Recently in Virginia Category

We tend to think of our ancestors and their contemporaries as very strait-laced. Sometimes nothing can be farther from the truth. That’s what is so fascinating about using original documents as historical sources. Those letters, diaries, and newspapers they left behind sometime fairly sizzle with crime, intrigue, and scandal.

For example, take a look at the following advertisements from the April 1777 Pennsylvania Gazette.

Click here for the Library of Congress zoomable 1751 Fry-Jefferson map.

I recently wrote about York County residents being recruited to move to Virginia in the 1870s. Click here to read that post.

There were several paths, following very early roads, from South Central Pennsylvania to less populated lands.

Did you know people from this area were actively recruited to move to Virginia?

I knew that as the families of Pennsylvania German and Scots-Irish of South Central Pennsylvania grew, parts of those families migrated down through Western Maryland and Western Virginia. As those areas filled up, the progression continued to the south or to the west. That is why so many people from all over the country come back to York County to find their roots.

I didn’t know, however, that Virginians were coming here to extol the virtues of living in their state as late as 1877.