Geography/Places/Maps

Why place matters:

Genealogical Records are all about jurisdiction - who kept the records where your ancestor lived at the time they lived there. If you are searching for your greater family (all members and watching for the people they were close to) and can't find any records you are usually in the wrong place.

Local history gives narrative to your story

Place can help you find the RIGHT John Morgan when there are three living in the same county.

Why did people go where they went? The most common reasons:
New land opened up
There was a road to the new place!
There was water that could take you to that new place!
Someone you knew was already there

Prior to the 20th century most people did not migrate alone and if they did they joined someone they knew.

Travel was both expensive and difficult. People often had to start and stop many times before they got to their intended destination.

People "married what they knew" meaning families they had connections to. Most of America was rural. Courting took place at church and gatherings close to home. This means when families migrated they already had previous kinship ties. You pick up your family in Ohio thinking nobody is with them but all around them are cousins and an Auntie or two.

Think about Mom. The one thing we always know is Mom was there when her child was born. Online trees that show mom having a child in North Carolina, the next in Virginia, the next in Maryland the next back in North Carolina imply Mom had a transporter. This kind of information usually comes from multiple trees and is a signal that nobody really knows where this family was at a given time.

Prior to the 1830s many states have missing census and no way to really tell how surnames are dispersed. You cannot decide that the only Mendletons in America in 1790 were in Pennsylvania and New York because many places in states like Virginia and Tennessee had no surviving census for that year.

As you go back further this becomes more problematic because there is no index to people living in the U.S. in colonial America. There are no shortcuts. You have to plot their migration to find where they left records and that is why following a cluster of families gives more chance of success.

(Mostly) Free Census and Census Substitute Guides & Records

Important geographical tools all genealogists should use: - these sites will help you find the information you need for boundary changes, historical mapping and more

Don't forget the online book collections - they are filled with county histories and family histories. If you are searching for "Clinch River" settlements you may see a book about a family that isn't yours. Look anyway as many family histories include early maps or important information from onsite research about the place your family lived.

Also in these collections are wonderful books about churches, ethnic groups (i.e. Pennsylvania Germans), and general settlement history.

Early America

before 1783 the map of the colonies looked very different.

1790 Map of the United States
In the beginning Virginia claimed much of America

the only way you could move was by water or one of the few existing roads:

Timeline of Major Roads / Trails in Early North America

1650-1735 The King's highway was built from Boston down the coast to South Carolina

1673 New England begins work on the post roads so that they can deliver the mail

1740s The Great Wagon Road begins in Philadelphia, goes west to old Cumberland Co. PA and heads down the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to the Carolinas

1754-1759 The French Indian Wars demanded new roads to get soldiers to the battle - these were primarily in Northern Virginia and Western Pennsylvania. Overview of Braddock's Road which went through Maryland and Pennsylvania to the Potomac River at Cumberland, Maryland, with the Monongahela River at Turtle Creek which is now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1775 Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road allowed settlers to move into Southwestern Virginia on to Kentucky

1795 The Catawba Trail let you come down the Great Wagon Road to North Carolina then move further into Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee

1796 Zanes Trace is built (also known as the National Road or the Cumberland Road) for soldiers and settlers to get into the Northwest Territory and Kentucky. Starting point was Wheeling (now West Virginia) through Southern Ohio

1801 Natchez Trace was begun - you could float the Ohio River, arrive in Kentucky and take this road down through Tennessee all the way to Mississippi