Ancestors on the Move

In the old days ancestors moved about so much that you'd think they had automobiles! However, there were always reasons, whether it was to find better land, take up grants and land lotteries or what-have-you, they were on the move. I recently put together a difficult genealogy because of the tiny details in newspaper accounts, estate inventories and the year in which his father died. He came to North Carolina to settle his father's estate because he was the only surviving executor and only remained in the state long enough to complete the job. While some estates are administered quickly, others have dangling threads and sometimes take years to settle. Of course, we love the latter because we can read all of the annual returns, sales, inventories, receipts, and so on and get the names of heirs. What I am saying here is that there are questions which can be answered with the discovery of small incidents and reasoning.

Jeannette Holland Austin, author of over 100 genealogy books
North Carolina Pioneers