Mississippi Emigration and Immigration

From FamilySearch Wiki
Mississippi Wiki Topics
Mississippi flag.png
Beginning Research
Record Types
Mississippi Background
Cultural Groups
Local Research Resources

Online Resources[edit | edit source]

Background[edit | edit source]

  • The earliest European settlers came by ship to the Gulf Coast.
  • Most pre-statehood settlers of Mississippi came from the older Southern states along the Atlantic seaboard. Most of them came overland via the Natchez Trace, which ran from Memphis, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi. Others came from Athens, Georgia and traveled westward through the Tombigbee River settlements of Alabama.
  • Some came from New England and a few colonial French families settled in the Biloxi area.
  • Most of the settlers, however, were of Ulster Scottish, English, and northern European ancestry.
  • Blacks outnumbered whites in Mississippi from the middle of the nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth.


Helpful studies of Mississippi history, genealogy, and immigration are found in Cyril Edward Cain, Four Centuries on the Pascagoula, Two Volumes. (State College, Mississippi: C.E. Cain, 1953-1962; FHL book 976.21 H2c.

References[edit | edit source]

Mississippi Research Outline. Salt Lake City, Utah: Intellectual Reserve, Inc., Family History Department, 1998, 2001.

NOTE: All of the information from the original research outline has been imported into this Wiki site and is being updated as time permits.