THIS AND THAT "GO WEST"
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GO WEST YOUNG MAN
"Go west young man" said John Babstone Lane Soule in the "Terre Haute Express" (an Indiana newspaper). And so they did, along the trails, by
ships, and later, by rail. Information about life on the long journey west and early settlement can provide a fascinating background for your family history and wonderful clues for further tracing your ancestors.
Where do you go for this information if you aren't lucky enough to have diaries, letters, or other biographical information outlining your
ancestors' travels? Sources are becoming more and more abundant. Printed sources can provide valuable details and many of these publications are appearing Online. Here is an excerpt from "Nebraska: the Land and the
People: Volume 1," available Online to Ancestry.com subscribers at:
http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/search/3266.htm
"The hardships endured by the pioneer settlers of the Territory were at no time more severe than in the winter of 1856-57, during which there was an almost constant succession of heavy snow storms, accompanied by bitter cold.
This weather set in December 1 and lasted until spring. Many wild and domestic animals perished and many settlers also lost their lives. In Richardson County, in the first December storm, twenty head of cattle were walled in a valley by the snow and most of them perished. Their owner, in February, found a few survivors that had maintained existence by feeding on
the branches of trees. In Dodge County the sun was not seen for two months,
and ravines thirty feet deep were filled with snow. A man was lost in the
storm and his body not recovered until April, when the snow had melted. In
Burt County snow fell for six days and nights without stopping, and the
settlers would have starved had it not been for the game that they caught in
the snowdrifts. In Cuming County the creeks and rivers were buried by the
snow. Settlers traveled on foot to the Missouri River to obtain supplies and
hauled them home on hand sleds. The deer, elk and antelope sought shelter in
the timber along the streams, and one settler killed over seventy with an
axe. In such weather, man had a certain advantage over hoofed animals, as
the crust of snow would bear a man, but the animals, with their greater
weight and small feet, broke through and were helpless. In Otoe County the
deer ran through the streets of Nebraska City, pursued by hungry wolves. On
the Oregon Trail, between Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie, the snow lay two
feet deep from October to May, and the drifts filled the valleys. In no
winter since has the snow been so deep, so badly drifted, or remained so
long on the ground."
A great place to locate other sources like this is NUCMC (National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections) available Online at the Library of
Congress' Web site at: http://lcweb.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/nucmc.html
A search with "oregon trail" as the subject turned up 87 hits with several diaries, letters, and other first hand accounts of the trip west on the Oregon Trail. "Colorado" and "pioneers" turned up 24 hits, also diaries, memoirs, and more.
The web is also a great source of background information. Trail sites with maps, diaries, pictures, and biographies are becoming very popular. Here are a few to start. If you don't find what you are looking for here, try using
your favorite search engine. You'll be amazed at the wealth of information that it will turn up!
TRAIL & MIGRATION SITES
The Overland Trail
http://www.over-land.com/index.html
American Migrations Web Site
http://members.aol.com/gedsearch/migrate.htm
National Historic Trails Interpretive Center
http://w3.trib.com/~rlund/NHTIC.html
The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/ngphome.html
Pioneering in the Upper Midwest, 1820-1910
American Memory Project, LOC
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/umhtml/umhome.html
Juliana's Links
http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/testurllinks/search.asp
(In the Category Search, select 'Miscellaneous' and then "Westward
Movement")
OREGON/CALIFORNIA TRAIL
Oregon-California Trails Association
http://calcite.rocky.edu/octa/octahome.htm
End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center
http://www.teleport.com:80/~eotic/index.html
Oregon Trail
http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/Allabout.html
Emigrant Summit Trail (to California)
http://www.r5.pswfs.gov/heritage/010.HTM
Opening of the California Trail
http://www.tahoenet.com/tdhs/tpstephn.html
MORMON TRAIL
MormonTrail.com: The Pioneer Experience
http://www.mormontrail.com/
MormonTrail.net
http://www.mormontrail.net/
History of the Mormon Trail
http://lserver.aea14.k12.ia.us/SWP/cdavis/MTOP.HOMEP
Iowa Mormon Trails
http://www.lisco.com/iowamormontr/
SANTA FE TRAIL
The Interactive Santa Fe Trail (SFT) Homepage
http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/heritage/research/sft/
Fort Union and the Santa Fe Trail
http://www.viva.com/nm/ghosts/union.html
CHISHOLM TRAIL
Chisholm Trail Anniversary Site
http://www.unicusnet.com/chisholmtrail130/
Chisholm Trail
http://www.southwind.net/ict/wht/wht-07s.html
SPANISH TRAIL
Old Spanish Trail Association
http://www.slv.org/History/ost.htm
RAILROAD
"The reality of a transcontinental railroad resulted in several changes in
Mormon emigration policy. In the late '60's, missionaries often recommended
to their converts that they remain in their homes until the completion of
the railroad, thus avoiding much of the hardship, sickness and death that
had marked the trail of the covered wagon. By so doing they would also be
able to accumulate more money to bring with them to the new community, or to
assure the passage of the entire family. And in Utah, men who would
otherwise be called to leave their homes to guide the incoming Saints to
Zion, could stay at home to carry on their own work. With this in mind, the
missionaries were frequently given the responsibility of placing families in
mid-west or eastern communities where they could find homes and employment."
The above excerpt is from "Our Pioneer Heritage, Volume 8," (available
online to Ancestry.com subscribers at:
http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/search/3239.htm)
RRHistorical
http://rrhistorical.com
Railroad Maps from the Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/rrhome.html
Golden Spike National Historic Site
http://www.media.utah.edu/medsol/UCME/g/GOLDENSPIKE.html
Railroads in Kansas
http://history.cc.ukans.edu/heritage/research/rr/railroads.html
MAPS
Westward Migration in U.S. 1775-1860
http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/FreeImages.asp?ImageID=299
Exploration and Settlement Before 1675
http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/FreeImages.asp?ImageID=641
Exploration and Settlement 1675-1800
http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/FreeImages.asp?ImageID=643
Exploration and Settlement 1800-1820
http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/FreeImages.asp?ImageID=644
Exploration and Settlement 1820-1835
http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/FreeImages.asp?ImageID=645
Exploration and Settlement 1835-1850
http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/FreeImages.asp?ImageID=647
Exploration and Settlement 1850-1890
http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/FreeImages.asp?ImageID=648
SOURCES IN PRINT
"Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey" by Lillian Schlissel (Schocken
Books, 1992)
http://shop.ancestry.com/ancestry/womdiarofwes1.html
"U.S. Migration Patterns" by Wendy L. Elliott (Bountiful, UT: American
Genealogical Lending Library, 1987)
"The Transportation Frontier: Trans-Mississippi West, 1865-1890" by Oscar
Osburn Winther (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964)
"Blazing a Wagon Trail to Oregon : A Weekly Chronicle of the Great Migration
of 1843" by Lloyd W. Coffman (Echo Books, 1993)
"The Orphan Trains: Placing Out in America" by Marilyn Irvin Holt (Univ of
Nebraska, 1992)
http://shop.ancestry.com/ancestry/brtheortrain.html
Thanks for the above to Juliana Smith, Editor, Ancestry Daily News - Joel White, Associate Editor and the Daily News. To subscribe to this newsletter, visit http://www.ancestry.com/whatsnew.htm
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