Great Migration Ancestors

Introduction

The term “Great Migration” is used to refer to the early Puritans who came to New England from England. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was established in 1628, although few people came until around 1630. Between 1630 and 1640 about 20,000 people came to New England, initially all landing in Massachusetts, but later in Rhode Island and Connecticut as well. In 1640, with the start of the English Civil War, immigration was reduced to a mere trickle, but a few years later it began again. Most people use the years 1620-1640 as the time period of the Great Migration by including the Pilgrims who came to Plymouth in 1620 plus a few ships who came there over the intervening years until the Massachusetts Bay Colony began.

I had at one time made an estimate that of the 20,000 people included in the Great Migration that perhaps 1000 of them were my direct ancestors. This was based on the fact that those of my ancestors who arrived during that time period were around my great*9 grandparents. Since the number of ancestors increases by a factor of 2 for each generation and my great*9 grandparents are 11 generations removed from me, the total number of possible ancestors would be 2¹¹ or around 2000. But I know that while most of my direct ancestors were English and came during this time period, there are some who did not – such as my paternal grandmother’s father whose parents were Jewish and came to the US from England in the 1850s and my Russell family line which started in the US when my great*6 grandfather, Robert Russell, came to New York from Scotland around 1750 and for several generations married other families from New York. In addition, I knew that there were several instances where two different family lines merged. My estimate therefore was that those facts would reduce the possible total by a factor of 2. But how to confirm my estimate?

The Process

Recently ancestry.com released a few new features, one of which was the ability to “tag” people in your family tree with user-defined tags and then being able to filter the individuals in your tree based on those tags. One of the pre-given tags was “Immigrant,” but I needed to add some new tags to help me in this quest. Here is how I went about doing so:

1 – I defined 3 new tags, “GM Researching” (the “GM” being short for “Great Migration”), “GM Immigrant”, and “GM Confirmed”. The first would be used to tag all those I was researching, the second for those who appeared to come here during the time period in question, and the last for those for whom I had confirmation of the year of their immigration.

2 – I decided to use the period 1620-1650 instead of 1628-1640. Since people are willing to extend the timeframe earlier to account for the Pilgrims, I decided to extend it a bit later to include the individuals who were delayed in migrating due to the English Civil War but who came immediately after it was over.

3 – My goal is to categorize ALL my immigrant ancestors into one of three categories.

·       Those who came during 1620-1650 and for whom I have documentation of their arrival date (using one of several sources I have available) I will tag as “GM Confirmed”.

·       Those who came during that same period but for whom I have no documentation will be tagged as “GM Immigrant”. This would include individuals such as someone who was born in England in 1624, but who married in Massachusetts in 1648, so I know that they must have come here, but I do not have proof of what year.

·       Those who came to America outside of the 1620-1650 timeframe, or who immigrated to other places such as New York, I would tag as simply “Immigrant”.

4 – The “pedigree” view of your family tree in ancestry.com shows the home person plus four generations of ancestors. You can then click on an arrow next to the right-most person and expand the tree by four more generations. By successively using each of my four grandparents as the home person and expanding each branch (one at a time), I was able to easily view all of my great*8 grandparents. I checked each of these individuals one at a time.

·       If they were an individual who was born in New England, then I tagged them as “GM Researching”.

·       If they were not born in New England, then I would find where in the levels below them that branch came to the US and tag that individual as “Immigrant”.

·       If I had not traced a particular branch all the way to my great*8 grandparents, then I would use the same two above rules on the right-most person in that branch.

It took me several hours to go through this step. In the end I had approximately 400 individuals tagged as “GM Researching” and another several dozen tagged as “Immigrant”.

5 – The next step is where most of the work is taking place. Using the Filter option of the Tree Search feature, I filtered on “GM Researching”. I am taking one individual at a time, expanding their pedigree tree, and doing the detailed investigation on those individuals.

·       In many cases I have already done the ancestral research and it is a matter of finding the individuals who immigrated and tagging them either as “GM Confirmed”, “GM Immigrant”, or “Immigrant” as appropriate. I have Robert Anderson’s excellent book “The Great Migration Dictionary” sitting by my side as one reference (and being well thumbed through), the other references are online.

·       Usually only the father of the family unit is listed in these various resources. But if “John Smith” is listed as a Great Migration participant, he was married before the year of immigration, and his wife was later documented in America, then his wife “Mary Smith” can also be tagged as “GM Confirmed”. In the same way, if his son “David Smith” was born in England and later shows up in New England before 1650, then the son can also be tagged this way.

·       If I have not yet done the research, then I have to take the time to do so, finding and confirming parents, dates, etc. But since I usually only have to go a few generations, then it is not as daunting a task as it might be. However, if I have to research a branch where I had never done the research back to my great*8 grandparent level, then it can take a while. I’m saving these more challenging branches for the end and taking the low hanging fruit first. As I add new ancestors, I also have to take the time to ensure that I am not creating duplicates. In a way that may seem like extra work, but if I find that “John Brown’s” parents are already in my tree as the parents of “Mary Brown” (John’s sister) that means that I don’t have to trace John’s family back any farther and I actually save work.

·       If I discover places where I cannot get back to the immigrant ancestor, then I tag the spot where I get stymied as “Brick wall” (another tag that is provided for you to use). I expect that I will find several more of these as the reason that I had previously abandoned researching a particular line.

·       Once I have tagged all the individuals in that subtree appropriately, then and only then do I remove the “GM Researching” tag to so that I can say “One more done!”

The Results (so far!)

I am posting this blog before I have completed this latest research. As noted above, I have saved for last the branches where I have several generations of research to do before I can feel done with this project. Here are my results after about two weeks of intensive research and tagging:

·       GM Confirmed – 599 individuals

·       GM Immigrant – 133 individuals – a future project for these will be to do further research using additional sources to see if I can find confirmation of their year of arrival and then move them to the prior category

·       Immigrant – 54 individuals – probably not going to do any further research on these individuals since they came outside of the 1620-1650 immigration date and/or they did not emigrate to New England

·       Brick Wall – 19 individuals – more work to be done here, too

·       GM Researching – 50 individuals – most of the ones remaining in this category are several generations removed from their immigrant ancestors (many being individuals who were born in the 1700s or even 1800s), I expect that each one will yield several Great Migration immigrants (and probably some additional Brick Walls as well).

One caveat on the above – I know that my research over the years has not always been as thorough as it could be and there are connections that need to be investigated and strengthened with appropriate documentation. I’ve tried not to take shortcuts, but the temptation is always there. A genealogist’s work is never done!

Final Thoughts

In the process of trying to verify my estimate, I will have taken a large portion of my ancestral tree back to their immigrant beginnings. Because so many of my ancestors have lived in Connecticut or Massachusetts for nearly 400 years, and because family genealogical records in New England are generally more complete than those from other parts of the US, my results may also be more complete than for other researchers. But that certainly does not mean that this research is easy. This is in some ways the culmination of several years of pretty intense genealogical work on my family tree, albeit in fits and starts. And I am reliving some of that hard work as I slog my way through the remaining incomplete branches of the tree.

That’s also why I’m choosing to post this before I reduce the “GM Researching” list down to zero. I’ve now tagged over 700 of my direct ancestors as having taken part in the Great Migration. If my original estimate holds, that means that I am over 70% complete in filling out my family tree back to its immigrant beginnings. The remaining branches are just the starting points for the remaining work that I have to do to finish this task. According to my profile, I’ve been building my family tree in ancestry.com for over 10 years. At that rate, it will take me many more hours before this task is done! But it has given me a lot of pleasure during my retirement years and will continue to do so.