Using Large Genealogy Datasets to Model Descendancy Migration in the United States

Keywords: migration, genealogy, United States
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

Multi-generational migration across the United States over the past three centuries has contributed to the spread of peoples across the country and the growth in population across the United States. Cultural characteristics and generational pull have followed these people and diffused and coalesced into the American landscape over the generations following individual and family migration throughout the United States. Our research uses queries of genealogical data from the FamilySearch database, which has over one billion names, and is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We illustrate a four generational imprint of Americans across the United States, by querying various base cities in the 1860’s and 1870’s for births of people and then tracing their lineage moving forward in time through generational mapping to the present day. From this analysis we illustrate the movement of generations from a central city and the cultural differences that impact the movement of generations across the United States. From this we are able to analyze the overall generational pull and influence of ancestral ties that exist in the different cities I study.