One reason family researchers have faced the perennial problem of finding records of early settlers in the southern states east of the Mississippi River is that this territory was long under Spanish or Indian jurisdiction. By law, only persons issued passports were allowed to enter these territories.
Finding Genealogical Data in Southern Passports
Ironically, it is these very same passports that make up the most complete collection of records relating to those pioneers. Following eight years of research in the records of the U. S. War Department, the U. S. State Department, archives of the individual states carved out of these territories, plus records of both the Spanish and British in “West Florida”, researcher Dorothy Williams Potter became the only person to ever locate, research and collect this body of genealogical data.
