Finding my little 100 year old genealogy book has kept me very busy. I have been mucking around in the descendants of Elizabeth Elder 1762 – 1825 and John Young, d. 1826. What I first did with the book when I bought it several years ago was to go straight down the branch to my own relatives.
This time I wanted to know more about the clan and have been adding the other branches. It gives me an interesting view of history in itself. The migration of different branches has been fascinating. Where my branch stayed in the Pennsylvania area, occasionally drifting towards Ohio, the other branches spread out in mainly two different directions.
A bulk of the family, in 1920, headed towards California settling in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Redlands California seemed to be a favorite place for them to set down roots. A quick search of Google shows that oil was struck in California in the 1920’s. I would imagine the population growth in California would take the same growth spike that had shaped many of the areas in Pennsylvania during the mid 1800’s. They remained and I would imagine still remain in California, I find them in the 1930’s Census and their death records are in the California death index from 1940- 1997. The California death index on ancestry is one of my favorites as it lists both the mothers’ maiden name and for married women it also lists their maiden name.
Another branch of the family headed south, down through Kentucky and Tennessee, some settling there and others moving on towards Louisiana around the turn of the 20th century. A few would move to Iowa and Oklahoma and some from the Ohio area would move on to Missouri.
Through all of this moving of relatives, mine stayed firmly planted in Pennsylvania, becoming lawyers, statesmen, farmers, artists, and oil men.