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...

Anyone researching Missouri ancestors will quickly find himself tangled in the history of the region, which changed hands between France, Spain, and the United States, and whose boundaries often included the neighboring territories of Orleans and Indiana. Straying ancestors also tended to spill over into Arkansas, Louisiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The author has simplified the search by including many useful records from these areas. There is not a complete Federal census extant for Missouri until 1830, and many of the records included in this series were obtained from the...