The Philip Collier and Amanda Judd Marriage Certificate...A Long and Winding Road

Marriage Certificate of Philip Collier and Amanda Judd. 

Deena Lucas Loyd, my friend and mother of my niece Abbi, recently posted on Facebook that she had in her possession three really old books and a marriage certificate. The book in which the certificate was hiding was entitled Physical Geography, published in 1901 and bore the name of Miss Margaret Sells. Deena had been hoping to pass the certificate on to a descendant of the couple. She believed her deceased husband, Mike Loyd, came across the books and certificate in an old, abandoned house while mushroom hunting in the Madison County, Indiana some 30 years ago.

The marriage certificate, despite being stained and creased, was in good shape for being 166 years old.  The top section of the certificate was the actual marriage license, issued by James Hazlitt, clerk of the Madison County Circuit Court, to Philip Collier and Amanda Judd in Madison County, Indiana on 04 January 1848. The lower portion of the certificate, stated that Stephen Norman, Minister of the Gospel, performed the ceremony and dated the certificate 04 January 1847, a mistake many of us make when writing the date at the beginning of a new year.

I am familiar with the Collier family of Madison County.  Margaret (Surber) Blake Collier was my 4th great grandmother.  She married married James Foster Collier after the death of her first husband, Abraham Blake.  After a little research, I discovered that Philip Collier was the son of James Foster Collier and his first wife.

I think it is amazing that Philip Collier was the step-son of Abbi's 5th great grandmother.  I believe Mike would be happy to know that the marriage certificate he rescued that day and kept in his house for the last 30 years had a connection to the daughter of his future wife.