By what route did your family "get to where you got to?"?

Question

One of the most interesting things to me about genealogy is migration patterns and why people settled where they did. They're often based on very precise historical incidents but also tend to follow certain patterns.

Most of my family are Scots Irish and northern English who came on the linen ships to Philadelphia and left Pennsylvania in caravans on the Great Wagon Road. Others came to Virginia during the 2nd decade of Jamestown or as indentured servants, and my namesake line was exiled here by Cromwell's for participation in the Irish wars. Regardless of where or when they came here most settled in Virginia for various reasons by the mid 18th century, then drifted in the Carolinas (usually the border of No. and So. Carolina) by or after the Revolution, then into Georgia when Creek lands started to be given away by lotteries, then further west in Georgia after Horseshoe Bend/Treaty of Ft. Jackson, then Alabama in the 1820s-1830s.

Where did your family settle and by what route?

Answer 1

Wales, France, Denmark...all over the place really.

Answer 2

On my Dad's side, some immigrated from Germany because the Governor of Virginia needed some one to do iron smelting. These particular ancestors had been involved in iron, copper, other mining/smelting for centuries. They settled at Germanna; many perished during the French & Indian Wars; one woman was captured, escaped much later, remarried to a much younger man, and produced more of my ancestors.

Answer 3

My paternal line were farmers in Oxfordshire, England, but with the Swing Movement (farmers' revolt), they moved to Kingston-upon-Thames just in time for the beginning of the industrial revolution. They moved into Greater London 50 years later, and lived there up until 1980s.

My father's mother's line were shipbuilders in Lancashire, but eventually moved down to London when the ship firm went bust.

My mothers father's family have always lived in Belgium as far as I can tell, but I don't know much about them.

My mother's mother's family are Swiss. THey lived there for a couple of hundred years, but when there was a famine in France, my ancestors moved there to re-populate the area. One of my ancestors was known to be recruited into Napoleon's army, and went to fight in the French invasion of Russia. Eventually, they came back to Switzerland, and then my grandmother fell in love with a Belgian doctor, much to the disgust of her father (he hated foreigners). They married, she moved to Belgium, and my mother was born.

The rest is history...

Answer 4

My family lines pretty much moved in mass, too.

My Scots (Duncan, Taggart, Anderson, Todd) moved to North Ireland under King James I, defended Londonderry from King James II during the Siege (1688-89), and all sailed to Boston in the first decades of the 1700's. They founded and settled Londonderry, NH. Intermarriages were common, so kinship reports require that I count the number of fingers on each hand every time I print one out.

My Blauvelt (Dutch) and Zabriskie  (Silesian/Prussian/Polish --  take your pick) lines landed in New Amsterdam (one aboard the Kalmar Nyckel in 1638, another aboard the Fox in 1662).

More Dutch and Swiss came over on the Mercury in 1735, and had a terrible voyage. The leader, Maurice Goetchi, died the day after they landed in Philadelphia.

All of the families eventually made their way to New York State, where they met. In the early 19th Century, most of these just picked up and mass-migrated to Wisconsin, where they founded a few towns. All of the men fought together as Union soldiers, and given that so many of their distant cousins had moved south, the idea of it being a war of "brother against brother" is perfectly appropriate.

Many of the children of my Wisconsin ancestors packed up one day and settled Billings, Montana.

When WWII hit, they all moved to California. In mass.

My British lines hung out in West Riding, Yorkshire since the Earth was formed. Then, quite quickly, they moved to Philadelphia to work in the textile industry after the American Civil war.

The "group move & migration" aspect of genealogy is fascinating, especially when you can ascertain motivations and find records that chronicle the travels and trials.

(If anybody recognizes surnames listed, just e-mail me...)

Answer 5

My paternal lines are Scots-Irish and came to the US from N. Ireland about 1775.  Settled in N & S Carolina.  After the Rev. War they migrated to western Kentucky.

My maternal lines are typical American "heinz-57" so to speak.  English, Irish, Scots-Irish, Welsh, German, Swiss, Native American, etc.  The first to arrive in the US was Stephen Hopkins and family aboard the Mayflower.  They stayed in Massachusetts for decades.  Eventually, some of them migrated to Virginia and Ohio.

Also, had a ggg+ grandfather who was a British Solder in Pennsylvania in the mid-1700's.  He sympathized with the American's during the Rev. War.  In fact, spent a lot of his own $$ assisting the "patriots."  His line stayed in PA for more than 150 years.  (Fort Penn/Pittsburgh region).  Many of them are still in that region.  The rest scattered after WWI.

Answer 6

My personal line is pretty much Polish to Chicago in the late 1800s, then Calif in the 1940s.  

Not as much fun as my kids ancestry.. theirs is Europe to Virginia, south to NC and Georgia; west to Texas. Most hard core Texans will 'work' back on the Southern route and into VA.  

Their northern side was French Canadian into Minnesota then over to Montana.  I chuckle considering the climate influence on both.

Kudos for the topic.. overall, migration patterns are very valuable to be aware of.

Answer 7

The only one I know for sure was across the Atlantic from Norway to Quebec by boat.  Then through the Great Lakes to Chicago.  Overland to the Mississippi River to the Minnesota River, then down the Minnesota to Mankato.  And finally overland by oxcart to Gibbon Minnesota.

No doubt  the rest came by boat as well, but I have no idea when.

Answer 8

well my great mom was Cherokee/ African American and my great dad was Caucasian that's all I know.

Answer 9

One of my cousins is quite the genealogy buff, and she has done quite a bit of research on my dad's side.  Great grandparents were from Germany, they moved to Pennsylvania in the late 19th or early 20th century, where my grandparents were born.  They stayed in the same area their entire lives.  My dad was born in his parent's house, then to get away from the snow, my dad and mom moved to Arizona in the 60's.  They originally were going to move to Tucson, because dad's uncle (granddad's brother) had moved there in the 30's and bought a bunch of desert land.  He offered to purchase a gas station/mechanic shop for my dad, but he decided to settle in a small town called Kingman, instead, and work for the Duval copper mine.  

Kingman was a good spot for my parents because several of my mom's brothers and sisters had moved to Las Vegas a few years earlier, and Vegas is only 100 miles from Kingman.  My folks have been there ever since, in the same house...for 43 years now!

I don't know as much about my mom's side, but there are Germanic and English lines there, too.  Those immigrants also settled in PA, and that's how my folks met.

Answer 10

My ancestors left North-east Africa around 45 thousand years ago, and travelled across Asia to the region of what is now known as Pakistan and India, after a few thousand years in Asia, they then "up sticks" and moved across towards Eastern Europe, entering through the Caucasus Mountains region about 6 thousand years ago, they settled in and around that area for a few years, some still live there, before many began to find homes in other places, one migrated  to England about 1000 years ago and I am  his 40 X ? great-grandson !!