From Somewhere Else

Every ancestor I have looked for lived somewhere else than where I grew up!

This is, of course, a problem almost all genealogists face – certainly for those of us who live in North America. Most members of past families we are interested in finding more about almost all came from another part of the world. Our countries were built and populated by immigrants, primarily in just the last two hundred years. And after they arrived here, they got all mixed together.

Within just a few generations I have direct ancestors that were born in England, Scotland and parts of Europe. They arrived in the New World between the 1600s and 1900s. Some of them started in one place in the eastern parts of Canada and the US and then they and/or their descendants, moved across the continent, stopping in various localities to put down temporary roots and have a few children.

The places just in North America where members of our extended families lived are spread from Maryland to California in the US and from Newfoundland to British Columbia in Canada.

Many ancestors also moved around the British Isles as well, of course, long before one individual or family decided to brave a voyage across the ocean.

Between my wife and I we have direct ancestors who were born, married or died in Canada, the United States, England, Scotland and other countries in Europe – in what are now the provinces, states, counties or major urban centres shown in the table below:

Canada	United States	England	Scotland	Europe
Alberta	Indiana	Cornwall	Argyllshire	Germany
British Columbia	Kansas	Cumberland	Banffshire	Ireland
Ontario	Kentucky	Devon	Dunbartonshire
	Maryland	Leicestershire	Glasgow
	Missouri	London	Lanarkshire
	New York	Middlesex	Morayshire
	North Carolina	Warwickshire	Shetland
	North Dakota		Stirlingshire
	Ohio
	Oklahoma
	Oregon
	Pennsylvania
	Virginia

Among all the myriad brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins – both direct and related by marriage (now over 9,700 individuals in our family tree) – we have connections in: all of the other seven Canadian provinces plus one northern territory; 32 other states in the USA; 32 other counties in England; 15 other counties in Scotland; 11 other countries in Europe; and 11 more countries in the rest of the world. Not to mention the hundreds of localities within all these provinces, states, counties or countries! There are probably many others which we have not yet identified.

That’s a lot of places to look for information! Learning a little about the history and customs of even the most important places in our family story can be interesting but challenging. From my personal perspective, researching the natural histories of those regions is equally important and exciting – which, of course, adds to the research.

 

Universale Descrittione Di Tutta la Terra Conosciuta Fin Oui (A Universal description of the Whole Known Earth), by Paolo Forlani, 1565

If I lived in Southwest Devon, England, where my Shepheard ancestors originated, I would be able to nip over to the archives in Plymouth in a matter of minutes, or travel to Stirlingshire, Scotland, where one of my paternal grandmother’s line is from, in an morning by car, or take the train into London to look at records in The National Archives. I could take in regular monthly meetings and conferences in many parts of the country where ancestral families lived with only short drives. My wife and I could travel to northern Scotland and spend a few days exploring the villages where her parents and their parents and their parents were born and grew up. Sounds great doesn’t it?

I doubt if our family is unique in having such a long list of places where family members originated or lived. I suspect it is not that unusual among researchers from our part of the world, though, who, like us, descended from immigrants to a new land.

Is it any wonder we have gravitated to online sources of information so readily?