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Hello and Re your Farmer interests.

  I research Mallard of Northants,the Duston branch married into the Farmers.I have the Farmer tree from John Farmer c.1715  through 2 or 3 generations...can send you all in a gedcon file if you can use it .

nb.
  Gedcon files are specially designed to work with Family History programs. save it from my email then open then import it into your famhist program.

Pete
  Lyneham,Wilts

Migration in the time period 1800-1850 interests me.

Assuming the migrant was voluntary..ie not a criminal or a burden on the parish council.

The governments in America and Canada had a scheme to encourage migration by offering free land to anyone that would settle there and develop the land.

Q.1  how would this offer be transmitted to people in small villages etc in this country.

The people concerned were probably not destitute but as "aglabs for example" would only have a small amount of money at their disposal...possibly too they were unable to read so not be able read it from a newspaper.

Q.2 Were the expenses for these migrants subsidized and organised by the governments concerned,or was it left to some other organistion "ie religious" or the potential migrants themselves?

Q.3 In this period the only forms of transport would be carriers carts or if lucky, by canal..assuming again that the railways in this early period were in their infancy.
..was some organised travel available?

Q.4 Can anyone recommend a book relating to a typical journey?

Pete

Thanks Susan,
  thats our Robert,But no sign of his wife or children.

Peteu4

Eillo and David,
   thanks both of you for your replies...food for thought there.

 I have been researching the family history for about 15 years now and its twists and turns keep suprising me.

 There was a lot more organiation going on than I would have thought.

 These days such a decision to migrate to the US,would be backed up with a wealth of information as to what the place was like..job prospects..and above all how to get there.

 As far as I can perceive,other than by letters from someone already out there or perhaps a returned traveller...how would our ancestors be inspired to risk all on so little information.

 Once there it looks from your email as though there was definitely organisation...but whether it was possible to arrange this in advance from a very rural village in England,seems doubtfull to me.

 Which led me to consider that the nonconformist church would be a likely intermediary.Such an organisation would have the contacts on both sides of the journey and also inspire some confidence  in its feasibility and ultimatley a better life.

 As I pointed out earlier my ancestors were not penniless parishoners so,whilst I know that parishes did "offload" their liabilities by assisting the the poor to migrate,I do not think it was relevant to my lot.

 I will take a look at the Ohio website ..sounds very interesting.

Thank you both

Pete

Much to my suprise,I found that some of my ancestors in the 1820-60 era,had emigrated to America.

What intrigues me is "why".The ancestors concerned were farmer/graziers and as far as I can see,were not particularly hard up.

The area they came from was the Northants/Leics/ Rutland borders and they migrated to Ohio via new York in 1846.

There are the usual explanations..hard times/potato famine/outflow of country to town etc.But none of these seem to fit in with my folk.

Of the family involved the husband was Methodist and the wife mainstream C of E.

Given the absence of communication..how were they able to just "up sticks and go"?.The more I think about it, the more I suspect that there was more to it than that.

My pet theory at the moment is that,if such an organisation existed,then it may well have been religious(methodist)...thus the emigrees would not have been setting of blind,but would have a specific route and destination pre planned.All this probably to join up with a trail blazed by previous family members.

This theory seems more probable in the rapidity of reaching their Ohio destination from landing in new York.

Does anyone know if such an organisation existed?

Peteu4