Sometimes you can trust a source. Case in point the Grassroots of America: A Computerized Index to the American State Papers, Land Grants and Claims 1789-1837. Edited by Phillip W. McMullin, 1972.
Grassroots of America: Index to American State Papers, Land Grants and Claims, 1789-1837
Phillip McMullin
Arkansas Research, Incorporated, Dec 1, 1990 – American state papers – 489 pages
For example, Cornelius Rane [Rain]:
from The Library of Congress
A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 – 1875
American State Papers, House of Representatives, 14th Congress, 1st Session
Public Lands: Volume 3
The proper algorithm is to look up the ancestor in the alphabetic index of Grassroots. The first number encountered will be the Volume of the Public Lands section of the ASP (American State Papers.) Then you have the page number. In the above instance, for Cornelius Rane, we have Vol. 3 page 14. The result as follows:
Further, when we check the spelling and look up Cornelus Rain, in Grassroots, page 379, we find Vol. 1 page 632, etc.
Grassroots and the online edition of the ASP are marvelous, when they actually intersect. Frequently, one must dig deeper for accuracy, to find those illusive antecedents.
Happy New Year!!!
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Carolyn Hood-Kourdache