52 Ancestors Week 28 - Travel

Question

AJC - Travel is a part of many of our ancestors' lives. Traveling across an ocean or a continent for life in a new land. Traveling to a different state to elope. Traveling for work, either as a salesman or working the railroads or canals. Traveling for vacation. What ancestral travel tales have you found?

Comments

28. Travel makes me think of the time a flew halfway around the world to attend a friends wedding, and flew back the next day. Nuts? Jip!

Answer 1

Time to set the tone. Here's Neil Diamond's "America".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCQ-GjHfbYw

In 1929, two families from San Pietro a Maida, Italy left the port of Naples aboard a ship called the Roma. My great-grandfather Vincenzo made the trip many times. This time he was bringing with him his wife Maria and their two small children, Marco and Nicolina. The trip was long and eventually they made it to America. The other family was the Tedescos who were cousins of Maria's.

In the spring of 1929, they arrived in America and the Ferraiolos settled in Haverhill, Massachusetts. The two families still met up on the holidays since the Tedescos settled in nearby Woburn. My cousin, Mary Tedesco wrote this awesome blog about the first Thanksgiving in America:
http://www.originsitaly.com/an-italian-american-thanksgiving/

 In fact, they stayed in touch until my grandfather passed away in 1983. Now we're back in touch all these years later.

On the Carrabis side, Four siblings from Gesualdo, Italy traveled together in the early 1900s to America. They were Giuseppe, Rocco, Pasquale and Rosina. They traveled with their spouses and settled into lives in Haverhill and surrounding towns in Massachusetts. Giuseppe when on to become a janitor at a bank and when he retired he got a table which later became the coffee table in my parents' living room.

The Forgiones also traveled from Italy to settle in Massachusetts.

I don't have much information on them, but, I do know that all of these families were at my parents' wedding and we lost touch around 1983. I think my grandfather was the linchpin holding everyone together. At least with the advent of DNA testing and the Internet we can get back in touch. Plus we can talk to those family members in Italy. I was told recently by a cousin that "A part of us in America just like a part of you is here in Italy."

That gave me the feels. =)

Comments

You are referring to the song - America? Right? i LOVE that song!!!!

Now if I could just figure put why all my ancestors travelled from Britain to New Zealand instead of going to the USA, Canada or Australia?

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Yes, I am. The Immigrant Song that was recently in Thor: Ragnarok would have also worked. =) Figured I'd go with the soft rock song. =)

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Haven't seen the Thor movie.

And you specifically stated Neil Diamond, you did not say anything about Thor!! LOL

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I know. =)

I'll edit it. Should be all good now.

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Molto bello! I love that you had the coffee table. Great story.

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Grazie! Probably hit my head on the thing MANY times growing up. But, that's another story.

Answer 2

DeWitt Clinton Rice b. 1823 came from humble beginnings  outside of Syracuse, NY. He put himself through medical school and headed toward California. The only way to get there at the time was by way of Nicaragua and sail up the California Coast. He settled in Marysville in Yuba County. He began his practice but soon became interested in building a railroad. So he began financing and building the California Pacific Railroad. He became its largest stockholder and President. He designed and planned the city of Davis so that his train would stop there. If you build it, they will come. When the University of California was looking for a place to build the school they selected Davis for its easy access by the California Pacific Railroad and the neat design of the city. Dewitt Clinton Rice became a millionaire because of his truly visionary ideas and determination to have a Railroad in California. DeWitt Clinton Rice

Comments

I live in California, and Marysville is in Yuba county.  On the east side of the Sacramento valley.

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There was a NY politician named Dewitt Clinton. I wonder if your ancestor was named for him. He was responsible for the Erie Canal which runs through upstate NY. He was also the Mayor of NY city.

Answer 3

I will do this. Mine is Hans Jerg Rominger and his profile is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rominger-60. Than his sons - Michael Rominger which his profile is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rominger-34
 and David Rominger and his profile is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rominger-86. And also Philip Rominger and his profile is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rominger-59

For Hans Jerg Rominger he was born about 1680 in Winterlingen, German and later moved from there to Singen, near Durlach. He married Elisabeth Odelin in 1708 in Winterlingen. In 1742 he applied for permission to emigrate to New England with his sons David and Philip. His son Michael did not emigrate until 1752 but then joined his family in Broad Bay, Maine. This settlement was a colony recruited in Germany by an American entrepreneur, Samuel Waldo, who promised more than he delivered in terms of land and amenities. George Soelle, a Moravian missionary who came to the settlement, noted that the settlers were "poor as church mice" and suffering greatly from the cold, inclement winter weather. Soelle estabilished a Moravian church in Broad Bay in 1762, In 1770 a group of families left Broad Bay and traveled by ship to Wilmington, NC, then overland to the Wachovia area. forming a new community at Friedland.

For Michael Rominger he came to Broadbay, Maine from Germany about 1752 with family. In 1770 he moved to Broadbay Township, Forsythe Co., North Carolina via ship to Wilmington North Carolina and then overland to Salem. Winterlingen is in the Bolinger District of Wurtemberg, Germany. He had been a soldier in the Royal Regiment but quit when he married. Michael and family sailed from Amsterdam (June 1753) and Portsmouth, Landed at St. Georges, 18 Oct 1753. Moravian church records say the Anton family came from Howettersbach, in Baden-Durlach in 1751.

Michael & Anna left Germany and immigrated in early 1752 or 1753 with four children, losing one son in Germany.  They landed in New England (Maine) where they lived until 1770.   The family moved to North Carolina in 1770. He married Anna Catharina Anton in Hoch Wettesbach, Germany in 1740.

===Immigration===

 from 1752 to 1753
 to ME from Germany

•Event: Move 1770 To North Carolina

Our old Br. and Sr. Michael and Anna Catharina Rominger celebrated the jubilee of their marriage with a lovefeast for the congregation, Br. Koehler presiding. In an earnest prayer he commended to the Savior these two people with their children and children's children, and pronounced a blessing upon the couple with the laying of hands. Most of their children and grandchildren were present. Of their eleven children five are still living; of their forty-seven grandchildren thirty-four survive, with four out of five great-grandchildren; a total of forty-three.

elected Steward of Friedland

1752 St. Andrew
::
:: Captain: Captain Alexander Hood
:: From: Rotterdam, June 1751
:: By Way of: Cowes, England
:: Arrival: Boston 19 Sep 1752, Broad Bay Oct 1752
::
:: Carried 260 passengers. Some stayed in Boston, some probably went to Germantown (Marblehead), and the
:: majority continued on to Broad Bay (133 persons).
::
:: Primary sources for the names of the passengers that came on this ship come from the following sources:
::
:: A list of heads of households that came to Broad Bay on a ship from Germantown in October 1752 in the
:: Knox Papers at the Massachusetts Archives in Boston.
:: Lists of those who were sent supplies dated 29 Jun 1753 and Jul 1753 among the Knox Papers.
:: The 1788 list of Germans coming to Broad Bay
::
:: Some families probably remained in Boston while 133 of the passengers continued to Broad Bay in the fall of
:: 1752.
::
:: Since these colonists were ill prepared for the winter of 1752-1753, and since this winter was especially trying,
:: the hard pressed colonists were sent supplies in the spring of 1753. Among the Knox Papers there is a list of
:: provisions of salt, corn, and meal which were sent to Broad Bay German colonists on June 29, 1753 and
:: another list of the signatures of colonists receiving these supplies in July 1753.
::
:: Each family in need was allotted 2 bushels of meal for each freight. For those with more than one freight it was
:: rounded down often for 3-4 bushels of meal for two freights. This probably depended on the size of the family.
:: Each adult in the family counted as one freight. For children ages 4-13, they were considered a half-freight.
:: Children under 4 were not counted as freights. With this system a family with three freights would have included
:: a father, mother, and adult son or two children between 4-13, and perhaps additional children under 4. The
:: number of freights listed for each family as reported in the first list of supplies sent to Broad Bay in the remarks
:: column. This indicates the size of the family. [Abbreviations: w.=wife, s.=son, d.=daughter, b.=brother, ss.=step
:: son, md=married, f.=father]

And for David he He immigrated to New England with his father in 1742.  Will Whitaker, editor of the Old Broad Bay newsletter, states that he is supposed to have married in 1741, but no record of his marriage could be found in Winterlingen, Singen, or nearby towns.  

He came to NC in 1769 with the first group of Broad Bay settlers, leaving his wife behind.  In a postscript to a letter written from Broad Bay to Frederic William Marshall August 24, 1769, George Soelle wrote, "Dear David Rominger does not bring his wife with him, partly because she is sickly, partly because she prefers to remain with her children [presumably hers from a previous marriage, not his].  But he is leaving with her approval and consent, and has divided his property with her according to law, and has put everything in order.  He asked me to tell you this.  His son is a dead soul."<ref>Moravian Church Records, Moravian Archives, Winston-Salem NC</ref>

His wife did make the trip to NC in 1770, but died before she reached Wachovia.

Phillip he He was born in 1721 in Winterlingen, Germany and came to New England with his father and brother David in 1742. His wife's name is unknown. He died in 1762 in Boston, MA.

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Answer 4

I'm going to use my 3-greats uncle, for this, as he moved around a lot. Reuben Read (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Read-4396). He was recorded by my mother's cousin, who did the genealogy of her side of the family in the 1930's as having gone west to find his fortune, never being heard from again. I believe that I found him in census records from Yuba county, California.

Reuben was born in New Jersey in 1806. According to oral tradition, his father was a soldier in the Revolution, and was deeded some land around Franklin, Warren, Ohio for his service in the war. The family moved out there around 1820, probably building a home, then his father went back to New Jersey to close out his business there, and was tragically killed, possibly in a fire. His mother did not remarry, but raised the kids as a single mother. Her eldest son Jonathan would have been 19 in 1820, and was probably responsible for the support of the family. Reuben may have left home to relieve pressure on the family, or hoping to be able to send home money.

Reuben married Mary Ann (unknown) of Kentucky probably around 1833, as their first child was born in 1834 (in Ohio). The 2nd child was born in 1836, in Kentucky (a visit to the in-laws?). The next is born in Illinois in 1839. Census records show him in Sweet Home Township, Clark County, Missouri in 1940. The next three children are born in Missouri from 1841 to 1845. The next three are born in Iowa in 1847, 1850 and 1852. The 1850 census has him in Lee county, Iowa, and lists him as a farmer.

The 1860 census has him in Ophir township, Butte county, California, also listed as a farmer. The 1870 census has him in Big River-Navarro township, Mendocino county, California. (That's where I live. Surprise!) He's listed as a teamster, so he probably took a job working in the logging industry.

The 1880 census has him living in the home of his son Andrew in Foster's Bar township, Yuba county, CA, and he and his son are both listed as farmers. He's on the voter's registration lists in Foster's Bar township, Yuba, CA in 1877 and 1880. His grave in Keystone Cemetery, Dobbins, Yuba county, CA.

Answer 5

I'm just going to include all my ancestors for this prompt and ask the general question - WHY did MY Ancestors specifically choose to TRAVEL from Britain to New Zealand as opposed to travelling to the bigger countries - America (USA) Canada and Australia?

What was so special about NZ? They all came by ship, they all pretty much travelled directly to Port Chalmers (The Port for Dunedin) in Otago - so this MAY or may not have been connected to the Otago Gold Rush.

The dates of travel stretched from the Philip Laing - in 1848 (the first boat to arrive in Otago) - through to the most recent ancestors in 1905.

I'm just going to leave this question out there and whether or not I find an answer, I don't know. Hopefully i will.

Comments

The utopian views of the Otago Association could well be a factor. New Zealand had relatively planned settlements and the climate, therefore farming conditions, was more like Scotland. Gold was a catalyst for some migration as was a desire for self-determination rather than having to follow pre-established societal patterns.

You may find other family members went to other places, but their journeys have been lost in the mists of time. I've learnt that one branch of my mother's family did go to the US in the 1840s and some of another branch went to Australia. Another lot came to NZ, then South Africa, then back again. The more digging you do, the more diversity you find.

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So New Zealand was basically the Last Frontier? Thanks Fiona. I love that idea that they all wanted a challenge. That fits with what my family and their relatives did after they arrived in NZ as well.

My great grandfather moved his family down to Owaka and helped build the Catlins railroad lines (most of those lines have since been pulled up).

Another relative married a gold miner and settled in Cromwell, where their descendents still live.

The newly found Irish relatives arrived at Bluff and and eventually settled and farmed throughout Southland, although one branch did move to the USA. Still trying to trace those descendents. Considering how many DNA matches I have from the USA, there must have been a lot. LOL

Thanks again, Fiona.

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Funny answer: They wanted to see if the duck billed platypus was real. Come on. Look at that that thing. If I hadn't seen it on nature shows when I was a kid, I bet I'd think it was fake. That and there's something alluring about a continent where every plant and animal wants to kill you. 

Real answer: Most likely they were sent there because as was said it was the final frontier. Think about it. It was basically the last area on this planet that hadn't been explored by white dudes at the time. Britain was having a race against time with the other powers and wanted to settle everywhere. The 13 colonies in America were giving them a hard time from their perspective. Conflicts with the Canadian colonies emerged. Spain had a firm hold on what's now Mexico, Florida, Central and South America. They wanted to branch outward and most likely didn't care that the Aboriginals were there.

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Your geography is slightly off Chris.

The duck-billed playpus is native to Australia - NOT to New Zealand!!  LOL And it is a gentle creature. I don;t believe that the platypus is a carnivore at all. I remember having a toy stuffed playpus as a child.

But otherwise your (real) answer also explains a lot, Thanks for that!!

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I know it's native to Australia. I was just thinking the colonists probably didn't. I remember a story of one guy taking back a platypus with him to England and the people were like "What is this thing? It's fake!"

So, yeah. Platypuses are native to Australia. Was thinking of a random animal. Should have gone with the kiwi.

Dunno why but animals in Australia and New Zealand seem really cool to me. Probably because of how vanilla the animals here are. =)

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Vanilla - plain and boring.

Yeah you probably should have gone with the kiwi,,,

Kiwis and kangaroos are certanly NOT plain borning vanilla animals!!  LOL

Although as a flavour, Vanilla haoppens to be my favourite!!

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Nope. There are cool animals here in New England. But, they don't compare to some of the animals in your neck of the woods =)

Vanilla is good. I agree. Though there's something to be said for "death by chocolate". =D

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I just watched a movie on Netflix that was filmed in Port Chalmers and Dunedin. I had to look up the location for the film because it was so beautiful! It's called The Light Between the Oceans. There are scenes in an old graveyard. Turns out my 3rd great grandfather's buried in Dunedin, but not the cemetery in the film. I'm fascinated by all things NZ since discovering so many ancestors moved there. Life couldn't have been easy for the early Europeans, I often wonder what brought them there also.

Answer 6

I'm in! "Traveling to a different state to elope" reminded me of a recent revelation, courtesy of the wonderful research staff at the Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg, Virginia. I was there with a Noland cousin, researching our early Virginia Noland families. One of the "proofs" I've been looking for forever is the marriage of George Noland and Alice Peyton around 1780, maybe in Stafford County, Virginia or possibly in the Carolinas.

Still haven't found a record for them, but the revelation: Many Virginians at that time & place crossed the river to marry in Maryland because of the high cost of Virginia marriage bonds. And George's uncle owned Noland's Ferry that ran between Virginia & Maryland, crossing the river at "Point of Rocks" (today's present-day U.S. Route 15). So now I have a whole new state to research!

Cheers, Liz

Answer 7

In my travels around the Internet, I discovered WikiTree and some ancestors with very interesting stories on their profiles. So, although others require credit for sharing the story, what a story.

In 1805, when Joel Cornish Jr was 13 years old, he left Connecticut with his uncle John Pettibone and his sister Charity Pettibone. They traveled with two horses and possessions on a sleigh, crossing the Hudson River then traveling west along the Mohawk River (likely on the Mohawk Trail) and then to the Seneca Turnpike, where they arrived at 16x18 log house.  Here they set up the household for Joel's father and his family to follow later. This was most likely at Onondaga Hill, where the first Onondaga County courthouse was built in 1805, a full 20 years prior to incorporation of the Village of Syracuse.

Although it was not easy travel, they found many helpful strangers, as the snow melted and it began raining and the horses had trouble pulling the sleigh. Once at their new home, they had to travel considerable distances to the mill or the market.

More details of the trip and life following are on these profiles

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Pettibone-151

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cornish-315

Answer 8

I can't remember where I read that most 18th century colonists walked as their main form of transportation. It makes sense, not everyone could afford a horse. I found an account of my 4th gg parents traveling with their kids and animals to settle in Markham, Ontario, so I wrote about them. Blog post is here:http://www.libbyonthelabel.ca/2018/07/52-ancestors-week-28-travel_11.html#.W0dyYu88gxc.link

Answer 9

My grandmother, Meena (Meacham-526), probably traveled the most of any family member I know.

 My half uncle, described her mode of travel this way: “…she travels… with all her belongings wrapped in paper or bulging from the four corners of a fibre suitcase tied up with rope.  In addition to innumerable spirit stoves, bottles of milk, jugs, cups and plates the circus is usually complemented by livestock of some kind – a dove to keep her company, a goat in case she needs more milk, or half a dozen ailing chickens to be nursed back to health…” “..she always insists on travelling cheaply. As she has never had any great interest in physical comfort, days and nights of journeying on hard continental third-class carriages have no terror for her. She argues that if she spends less money on getting there she’ll have more to spend when she does get there.”  (“Opening Bars” by Spike Hughes, 1946)  That is certainly consistent with my memories of picking her up at the airport, and collecting multiple cardboard boxes, tied up with rope, from the baggage claim.

 She was born in 1886, in Maidstone, Kent, England, to English parents.  Her father was a brewery chemist and manager, and both her parents were serious amateur artists.  When she was about 8 her father was hired to be a brewery manager at Olsson’s in Cape Town, South Africa, and the family moved there, by ship.  Each year they traveled, by ship, for their holidays, either to England, Scotland or Italy (where her parents took painting holidays).

When she was a teenager, she was sent to London to finish her training as a concert pianist, at the Royal Academy of Music (she made her solo debut, and won two gold medals, and never played a piano seriously again). She was a member of the Fabian Society, and the Theosophical Society, and was friends with H.G. Wells, G.B Shaw, etc.. This is when she probably first met my grandfather, Jack.   In 1907 she married the musician, composer, and collector of Irish folk songs, Herbert Hughes. A year later she had her first child, Pat (later known professionally as “Spike”) Hughes.  He later gained fame as a jazz musician, as a music reviewer, and an expert in opera.

 By 1912 her marriage with Herbert had fallen apart (though they did not divorce until 1922), and she had no real source of income.  She moved, with Pat, to Sicily, where the cost of living was much lower, and she could support herself and Pat on a small stipend from her father, and the money she made from making and selling wooden toys.  She later moved to Fiesole, outside Florence, and made frequent trips between England (where Pat was packed off to boarding school at age 5 or 6) and Italy.  In 1915, after the outbreak of World War II, Pat and Jack Gunn (who would later become her second husband and my grandfather) traveled through war torn Europe to join her in Fiesole.

 Not long after, she decided that mainland Europe was not a safe place to live during a world war, and she and Pat sailed to South Africa, where they lived with her parents for a year or so. The trip took three or four weeks each way.  They traveled quite extensively in South Africa.

 While the war was still being fought, they returned to England, and she began living with Jack. Tiring of the occult, they dabbled in Buddhism, and became interested in psychoanalysis.  Jack resumed his career as an Egyptologist, making frequent trips to Egypt, and she accompanied him on some of them.  In 1922, when Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered, they were living in Berlin. In 1924 Meena was studying under Freud in Vienna, and a year or so later she was studying under Sándor Ferenczi in Budapest.   This was the one subject which maintained her interest, and she was still a practicing psychoanalyst into her 80s.  She and Jack were married about 1926, in Beirut Lebanon.

 Jack was working at a “dig” in Saqqara, Egypt.  The site included the remains of 4 thousand year old workmen’s houses, and it was easier to put a roof on the existing mud-brick structure, than to build new housing, or live in tents.  By 1928 they were living in Cairo, where Jack was a curator at the Egyptian Museum, and my father was born there.  Of course, northern Europeans did not stay in Egypt over the summer, so each year they traveled either to England or Europe.  My father remembers celebrating his second birthday (May 1930) in the Alps.

 In 1931 Jack was appointed curator of the Egyptian collection at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, in Philadelphia.  But Meena did not like the American summers, so she returned to England, with my father, each summer.

 In 1935 Jack was appointed as professor of Egyptology at Oxford.  Although he had a strong “public” school education, he had never attended University, so they had to give him an honorary MA before they could hire him as a professor.  So the whole family moved back to England.

 Meena remained in England, except for holidays in Europe, until the 1950s.  My father was evacuated to the US at the beginning of World War II, and returned to England when it was clear that England was not about to be invaded (though the war was not over).  He returned to discover that his parents had divorced, and his mother was remarried, to a man (neurologist Alex Grey-Clarke, who died of meningitis a few years later) about 30 years her junior, but nobody had told my father.

 My parents were married in 1950, and in 1956 my father was recruited to the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver (west coast of Canada), to teach physics (part of the Sputnik brain drain).  The next year or so Meena traveled to Vancouver to visit, and moved there (in her mid 70s) in 1960, just as we moved to Yorktown, New York, (east coast of the US) where my father went to work for IBM research.

 We went (by Greyhound bus) to visit her in Canada. She was living in a small, run down, house on a farm owned by a Mennonite family. She had approximately 20 un-house-trained, unfixed, Pekinese dogs, and at least one dead puppy in the deep freeze.  The owners apparently believed they were doing “God’s work” by looking after this eccentric old woman.  

  In 1965 she decided she wanted to live nearer us.  We were just moving into a new house, and we were able to create an “in-law apartment” for her.  After a couple of months she bought a house of her own, in Lake Peekskill, a summer community.  This meant that the water lines were above the frost line, and the water was shut off all winter.  She dealt with this by asking her patients to bring gallon milk bottles of water with them when they came for their appointments.

 After 3 or 4 years, she (in her 80s) moved to England, but there was a 6 month quarantine for dogs.  After about 6 weeks she decided that the dogs were miserable without her (really she was miserable without THEM), and changed plans, moving back to the Mennonite farm outside Vancouver, and became a Canadian citizen.   She suffered a stroke, and died there in 1973.

Answer 10

I have to answer this one. My dad came from humble beginnings - to be sure. There were several children in his family. He never complained about it and neither did his siblings.  Hand me downs were a necessity.

Maybe new jeans for Christmas if he was lucky.

Where I am going, you might ask?

My dad had a great sense of humor.

He was raised in Kentucky. When my sister and I complained about walking to school, which was across town, my dad would always tell us his story.

"Well, when I was a young boy, I had to walk to school to. In the winter in the snow. Ten miles back and forth, going uphill both ways.  You girls should be thankful. You only have to walk across town.  When the weather is bad you can take a bus."  We would always laugh at him and ask him how it could be uphill both ways.  He would just laugh and tell us to go outside and play.

I miss my dad so much.  He was a wonderful man.

Answer 11

How fast travel became in the 19^th century is brought home for me by this example. My 2 greats grandfather Charles Reeves Yerkes was born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania not far from Philadelphia in 1819.  The family then moved to Romulus, New York and then to Genesee County, Michigan.  The Yerkes line in the United States is supposed to date back to the 1680’s when the first immigrant arrived and settled in Pennsylvania about where Charles was born.  So, it took almost 200 years for the family to travel from Pennsylvania to Michigan.  But some of Charles’ grandchildren had moved from Michigan to Oregon by 1910.  It took less than 100 years to go from Pennsylvania to Oregon.    

Answer 12

My grandfather, Joseph Grady Atkinson, was a railroad man most of his adult like.  He worked for a railroad in the Waycross, Ware County, Georgia line then around 1924 transferred to the Baltimore  & Ohio (B & 0) line.  The family settled in Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio.  He retired form the railroad apparently as his wife received widow's benefits after his death.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Atkinson-3468

Answer 13

My 4x Great Grandfather did a lot of traveling but we covered him in week 20.  So did my 8th great grandfather we covered in week 22.  So for this week I am going to do the Penny we call The Silver King who travelled from Scotland to Bolivia to own and operate a silver mine.  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Penny-1046  Andrew Penny was born in Birse, Aberdeenshire in 1831.  He left Scotland in 1852 to own a silver mine in Oruro called the San Jose Mine.  He retired to Huanchaca Bolivia where he died in 1890.

He and I are second cousins 5 times removed sharing https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Penny-1004 as a common ancestor.

Answer 14

52 Ancestors for 52 Weeks - Week 28 - Travel

For this week, I have decided not to discuss an ancestor, but rather my home town - Momence, Illinois. Both my husband and my descendant's were original settler's in my home town. 

Gordon Hubbard was one of the earliest explorers of Momence in the early 1800's. In 1832, the Pottawatomie Indians ceded their land to the United States Government, and Momence was first platted by Hiram Todd in 1846.

As word spread about the government acquiring the land, immigrants from New York and Vermont moved west to Kankakee County, mostly into Momence, Illinois. They were an aristocratic group, storekeepers, craftsmen, businessmen and professionals.

I don't believe Momence would have grown as quickly as it did, if not for the railroads and the river. 

Momence was quickly the home of the C & EI Railroad, with a lovely depot that lasted to when I was a child.

We also had the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa train depot in our town, as well as their roundhouse.

Above picture is men that worked at the roundhouse.

And the 3 I's Railroad was also located in Momence.

This was the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa Railroad. Along with this three was the Illinois Central.  We were known as the 4-R's and one of our Depot's was named that.  

Our town is also located on the Kankakee River. There was a lot of shipping done on the river, and we had three ships that regularly brought goods into our town.

I selected Momence, Illinois to talk about for travel, because that is what grew our little town. We had many successful businesses that used rail service, and a very large hotel built by the railroad tracks that was very fancy for the travelers that came in by train.

Answer 15

Like you Robynne, I have so many relatives of ancestors that emigrated from England to all the other continents. Many were looking for better work, or a better quality of life, but I have came across one or two people who have left England, for what we in the UK would think of as an unusual reason....men that wanted to follow a religion that encouraged polygamy.

Although we do have the Latter Day Saints churches in the UK, polygamy isn't the norm here, and we certainly don't have whole towns and counties where the whole community lives a polygamist lifestyle.

I thought it was Lewis Derrett who I believed left his wife Emmeline behind in England and took his young infant son with him, but I need to find more info on his life in the USA....not so sure that is the right man..so I'll have to work on that one!