United States Internal Migration

U.S. Migration Routes Canals Ports Railroads Rivers and Lakes Trails and Roads U.S. Migration Topics Analyzing/Using Data Availability Historical Background Indexes Online Sources Substitute Records  Other records that show where people originated or settled are: Census Church Records Directories Journals and Diaries Land and Property Maps (especially plat and insurance maps) Taxation Voting Registers

United States    Migration Internal Wagon Train.jpg Key U.S. Migration Internet Links Oregon and Its Pioneers free lists 1839-1855 California Pioneer List Master Index pre-1880 Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel 1846-1868 free index Camino Real: Five Waves of Settlers 1598-1800. New Mexico Oregon-California Trails Association free website Ancestry.com ($) indexes to immigration and pioneer lists Migrations An ongoing project with thousand of names for all States. Value of Migration Research Mountains, forests, waterways, and the gaps between them channeled migration into predictable settlement patterns. Events like gold or land rushes, and Indian treaties also affected settlement. Understanding the transportation systems available to ancestors can help genealogists better guess their place of origin. Connect the place where an ancestor settled to the nearby canals,waterways, trails, roads, and railroads to look for connections to places they may have lived previously. Migration research may help you discover: a place of origin, previous hometown, or place where an ancestor settled biographical details such as what they experienced, or with whom they traveled on their journey clues for finding other records Types of U.S. Migration Records Actual lists of travelers are unusual. A few passenger lists are available at the New York State Archives for the Erie Canal from 1827-1829. But lists of pioneers who settled an area are sometimes available on the Internet, or in the form of county or local histories. The diaries and journals of people on the move may help you learn who they had as companions on the journey, and what their trip was like. Censuses, directories, land and property records, plat maps, tax records, and voting registers can sometimes be used to learn where new arrivals settled. Starting in 1850 federal censuses show where a person was born, and starting in 1880 where the parents were born. Church records of some denominations may indicate a former residence of a family or a place to which they were moving. The minutes of the Society of Friends (Quakers) are especially helpful, since the Monthly Meeting from which the family was moving issued a certificate of recommendation to the Monthly Meeting to which they were going. And the receiving Monthly Meeting recorded in their minutes, the location of the Monthly Meeting from which the family had come. Not all denominations were as diligent in recording this type of information, but some others had somewhat similar records. Maritime museums often hold records of ships, ports, maps, photographs, personal and business records, and manuscripts. Collections vary by facility. Pre-1850 Migrations Using the list below, go to the state where the family settled, then revert to the first place in column three, then second place, etc to the end. That is the probable route to the state you have chosen. Semicolons indicated a different route for a different population. To: From: AL Alabama TN,GA,NC,SC,MD AR Arkansas MS,AL,TN,GA,KY,NC,VA,MD,SC Al Alabama TN,GA,NC,SC,MD AR Arkansas MS,AL,TN,GA,KY,NC,VA,MD,SC CT Connecticut MA,RI DE Delaware Dutch-NY,NJ; English-PA, NY,NJ,VA,MD; German-PA FL Florida West-TN;Mid-VA,NC,SC; East-GA,AL,NC,SC GA Georgia TN,NC,VA,SC;1752-MA; Moravian's-NC IL Illinois South-NC,VA,KY,MD,PA; North-New England IN Indiana VA,KY,SC,NC; North-New England; Quakers-TN,NC,SC IA Iowa IL,IN,OH,NY,WI,MN,MI KS Kansas MO,IA,IL,IN,OH,Ky; state census asks previous place of Residence Ky Kentucky VA,NC,MD,PA,TN LA Louisiana TN,KY,AL,MS,Ga,SC,NC;French-Canada or direct ME Maine MA,CT,RI MD Maryland DE,PA,VA;Dutch-DE,NY,French-Nova Scotia;German-PA;Scotch-Irish PA,VA MI Michigan New England, NY MN Minnesota ME,then rest of New England MS Mississippi AL, TN, GA,NC,SC,VA,KY,MD MO Missouri KY,VA,NC,SC,MD,PA,TN NB Nebraska KS,MO,IA NH New Hampshire MA,ME,VT,CT,NY NJ New Jersey English-CT,NY (particularly Long Island),Dutch-NY;Quakers-DE,PA NY New York MA,CT,NJ,RI,VT;French-Canada, West Indies NC North Carolina VA,SC,MD,Shenandoah Valley-Pa;Quakers-VA,PA,MA (later many moved to OH, IN) OH Ohio SE corner-AM,Ct,VA,KY,TN,NJ; Quakers-PA,NC; German-PA; Franklin, Perry and Licking Co. - Canada OK Oklahoma North-IL,IA,KS; South-AR,MO,TX,TN PA Pennsylvania CT,NY,NJ RI Rhode Island MA,Ct, SC South Carolina West Indies (Charleston); Dutch-NY TN Tennessee NC,VA,SC TX Texas NC,VA,SC VT Vermont MA,Ct, ME, Canada VA Virginia NC,DE,MC,PA;Quakers-PA,NJ Migration Records for Selected States   California   Indiana   New Mexico   Ohio   Oregon   Utah Bibliography Adams, James Truslow, editor-in-chief. Atlas of American History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1943. Atwood, Wallace W. The Physiographic Provinces of North America, Boston: Ginn, 1940. Billington, Ray Allen. The American Frontier Thesis: Attack and Defense. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966. Billington, Ray Allen. Westward Expansion: a History of the American Frontier. 5th Ed. New York: Macmillan, 1982. WorldCat 0023098600 Flanders, Stephen A. Atlas of American Migration. New York, New York: Facts on File, c1998. WorldCat 0816031584 Putnam, Jackson K. "The Turner Thesis and the Westward Movement: a Reappraisal." Western Historical Quarterly 7 (October 1976). Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986. WorldCat 0816509468  White, C. Langdon & Edwin J. Foscue. Regional Geography of North America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1943. References Things you can do In order to make this wiki a better research tool, we need your help! Many tasks need to be done. You can help by: Expand an article or short page Create a new article Categorize articles Add external links to articles Add internal links to articles Other...

This website requires a paid subscription for full access. Some subscription websites are available for free at your local FamilySearch Center or Affiliate Library.

Family History Library (FHL); now called, FamilySearch Library (FSL)