Why did My Ancestor Move a Lot? (Or did They Really?)

There are many reasons our ancestors moved, and yes, some of our ancestors did move frequently, but it’s also important to keep in mind that not every “move” we think we find in historic records is really a move. Sometimes, Yes, our ancestors did move. Sometimes, No, they didn’t really, even when it seems like they did according to historic records.

So, what makes this answer “simple” is the idea that just like today, some people move often and others hardly spread their wings at all, choosing instead to remain in the same town their whole lives, sometimes even living on the exact same street or maybe even in the same house as they as a child. Ancestors that take this approach to life can often be easier to research and simpler to find in historic records.

What makes this answer “not-so-simple” is that many of our ancestors seem like they moved a lot but actually didn’t, or at least they didn’t permanently relocate.

In some cases, even when historic records tell us otherwise, our ancestors were living in the exact same spot as the last time we found them in available records. In other cases, our ancestors may have made a temporary move – usually for work – but eventually returned home again.

Let’s take a closer look at these two scenarios.

SCENARIO ONE: The Move That Wasn’t Really a Move at All

Every researcher finds records that show different places of residence for their ancestors, but it’s essential to learn more about those places so you can better understand your ancestors’ life experiences. In other words, just knowing the name of where they lived doesn’t really tell you where they were living.

You may need to read that last sentence more than once. “Just knowing the name of where they lived doesn’t really tell you where they were living.”

You may still be thinking, “Well what the heck is that supposed to mean?” Here are a couple of examples that will hopefully help you understand just what I mean.

Example #1:

Let’s say you’re researching an ancestor that lived in Colonial Virginia, and you’ve managed to trace them back to the Northern Neck region in the early 1700s. Now, let’s say you’re lucky enough to find a baptism record showing your ancestor had a child baptized in 1715 in a church that was located in Richmond County. Then, you find a 1736 tax list that shows your ancestor living in King George County.

So, did your ancestor move between 1715 and 1736?

At first glance, it would seem so. BUT, if you look more deeply into the history of the area, you’ll find that in 1720, portions of Virginia’s OLD Richmond County were partitioned off and became part of King George County. Knowing this, you now know it’s possible that your ancestor didn’t move at all, but instead that county boundaries were simply redrawn around him and his family. Of course, you’d need to do more research to confirm this, but at least you would know where to start looking.

Image retrieved Nov. 15, 2023 from https://encyclopediavirginia.org/2067hpr-801b426c3940abd/

There are multiple resources available online for examining colonial land divisions and the formation of counties in British North America and within the early United States. One of the best for Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky (since all of these were originally part of the Colony of Virginia) is an interactive map created by George W. Durman. Unfortunately, Durman’s site is currently (2023) hosted on RootsWeb, and all RootsWeb sites are scheduled for at least partial decommissioning in 2024. This makes it hard to say how usable the Virginia County Formation Map that Durman so painstakingly created will be in the future, but I’m hoping it will remain up and running for the benefit of all family history researchers.

Example #2:

Now, let’s look at an example from the 19th Century. Let’s say you’ve found your ancestor living on Greenwood Avenue in an 1889 Indianapolis, Indiana city directory, and then in later records, you find that same ancestor still in Indianapolis but residing on Cornell Avenue.

So, did your ancestor move? Well, in this case, probably not. Here’s why:

In February of 1894, the City of Indianapolis officially changed the name of several streets (including Greenwood Avenue) to a single street name: Cornell Avenue. The motivation for this was to “clean up” city navigation by giving longer stretches of city streets the same name instead of multiple names.

Historic Indianapolis, like many cities in the U.S., had it’s original street names assigned as new housing was completed. These parcels of new land developments varied greatly in size and shape and in the date of sale and the date of improvement or construction. As a residential or commercial district was completed, streets in the area were named. Sometimes, these streets connected to already named streets, but instead of having a single moniker for the entire roadway, streets were frequently given a new name along the border of a newly completed development. This often resulted in a stretch of road that spanned several city blocks having half a dozen or so different names.

Image at right: Closeup of Greenwood Ave. from the map “West Part of Center Township,” featured in the Atlas of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana (Indianapolis, Indiana: Griffing, Gordon and Company, 1889). Retrieved Nov. 15, 2023 from https://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15078coll8/id/3181

Before 1894, Cornell Avenue was actually known by four different names (Greenwood, Forest, Alger, and Cornell), dependent upon which block of the street you were on.

After February of 1894, the entire stretch was known as Cornell Avenue.

So, your ancestor didn’t move. The street he lived on was just renamed.

Image at left: Closeup of the map “Indianapolis and Environs, 1894,” retrieved from https://images.indianahistory.org/digital/collection/dc035/id/203/

This maps depicts the renamed stretch of Cornell Ave. (indicated by the blue line, running between Clyde (also known as 12th St.) and the then City Limits. Prior to 1894, this street, south of Clyde/12th Street, was already called Cornell Ave. The renaming in February of 1894 expanded the Cornell Ave. name north to the city limits and eliminated the other street names that were previously there.

Some researchers are satisfied with just finding a census record showing the city or town in which an ancestor lived. If you’d like to drill down even further and understand an ancestor’s neighborhood or community, then you’ll want to learn as much as you can about each address you find in an historic record associated with your ancestor. This includes reviewing maps, directories, and even city or town planning documents, among other records.

Image at right: Journals of the Common Council of the City of Indianapolis from October 12, 1893 to October 7, 1895, Inclusive (Indianapolis, Indiana: Sentinel Printing Company, 1896), 134.               

City directories are an excellent source for learning about street name changes. In Indianapolis, for example, the renaming of streets was common throughout the latter part of the 1800s, and has continued, though at a slower pace, ever since. Old city directories, many of which can be found online via digital repositories these days, often included listings of new and renamed streets.

Image at left: Polk’s Indianapolis City Directory (R.L. Polk: Marion County, Indiana, 1895), 61. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/polksin00unse/page/60/mode/2up

Very little of Cornell Avenue remains today, as is the case with many of Indianapolis’ oldest streets. As the city grew, older streets were often destroyed and new streets were added, with traffic being rerouted around new neighborhoods and business districts. Rail lines, and eventually interstate highways, resulted in the demolition of many of Indianapolis’ oldest neighborhoods, including most of Cornell Avenue. While it might not be possible to visit the historic home or street of an ancestor in a situation like this, you can at least build a broader understanding of the place they once called home by conducting a thorough investigation into each address you find in historic records.

SCENARIO TWO: The Temporary Relocation, a.k.a. Cyclical/Circular Migration or Repeat Immigration

Work, or the ability to earn a living, often drove our ancestors to relocate, just as many of today’s moves are made for employment opportunities. And just as there are seasonal jobs today – like those that pop up around the holidays in the retail industry, for example – there were seasonal labor forces throughout history. Migrant workers have always existed too, with many people moving from one town, city, or state to the next as new work opportunities arose. Sometimes, our ancestors even crossed national borders and vast oceans in search of employment, and some made these arduous journeys multiple times while striving to financially support themselves and their families.

Researchers sometimes call temporary relocations cyclical migrations. Others call them circular migration patterns. There are also common terms like repeat immigration to describe these kinds of employment-driven, back and forth moves. When I come across a person that follows one of these patterns though, I tend to think of them as a boomerang research subject.

Here are just a few examples of common boomerang immigration patterns to consider when researching family history:

Example #1: Crossing National Borders

Ireland’s population was always on the move in search of life-saving employment opportunities that could support not just a single emigrant, but often his or her extended family. Many people (young men, especially) crossed the border into England to work, sometimes for months or years, but eventually returned home to the county and townland in which their family lived.

Determined men (and sometimes women) would frequently make these employment-driven moves multiple times over the course of decades – going to England to work and returning home to their ancestral townland. It’s therefore imperative that anyone researching their ancestors in Ireland consider the idea of hopping the border themselves to research records in Britain, as well.   

Example #2: Crossing the Ocean

Irish domestic workers in New York City and other port cities are a prime example of boomerang research subjects. While many Irish immigrants came to the U.S. and never returned home, there are others that arrived in a port city, like New York, and worked for several years before returning home to Ireland for a year or two, only to turn around and do the same thing again a couple of years later. This pattern was common among other national and ethnic groups, including the Italian (and Sicilian, in particular) labor force.

Many family historians and even some more seasoned genealogists find an immigration record and are satisfied they’ve located documentation of an ancestor’s permanent relocation to the U.S. While it might be true that the record found is the right person, it may not be the only immigration trip that ancestor made.

It’s always important to search further, even if your ancestor wasn’t a native of Ireland, Italy, or another nation in which repeat immigration was quite common.

Desperate circumstances in the country of origin, including extreme poverty, disease, and starvation, coupled with a deep-rooted history in a particular village or town, is usually what drives circular immigration/emigration patterns. Having living family at home is also a contributory factor, and indeed, many boomerang research subjects are husbands and fathers that came to the United States to earn the money to bring their family to American.

While many immigrants never stepped foot on the soil of their native land again, some made the journey between the U.S. and their country of origin multiple times before finally bringing their family to the U.S. and permanently settling. Studying the history of your ancestor’s old-world home can help you put their actions and motivations into perspective.  

Pictured at left: “Italian Immigrant Family at Ellis Island,” ca. 1903, retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b15378/

 Example #3: Following the Labor Trail

Most people think of migrant labor or circular labor trends as occurring only within a small subset of the employment market, but there are actually all kinds of jobs that result in a repeat immigration or migration pattern. These can include everything from agricultural jobs – like migrant farm workers – to state and national government workers – like state representatives and U.S. congresspersons. These and many other jobs require employees to leave their home, relocate to another place, work for a period of weeks or months, and then return home again.

Over the course of my career as a researcher, I’ve found similar migratory employment trends in some unexpected places, including among workers in the meat packing and railroad industries and the blacksmith trade, to name just a few.

Once you find an ancestor living somewhere else for part of the year and then returning home again, you should keep looking. Check for repetition or a migratory pattern. You just might find one.