Hello my genealogical friends, welcome back to my blog! I hope that I find you well in your research. Today I would like to cover an important topic related to genealogy that is often overlooked. As you may have noticed from your ever-expanding family tree, your family might have moved around several times. It may be the very reason why you sitting in a particular café reading this blog, or living in the place you do, migration! As we’ve talked about previously there is two types of migration: immigration and emigration. For a more detailed blog on the difference between those topics please refer to my blog titled “(whatever it is you titled it grandma).” We will be focusing on migration as a whole today instead of separating it out into these two types in order to understand the reasons or events behind our ancestors’ movements. Learning the why behind our ancestors’ migrations will might help you find family members or branches that you have missing from your tree.
Let’s first breakdown why our ancestors might want to migrate from somewhere by talking about some general reasons. Remember to keep in mind that migration is different than just moving to a new apartment. Migration is a long-term relocation of people or a group. We see this as genealogists when family members choose to emigrate. A common example of which is from Europe to U.S. in the 16th-19th centuries. Two general factors usually influence this desire for ancestors to migrate we call them push and pull factors. Push factors are those that make our ancestors decide to leave their country and go somewhere else. They include: poor infrastructure in home country, famine, poverty, health, friends and family, etc. Pull factors on the other hand are what influence our ancestors to choose a different country specifically. They could include: better infrastructure, religious freedom, better economic conditions, etc. As you can tell the factors that often push our ancestors away from their country of origin and the factors that pull them towards a new country are often correlated. Keeping these general reasons in mind as you search for missing relatives in particular time periods might help you identify where your family ended up or how your family ended up where you are now.
When looking for family it might also be important to keep in mind certain periods of global or local migration. Having a common understanding of migration periods might help you identify specific areas to search for missing family members. Some important ones include: Jamestown VA 1607-1698, Quakers 1675-1725, Scotch-Irish 1717-1775, Palatine Germans 1709-1775, etc. Other important events that could be looked in concerning migration are trail events such as the Mormon, Santa Fe, and Oregon Trail. As you search for family members involved in these events keep in mind the types of transportation available to them at the time and the records that might exist that could prove their involvement.
I hope that this blog has reminded you how important migration is in the field of genealogy and prompted you to take a look into these periods if you are searching for missing relatives. For a more in-depth lecture on the migration periods mentioned here and further monumental ones please check my webinar on this same topic located under the webinars tab on this same website. If you have questions on this topic or others, I may have covered please feel free to refer back to my previous and future blogs. If you have questions that are still unanswered, please feel free to take a look at my webinars or reach out to me via my contact information above! Happy researching!
Winona I. Laird “The Genealogy Granny”
