Hi Dena, Although you didn't ask for general sources, an excellent source for migration patterns and general lives of middle-class farmers (which constituted the majority of white Southerners prior to 1865) is Dr. Frank Owsley's "Plain Folk of the Old South." He was a history professor at Univ. of Alabama in the early part of this century and studied migration patterns, daily life of southerners, etc. I found this work extremely interesting and helpful; moreover, he appears to have been much more progressive in his attitudes towards equality of the races than many of his contemporary historians. His student, Dr. Grady McWhinney has written many excellent works dealing with Southerners, especially "Cracker Culture, Celtic Ways in the Old South." [Incidentally, Dr. Owsley's son, Frank Owsley, Jr., authored the only in-depth study of the War of 1812 in the South - this book describes the events that occurred in 1813-1815 in Georgia and Alabama as the whites fought the Creeks.] Dr. Owsley's work is particularly relevant to your comment Dena about whether the settlers of Union Parish all came from the same county or counties. He describes how settlers chose where to migrate as they moved west, and how they would choose regions with the same soil content, drainage, etc. as where they currently lived. His thesis is that farmers in, say, Georgia would settle in Alabama counties that were nearly identical to their Georgia farms, then as they moved into Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, they would do the same, so the types of land they farmed in all those locations was basically the same. That is a very brief synopsis of his excellent book, but I found it interesting. After reading his work, I began to carefully study where Union Parish settlers originated. The first "wave" of migration into what is now Union Parish occurred in early 1837, just prior to the Panic of 1837 that caused most of the nation's banks to fail. Colonel Matthew Wood and his son-in-law, former Butler County Alabama Sheriff John Taylor, apparently led this first wave of settlers. They came from Lowndes and Butler Counties. Many others followed in 1838 and 1839 from those counties, plus from Autauga and Dallas Counties. In the early 1840s, there was much additional migration into Union Parish from Lowndes, Butler, Autauga, and Dallas. In about 1846, a large group from Bibb, Dallas, and Perry Counties settled in Union Parish, and in 1847, another large group from Dallas and Wilcox Counties settled there. Of course, there were settlers who came to Union Parish from other regions, but those counties in particular saw large numbers of their residents migrate into Union Parish in the decade prior to 1850. Have you consulted the following site: http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/PatentSearch/ Type in "Alabama" and search for the surname "Culbert", etc. (leave the first name blank). This gives you the date that government land was patented to settlers in Alabama. Almost all white men who lived in Alabama between 1818 and 1860 for any length of time purchased government land at some point. Note that the dates here are the date that the government finally completed the red tape to issue the official patent to the settler, always years after the settlers actually settled on and paid for the land. Many times, the settler had sold the land before an official patent was issue to him for it. The more useful date is the actual "entry date", which is not found on this site. That tells you the precise date on which the settle purchased the land at his local government land office. Contact me if you wish to know how to locate the entry date. Good luck, Tim Hudson -----Original Message----- From: JUNEIRENE@aol.com [mailto:JUNEIRENE@aol.com] Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 12:24 PM To: LAUNION-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [LAUNION] Migration Patterens from Alabama to Union Parish, LA Hi All, as I search the census records, I notice quite a few folks from Alabama. My Calbert's/Culbert's came from Alabama ca. 1844, according to the age of their first child to be born in Louisiana. My question is, did most of the people from Alabama come from the same county in Alabama before coming to Union Parish? I am trying to locate a county in which to start looking for William and Mary Calbert with children, Eliza, James, Ellen and William Jr. who were born there. Age of William Sr. on the 1850 census is 39 (b. 1811 in Ireland), Mary is 33 (born 1817 S. Carolina), Eliza is 15 (b. 1835 Alabama), James is 12 (b. 1838 Alabama) and William Jr. is 8 (born 1842 in Alabama). Any imput would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Dena Calbert-Jordan ==== LAUNION Mailing List ==== List manager launion-admin@rootsweb.com ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237