Why did families move around so much in the 1800's?

Question

Researching has made me interested in the history of why so many families moved during the 1800's.  My family is from North Carolina and it was common to see the family in North Carolina, Virginia, and Arkansas.

Are there any good sites to help add up the history with the families?

I did discover the plague of Apopaplexy is bleeding from any organ.  If the diagnosis was Stroke or Aortic Aneurysm the diagnosis was the same.  Found an old definition that was used.  The person went to sleep and did not awaken.  Glad to know everyone did not have a disease.  Cat Scans would have helped.

Thank you for all of the assist.

C Emeline

Answer 1

If you're a farmer, it takes a certain number of acres to support a family, so many acres for a cow, pig, horse, garden, etc. My ancestor "John" was able to get a grant of land in New Haven, or wherever, that was enough to support himself, his wife and his eight children as they were growing up. But when his oldest sons take on wives, they need farms also. All the land in New Haven is already owned by someone else, so John sells his land in New Haven and buys several parcels of land (enough for all his sons) in whatever open land (usually wilderness) that is available. Migrations took place from coastal places like Boston, and New Haven, and Navigable Rivers, and as each new group came to America new land, generally going in a westerly direction was opened and settled.

There are of course other reasons, but I think the above was probably the most usual reason.

Google the "Great Wagon Road" which was used by settlers to go from Pennsylvania into Virginia, then North and South Carolina and then from those places to Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and then on into Arkansas and points west.

Comments

As a child I remember being told "all the nuts rolled west" but your explanation sounds a bit more realistic! :D

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Does that mean that there are more squirrels in the west than the east because they all went chasing the nuts?

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DreamWorks My Favorite One Is! 

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You mean to say his flying helmet was blue? My TV was black and white.

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I just thought about this, Bullwinkle is Don Quixote and Rocky is Sancho, but there isn't a Dolcena del Tobosa or whatever her name was.  Of course!  (I didn't know his helmet was blue either!)  Also, Mr. Know it All was a good portion of the Bullwinkle Show.  Maybe the g2g could give a Mr. Peabody award (a Sherman could be 2nd place) to people that seem to be authorities on particular subjects? For instance I would suggest a Peabody to Gaile for yesterday's description of household electric voltage) :D

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Thank you much for the information.  I will research the topic suggested.  You helped me place a big piece of the puzzle by mentioning the large family sitiuation.  It must have been sad to leave children behind because they had families of their own and did not move with the younger children.  The number of children in the families were huge.  No wonder the mother many times died and the man just piicked another spouse and continued having children.

Do you know of any sites where the Quaker records may be viewed other than Ancestory.com?

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Relax, Anne - the only flying helmets I've ever seen were either black or dark brown, but the vast majority were black, so your black and white TV only corrected to give you a better representation of reality than all those poor slobs who were misguided by their color TVs.

Cheryl - Thank you for asking that really superb question - it may be the best one I've ever seen asked here!!!  Please forgive me for hijacking your question to exchange jabs with Anne and Vincent.

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I've asked Jacky Clark if she knows about Quaker records (more up her alley). If she doesn't chime in with an answer, you might try asking the question as a new question here.

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Jacky says try this http://www.cyndislist.com/quaker/records/ but she says that some of the links go to Ancestry.

 

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No problem.  I felt out of the loop.  Guess you know each other with the friendly banter.

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Thank you. I will try that.  It appears that one may only view the Quaker records if they pay Ancestory.

Answer 2

To expand on Anne's answer, many families did not own land and were tenant farmers. Depending on their ability, at the end of their one year lease, they may have had to pick up and move on. My mother grew up in the early 1900s and her father and his forefathers were from such a situation.

Answer 3

For what it's worth, I have encountered several cases of an apparent move for a family (based on the residency listed in consecutive census records, for example) that turned out not to be a move at all.  Rather some jurisdictional boundaries had changed.  It was not uncommon, at least in some eastern U.S. states in the 1800s, for new counties to be created from land of older counties as large segments of the population migrated westward.  On occasion a family who had not gone anywhere could find themselves at a new address.  So sometimes it can be helpful to check the history of the residence location as well.

Comments

Great point, Dennis!  As I recall, in the original land grant from King George, Virginia included the area that is now not only West Virginia, but also part of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

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The jurisdictional boundaries happened in the west as well.  My great grandparents homesteaded land in Nebraska in the 1890's, never moving and are buried in the family plot on the land.  This homestead shows up as being in three different counties, due to the changing of county boundary lines over a period of 20 years.  This has made for interesting data on their children as they were all born in the same house, but depending on their birth year their county of birth will be different from their siblings.

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Thank you for the response.  I was aware the counties changed, although never knew the state boundaries changed som much.

Answer 4

Most people moved for the same reasons we move today... employment (or hopes of it), economics (buy low, sell high or live within your means) to get out of a bad neighbourhood or away from a bad situation (epidemics, crime and corruption), to be closer to family (or to put distance between us and the ones we don't like to see regularly), buying into marketing hype, wanderlust, or nostalgia for a place they used to live.