Ed Wilkins Again

In searching family history, I have been able to back several generations on almost all side of my family. On my father’s side, I have been able trace the Northen and Lewis families back to colonial Virginia in the mid-1600’s. In fact, just this morning, in a book on the criminal courts in Richmond County, Virginia, I found a 1725 record of my sixth great Grandfather, Edmund Northen being called into court for not attending church. On my mother’s side, I have been able to trace the Sitzmann’s, Ryman’s and Zell’s back to when they first came immigrated to this country in the mid-1700’s. The lone exception is the my mother’s father’s side of the family, the Wilkins. I am able to find records about her grandfather Ed Wilkins and then everything stops.
Today I had a sudden insight. I noted that the records of my grandparents’ weddings on my father’s side listed the names of the brides and grooms parents and the place where they were born. I thought that with a marriage date in hand, I might be able to look up the marriage record of Ed Wilkins and Katie Sitzman and at last work out the dilemma of Ed’s birth. I found that I did in fact have the information I needed – the date and country of their marriage. With some searching, I found what I was looking for. Not just a computerized version, but photocopies of the marriage records for Iowa in 1890. The pages were chock full of information including the names of parents, the place of birth, occupation, the number of the marriage. Excited,I scrolled through the counties until I got to Plymouth County. The months were more or less in order but the days within the months mixed around. At length, though, I found the marriage date that I was looking for and, sure enough, Ed Wilkins name was next to it. Quickly, I looked over to the column listing then names of the parents and place of birth and found ..that they were blank. The only blank columns on the entire marriage log. Foiled again. The names and other information were all listed in the same hand, so it is possible that Katie or someone other than Ed provided the information. The only experience merely heightens the mystery of the search. Why is the information about his parents always left blank?