The Roadways of Life

We all have unique paths along which we have travelled during our lives. Some involved sojourns to regions far from where we were born, expanding our life experiences. Others of us found careers in one spot with different occupations or positions within an organization and other opportunities to challenge us.

All of our children were born in Calgary, Alberta, where we still live, but they have scattered now, two to the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, where two grandchildren were born, and one now in China. Our youngest son took a road with his career that has seen him move from Calgary to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, back to Calgary, then to Windsor, Ontario, to Oakville, Ontario, to Jacksonville, Florida, to Saddle River, New Jersey, and a few years ago to Beijing, China. Their children, not even teenagers yet, are world-travellers who, as he says, don’t really know where “home” is. But they are totally comfortable wherever they are.

My ancestors also took many routes although there were times when, for a few generations, they put down roots in just one area. Those many family lines finally came together here in Alberta where I was born and still reside. While my wife and I have been very stationary compared to generations before and after, we are probably not any more so than was the case for many of my direct ancestors. As a collection of families ours has been very mobile.

Many members from different branches of my family came to Canada and the United States from Europe and the British Isles, eventually uniting to finally result in me. I am still looking for details about many of the moves and certainly wonder what the specific reasons various families migrated. That is where the real stories are – what prompted individuals and/or families to just pack up and move thousands of miles and continents away from their homes.

Once in North America, as I have discussed in a number of previous blog posts, family members continued to move about, from one state or province to another and from one country to another. In this segment I’ll outline the origins of my direct line family members, at least those that I am aware of.

I have constructed a “tree” that shows just birth places of birth for my direct ancestors but it is too big to reproduce here. A summary is in table form below and illustrates the many geographic locations that family members called home.

Family Hierarchy	Place(s) of Birth
	Paternal Side	Maternal Side
Grandchildren	·   British Columbia, Canada ·   Florida, USA ·   Ontario, Canada
Children	·   Alberta, Canada
Me	·   Alberta, Canada
Parents	·   Alberta, Canada	·   Washington, USA
Grandparents	·   Devon, England ·   North Dakota, USA	·   Kansas, USA ·   Virginia, USA
Great-Grandparents	·   Devon, England ·   Ontario, Canada ·   Ontario, Canada ·   Warwickshire, England	·   Indiana, USA ·   Ohio, USA ·   Virginia, USA
2nd Great-Grandparents	·   Devon, England (2) ·   Leicestershire, England ·   London, England ·   New York, USA ·   Stirlingshire, Scotland ·   Warwickshire, England (2)	·   Germany ·   Indiana, USA ·   Kentucky, USA ·   Maryland, USA (3) ·   Virginia, USA (2)
3rd Great-Grandparents	·   Devon, England (4) ·   Dumbarton, Scotland ·   England (6) ·   Kentucky, USA ·   Leicestershire, England (2) ·   Maryland, USA ·   Stirlingshire, Scotland ·   Warwickshire, England (3)	·   USA* ·   Germany ·   Maryland, USA (2) ·   Virginia, USA
4th Great-Grandparents	·   Devon, England (7) ·   England (3) ·   Lanarkshire, Scotland ·   Leicestershire, England (4) ·   Scotland (3) ·   Warwickshire, England (4)	·   England (2) ·   France ·   Germany (2) ·   Maryland, USA (4) ·   Virginia, USA (2)
5th Great-Grandparents	·   Devon, England (7) ·   England (13) ·   Warwickshire (2) ·   Leicestershire, England ·   Stirlingshire, Scotland ·   Lanarkshire, Scotland	Maryland, USA (2) Ireland Argyll, Scotland Virginia, USA (2) Bayern, Germany (2)

* USA includes American Colonies prior to 1776 (starting at 3^rd Great-Grandparents)

My wife’s picture is much clearer. She is a first-born Canadian and all of her ancestors were from Scotland.

Overall, my heritage presents a very complex research puzzle. I am fortunate to have found documentation as far back as I have. But there is still a long way to go before I will have uncovered all my roots.

Next project will be to put together a comprehensive map and timeline of migration of my direct lines. That will come from combining all the previous family summaries done here over the past couple of years.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy in several family history society journals. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated

Friends, Neighbours and Relatives

Often on census documents, especially those from rural areas one might find several related families. People in the 19^th century did not generally move far from home unless the opportunity for advancement was lacking. Children commonly also took up the occupations of their parents. Growing up together, neigbourhood children ended up marrying each other as well, especially if their parents socialized or worked together.

Certainly there were periods in history, especially in Canada and the United States when new parts of the countries were opening up for settlers and families were enticed to join the land rushes. Railroad construction was a major part of and spurred the development of new territories.

In many of my own family lines we have found that extended families moved together, or at least within a short time period. One family might have gone ahead to “scout” out areas and were then followed by siblings and cousins. Friends and neighbours also joined together to established new communities.

About several of my ancestors, my aunt wrote in 1971:

In 1866, when the wagon train headed for Kansas,[from Indiana] included in the group were: the little [Daniel and Hannah] Watson family; Hannah's youngest son, John Miller; two married children of John and Clarinda Mayfield [Hannah’s brother], Thomas W. and Keziah, whose husband was Charles N. Lewis, a son of Harriet (Keith) Lewis [my 2^nd great-grandaunt, and daughter of my 3^rd great-grandfather, Samuel Adkins Keith], (Charles N. was a first cousin of our Alice Jane (Keith) Miller [my great-grandmother]); the oldest daughter of Isaac Mayfield [my 2^nd great granduncle, and son of my 3^rd great-grandfather, Thomas Mayfield], Virginia, and her husband; and Isaac's youngest daughter, Catherine, then 15, who married in Kansas in 1871, Daniel T. Lewis, another son of Harriet. [Hannah Watson was my 2^nd great-grandmother. She married Daniel Watson after the 1846 death of my 2^nd great-grandfather, John Conrad Miller]

Isaac Mayfield's middle daughter, Florella, married in Indiana in 1867, Silas Butler. They removed to Kansas in 1880. In 1897, their daughter, Alpharetta, married Isaac Perry Mayfield, son of John and Clarinda, and first cousin of Florella.

Others in this Kansas-bound party were John W. Keith who was a son of Samuel R. Keith, twin to our James B. Keith.

In 1878, when Isaac Mayfield, with his 3rd wife and their small daughter Ellen, decided to follow their relatives and friends to Kansas, he took along his son, Benjamin, and nephew Isaac Perry and niece Hannah, children of John and Clarinda. Isaac settled in Randolph, Riley County, where he opened a drug store and also practiced medicine. In this 1878 party also were Hannah's daughter, Matilda Ann, and her husband, Calvin Hudson, and their family (this couple undoubtedly related to Calvin Hudson and to David T. Tobias, husband of Ann Mayfield).

The Mayfield, Miller and Keith families are all part of my direct family lines that came together in southeast Indiana – Jefferson, Jennings and Scott Counties – and then moved west to Kansas. It seems all very complicated what with the marriages between cousins, childhood friends and neighbours, both before and after the migrations.

I have discovered over the years of researching that, when encountering a roadblock in finding a particular family, it is useful to look for siblings, cousins or former neighbours to see if they had all moved to other locations together and set up households near to one another. Indexing of censuses and other lists often contain errors in the spelling of names that only direct observation of copies of the original documents can resolve. The people you are searching for are where they are supposed to be but not identified correctly, so if you can find an old friend or neightbour, or relative, you might also come across the very person you were looking for to start with.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy in several family history society journals. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated

My Family in Maryland

I am just beginning to learn about my ancestors’ history in Maryland, USA. I knew, of course, that several of my lines originated there – or at least lived there, many for several generations. All of them had come from Europe, primarily England and Scotland and most in the 17^th century. It was not until the late 1700s and early 1800s that many families started moving west, to Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana.

The precise locations in Maryland where many direct-line ancestors were born, married and buried are not yet known. Several researchers show different places for the same people, sometimes mixing up parish and county names.

What is instructive is to look at historical maps of the region to see what areas were developed and when. There are a great set of historical maps of Maryland on the JSCHOLARSHIP website.

The map below shows the approximate time frame when my 8^th great-grandfather, George Keith #1 probably arrived in Maryland. We call him #1 because there are four successive generations of men with the name George. The only way to keep them straight is by using a number.

We don’t yet have documentation that confirms his migration. According to information in a database of immigrant servants on the Price & Associates website an indentured man by the names of George Akeith came to St. Mary’s Colony in 1665 with his wife, Dorothy. While we are not sure of the spelling of his surname (It is probably a mis-transcription) it certainly sounds like my ancestor.

By the time their son, George #2, my 7^th great-grandfather, was born, they were living in Charles County. The families remained in that area for a couple of generations.

George #4 and Monica Pidgeon were apparently married in Prince George’s County. The birth information of their first three children is confusing as some researchers have shown birth places as Charles and St. Mary’s Counties. Their last seven children appear to have been born in Prince George’s County, between 1761 and 1774. We know George #4 sold land in Charles County in 1755 so that may mark his move to Prince George’s County.

My 4^th great-grandfather, Richard Keith (born 1756 in St. Mary’s County) married Sarah Mason in Prince George’s County, in 1784. She had been born there. Their first child, Samuel Adkins, my 3^rd great-grandfather, was also born in that county in 1786. Their next four children, however, were born in Montgomery County next door, between 1788 and 1794. Around 1795 the family packed up and left for Kentucky. Five more children were born after their move to Bourbon County.

Development in Maryland was progressing rapidly during the latter half of the 18^th century and eventually became too crowded for the growing population. Expansion of the mid-west USA attracted many families, including the Keith families to go in search of new opportunities. By 1800, George Keith #4 and all of his children had moved west, eventually settling in Kentucky, Indiana or Missouri.

We can track the dates of the moves by the births, marriages and deaths of family members. George #4 and his wife, Monica, must have been in Kentucky by 1790 as she died there that year. Richard Keith, his brother, Gerard, and sister Joanna Carrico, were in Kentucky by 1796 as they all had children born there about that time. I will be looking for information on their siblings now to see when they moved as most died in Kentucky or Missouri.

Gradually I am sorting out where various families lived in Maryland and, from that, how members met and married. Since several of my family lines overlapped in time in various Maryland counties I wonder if they ever met. They all went quite their separate ways and never connected through marriage until they were out west. Without copies of actual documents one has to rely on the work of others, not always a safe choice.

Some data from other researches show different counties for births, marriage and deaths. Even within individual families the data is mixed up. Tracing them using maps such as those shown here has given me a much better idea of where they lived and how and when they moved. I have adjusted some data entries for several individuals based on the patterns emerging from the maps. I still need good documentation but perhaps using the maps might help in locating the appropriate record repositories that might have them.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy in several family history society journals. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated