Is That a 7 or a 1? The Entire Document Tells the Story

My hubby's great-grandparents, Elizabeth Jane Rinehart (1834-1905) and Edward George Steiner (1830-1880), were married on this date in the 1850s. Elizabeth was the subject of two very nice obits after she died, full of detail with names, dates, places, background on when and where they moved. 

I really appreciated learning so much about her and comparing the details with the paper trail I was gathering. Still, having seen obits with names not spelled correctly and other inaccuracies, I took nothing at face value, especially since the obit at top says Elizabeth married E.J. Steiner, when actually it was E.G. Steiner.

Obits say...

According to Elizabeth's two obits, she and her husband Edward were married on August 7, 1857.

But since I had handwritten notes left by a descendant, showing birth dates of Elizabeth and Edward's children, I really doubted the year cited in the obits. 

Their first child was born and died in October, 1852. The couple had two more children before 1857. I could document, from other sources, those three children's birth/death dates. No wonder I didn't quite believe the obits, given the tradition of, well, tradition in this family with weddings preceding the births of children.

Look at the entire document

Glancing quickly at the original marriage cert, it's easy to see how someone might think the date was 1857. In the image below, the date of the license is 6 August 185_ and the date of the marriage is 7 August 185_. Might be a 7, might be a 1, it's just not easy to distinguish. 

But looking at the rest of the page, the year is clearly 1851. So the obit writers got it wrong and the cert actually indicates that Elizabeth and Edward were married on August 7, 1851. Happy 173rd anniversary to these ancestors.