Pioneer Migration Routes, insights and understanding

"Sometimes it is more important to know how a family relation traveled from one location to another, than it is to know about the final destination," writes Alan Smith is his article, "Pioneer Migration Routes." Knowing the path, truly, can shed much light on the family and may help you find new places to search for records and may help you understand more about the motivations for travel and why people took up roots or moved on. I have learned much about my own family migrating from East Tennessee to north central Texas. One can see from the record where various children were born along the way, not only where they traveled but also about how long they stayed in each place, and why the some of the young men in the family served on different sides and from different states in the Civil War. The history of any country is fascinating, especially when viewed through the lens of relevant family history.