TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Follow Roads Most Traveled

ADVERTISEMENT

By SHARON TATE MOODY, Tribune correspondent

Published: November 25, 2007

When we find our ancestors in a community, we must study history to learn how the area initially was settled and by what groups.

Hunks of communities migrated together - the group provided safety and a social life. If your ancestors were English, they migrated with other Englishmen and not groups of Germans or Scotch-Irish. If they were Presbyterians, they would not have traveled with Quakers.

Many books have been written about migration routes across the United States. I highly recommend William Dollarhide's "Map Guide to American Migration Routes." It is only a 38-page book but consists mainly of easy-to-decipher maps. It is available through the Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library System. I paid $9.95 for this book in 1997 and was shocked recently to find used versions at the staggering prices of $90 to $165. It appears to be out of print.

Another compact, nicely done book is "United States History Atlas" from Maps.com. It is available for $10.95. It lacks the narrative explanations found in Dollarhide's book, but the maps are good.

If you descend from Scotch-Irish or Germans who immigrated here in the 18th century, a must-read is Parke Rouse's "The Great Wagon Road" (Dietz Press, $15.95), available through bookstores and online.

The early major land routes in colonial America were the Kings Highway, the Great Valley Road, the Upper Road, the Great Wagon Road, Braddocks and Forbes Road, the Mohawk Turnpike and the Hudson River Road. Major water travel routes included the Ohio River and the Mississippi. The Erie Canal opened in 1825, and settlements in Ohio and Michigan boomed as a result.

With various American Indian treaties and cessations, lands west opened. Key roads emerged. The Internet and local bookstores are filled with volumes of materials on how these migration routes evolved. It is important to identify the ones into and out of areas where you know your ancestors lived. Your success in locating their previous area of residence may depend upon these routes as they traverse a state or region.

The census is a simple tool for spotting migration routes. Those whose ancestors settled in Arkansas can almost be sure they will find ancestors over three or four generations who traveled from Virginia to the Carolinas, to Georgia and to Alabama. Sometimes the migration occurred in a single generation. Beginning in 1850, the censuses showed where each person was born. A researcher can expect to find the youngest born in Arkansas, with perhaps two or three in Alabama and Georgia. Inevitably the oldest children will have been born in the Carolinas. The next generation back likely can be tracked from there to Virginia.

Backtracking Routes

Sounds simple, doesn't it? Actually, it may not be. There were many communities and towns along those routes. Methodically, the research must go backward through the areas. The social history must be studied along with the land, virtual records and probate and other court records to pinpoint the ones where our migrants stopped for a while. This may help you find an ancestor who abruptly disappeared from a community's records after living there for several years.

Sometimes a man held on to some of his property in the old community when he uprooted his family and moved on. After he felt secure in his new location, he might have someone back in the old hometown sell his property. For instance, a man who sold land in Edgecomb County, N.C., after moving to Georgia may be described on the deed as "Nathaniel Hickman, now of Jackson County, Georgia."

When a father died and left his land to his seven sons, some document in the estate file is likely to tell where a son who moved out of the community went.

While the local history books you should study likely will not mention your ancestor, it may describe an ethnic or religious group in which your family traveled. For example, several lines of my family were in Halifax County, N.C., in the early 1700s. I found a "History of Halifax County," by W.C. Allen, published in 1918, which gave me clues as to where they were prior to Halifax. Allen wrote, "All of the early settlers of the northern portion of North Carolina came from or through Virginia. The reason for this is obvious." With the coast of North Carolina "being destitute of good harbors and known to be dangerous to shipping, all immigrants for the colony of Albemarle landed in Virginia and came to their destination by an overland route."

Allen's information directs me to move my research into Virginia, not the coast of North Carolina.

He also wrote, "In 1722, a colony of Scotch Highlanders came across the Roanoke from Virginia and settled in a great bend in the river, and gave their settlement the name of Scotland Neck," and "in 1742, a settlement was made on Kehukee Creek which is of considerable note. This was a party of immigrants from Berkeley, Va., led by William Sojourner."

Checking another local history book, "A History of the Baptists of the United States From the First Settlement of the Country to 1845," I learned that Sojourner traveled in 1742 from Berkeley to settle on Kehukee Creek and that the Baptist movement in North Carolina began in Connecticut.

By combining these interesting leads with the route of the Fall Line and the Kings Highway, from Virginia into the Carolinas, researchers can get good ideas how their ancestors traveled to Halifax County.

Newspapers Hold Clues, Too

We also should not overlook newspapers, especially those in small towns. In 1881, my second great-grandfather Hardin Hulsey left Georgia with his third wife and a brood from all his marriages. Other Hulsey researchers related to me that the Hulsey family traveled to Arkansas by railroad rather than horse and wagon. Sadly, none of them could offer a source for that information.

One day I stumbled across this tidbit while researching January 1881 issues of the defunct weekly Gordon County Times. A snippet related how "we are informed that Hard Hulsey and family boarded the train at Skelly's Station for Texas last week with something over 500 biscuits and a 2 bushel meal sack."

Never mind that the paper misidentified the destination as Texas rather than Arkansas; we hungry researchers are delighted with the detail of the biscuits they carried.

Armed with the departure location of Skelly's Station, I combed without success every modern and historical map I could find. Again, I emphasize how important it is to know books that have been written about the area in which you are researching. I turned to Kenneth Krakow's "Georgia Place-Names" and found that Skelly's Station was on the Rome and Dalton Railroad, five miles southwest of Calhoun. In 1896, the station's name changed to Oostanaula.

Each research path will be different, but the methodology used to find most ancestors will be the same. Tracking your ancestor doesn't necessarily mean walking in his shoes, but you do have to find his footprints and those of his traveling companions.

Write to Sharon Tate Moody, c/o BayLife, The Tampa Tribune, 200 S. Parker St., Tampa FL 33606; or wmoody3@tampabay.rr.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT