.

Or did they?

For years, I had a big challenge locating their 1908 marriage record. This was in Manhattan, New York – a place whose records I knew well – and it simply wasn’t there.

Finally, after several years of searching, I located Great Grandpa’s WWI Draft registration card. It said he was married. That sent me looking again for their marriage record, and this time, I found it.

In 1918.

By that point, they’d already had four children.

My cousin holds their 1908 church marriage certificate. But for whatever reason, they never registered that wedding with the civil authorities. When he registered for the draft, they must have realized that, in the government’s eyes, they weren’t actually married — and had better make it official.

So my cousin has their 1908 marriage.

And I have their 1918 marriage.

Which makes me wonder… was that beautiful 1968 photograph really from their 50th anniversary?

If you count from the church wedding, they were married 66 years — the longest-married couple in my ancestry.

And whether they stood before an altar once or twice, one thing is clear: they built a life that endured. Four children before civil paperwork. Sixty years of partnership. Great-grandchildren at their feet.

That feels like a love story to me.

Your Turn

I would love to hear your ancestral love story. Drop it, or a link to it, in the comments.

Want to Learn More?

I also wrote a brief blog about the courtship of my grandparents, their daughter and her husband, here: https://theancestorwhisperer.com/2025/12/19/52-ai-ancestors-in-52-weeks-week-51-musical/

AI Disclosure

This post was created by me with the help of AI tools. While AI helps organize research, the storytelling and discoveries are my own.