Fifty-three years after her wedding in St. John’s Church in Cincinnati Ohio, Sophia Biedinger needed to prove that the event had taken place.

You see her husband was a bit of a wanderer. In this instance his wanderings had kept him away from home for more than six months leaving his wife with no means of support.

So Sophia applied for her husband’s Civil War pension. For that she needed to prove a number of things, her marriage among them.

Sophia Biedinger (nee Schmitt) is not directly related to me. But her sister is. Which made seeing the certificate provided by St. John’s particularly interesting to me.

My 2nd great-grandmother Elisabeth Schmitt had been a witness at her sister’s wedding. And although she died 17 years before this “true and accurate extract” was created, I know where she was in November of 1865.