After researching more closely what North Carolina marriage bonds are available via the FHL, I knew that these records were next on my Womble research list. While I was at FGS in Springfield, IL, I was talking with the president of the non-profit that I work for about my research. I told her how I much I wanted to find a marriage record for John Womble and Catharine Greene in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. We discussed marriage bonds that are at the state archives in Raleigh and I mentioned that these are available on at the FHL.
When I returned home from Illinois, I decided to make a trip out to my local Family History Center in Annandale to order the microfiche of these records. It was a Thursday morning and the place was dead. I sat at a table filling out the order forms for the records I wanted. I chatted a bit with the volunteer who was working there about what I wanted. I had been to this facility many times and they never seemed to have any Edgecombe County, North Carolina records on site. The gentleman looked up the records; even though, I told him that he probably wouldn't find them.
Surprisingly, he found that they had them there-pretty much the whole slew of North Carolina marriage bonds on microfiche! I was so bowled over by surprise that I could barely tell him or think which records it was that I needed to look at. I looked through the records for both brides and grooms, but didn't find one for John Womble marrying Catharine Greene. I did find bonds for most of their children, which was nice. I already had gotten those marriage records on a previous trip, but it was good to see these listed. The records covered the whole state of North Carolina, so it wasn't as though I could just not be looking in the right county or something. I'm still not sure if this is a record area where I should do further research to see if there's something else available. Obviously, I should still make a trip to the North Carolina State Library and Archives in the future.The main lesson to take away from my experience is that just because you always seem to have bad luck at a repository not having what you're looking for doesn't mean that this is necessarily a hard and fast rule. The funny thing is that I typically never visit that FHC on Thursdays and if I had gone there on another day, I most likely would've paid money to order records that the place had already. As it was, I was not only there at some time that was abnormal for me and the volunteer actually took the time to ask me about my research. Sometimes when I've ordered records there the volunteer manning the desk will inquire if I know whether or not they don't have the records onsite. At times, when I've said yes, they've gone further and looked it up in their system, but there have been those days when they don't.
Don't be discouraged if your research hits a slump and, even though I wasn't really successful in my research that day. I still feel that I learned from the experience because I learned not only that most likely John Womble's marriage record to Catharine Greene just doesn't exist, but also that just because you believe that a repository doesn't have the records you're looking for doesn't mean they don't have any of the records you need.
