Some things you might think about could give you a clue. My family, which my wife is researching, came to Texas in 1873 or twenty years later. She is finding that the family fractured after the war into different groups that went from South Carolina/North Carolina and some went to Georgia, some to Tennessee, and ultimately some of them came to Texas. They had been large land owners before the Civil War and I suspect that as a result of the war and reconstruction they lost their property to the North occupiers or something resulting from the war. However, in your case they came a few years after the Texans got their independence from Mexico in 1836. I know that some of the landowners in Texas got their land from old Spanish land grants. There are a couple of graves on our property from settlers that died in 1870 that they received several thousand acres this way. The woman I am told by my dad who had a copy of the old Spanish land grant received this large acreage by only having to pay $5.00 to register this. As I recall it was something in excess of 2200 acres. That is pretty cheap land. Now to figure it out in our case we had a reason to leave our roots in the Carolinas, but ours was probably a chance to start over in a new area with lots of land available. You need to put youself in your ancestors position and try to imagine what the motivation would have been. What are the reasons we do things now? Sometimes it is for financial reasons(new jobs), sometimes family issues (feuds), adventure (lure of wealth), past (criminal), and sometimes just because it was there. There are probably as many reasons as people. You need to weigh each of the above or any you can come up with and see how they compare with what you know about him and the reasons you have yourself made any moves. Some things to consider though which makes this stuff so intrigueing are when these people made these moves there were usually no jobs to go to, no money when they got there, most times no family there if they were very early, so most things tend to be related to family issues(feuds), adventure (wealth/cheap land), past (criminal past), or just because it was there. I believe that if you sit down and compile all you know about his past and look at where the others in his family group are located now, a pattern may emerge that will help you figure his motivation. You may find somethings out about yourself in the meantime. Some things you might find very interesting and some may be even disturbing. My wife is copied on this as she has become quite the little researcher on my family. She may have some other ideas about this also. -----Original Message----- From: Lilly [mailto:malik@scs-net.org] Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 8:42 PM To: TXNAVARR-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [TXNAVARR] 1853 Navarro County History Here is a general question for anyone who might like to comment: My ancestor William Doolen b. 1820 IL arrived in Navarro Co TX as of 1853 from Illinois. He left a very large and well established family group up in Marion Co. IL to come to TX, as an Early Pioneer of Navarro Co TX. Question: WHY did he come to Navarro Co., TX? Was it free land, cheap land, or what drew him to the area? The Doolen researchers up in Marion Co IL asked me this question recently, and I did know what to say. Any ideas, thoughts, comments, I would love to hear them. Best regards, Lillian Kathleen Martin Researching DOOLEN and MARTIN in Navarro Co TX as of 1880 census there, 8 families all related to me. ==== TXNAVARR Mailing List ==== To see what Navarro County resources are available on RootsWeb, go to: http://resources.rootsweb.com/USA/TX/Navarro/