Description

The author's search for her elusive French ancestor, Achilles Godin (or Gaudin), has led to this volume of Missouri records and abstracts which collectively span the years 1766-1839. This time period is often puzzling to the Missouri/Arkansas researcher because the region changed ownership from France to Spain, then back to France, and finally to the United States in what became known as the Louisiana Purchase. These records were chosen, in part, to help fill the gap created by the lack of an 1810 and an 1820 census. A wide variety of information from thirty-four counties and the state as a whole is included: marriage records, Spanish censuses, tax lists, estrays, letters at the post office, cemetery listings, petitioners, animal marks and brands, slave bills of sale, French and Spanish land grants, military records, steamboat disaster victims, and much more. The surname index includes the French "dit" names (aliases), and contains several thousand entries.