Is moving all over the UK common in the early 1800s?

[lmfamilyresearch]

I am curious as to how likely it would be for one of my ancestors (Margaret Cochrane b. 1786) who was born in Dunbar, East Lothian to move to Portsea, Hampshire in the early 1800s?  It seems like a very far distance to travel when most of my ancestors around that time pretty much stayed where there were or didn't move too far away.  I do know that Margaret Cochrane married John Riddel in 1816, and the only instance of a Cochrane marrying a Riddel occured in Portsea in 1816.  This is the only way I can potentially place Margaret Cochrane in Portsea. By 1819 they were in Aberdeenshire.  How common at this time was it to move around the UK as much as they seem to have?

Thanks,

[MaecW]

Portsea is now part of Portsmouth and the early 1800s were the Napoeonic Wars.
Could John have been in the Navy or associated Government service ?

FindMyPast have an image of the marriage record, which might give more information than the transcript, but their link is not working at the moment.

Maec

[JACK GEE]

Hello Infam,
this was most uncommon. My George Gilbert was born in Shirehampton in 1806 and died in Darlingford Vic Australia in 1877. His first daughter was born in Litton in 1838 -Somerset, son born in East Brent Somerset 1839. He went to Canada circa 1840 and returned. His second daughter born in Gloucestershire in 1845 and second son born in Bristol in 1847. He migrated to Australia in 1858.
if you take out the migrations he moved within a circle of about  50 miles.

cheers
Jack Gee

[bodger]

This period was at the beginning of the industrial revolution which involved movement of labour to the industrial areas

[antiquesam]

Both are listed in the records of being of the Parish of Portsea. John spells his surname with two L's, and unusually for the time both signed their name.

[Greensleeves]

It depends where people lived and what kind of work they did.  One of my Suffolk lines lived in the same three villages within an area of about 5 miles from before 1500 until the 1930s.  My northern ancestors, however, were far more mobile.  The Yorkshire ancestry of which my late father had been so proud actually turns out to be a mixture of County Durham, Kent, Surrey, Irish and Norwegian.  As many of the men in my  northern family were mariners,  they presumably sailed to London and took their brides back with them.  Thus the family tree in the mid 1800s features a number of women from Greenwich,  Rotherhithe etc living in Hartlepool with their Durham-born husbands and children.

[whiteout7]

I have light housekeepers in my tree they moved all over the place within England and then over to Ireland.

[chris_49]

I think Greensleeves may have the answer - they travelled by sea. Before the railway boom, overland travel (by horse and carriage) was slow or expensive (fresh horses provided at frequent stops, but only on the main carriage routes) and both Dunbar and Portsmouth are obviously on the coast.

I was drawn to this conclusion when doing some FH for a friend and was puzzled why some of her ancestors moved in this period from West Cumbria to Chepstow and back again. I found the clue - there were "mariners" in the family. This probablty explains how my great x 3 grandmother Ann Hicks got from Cornwall to Wallasey before her 1833 marriage.

Chris

[chris_49]

I can only speak for my own researches, but apart from Ann Hicks I find that few of my relatives move very far in the pre-census area (as far as I can tell) but once the railway network expanded they make all manner of moves (for work - the cities and the coal-mining areas are popular) though this period obviously has more evidence through censuses and BMDs.

I was helped in this research by reading Chris Wolmar's "Fire and Steam" - the railways did expand very rapidly at this time.