Khalisa, I understand your constraint as I have the same issues. I live in NY and most of my research is in Mississippi. Family search, Ancestry, HeritageQuest, and Afrigeneas are my main online resources. This past summer I was fortunate enough to attend my family reunion in Mississippi and spend two full work days at the county courthouse.
If you can squeeze time in to attend a family reunion where your family originates from, it is a perfect opportunity to dig into some records. In this instance, I did trace Scott Jr. through a mix of online records and oral history. There were a few court records on him, but since he had moved so much around the country local records in MS were scant, but gave corroboration to what I was looking at online.

Hope that helps!