Alvin’s great-grandfather William Wren was brother to Nicholas Wren, the Texan war hero mentioned several [...]]]> Mr. Alvin Lee Wren was the son of James Milam Wren (born 1862 in Smith County, Texas), the grandson of James C. Wren (born 1832 in Tennessee), and the great grandson of William Wren (born about 1802 in Kentucky).

Alvin’s great-grandfather William Wren was brother to Nicholas Wren, the Texan war hero mentioned several times in the memoirs of Noah Smithwick, “The Evolution of a State.”

There was no braver or better man in the service than Lieutenant Nicholas Wren. I know not whence he came, nor whither he went, but had I been sent on a perilous mission, I know of no man I would have chosen before him to bear me company.

Noah Smithwick, “The Evolution of a State, or Recollections of Old Texas Days”

Nicholas and his brother William are solid brick walls in many a Wren researcher genealogy. The loss of Mr. Alvin Wren is a sad break in our tenuous link to the past.

His grandson kindly sent me a link to this obituary:

Alvin Lee Wren, 78, died peacefully Thursday, September 20, 2007, at his home.

He was born in El Dorado to Ollie Izora (Duggar) and James Milam Wren. He graduated from El Dorado High School in 1946, and belonged to the Delta Sigma fraternity. He was a businessman and entrepreneur. Among his businesses he either owned or co-owned at one time are Wren Realty, El Do Plastics, Plastic Sign Suppliers, and Signs and License Plates. Alvin loved the outdoors, especially his gardening and fishing on his beloved North Two and his nephew’s Forever Farm (which he named). He made an annual trip each year for over 50 years to Bear Creek Lake with friends and family. He was El Dorado’s Outstanding Jaycee of the Year in 1954.

While he was able, he loved traveling and taking his family and friends on vacations. Some of his favorite places to visit were relatives in South Louisiana, relatives at the Red River Ranch in Idaho, Bill Lindsey’s in Heber Springs, and casinos.

Alvin will be remembered for his excellent cooking, hosting, and distinctive laugh. He was the best cook and if you did not believe it, he would be glad to tell you. He loved telling funny stories from his life adventures.

Survivors include two daughters, Lynda Wren Cheek and April Wren; one son, David Lee Wren; one sister, Altha Dean Nash; two granddaughters, Carrie Oswalt and Mary Wade all of El Dorado; two grandsons, Odie Blackmon of Nashville, Tennessee, and Sean Wren of Knoxville, Tennessee; and eight great-grandchildren; several nieces and nephews; and a host of friends.

He was preceded in death by his parents, one brother, J. Milam Wren, and one sister, Edith Wren Reed.

He was especially fond of his trusted Hospice nurse, Andy Guinn, who he only knew a short time but looked forward to his visits each day.

The funeral will be at10:00am Monday in Young’s Chapel. Burial will follow at Arlington Memorial Park under the direction of Young’s Funeral Directors.

Visitation is Sunday from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.

Memorials may be made to Life Touch Hospice, 2301 Champagnolle Rd., El Dorado, AR 71730, Arkansas Children’s Hospital Burn Unit, P. O. Drawer 2222, Little Rock, AR 72203-9984 or to the charity of the donor’s choice.

Obituary: “Alvin Wren,” Youngs Funeral Home, El Dorado, Arkansas, downloaded 2 January 2008.

It is said Randolph Wren signed off on the marriage of Binns Jones Wren and Elizabeth Betsy Depew in Kentucky. I have never been able to document this information.

The record of this marriage may be [...]]]> Over at the Wren Family Surname Forum at Genforum, I found this statement:

It is said Randolph Wren signed off on the marriage of Binns Jones Wren and Elizabeth Betsy Depew in Kentucky. I have never been able to document this information.

The record of this marriage may be found in the book Warren County, Kentucky marriages, 1797-1851: from the original marriage bonds and consents, by Helen Thomas, Mary Rabold, Elizabeth Price (Bowling Green, Ky. c1970).

(Some interesting background on this book: Mrs. Thomas found the original marriage contracts in the trash—if I remember the story correctly—and rescued them. She and Mrs. Rabold and Mrs. Price abstracted the contracts and published them in this book, thereby saving a segment of Warren County’s genealogical history for future generations. Hooray for Mrs. Thomas!)

This book of marriage contract abstracts is an incredible resource, to be sure, but the researcher trying to document the Binns Jones Wren marriage wanted to be absolutely certain of the facts.

I have come across this data before. But I was wondering have you seen (either online or in person) this actual document? (Warren County, Kentucky marriages, 1797-1851 ) Is there somewhere I can I view the document?

It’s something every family researcher should do: let the abstracts and transcriptions reveal the location of the original record, and then hunt down the original and read it for themselves.

So where were the original Warren County, Kentucky marriage bonds, the ones Helen Thomas abstracted for her book? After abstracting the records, did she return them to the County Clerk’s office? Donate them to a library? Give them to her local genealogical society to maintain?

A quick Google search found this Rootsweb thread, in which a poster says that the original marriage contracts are currently in the Manuscripts Room of the Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Excellent! I phoned the WKU library and spoke with a helpful librarian who said the Manuscripts Room did contain the marriage contracts abstracted in Helen Thomas’ book, but horror of horrors, not all of them.

According to the librarian, before the original marriage contracts were donated to the library, the authors of the book gave some of the contracts to descendants who asked for them. Ugh!

How will descendants of the couples mentioned within these missing Warren County documents ever locate the originals now? Abstracts are better than nothing, but the original documents are the gold standard in genealogy. Any contracts given to individual researchers are now lost to other descendants.

As a family researcher, I understand the desire to own an original ancestral document, especially if I didn’t believe the collection would ever make it into a library. But I see far too many family Bibles, photographs and documents sold by estate liquidators to trust in my own mortality. If a library can take the documents and keep them safe and available to other researchers, then that is the best place to put them.

With that in mind, what do you do if you need a copy of an original Warren County, Kentucky marriage contract from 1797-1851?

The WKU librarian recommended researchers try email contact first:

1. Name up to five marriage contract requests
2. Include the names of the couple mentioned in Helen Thomas’ book and the date they were married, and
3. the page in Helen Thomas’ book the marriage abstract was found on, if possible. Then
4. email this request to Amanda Hardin.

The staff will determine if they have the record or not and email you back with an estimate of photocopying costs. At the time of this writing the costs are minimal: ten cents per one-sided copy (twenty cents for double-sided) and $1.25 for postage.

When you order the photocopies, specify whether or not you want front and back, and any attachments (some marriage contracts do have attachments). In the case of Binns J. Wren, there are four pages to be photocopied, which would come out to a total of $1.65.

Amanda asked that the check be made out to Manuscripts & Folklife Archives and sent to:

Amanda L. Hardin, Archival Assistant
Manuscripts/Folklife Archives
1906 College Heights Blvd. #11092
Western Kentucky University
Bowling Green, KY 42101-1092

And if you live in Bowling Green, Kentucky, consider volunteering your services to the Manuscript Room at the WKU library. The librarian said the marriage contracts would be the first of their collection to be digitized if they had the funding. They do have the equipment to digitize the collection, but no money for labor costs.

This sounds like an excellent project for the local Bowling Green genealogical society. (As it turns out, the local genealogical society did organize the contracts when they first arrived, but now the collection needs to go digital!)

“Fayette County Will Abstracts, Contributed by Mrs. Joseph Beard and Mrs. Ernest Dunlap, Bryan Station Chapter)” pg. [...]]]> WILLIAM BOYCE—Will Book B, Page 348—Names wife, Elizabeth; sons, John and William; daughters, Betsey Wilson, Patsy Moody and Nancy Wrenn. Written December 9, 1811; probated February 1812. Executors—John and William (sons) Thomas Wren (son-in-law). Witnesses—William Smith, Stephen Smith.

“Fayette County Will Abstracts, Contributed by Mrs. Joseph Beard and Mrs. Ernest Dunlap, Bryan Station Chapter)” pg. 31.

SOURCE: Kentucky records: early wills and marriages copied from court house records by regents, historians, and the State historian; old Bible records and tombstone inscriptions; records from Barren, Bath, Bourbon, Clark, Daviess, Fayette, Harrison, Jessamine, Lincoln, Madison, Mason, Montgomery, Nelson, Nicholas, Ohio, Scott, and Shelby counties, by Julia Spencer Ardery, Genealogical Pub. Co., 1965-72.