Saturday, October 10, 2015

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Ancestors Who Migrated a Long Way

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 
time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1) Many of our ancestors migrated to a distant place.  Which one of your ancestors migrated the furthest?  Or the furthest in North America?  It could be in one big move, or in several smaller moves over their lifetime.  How far did they travel?  Do you know the route they took?


2)  Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.

Here's mine:

I have so many that came from Germany to America, or Holland to America, or the British Isles to America in the 17th and 18th centuries that I'm not going to write about them.  The earliest were probably my Mayflower passengers, some of home traveled from Leiden in Netherlands to England to Plymouth Colony.

I also have a number of ancestors who traveled from the eastern states to San Diego, including:

*  My father likely came the furthest - from Leominster, Massachusetts to San Diego in December 1940, driving through Columbus (where he sent a letter to his Aunt Emily in San Diego), through St. Louis and Route 66 to California, arriving in 3 days (without sleep, he said, drinking lots of coffee).  If he came by freeway today along almost the same route, it would be 43 hours of driving and 2,981 miles, according to Google Maps.

*  My great-great grandmother, Abigail (Vaux) Smith (1844-1931) was born in Aurora, Erie County, New York, moved the Burnett, Dodge County, Wisconsin in the 1850s (by boat and wagon?), then to Bedford, Taylor County, Iowa in the late 1860s, then to Concordia, Cloud County, Kansas in the 1870s, to McCook, Red Willow County, Nebraska in 1885, and then to San Diego in the 1890s after her husband died.  

*  My great-grandfather, Charles Auble (1849-1916) was born in Newark, New Jersey, moved to Terre Haute, Indiana in the 1860s, then to Chicago, Illinois in the 1880s, and then to San Diego in about 1911.  

*  My great-grandmother, Gerogianna (Kemp) Auble (1868-1952), was born in Norfolk County, Ontario, moved to Chicago in the 1890s, and came to San Diego with her husband and daughter in about 1911.

My wife has ancestors who really traveled a long way to get to California.

*  Her second great-grandparents, Alexander Whittle (1818-1852) and Rachel Morley (1821-1859) were born in Lancashire in England, married and traveled to Sydney, Australia in 1841, then came to San Francisco in about 1851.  The boat trip from England to Sydney took over six months, and covered more than 12,000 miles (probably England to Cape of Good Hope, to Singapore, and then to Sydney) - maybe up to 14,000 miles.  The boat trip from Sydney to San Francisco took about four months, and covered about 7,500 miles.  So they traveled at least 19,500 miles from birth to death, and both of them died relative young, in their 30s.  

The URL for this post is:   http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-ancestors.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver


Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.



6 comments:

Greta Koehl said...

Since I haven't traced any of my ancestral lines back to countries of origin, the winner in this category would be my great-great grandfather George Floyd, who was born in Vermont and migrated to New York, then to Illinois, and finally to Texas. Since he was a farmer this was atypical, as farmers tended not to move too far out of the climate zone to which they were accustomed. However, Illinois was one of four state in which the Peters Colony of Texas advertised, it must have sounded like a good idea to George.

kathy said...

I wrote about 3 ancestors all women, one from Sweden, one from California, and one from New York.

https://everyleafhasastory.wordpress.com/2015/10/10/ancestor-migration/

Dorene from Ohio said...

Here is mine, Randy:

http://graveyardrabbitofsanduskybay.blogspot.com/2015/10/sngf-ancestors-who-migrated-long-way.html

Unknown said...

My ancestors' paths are typical: a long ocean crossing then remaining rather fixed here in the USA. (On the other hand, then there's me.)

My longest distance ancestor is my paternal grandfather, Jaime Montllor y Pujal (James P. Montllor), (b. 1888 Sabadell, Spain, d. 1960 NJ, USA). He left Spain, resided in Cuba for a spell, then came to NYC. So his migration path is the longest. 7044 miles, assuming he took the standard steamship routing of Barcelona, Cadiz, Puerto Rico, to Havana, followed by the Havana to New York leg in 1906.

Other immigrant ancestors came directly from Bremen, Germany (1851) and Genoa, Italy (1909). Subsequent generations of my ancestors never got far from homeplate (i.e. PA, NY, NJ.)

Then there's me. Born and raised in NJ for 21 years, but then 4 years in Hawaii, 15 years in East Texas, 8 in northern Alabama, and now 17 years in San Diego area. That totals about 14,100 miles.

(For myself and my ancestors, I'm only counting residences of over a year's duration, and not counting temporary destinations for schooling, business, or vacations.)

Why have I been so migratory, in contrast to my direct American ancestors' stationary lives? First, I think it was enabled by my love [obsession?] at very early age of maps and geography and of extensive, continual reading on geographically diverse topics. Then, in the Navy, I experienced places, people, and opportunities outside the confines of the Northeast. Adventure and opportunity overcame inertia, familiarity and family.

BTW, One reason I began doing genealogy is because it's another reason to play with maps! As I work on the people, I'm always interested in exactly where they lived and worked. When, why and how did they move where they did? How did husbands and wives meet? Don't always find the answers, but it's challenging fun.

Greg Montllor, Escondido, CA

Janice M. Sellers said...

My most traveled ancestors proved to be my mother and father:

http://ancestraldiscoveries.blogspot.com/2015/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-ancestors.html

Lynn David said...

My longest is probably my great-grandfather August Krueger (later Kroeger). He emigrated from what is now western Poland - then German Posen. And he came to Knox County, Indiana.

Another ancestor was from far southeastern Belgium, in Luxembourg province. He was another great-grandfather, Victor Joseph Rosman. He came to Knox County, Indiana, also. But after a failed marriage he left. Where he went is unknown. But a Victor Joseph Rosman shows up in the 1901 City Directory of Seattle, Washington, as a nightman at the Montana Stables which were at the southeast corner of 4th Ave South and Washington. It seems he had not other abode and probably lived at the stables. There are Rosman in Washington state, but he nor anyone else named Victor (or Joseph) make the 1900 or 1910 censuses. I've not been able to find any record of a death in Washington state either. But I tend to think it is he and Victor Rosman saw both coasts of America.