Bchico@aol.com wrote: > > while the ancestors were in Europe in their various locations - how did THEY > KNOW to come to America. Were there postings around in villages, etc- as in > "Hey, guys, how about a cruise to this place called America" > And after they decided "Think I'm going to cruise on over to that America place" > how did they know WHERE TO ARRIVE and how to END UP in Pendleton, and so forth. Well, that's a pretty big question <g>. I dont' know that I'm faintly qualified to answer it but I do think this is one of the most interesting aspects of family history ... and maybe if I start others will chime in to correct me. First, I think, it largely depended on where they were, and what was happening at that time in that area. For instance, there was a big migration of Germans from the area known as the Palatinate in the early 18th century, as a result of religious wars etc. Many of them wound up in Pennsylvania and many of those subsequently moved "down the valley" into Virginia. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/3955/palatine.htm is a pretty good summary of this particular migration. A lot of people who wound up in the Pendleton County area were Scots-Irish. I know even less about the circumstances of that wave of immigration -- which for some people inspires strong emotions even today -- but http://www.rootsweb.com/~pictou/clearncs.htm seems to be a fairly even-handed exposition ... I think it's probably also true that most of the people who lived in Pendleton County didn't come there directly upon landing in America, but were part of one or more of the great waves of internal migration, like the way that thousands poured from Pennsylvania down the Shenandoah Valley into Virginia and the Carolinas, and just slightly later westward into Ohio ... Well, that was a long post but just the tip of the iceberg ... I hope someone else who is more knowledgable will take up the thread ... Julia Christianson juliac@patriot.net