Are you a Genealogist or Family Historian?

[chiddicks]

It has also made me a historian on the villages and towns my ancestors lived, as it gives a picture of how they lived as well. Often in census records, the villages had houses that were not numbered and it just says "cottage" or just the schedule, then the name of the shop or pub, and it can give an idea of where your ancestral cottage was.

The amount of family names I see in ancestral churchyards and in the rolls of honour is good as well. Many may be distant cousins I never knew of before, so i do some research to see if they connect and many do, whereas some do not, it is sometimes a surname coincidence, especially with Smith, Brown, Turner or Archer etc.

I think of it that we are telling the life story of our ancestors to an audience, if all we had was dates it would only be a spreadsheet of numbers, it's digging behind that to find social context that brings colour to your tree

[coombs]

I have 3 2xgreat grandparents who were born, 2 of them in May 1851 and the other in Jan 1852. So very close in age. From Suffolk and Oxfordshire, and amazing how someone born in Oxford city in Jan 1852 and someone born a long way away in rural east Suffolk would share descendants.

[Erato]

That's what, 150 miles?

[coombs]

That's what, 150 miles?

Not this old chestnut again!. You are comparing it with the distances travelled America which is about 2500 miles in width, I am in the UK and 150 miles is a long way for us.

[Erato]

By 1850, there was a fairly extensive network of railways and, if there were trains, then there must have been passengers who wanted to travel on them.

"In the early days of  British railways, trains ran up to 78 mph by the year 1850."
https://worldwiderails.com/how-fast-did-early-trains-go/

[Rena]

These days we would check social media to see where the jobs were.   Our forefathers either heard of work via word of mouth or agents of employers would visit the area.  Additionally people tended to visit local feeing fairs where they might be tempted by a job offer whether they were looking for work or not.

The description I would give myself is "detective" especially now that I really have to dig deep to find scraps of information.

[Gadget]

Not this old chestnut again!. You are comparing it with the distances travelled America which is about 2500 miles in width, I am in the UK and 150 miles is a long way for us.

I'm in the UK and, at that time, I had ancestors travelling from Scotland to North Wales. From North Wales to Co Durham (in the 1840s), and to London and Yorkshire,  etc,. etc.  Not mentioning those who went to North America, Australia and New Zealand.

By then, not only had roads and shipping improved but canals (some 50 years earlier in some cases)  and railways existed.  This was  the age of high industrialisation - e.g. the Great Exhibition was held in 1851.

Any social and economic history book covering that period would show all this.

Add -Gaskell's North and South is worth reading if you prefer contemporary novels

[Erato]

There have always been people who stayed put and others who wandered far afield.  That's how we got out of Africa in the first place.  In North America, I've got plenty who followed Horace Greeley's advice and headed west but I've also got some who are still in Marquette County, Wisconsin on the very land settled by their ancestors in 1849.  In fact, there are some in Maine who have been on the same farm since about 1800.

[coombs]

Not this old chestnut again!. You are comparing it with the distances travelled America which is about 2500 miles in width, I am in the UK and 150 miles is a long way for us.

I'm in the UK and, at that time, I had ancestors travelling from Scotland to North Wales. From North Wales to Co Durham (in the 1840s), and to London and Yorkshire,  etc,. etc.  Not mentioning those who went to North America, Australia and New Zealand.

By then, not only had roads and shipping improved but canals (some 50 years earlier in some cases)  and railways existed.  This was  the age of high industrialisation - e.g. the Great Exhibition was held in 1851.

Any social and economic history book covering that period would show all this.

Add -Gaskell's North and South is worth reading if you prefer contemporary novels

And mine, several of my direct ancestors moved around all over the country and one even went to the US in 1886. But 150 miles is still quite a way, even if many people did travel that far and more. I have an ancestor from Algarkirk in Lincs who was in Colchester Essex by 1550 when she married. She mentioned rellies in Lincolnshire in her will and found her dad came from Algarkirk.