Alabama, County Marriages, 1809-1950

The Jewish history of the State of Alabama is as old as the United States itself. As early as the 1750's and 60's, a number of Jews called Mobile home. Later, in the 1820's, the first permanent Jewish community in Alabama was

established in Mobile.
The Jewish community of Mobile was large enough that in 1841 they purchased their own cemetery. In January of 1844, Congregation Shaarai Shomayim u-Maskil el Dol was chartered.
The longtime president of the Congregation was Israel Jones, who was a London born tobacco merchant.
Another very prominent Jew in Mobile was Rabbi James Koppel Gutheim, who was originally from New Orleans. On 14 December 1858, Emilie Jones, the daughter of Israel Jones married James Koppel Gutheim in Mobile, Alabama.
The record of that marriage (below) is part of a collection of marriage records from the State of Alabama, that have now been added to the Historical Records Collections at Familysearch.org.

The collection, Alabama, County Marriages, 1809-1950, has over 1,000,000 marriage records and is name search able. In the later years of the collection, the records give much more information. The record below is the marriage in 1948, of Karl Bernard Friedman and Gladys Marie Cohen. 

 

In addition to the marriage information, we are now provided with the date and place of birth, occupations and the parents of the bride and groom. For those with Jewish family in Alabama, these are incredible records. As always these records are freely available at www.familysearch.org