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?

Were your ancestors city-dwellers?

Most family historians, if they can trace their ancestors back far enough, will find that their families mostly lived in the country and made their living as farmers.

During the Little Ice Age (ca1300-1850) physical and environmental conditions made it more difficult to make a living farming. Destitute people began moving to towns and cities in search of work, greatly increasing populations in those centres. The results were overcrowding with continuing high rates of unemployment.

Studies by The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure showed that males engaged in agricultural work fell from about 75% of the population in 1500 to around 40% by 1800. At the same time, employment in the secondary sector, primarily involving manufacturing, and the tertiary or service sector, which included such occupations as teaching, began to grow (in Figure 1 below).

Technology had a major influence on the need for and the numbers of people required in the agricultural business. The growing use of mechanized farming methods meant that fewer people were needed to produce the same amount of food. Enclosure, beginning in the 16^th century and culminating in the 1800s, resulted in larger farms but with fewer workers needed. There was also a shift in many regions to pastoral farming. Large tracts of land became unsuitable for cultivation as the climate changed for the worse during the Little Ice Age and growing conditions were poorer. Many land-owners switched to livestock, particularly sheep, which needed more area but less attendants.

The growth of the textile industry, built on the increasing supply of raw materials from both foreign and domestic sources – those sheep again – attracted large numbers of workers who, of course, had to move to the urban centres for steady employment. The population of London, for example, doubled between 1801 and 1851, and grew seven-fold by the end of the century. Textile manufacturing centres such as Birmingham grew at similar astounding rates: from about 1,500 in 1550; to 24,000 by 1750; to 74,000 by 1800; to over 230,000 in 1850; and over 520,000 by 1900.

 

Birmingham population from 1538 to 2009 (from Wikipedia: History of Birmingham)

The rush to the cities brought with it crowded and unsanitary conditions and the expansion of slum areas inhabited by the poorest in society. It also gave many people more opportunities to succeed in trades and professions not available in previous centuries.

Some areas, such as that around Birmingham, became the locus for jobs in secondary industries such as manufacturing. Maps produced by the Cambridge Group over several centuries show the changes in work-related sectors. The area around Manchester is a particularly good example of how the industrial revolution took over during the 18^th century with secondary sector jobs climbing rapidly and spreading over a larger area.

Most of us who trace our ancestors will likely find our earliest family members on the farms or at least eking their livings in food-producing enterprises. Those around less than two hundred years were very possibly raising their families in urban centres. Some researchers may find that some family members were city-dwellers as far back as they can be found. Perhaps they were tradesmen assisting in the building of cities during the medieval period or merchants involved in local or international trade. Or members of the political establishment, including the nobility.

The differences between rural or urban origins will probably have resulted in very different family histories. It might be worth looking at how such origins affected subsequent generations, particularly with regard to their choice or accessibility to various occupations, land ownership, education or migration.

Natural Disasters and Family Misfortunes 11: Effects of Natural Disasters on the Unborn

Did any of your ancestors suffer from trauma as a result of a devastating natural event?

Twenty years ago, many parts of Quebec, Canada suffered through an ice storm that knocked out power and paralyzed whole communities. It was also felt in the neighbouring provinces of Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and the US states of New York and Maine. People who were affected still vividly remember the disaster in which 1,000 electrical transmission towers and over 17,000 utility poles were toppled, not to mention the millions of trees lost.

 

A woman walks past a downed hydro pylon near St-Constant, Que. after one of the worst ice storms to hit Canada struck eastern Ontario and Quebec in January 1998; photo credit: Robert Galbraith/CP photo (downloaded from Global News: Looking back at the Ice Storm of 1998)

Over 3,500,000 people were without power for several days in the coldest part of the winter season. Over 800,000 had to leave their homes to seek relief in community shelters or to stay with family or friends. Thirty-five Canadians died. I won’t go into detail here, but descriptions of the event and how people coped can be found in many articles written just after the event and more recently here: January 1998 North American ice storm; the Great Ice Storm of 1998; Looking back…

Freezing rain in the Quebec region is not uncommon. Montreal has such events 12 to 17 times a year with between 45 and 65 total hours of rain. Snow produced at high levels of the atmosphere drop through warmer zones, turn to rain and then spread out over the cold ground, collecting and freezing on every surface. On 4 January 1998, a large low-pressure system stalled over the Great lakes and directed warm, moist air from the Gulf Coast toward the St. Lawrence valley. A coincident high-pressure system was present over Labrador keeping very cold air near the surface of the region. Another strong high-pressure system was anchored over the Atlantic region preventing migration of the two systems to the west from moving. The “perfect” conditions resulted in several inches of rain and consequent large accumulations of ice over 80 hours.

Map showing the accumulation of freezing rain (from Wikipedia: January 1998 North American ice storm

Can there be any doubt that many individuals were traumatized by this brush with a cold death?

Now a generation later, results of studies of people involved – especially those women pregnant at the time or who gave birth during or just after the storm – are being made public. Some of these research projects have reached the national news: 20 years later…, Ice Storm relived…

Several Montreal-area researchers at Douglas Mental Health University Institute and McGill University set up a study called Project Ice Storm “to study the effects of in utero exposure to varying levels of prenatal maternal stress resulting from an independent stressor on the children’s development from birth through childhood.” Nearly 100 families participated in the project which followed the children through home visits and the use of questionnaires to teachers and parents. The researchers found that the experiences of the mothers affected a whole host of things in their children: IQ, obesity, insulin secretion and their immune system.

The authors report that, “To date, we have obtained significant effects of prenatal maternal stress in every area of development that we have examined. Extrapolating our findings to more severe events, such as war and other forms of natural and man-made disaster, the strong effects we find may possibly be multiplied in other contexts.”

The effects of the 1998 storm left lasting memories on those who lived through it but apparently also on the DNA of children born afterward (see 2014 article, DNA Methylation Signatures Triggered…). Data from the study have shown that “Prenatal maternal stress results in lasting, broad and functionally organized DNA methylation signature in several tissues in offspring. By using a natural disaster model, we can infer that the epigenetic effect found in Project Ice Storm are due to objective levels of hardship experienced by the pregnant woman rather than to her level of sustained distress.” The extent of the maternal stress and impacts on the fetuses was partly dependent on such things as the number of days without power and the damage to the mothers’ homes.

So, I wondered, before the day of scientific, psychological and other such confined studies of specific events, how would we know what effects such major natural disasters might have had on our ancestors in the past. We do have evidence that many surviving families suffered through economic and mental problems following major floods or storms where family members, especially the main bread-winners, were lost.

What genealogists have perhaps not recorded, or have not been able to find, were the personal histories and states of mind of those left behind after fathers, mothers or children were lost. Or, at least, they may not have recognized how lives were changed or mental states developed of those still in the womb. Following the lives of such children might show how or whether people were affected physically or mentally by natural disasters from which their mothers may have been subjected.

Reference:

Cao-Lei, L., Massart, R., Suderman, M. J., Machnes, Z., Elgbeile, G., Laplante, D. P., Szyf, M. & King, S. (2014). DNA Methylation Signatures Tirggered by Prenatal Maternal Stress Exposure to a Natural Disaster: Project Ice Storm. Published online 19 September 2014 at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107653