Using Place in Early America
Comprehensive Map Resources - some of the best mapping tools not limited to one state
Using Place to Move Back in Early America
After 1850 we have many tools –
Family Memory
Databases
Vital records
Newspapers,
strong DNA matches that can be identified and supported by these tools
As we move back, from 1850 the country is in a huge time of transition and most of these tools fade away. Brick walls and shaky trees emerge.
Brick walls form because we are in the wrong place / don't know exactly where they were / are in the wrong record jurisdiction
Unless early American families were migrating, they rarely went out of a six-mile zone. Understanding that six miles is powerful to your research.
Problems moving back before 1850:
MEMORY :Even in families that have kept their family memory little usually survives past the Civil War era
CENSUS / MASTER INDEXES The only countrywide indexes are early census showing only head of household
The further back you go the less information in the counts are given
If the person you are hunting for was still living with family his name will not appear
The only women that appear are widows and single women who lived alone
It is easy to mis-identify John Greene – It is even to misidentify Hezekiah Greely
Early census in some states or some counties were lost
Prior to the 1790 census, there are no countrywide indexes and few statewide indexes
We move back through states that have record difficulties - major migration pipelines like Pennsylvania and New York have only scattered marriages in this time period
DNA Help
*Matches are smaller and further back making them harder to figure out.
*If the trees are wrong, it means you ARE matching with this person but everyone may be showing the wrong person as a common ancestor.
*If everyone says you come from John whose wife was Martha Greer and you have no matches to Martha’s extended family, something may be wrong with that information
Difficulties tracking immigrants
Immigrants can be harder even in the later 19th century because we often do not know their whereabouts from arrival to when we meet them again.
Many spent some time in cities earning money to buy a start.
Some went to be with relatives.
Sometimes we cannot be certain because of common names.
Sometimes we think we have them but have large gaps in their story.
Always try to search the city directories of the port city if you know it in the years just after arrival.
STUCK IN “BORN IN PENNSYLVANIA”
One of the most common mistakes we make is trying to leap back to the place they came from before we have studied the place we have them.
· When did they come here? You want a target year. If tax lists are available you can usually pin it down to the year
· *Was the place well settled when they came or did he pioneer here? (Find a county history)
· Do you know the route he took to get here? (county history may have hints – read the chapters that describe and name the first settlers)
· Do you know what part of the county he lived in? Township? (check census and find a township map) (Look at the county history for information on that township)
· Do you have any land information? Deeds that show neighbors or plat maps that put him in context with his neighborhood. Tax lists may also show these details.
· If this is an immigrant ancestor, do you have his date of arrival in America AND know when he came to this place?
· If this ancestor is in a town, can you locate a city directory? Use the big city directory database at Ancestry but also google your town, state and the terms city directory. Make a map at Google maps that shows where various family members are in the town / city.
Study the people in his cluster and start a list
If he says he is from New York:
* Is this a common migration? (check the 1850 census / a lot of people from this place in his township?)
· Write down neighbors who share the migration. Look at the page before and after on the 1850 census. You don’t have to record everyone in the family on your list – just the couple and anything else that might be noteworthy
example: Robertson, John b. 1812 New York wife Matilda b. 1814 New York
· Pay attention to naming patterns. If your family names girls Zerelda and there is one up the road add that family to your list.
· Do you have solid proof this grandpa was born in NY? Do you have more than one source that says so? If he died after the 1850 census, did he have children who lived to the 1880 where you can look at parent’s birthplace? Look at all of them.
· If he died before the 1850 census are there other probable family members who give their birthplace.
· Look at your documents – has anyone been a witness or appeared in records you have in this area? Can you find out where they say they were born? Pay attention to anyone born in NY or born in a state that might be on the way from NY to his new home. Add candidates to your list.
· Look at your groupsheets. Look at everyone your family intermarried with in this new place. If anyone was born in NY or their parents were born in NY add them to the list.
· Are there other people in this area who share your family’s surname? Can you find where they were from? Does it seem possible that they will be connected? Add them to the list.
How to use the cluster list to help you find place:
Take the names of interest and put them in the notes field of your tree
Look for them or their families in:
* the county history
* vital records like marriages or death records that record their place of birth
* online trees – evaluate carefully. Look for sources. Also, look to see if the geographic information is correct. If they say Allegheny Co. PA in 1770 check to see if it existed at that time.
While you are in online trees do a mother search. Ask it for anyone born in the county whose MOTHER had the same surname as your family.
Watch for patterns. Take people off your list that seem improbable.
Add notes to those that remain if something looks promising.
Place Problems
Remember boundaries changed. Not just county boundaries. State boundaries.
That ancestor that keeps giving a different birthplace. One of two strong possibilities:
1. The family was on the move so when he says NC then later TN and later still IN it is because the family migrated through all those places and people answering the census taker just aren’t sure
2. They had been on frontier where boundaries are fluid and they may not have been completely settled.
examples: The very northwest counties of Virginia (now WVA) were grouped under PA for a while and some of the families were dropping down into the western tip of Maryland so that they give all those places as a birthplace.
Kentucky began as part of Virginia. Tennessee as the western part of North Carolina.
large frontiers meant giant parent countries. If the county history says He was born in Augusta County, VA in 1765 numerous counties were later cut from Augusta County.