Page 44 - Family History

Family Stories

settled. Indeed, the paper trail for some claims continues well into the twentieth
century.

The Louisiana Purchase treaty of April 30, 1803, was one of the first of many
efforts to resolve the disputes. Several more treaties and conventions followed,
but none totally resolved all of the claims. Claimants then appealed to Congress
for assistance with little success. Finally, on January 20, 1885, Congress
passed an act empowering the United States Court of Claims to hear and

examine evidence relating to outstanding French spoliation claims that
originated before July 31, 1801. A total of 5,520 petitioners presented their
claims to the court within the two years specified by the act. The court was to
decide which claims were valid and the amount to be awarded to the victorious

claimants. The court’s decisions were then sent to the Congress for action.
Instead of submitting the decisions to the Department of the Treasury for
payment, Congress referred them to committees for further review. Congress
made at least four appropriations for payment of the claims allowed by the court
of claims. Many claims, however, remained unsettled as late as 1924.

Several agencies gathered evidence over the years to assist Congress and the

courts. It is not surprising, then, that records relating to the claims are in
sixteen record groups in the National Archives. As a result, the French spoliation
claims present a challenge for anyone wishing to track all of the information
relating to them.

The records can be fascinating. Anyone interested in maritime history, United
States trade relations with other countries, Franco-American relations, the
Quasi-War, or even genealogical research, can find a wealth of material in these
records.

Unlike most genealogical records, the records relating to the French spoliation

claims are dispersed among many agencies’ records. The key to researching the
claims for genealogical purposes is learning which cases might have involved
the ancestors of the researcher. How that is determined depends upon what the
researcher already knows. If there is only speculation that some family member

had some interest in a claim, the search could be long and tedious. Even if the
name of the person is known, there is no guarantee that the claim will be found.

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