Cape County begins next phase of records preservation

Marriage licenses and license applications filed in Cape Girardeau County during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s will soon be digitized as part of the county’s ongoing efforts to preserve more than two centuries of county records.

The County Commission on Thursday approved a request from Recorder of Deeds Drew Blattner to spend almost $50,000 to electronically preserve all “loose leaf” marriage licenses and license applications filed with the county between January 1942 and April 1, 1968.

“We will pay for that upfront out of the recorder of deeds’ technology and preservation fund, and then the Missouri Secretary of State’s local records program will reimburse us for 50% of that,” Blattner said, and explained that from April 1968 until the present, “we pretty much have images of all the licenses.”

The license digitization project is a continuation of work that began last year with the preservation of marriage license indexes.

“Last year’s project was for marriage books, so basically every loose-leaf license that’s ever been issued was recorded in the marriage books,” Blattner said. “This year’s project is dealing with the loose-leaf documents themselves, which contain a little more information than what’s in the books.”

The additional information, he said, is especially useful for genealogists and others interested in doing historical research.

The digitization work, which will be performed by Minnesota-based ArcaSearch Corp., will take place between now and April. Meanwhile, a volunteer in Blattner’s office is digitizing marriage documents in the county’s archives dating back to 1805, when county records began, and has made her way from then to the 1880s.

“I anticipate next year, if there are more grant funds available, we will go from 1941 back as far as we can and hopefully come close to where our volunteer is working and close the gap,” Blattner said.

In other business Thursday, the county commissioners:

• Agreed to solicit bids to replace water fountains in several county buildings with water fountains capable of filling reusable water containers.
• Approved an agreement with the Missouri Department of Conservation whereby it will pay the county $6,960 to reimburse the county for rock paving leading up to three conservation areas in the county.
• Met with Drew Christian of the SEMO Regional Planning Commission to review the County Commission’s highway improvement priorities.

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