MIGRATION TRAILS

Researching the path of any migration a family made can tell much about the family. To find out where a family might have moved, examine the locations of the places the family is known to have lived, and see if there is a pattern. Perhaps the family lives in the West, and in each census or other record, they are further East as one regresses in time.

Wilderness Trails

Several famous migration trails migration trails existed in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries; including the Oregon Trail, and the Santa Fe Trail. Families often moved westward in stages, a few hundred miles each generation. Others took the entire journey over the course of a year or two; rushing to California to pan for gold, or to Utah for religious freedom. If one generation of a family is found having lived along a famous trail, the previous generation might be found along an eastern portion of the same trail.

Some families took a water route instead; rounding Cape Horn in South America on a clipper ship to get to San Francisco, and the rich promises of California.

Railroad Lines replaced Trails with Trains.

With the building of the railroad in the mid 19th Century, families found it easier to move about. More and more people used this "iron horse" to move into and settle the west. Find out more about the Railroad Maps 1828-1830 published as part of the American Memory site put together by the Library of Congress.

An online Migration database is being compiled by researchers at Migration Project database

---

Return to:

• Table of Contents
  
  • Visiting Localities
  • Cemeteries
  • Churches
  • Courthouses
  • Old Homesteads
  • Family Reunions
  • Migration Trails of Family

---

This website written and designed by:
Sharon Marie Centanne,
Genealogy Research Instructor and Internet Trainer
Please direct any questions to:
Sharon.

This page updated April 26, 2008

---