Family Migration Leads

Family Migration Leads for Essex County Researchers

General migration paths and resources are a great help for any family history research project. Such migration patterns include information about economic incentives, religious and political events, as well as occupational shifts that provide clues for the motivation and movement of affiliated people. Families tended to move in group and chain patterns, where collateral family lines, church congregation or parish members, friends, business associates and neighbors can provide "circumstantial evidence" in lieu of primary records for a specific person or family.

In 1635, both Ralph Farnham and George Varhnam were immigrants to Ipswich, MA. It is not known whether these folks had any relation to each other, but their descendants often get mixed up in the similar surname variations as well as frequent transcription errors. However, it is often possible to narrow down which family is the likely root by following the migration paths of branches from the root ancestor.

The early generations of Ralph Farnham and George Varnham spread out from Ipswich into Andover, MA and Dracutt,MA respectively. Later generations then radiated throughout New England, Canada and the US. I manage a one-name-study style web page to follow the George Varnham family on the Varnum Genealogy page at http://geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/7945 with cross-references to many collateral families, as well as resources for the Ralph Farnham line and a 1700s Enoch Varnum family of Pennsylvania. I include many cross-references for Essex county families such as the Edward Colburne/Coburn lines, who were also settlers of Dracutt MA with George Varnham's son Samuel Varnum.

A number of surname lists, forums and web sites are organizing similar projects to help sort one root family branch from another as they move around over generations and centuries. In 1998 and 1999, the Holmes-@rootsweb.comlist conducted "earliest Holmes" projects each spring. The results can be viewed at http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/7945/HolmesCensus.htm and http://geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/7945/A-DHOLMES.htm

Massachusetts and Rhode Island Holmes families have many folks that are attributable to the 1600s Obadiah Holmes root - one of my ancestors. Obadiah Holmes was arrested in Essex county in the 1600s along with Elder John Crandall, another of my ancestors.

The Crandall family association web page discusses the possibility that Elder John Crandall initially landed in Salem or Boston, even though the first primary records are in 1647 in Newport, RI ... "The next mention of Elder John is the account of his journey to Lynn, MA from Newport on Baptist church business to visit William Witter, referred to as 'an aged member' in July 1651. He traveled with Rev. John Clarke (pastor of the first Baptist Church in Newport) and Obadiah Holmes. They were subsequently arrested for being anabaptists and were all fined — Clarke, Ł20; Holmes, Ł30; and Elder John Ł5. In default of the fines, each was 'to be well whipped.' Elder John was finally allowed to go home on bail3." ... further details and footnotes at http://www.geocities.com/~wyatt1599/cfa/colonial.html

In any event, it appears that such early connections with the Rhode Island anabaptists may hold migration clues for Essex county researchers. The Pilgrim and Puritan search for "religious freedom" was ironically not open to other religious beliefs. Also, just a few decades later, many families fleeing the Witch Hysteria, sought refuge in Rehoboth, MA near what is now the Rhode Island border.

Such specific events provided both "push" and "pull" forces for group movements and are too numerous to detail here, but the recurring lesson is that neighbor, church, business and collateral lines should be mined for clues about where your direct line research should be focussed.

A wonderful and recent find is a book that provides an amazing genealogy reference by detailing many aspects of the New England environmental history in relation to specific settlers and their economic issues. A full chapter excerpt is available at Amazon.com for "Reflections in Bullough's Pond : Economy and Ecosystem in New England (Revisiting New England)" by Diana Muir. The insights in this resource are also transferable to other regions and times.

On a national scale, there is a great tool for almost 150 years of the "big picture" for surname patterns. Try using the Hamrich web site at http://www.hamrick.com/names/ to look at concentrations for collateral as well as direct surname lines for useful insights. This site provides a map of surname concentrations from the 1850, 1880, 1920 and 1990 census statistics.

In the case of a name like Holmes, the 1850 census shows the highest concentration of Holmes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In the case of the early Essex county Herrick surname, in addition to the expected Massachusetts and New York/New Jersey concentrations in 1850, the highest per population number is near the Great Lakes, and also a signifigant California population. However, in 1880, Vermont has the "population per state" highest concentration of the Herrick surname.

Rootsweb.com sponsors a number of surname lists that are often relatively quiet unless they have a special project focus. Regional lists tend to get more traffic and interaction, where listmembers do have a good idea of the place and the context of their research. Surname lists may not have a clear idea of which branches are where and when. You can rally researcher forces on a surname list by suggesting an "earliest ancestor" or migration path project.

The Porter surname list has recently created a web site to collect branch gedcoms. You can visit http://rootsweb.com for surname and regional resources, special projects and list archives.

You can also search a region or surname list for the words "migrate" or "migration" to pick up clues for patterns and groups. A number of early Essex county families may have moved within the New York and New England region, then joined the mid-1700s Planters or late 1700s Loyalists in Nova Scotia and other Canadian provinces, only to return to New England during the Industrial Revolution.

Mariners in Essex county had Canadian ship and trade ties from the earliest times. The Boston States Migrations webpage provides resources for many of these New England/New York state and eastern Canadian province patterns with great map resources at http://bostonstates.rootsweb.com

Many Boston States Migrations links are provided to History, Travel and Museum Aids links. General topics include Railroad, Canada, US, Religious, Ethnic, Migration Resources and can be found at http://bostonstates.rootsweb.com/BostonStatesindex.htm

Video and audio tapes of many aspects of the Boston States Migrations were produced from the speakers at 1999 Boston States Genealogy Fair. Our kenote speaker, Kay Sheldon provided two important migration group tips -anywhere, anytime - "jobs and buddies". Boston Public Library Ships resources and New England Railroad history are also particular topics for migrations within New England - see http://bostonstates.rootsweb.com/Videoflyerdetail.htm

Other resources for US migrations in general include:

NEHGS at http://NewEnglandAncestors.org and the Boston Public Library resources http://bpl.org - pay special attention to the NEHGS lending library features and the BPL on-line research requests and inter-library loans.

Center for Migration Studies: An immense on-line library catalogue http://cmsny.org/

A growing Migrations genealogy database and resource http://www.migrations.org

The Rootsweb.com migration email list MIGRATION-PATTERNS-L-request@rootsweb.com is not very active, but more subscribers could help get that list working on special projects.

The Rootsweb.com email list research-trip-l-request@rootsweb.com has interesting stories in it's archives about some of the serendipity events when researching in an ancestor's locale. Some recent statistics note that only 10% of family history researchers are on-line. Chances are good that there are cousins looking for you right where your ancestor lived. I have had the good fortune of finding a couple of 90 year old distant cousins right in the neighborhood of where my second or third great grandparents lived.

But when families are known to be in one locale and then "missing" for some time before they show up in another locale's records, it is important to know common travel routes and means. Were they following land or a trade? What were the points along the route at that time?

Branchline Press publishes a great New England turnpike book as well as several New England Railroad books where maps lay out the step by step development of inland transportation systems http://www.branchlinepress.com

Historic American Highways has some on-line info at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~maggieoh/highway.html

The RoadTrails in America site at http://members.aol.com/RoadTrails/roadtrai.html has several good articles, an email list and many good references in the list archives. Also, Photographs: The American Migration Experience http://members.aol.com/RoadTrails/pictures.html