Gee, I thought I covered that once before...]
My wife is a geneaologist. Birth certificates, marriage licenses, election registrations, death certificates and other means of identification were regularly issued from Day One.The originals were usually maintained at the county court house, but handwritten copies were provided to the individuals for signature (usually achieved with a "mark", as many folks didn't now how to write).
So people walked around with their birth certificates, election registration, etc.?
But I digress. My original question was how did they tell illegal immigrants from legal immigrants? Since your definition of "jurisdiction" is based on that I was curious.