The diversity of siblings' lifetime migration patterns, as well as two- and three- generation chains of migration choices are important indicators of how the family influenced migration. This research will study the phenomenon in the American North from 1740-1920, when there was a transition between two major types of internal migration. Movements to the expanding frontier, which ended in 1890 for the general population, stopped for New Englanders and their descendents, the subjects of this study, in about 1850, whereas movements to large towns and cities, which began before 1820s, reached full flood only by the 1870s. These two flows exhibited different family forms. There should be a greater degree of divergence of career and migration paths during the transition between these two types of migration, 1820 to 1860, which should be apparent in greater differences in the occupational and migration careers of grandfathers, fathers and sons. There should be fewer differences when migration plays a part in the established and institutionalized. This research is important because migration plays a part in the positioning of children by their parents, but migration patterns are not usually studied over such a long time span including several generations. The study also will include a greater variety of economic niches than has been possible in investigation of contemporary migration. The study will use an existing computerized database based upon published genealogies of the descendants of 9 men who came to Massachusetts before 1650. It can now trace descendants over 10 to 12 generations. Later-born individuals will be added in order to study more of the rural-to-urban phase of migration. The data to be assembled will include such conditions of the family as the size of sibling sets, birth order, number of children, age at marriage, age at father's death, distance migrated, distances between cousins, as well as information about the places people lived, and individual's occupations and wealth. Moving forward in time will facilitate comparative studies already under way with similar databases in Europe. These data will be analyzed using the piecewise exponential method of event history analysis, which is well suited to genealogical data.
