May Wilson McBee published her groundbreaking work, &uot;The Natchez Court Records: 1767-1805,&uot; in 1953 and for half a century it has remained the hallmark of information for the Natchez District which consisted of territory that would later form five early Mississippi counties &045;&045; Adams, Claiborne, Jefferson, Warren and Wilkinson &045;&045; as well as Franklin and part of Amite.

The book was reprinted in reduced format by Genealogical Publishing Co. (Baltimore) in 1979. In 2000, Provincial Press (Louisiana) published two long-awaited volumes that supplement (but do not duplicate) McBee’s work, the first of these being &uot;Adams County, Mississippi, Court Minutes, Volume I: 1799-1801.&uot;

These supplements provide full transcriptions, not merely abstracts, of Natchez’s earliest documents (1799-1804). The minutes cover the initial American occupation following the Spanish regime from June 1799 to October 1801. By then, the greater Natchez area was already largely Anglo-American.

Volume I is a reprint of the extremely rare first edition of the 1942 WPA publication. Only a handful of copies were actually made in 1942 and the only surviving copies available to the publisher for the reprint were Xeroxes of the mimeographed original.

The first reprint was available for a very brief period in 2000, but it immediately became a major first-reference for Mississippi genealogy and history. It contains an index of over 800 entries with most of Mississippi’s early American families represented.

Because of technical complications, this volume as been out of print itself until the release of the third edition this year. So once again you may own this valuable work. And just after this reprint was offered, Provincial Press produced a second valuable volume, &uot;Corrections & Supplemental Index to McBee’s Natchez Court Records:1767-1805&uot; by Richard S. Lackey.

While McBee’s work is and will always be one of the major first-references for Deep South genealogy, a project of this size inevitably has errors and omissions. Lackey’s errata and addenda address these problems.

Lackey began his quest in the 1960s and with the able assistance of Winston De Ville had completed it by the early 1980s. The long awaited first edition rolled off the presses in 2004. Limited to ninety-nine copies, this edition will most certainly disappear as quickly as previous publications of the first volume.

Provincial Press offers the 130 paged Volume I for $27.50 and the 42 paged Corrections & Supplemental Index for $15. Postage and handling is $2.50 for the first volume and $1.00 for each additional copy. Louisiana residents are obliged to add four percent sales tax.

Purchase-orders from libraries and other tax-exempt institutions are honored.

Send orders to Provincial Press, 1067 Rock Pit Road, Ville Platte, LA 70586-9266. Checks or money orders please. The publisher accepts no credit cards at this time.

DOES ANYONE KNOW …

… Chris Jackson (Vicksburg, MS; 601-427-1221 or 601-630-9634; email:

cjackson@vicksburg.com

) is looking for descendants of CALVIN/CAVIL C. JACKSON of Yazoo County (Bentonia area). Descendants of Calvin’s three daughter’s include GILBERTs of Jackson, MS; McCULLOUGH’s of Flora, MS; and his three sons: WILLIAM, CLARENCE, and GEORGE JACKSON. He is also looking for the descendants of OLLIE NELL JACKSON BAKER and GERALD BAKER and family from the Jackson, MS, area. Can any reader help locate these family members? Please contact Mr. Jackson.

Please send your announcements and queries to FAMILY TREES, 900 Main St., Natchez, MS 39120 or email to

Famtree316@aol.com

. All queries printed free of charge. We look forward to hearing from you.