Territorial Oaths of Allegiance imaged at State Archive

By V P Stroeher on Sat, 03/12/2022 - 17:43

Forums

Hello!

I feel like I'm over-complicating this citation for an image of a document with signatures attesting to allegiance to the U.S. from the Mississippi Territory. The document is housed at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History at Jackson; the image is on their website. There's a rich treasure trove of images available at the site, so a helpful eye on these citations would be most welcome. 

I'm wanting the document (image) to the lead element. I might change my mind if I find that there's more than one ancestor in this collection.

I'm also not certain about the ampersand in the website title. The ampersand is in the logo; the "and" appears in the archive's title. The website address uses an acronym, MDAH, also in the logo. 

First Reference Note:

“Oaths of Allegiance to the United States of America, Southern District, taken by Joshua Howard,” 1 December 1798, [p. 1v] for Sylvester Stauts; online image, Mississippi Department of Archives & History (https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/territorial/s0490/detail/572821 : accessed 12 March 2022); citing Territorial Governor’s Records, RG 2, Series 409, “Oaths of Allegiance to the United States of America, 1798–1799;” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson.

Subsequent Note: 

“Oaths of Allegiance to the United States of America, Southern District, taken by Joshua Howard,” 1 December 1798, [p. 1v] for Sylvester Stauts.

Source List Entry:

Territorial Governor’s Records, RG 2, Series 409. “Oaths of Allegiance to the United States of America, 1798–1799.” Online images. Mississippi Department of Archives & History (https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/territorial/s0490 : accessed 12 March 2022); Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson.

Submitted byEEon Sun, 03/13/2022 - 10:11

What a jewel of a document, V P Stroeher!  Years ago (well, decades ago, to be precise) I used this set of records personally at MDAH, have not sought them since, and did not know they are online. So I personally thank you for this query. I’ll have to revisit this collection now for all the early settlers I’ve worked on since that first encounter.

Your citation is well handled. EE would have just two quibbles, 

  1. I think you meant to type Series 490 rather than 409. 
  2. EE would not use a semicolon internally within the third layer, after the year 1799, because the use of a semicolon in a layered citation signals a new layer. A simple comma will do there.

With regard to the website title and its differences from the formal name of the archives, EE would use the exact website title, including both the ampersand and MDAH, followed by a colon, before the rest of the title.

Submitted byV P Stroeheron Sun, 03/13/2022 - 10:56
Thank you so very much for this! Yes...I did mean 490...bad fingers!! And, I'll clean up the website title. I was so excited to see these records (and others!) digitized. I found out about the record somewhat circuitously. Ancestry cited the WPA "Old Law Naturalization Records Project" from 1942 (in the collection "U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s–1900s," but did not have an image of the document or even a page number – a nice hint. So, I tried FamilySearch, where I found a digitized copy of the WPA publication. Interestingly, the ancestor wasn't in the names index, so I went through the document page by page, finding him in the Oaths of Allegiance section (p. 192). Then I went to the MDAH to see if the records were still extant in the hopes of seeing the real thing some day. I never dreamed that they would have digitized them, but I am grateful they did!