• Locate and research records. Find your families in state and federal censuses, in church records, military records and courthouse records. Census records give you insightful information in two ways: they can identify place of birth and, if you don't find your ancestors in the same place in the next census, that can tell you there's a good chance they moved. (See the December 2000 issue of Family Tree Magazine for more on census and other federal records.) Check church records where your family settled or may have stopped for any related birth, marriages or deaths. Military records can include service records (such as musters, rolls, rosters, enlistments, discharges, prisoners of war and burials) and pension records. Two sources to help you locate military records are James C. Neagles' US Military Records: A Guide to Federal and State Sources, Colonial America to the Present (Ancestry, $39.95) and the Family History Library's research outline (see www.familysearch.org, click Research Helps under the Search tab, hit U and scroll down to US Military Records). You'll also find clues in local courthouse records, such as deeds, probate and legal proceeding records and documents.
• Pay attention to names. Many families traveled with their neighbors and relatives. They may have started out together or come together by marriage en route. Document the names of witnesses on records and recipient names of personal correspondence.
• Find written accounts. As George Morgan points out in the Genealogy Forum News at www.genealogyforum.rootsweb.com/gfnews/, "As they migrated from one place to another, our ancestors sometimes left written accounts behind. Sometimes they kept journals. More often they wrote letters back to family and friends." These letters may have described the migration experience, means of travel, the places they saw and the people they met or traveled with. Maybe your family has such sources. If not, look for written accounts by others whose migrations parallel those of your ancestors. Books such as Lillian Schlissel's Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey (Schocken Books, $14.95) or Kenneth Holmes' Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849 (University of Nebraska Press, $11.70) provide excellent examples.
• Study the trail itself. Choose a trail or road with special significance to your heritage and seek information from many sources—books, periodicals, videos, television documentaries, museums and the Internet. Check with local historical societies, museums and libraries along the trail to learn more. You may even want to travel the route yourself to get a feel for your ancestors' experience. Your family's history, after all, isn't just a record of names and dates. If you're like most Americans, it's also a saga of places. The more you can connect with those places from your past, the better you'll understand how you got here today.

Other ideas for mapping migration

Barbara Krasner-Khait last wrote for Family Tree Magazine on "Postcards from the Past" (February 2001).