New Haven County Superior Court Marriage Certificate Collection
Version: 4 (current) | Updated: 12/4/2025, 3:17:33 PM
Added description
Description
New Haven County Superior Court Marriage Certificate Collection
Overview
This digital collection preserves a single marriage certificate issued by the New Haven County Superior Court on September 7, 1781. The certificate records the lawful union of William Sherman of New Haven and Sarah Law of Milford, who were married in 1773 at Sarah’s father’s house in Milford. The collection is part of the Connecticut State Library’s digitization effort for the New Haven County Superior Court (NHSC) files, specifically the “Black, African American, and Indigenous History” (BAAI) subset. The items are available in English and include a JPEG and a TIFF scan of the original document, along with associated metadata.Background
Created by court clerk Sam Wales, the certificate was originally recorded in the court’s “List of Marriages.” The NHSC BAAI project seeks to highlight court records that involve Black, African American, and Indigenous individuals; this certificate is indexed under the subject field NHSCBAAICasesPapersSubject. The collection is catalogued by the Connecticut State Library and referenced in the Pinax metadata system.Contents
- Marriage Certificate (original document) – scanned as a high‑resolution JPEG (411 KB) and TIFF (18 MB).
- Metadata – Pinax JSON file providing title, creator, institution, date, language, and subject terms.
- Subject Index Field – the NHSCBAAICasesPapersSubject field, linking the certificate to broader BAAI case files.
- OCR Text – extracted from the JPEG, confirming the names, dates, and location of the marriage.
Scope
The collection represents a single primary source document from the late 18th‑century New Haven County Superior Court. It is relevant to genealogists, historians, and scholars studying early colonial marriages, court procedures, and the participation of Black, African American, and Indigenous people in Connecticut’s legal history. The collection is limited to the certificate itself and its digital representations; it does not include related divorce records or other court filings.Entities
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Entity Relationships
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Raw Cheimarros Data
@new_haven:place {state: @connecticut, country: @united_states}
@milford:place {state: @connecticut, country: @united_states}
@william_sherman:person {full_name: "William Sherman", residence: @new_haven}
@sarah_law:person {full_name: "Sarah Law", residence: @milford}
@marriage_certificate_collection:collection {title: "New Haven County Superior Court Marriage Certificate Collection", creator: "Wales, Sam", institution: @connecticut_state_library, created: @date_1781_09_07, subjects: ["Marriage", "Divorce", "New Haven County", "Milford", "Sherman, William", "Law, Sarah"]}
@marriage_certificate:document {type: "Marriage Certificate", created: @date_1781_09_07, location: @milford, language: "en"}
@nhsc_baai:concept {description: "New Haven County Superior Court Files – Black, African American, and Indigenous history"}
@subject_index_field:concept {field_name: "NHSC_BAAI_Cases_Papers_Subject", description: "Subject terms for BAAI case files"}
@date_1773:date_1773
@marriage_certificate_collection -> contains -> @marriage_certificate
@marriage_certificate -> certifies marriage of -> [@william_sherman, @sarah_law] {when: @date_1773, where: @milford}
@marriage_certificate -> part of -> @nhsc_baai:concept
@marriage_certificate -> indexed by -> @subject_index_field:concept
@file_pinax -> metadata for -> @marriage_certificate_collection
@file_rg003_nhsc_baai_ps_divorce_sherman_001_jpg -> depicts -> @marriage_certificate
@file_rg003_nhsc_baai_ps_divorce_sherman_001_tif -> depicts -> @marriage_certificateMetadata
Files (2)
RG003_NHSC_BAAI_PS_Divorce_Sherman_001.jpgJPEG
OCR Text
Milford Sept' 7, 1781 This may certify that William Sherman of New Haven & Sarah Law of Milford were lawfully joined in Marriage at the house of her Father In's milford 1773 by the Subscribers. a true Extract from a List of Marriages Test Sam Wales Clerk
Version History (4 versions)
- ✓ v4 (current) · 12/4/2025, 3:17:33 PM
"Added description" - v3 · 12/4/2025, 2:41:56 PM · View this version
"Added knowledge graph extraction" - v2 · 12/4/2025, 6:39:02 AM · View this version
"Added PINAX metadata" - v1 · 12/4/2025, 6:29:19 AM · View this version
"Reorganization group: Marriage_Certificate"
Parent
No children (leaf entity)