The United States includes five territories that are permanently inhabited:
American Samoa
Guam
Northern Mariana Islands
Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
Believe it or not, Ancestry Library Edition (LE) includes record collections that pertain to four out of five of these U.S. territories (nothing on the Northern Mariana Islands, alas).
American Samoa—3 record collections
Guam—2 record collections
Puerto Rico—7 record collections
U.S. Virgin Islands—9 record collections
What sorts of information might you find while browsing these collections? Here are a few examples:
Guam, Land Records, 1898-1964
Puerto Rico, Civil Registrations, 1885-2001 (in Spanish)
Samoa, Select Baptisms, 1805-1910
U.S. Virgin Islands, Census, 1835-1911 (Danish Period)
Now, as you can see, these records may not reflect periods when the area belonged to the U.S., and the records may or may not be recorded in English, but we can at least give Ancestry LE an A- for effort, can’t we?
Ancestry LE is available at Central Library and our branches.
