Chasing Uncle William Through the Wilds of Cyberspace

From the beginning of European settlement in North America, free and inexpensive land has been a tool for enticing settlers to migrate to new areas. The English and Spanish granted large tracts to individuals in return for bringing new people into areas with sparse European populations. Bounty land was granted to soldiers in America’s early wars. The end of the American Revolution led to a number of Federal plans to sell or grant vast acreages of public domain land. Homesteading opportunities attracted Americans and immigrants to the west after the Civil War. The availability of affordable land was a catalyst for the migration of many of our ancestors.

Built between 1811 and 1837, the National Road was the first federally-funded highway in America. Extending from Maryland to the frontier of Illinois, this migration route allowed thousands of people to settle in the Midwest.

How do you know if the facts you've uncovered are correct? How do you avoid attaching somebody else's ancestors to your family tree? This introduction to the Genealogical Proof Standard will get your research moving in the right direction from the beginning and help you avoid errors and frustration.

What motivated our ancestors to move to the Midwest? We’ll examine how newspaper advertising, broadsides, pamphlets, and books were aimed at prospective migrants from other parts of the U.S. and from Europe.

By 1680, Quakers had settled around Albemarle Sound, North Carolina. Learn about Quaker migration, struggles between Quakers and Anglicans for power, and records left by Quaker ancestors.

Colorado was settled by people from a wide variety of backgrounds. If you have ancestors who lived in Colorado there are wonderful online and repository resources for finding the records they left and learning about their often colorful lives in the Centennial State.

The Erie Canal revolutionized 19th-century travel and offered our ancestors a high-speed route from the eastern United States to the Midwest. It made settlement of the Old Northwest Territories economically possible by providing an efficient means of exporting agricultural products to the markets and ports of the east. But it was also one of the most challenging and fascinating projects ever undertaken in America.

Successful Quaker research requires a familiarity with typical Quaker migration routes, and no two Quaker migration events are the same. This was true for the Hunt family of Burlington County, New Jersey. Once they began to move, they covered a lot of ground. Follow them from New Jersey to Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, and on to Ohio, then moving again to Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. This case study will also identify when and where the family ceased to be members of the Society of Friends.