Thanks for the positive feedback. I need to go on record right off saying that my ideas change and develop as more information comes to light and I have NOT studied much in depth after 1800 (Colonial days are my interest). So folks are free to question, ctiricize, add to , take from, suggest or whatever. the last line in your post reflects my main point. Best regards, David Armstrong, Elkins, WV ----- Original Message ----- From: "D. Shepard" <dshep8505@msn.com> To: <wvhardy@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 12:08 PM Subject: Re: [WVHARDY] United Brethren Church & Stover Family > Thanks David a great clarification. I am sure some will question for > "financial" reasons that there was such a great migration. I tend to lean > for the "land grant" option. My family, LANDES, were will established in > Hardy but with the population increasing so and the lands shrinking, my > family left to get more land ,stay with the ones they believed the same > way > as they did, and able to give something to their future generations. > I am with you, one sentence will not tell each individual families > reason > "Why". > Yours, Don S. > > >>From: "David Armstrong" <heraldry@meer.net> >>Reply-To: wvhardy@rootsweb.com >>To: <wvhardy@rootsweb.com> >>Subject: Re: [WVHARDY] United Brethren Church & Stover Family >>Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2006 08:29:24 -0400 >> >>If one tries to sum up the movement west into a sentence ("there was more >>work there") or ("the game was plentiful") it will certainly overlook the >>bigger picture which is complicated, convoluted, and to understand it one >>needs threads back 200 years earlier. There had been a fast-running land >>grab going on for two generations by the time of 1810, in the west, >>wherever >>the "west" happened to be at that moment. Ohio had been opened up for >>settlement in the late 1790s and the Federal Government had it ceded by >>Virginia in the complex negotiations after the Revolution. There they >>laid >>off one region as "military lands" to pay off the promises made to the >>soldiers in the Continental army. Meanwhile immigration had not slowed >>alot >>but would shift from time to time as to where the immigrants were coming >>from. as in the 1600s and early 1700s the settled regions began to get >>more >>crowded and the "population center" of the US gradually moved west into >>areas (like Ohio) where there was land available for settlement. While I >>have not personally studied the move into Ohio (it is after 1800 and >>therefor loses my interest) it is little different from earlier ones. >>INDIVIDUALS could go for their own varied reasons. They may simply have >>been falling in with the moving center of population looking for land >>grants >>(the word "grant" being key) since in more settled areas (like the Tygart >>Valley)the best land had been taken up at least as the best lands went and >>there was little but hilly foothills and mountain land left which was >>being >>gobbled up by speculators in spite of the efforts of leftists in the 1770s >>to draft legislation to stop that. Some (like my ancestor Cornelius >>Bogard) >>went to Ohio to get away FROM something (in his case a financial disaster >>having to do with holding public office and land speculation), and I >>believe >>(although controversial) that some were going home. Some who were held >>captive as a child in Ohio by the Indians before 1781 or later had good >>experiences there and may have just went back. I once read an e-mail from >>a >>person who said "they would go to Ohio and buy land and then sell it for >>less than they paid so they could move to Indiana to do it all over again" >>(!!). This I think was finally published in a family history. From my >>experience it is not habitual for people to move 300 miles to take a >>financial loss with a motive to move another 300 miles to take another. >>That is where some folks can get in trouble trying to sum up historical >>events in a sentence. Genealogy lends itself well to the identification >>of >>individuals and family connections but the genealogist may want to be >>cautious before they publish their interpretation of historical trends. >>Why >>the forbears may have gone to Ohio is insanely complicated and a fine >>family >>history can be written if one can place their ancestor's particular >>experience in the bigger picture of a developing America. If you can sum >>it >>up in a sentence it may be best to leave it out. >> >>Best regards, >> >>David Armstrong, >>Elkins, WV >> >> >> >>------------------------------- >>To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>WVHARDY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >>quotes >>in the subject and the body of the message > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get today's hot entertainment gossip > http://movies.msn.com/movies/hotgossip > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > WVHARDY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >