Migration and the Family in Colonial New England: the View From Genealogies

Abstract

This paper describes the migrations of the married men of six New England families from 1620 to 1850 using published genealogies as the data source. Their location at the time of vital events is used to investigate (1) per sistence rates; (2) distances between fathers, sons, and brothers during their life times ; and (3) the extent to which kin were found in the same community. Our data show more mobility than do town studies and reveal the importance of the nuclear family over more distant kin.