Kaskaskia Manuscripts
The Kaskaskia Manuscripts are a compilation of notarial records from Illinois Country of Upper Louisiana, primarily from the settlements of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, St. Philippe, Fort de Chartres, the village of Chartres, Cahokia, and Ste. Genevieve. Created between 1708 and 1816, they include inventories, wills, land sales, marriage licenses, testimonies, and often amusing incidents of daily life.
The index and English summaries are available on microfilm in History & Genealogy. The index is arranged by surname, place, and tribal name. References are given as a series of numbers that point to a date in the order of year, month, day, and finally the document number. Before 1800, the year only includes the last two numbers of the year. For example, “40 : 1 : 3 : 1” could be rewritten as “1740 : January : 3rd : document 1.
The list below will further explain some of the notations in the index.
- If part of the date is unknown, dashes are used in place of the number.
- Underlined dates indicate , the document is undated, but a date was assigned based on references in other documents.
- Sometimes a document is part of a larger set, such as a ledger book. In that case the document number is placed in parenthesis to indicate it will not be found in chronological order in the collection. in place of the number.
- Sometimes an item will be listed in the index but no corresponding document will be found in the records. This indicates the document was lost.
