Myths debunked when doing family histroy.

[DianaCanada]

My children’s direct paternal ancestor left Yorkshire in 1640 and arrived in Massachusetts as a servant, although I am not sure he was indentured.  He later set up the first grist mill in the area.

Just my opinion, but I do believe the original Puritan settlers did set a “tone” in New England of hard work, sobriety, and a conservative approach to life, if not politics, as it does tend to be a liberal area in that regard.

 I highly recommend the book Albion’s Seed about how the British settlement of the original colonies influenced four major regions of what is now the US.  It is by David Hackett Fischer. He also wrote Champlain’s Dream, about New France.

[Erato]

The same author also wrote "Paul Revere's Ride" which is an excellent account of the events leading up to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.  And especially interesting to me since I grew up in the town where the first shots were fired.

>>>>>>>>>

"Just my opinion, but I do believe the original Puritan settlers did set a “tone” in New England of hard work, sobriety, and a conservative approach to life, if not politics, as it does tend to be a liberal area in that regard."

There I tend to agree with you.  The actual modern religious descendants of the New England Puritans are the Congregationalists and the Unitarians, not the fundamentalist nut jobs of the bible belt.  Those Puritan settlers did set a "tone" that is still dimly perceptible today even though New England is no longer numerically dominated by pure blooded Yankees.  Certainly Yankee culture was a major theme in my paternal family.

[coombs]

I suppose the "99% of people never moved 10 miles or so from their birthplace prior to the invention of cars" could be a misapprehension of facts as opposed to a myth.

[Nickeleye]

My mum's mum used to say that we descended from Sir William Pitt, mum would always mutter under her breath, 'Sir William Pitt, the one that didn't get married'. Dad would always say that he descended from people who were hung for steeling sheep. Well it turns out we descend from William Pitt who made beds in Bordesley Green and on dad;s side from someone who was acquitted for steeling a deer. Reality is more interesting, in the end. I have now been to my great great grandad's grave, an impressive Victorian granite obelisk erected by those who employed him, and worked with him out of respect for all his innovative contributions to the industry, I've chatted with cousins Ive never heard of and I have seen photos of real people that look like family, because they are or were family.

[J.J.]

Just found this older thread & must add:
re "99% of people never moved 10 miles or so from their birthplace prior to the invention of cars"...Whoosh, have never seen that sad myth before... They'd better not research the "North American" aboriginal/native people who travelled throughout the States & Canada on foot...or some metis descendants whom we know travelled from the Prairies to the west coast by Red River Cart & on foot. We surely must accept that before having made a mode of transportation, that our first people must have travelled long distances on foot all over the earth a very long time ago.
Speaking of Myths, though...
(It's called "North America"...there's no such thing as just an "America" except in many people's minds)

Also, something to chew on...re: the Land Bridge they know/think/er, maybe existed but all insist the first people came from elsewhere...who's to say that it didn't all happen in reverse...The original indigenous people along the North American coast will never be properly investigated when the land they inhabited is so deep under water.

[jbml]

Another myth debunked is when people say "the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in then". Maybe more likely in later census records but not so much in earlier records, and even for later records you still have to do a bit of digging to find where in the village or hamlet the cottage/house/farm was. In cities it was easier as houses were numbered more often and streets named.

Doesn't help me with my ancestors who, in the 1841 census, were listed "in a camp in the lane" in Rickmansworth.

WHICH lane, for Pete's sake?

[jbml]

Only in your part of North America. There is no Canadian myth about the first Europea settlers fleeing religious persecution; they were French men and women who continued to practice Catholicism in New France. 
Many of the early settlers here of English and German backgrounds were fleeing the American Revolution.
The large number of early Scots who came here worked in the fur trade.  No fleeing religious persecution that I have ever heard.

I read somewhere (can't remember where ) that the "we were fleeing religious intolerance" was a self-serving narrative, and that many of the puritan settlers were actually fleeing religious tolerance, and looking for somewhere to practice their own brand of religious intolerance.

As for the settlers of Canada and the fur trade ... the last port of call of the ships of the Hudson Bay Company before they crossed the Atlantic was Stromness in the Orkneys. Here they took on supplies and water ... and hired, if they were short-handed. Eventually, 75% of the entire payroll of the company were Orcadian.

Many or these Orcadian employees of the Hudson Bay Company took native American wives ... and at the end of their service, some stayed in America while others returned to Orkney. The native American wives of those who returned to Orkney continued to practise their traditional crafts ... particularly beadwork; and when they died, a number of their families donated some or all of their beadwork to the Stromness museum.

Consequently, Stromness museum has one of the finest collections of native American beadwork that exists outside of America ... and it was all made in Orkney! If you are ever in Scotland, it is well worth making the trip to the far north to see it!

[IgorStrav]

Another myth debunked is when people say "the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in then". Maybe more likely in later census records but not so much in earlier records, and even for later records you still have to do a bit of digging to find where in the village or hamlet the cottage/house/farm was. In cities it was easier as houses were numbered more often and streets named.

Doesn't help me with my ancestors who, in the 1841 census, were listed "in a camp in the lane" in Rickmansworth.

WHICH lane, for Pete's sake?

As someone who has “walked” a census in the vain hope of finding ancestors, can you possibly start at the last identifiable address (street, road etc) and then continue in the footsteps of the enumerator to the “lane” mentioned?
Sadly may get you not much further, but possibly lead to documentary evidence of where traveller camps were customarily located at the time?

[jbml]

Good shout, Igor.

I have in face done a "virtual walk" of the census enumerator's route around Rickmansworth for subsequent censuses in order to figure out whereabouts certain homes might have been. One year time he made a clockwise circuit, and another time he went anticlockwise. So it might be possible to take a similar approach to the 1841 census.