When researching ancestors we should remember that historically people moved to find work — just as they do now.
Many family historians are quick to learn that their ancestors didn't stay put. This is so prevalent that two scholars recently paid tribute to family historians for their work in tracing the movements of people within and among communities, countries and continents.
When tracing family members, a useful, if often neglected, path of inquiry is the job trail — the idea of following family migrations in terms of employment opportunities. Historically, as now, people tended to go "where the action is."
People have always moved to cities from the country. Indeed, a Roman writer once observed that Urbs rurem haurit: the city devours the countryside. In Britain, the Industrial Revolution drew thousands annually into factory towns such as Manchester and Birmingham; in later years the mill towns of New England absorbed legions of Maritimers and Québecois.
History suggests there has been an underlying tendency over the past two millennia for human populations to migrate westwards. The Germanic tribes impacted the Roman Empire, the Franks became the French, and the Angles and Saxons pushed back the Celts. The Slavs arrived, in front of the Magyars and the Tatars, and so forth. Europeans, once in the Americas, moved west from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Atlantic Canadians, and not just the genealogists among us, need to heed the record. Populations move from the country into towns, and people of European backgrounds have had a penchant for seeking their fortune in the West. The Highland Clearances, the Great Potato Famine and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes pushed many of our forebears on the emigration trail, but migration involved pull as well as push, and the pull was the opportunity to support oneself — and prosper.
Ask yourself a few questions. What drew men from Newfoundland to Cape Breton in the 1890s and early 1900s? Why would one immigrant move to Albany, NY, in the 1820s, while his brother remained here? Why would several families from Chester, NS, relocate to Minas Basin or across the Bay of Fundy, to St. Martins, NB? The answer is one word: work.
Did our Newfoundlander abandon fishing because the Sydney, NS, mines and steel mill offered cash wages? Was our Irish immigrant a mason or a navvy, and wasn't the Erie Canal being built near Albany?
Did his brother get steady employment in Saint John or Charlottetown? Were Chester men shipwrights or riggers, and were they building wooden ships on the Noel Shore and St. Martins?
What skills or what trade did ancestors possess? That could tell you where they came from or where they went. And what happened when wooden sailing ships yielded to steam-powered steel hulls? What skills could a ship's carpenter take into future employment? What did blacksmiths and wheelwrights do when the automobile replaced the horse and team? What became of the people who worked for the Dominion Atlantic Railway? Did people learn a new trade, or did they move on?
Ask yourself what sorts of jobs drew a work force to new locations. Tanneries employing curriers, skinners, cutters and labourers were situated near a source of hides, such as livestock farms and meat packers. Saw mills required sawyers, loggers and teamsters.
Grist mills and breweries attracted people to the area to work as brewers, millwrights or bottlers. Quite likely a neighbouring employer produced glass or porcelain bottles. Before semi rigs and multinationals dominated the scene, most production was carried out in relatively small plants near the market for their products.
Make no mistake about it: more people moved in search of employment and food than due to religious and political oppression.
Today, when we lament people leaving for work, perhaps we should be asking what we can do to keep them here.
Dr. Terrence M. Punch is the resident genealogist on CBC Radio, and author of the forthcoming second volume of Erin's Sons; Irish Arrivals in Atlantic Canada, 1761-1853 (Genealogical Publishing Company, 2008).