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Early American Migration to the Frontier

people rarely migrated alone; they come with extended family and neighbors

they usually chose new homes where "folks from back home" were settling

it was a long way to the frontier from places like Baltimore - sometimes you usually "layovers" before you got to places like Indiana or Ohio or Kentucky - you lived some years in Washington Co. PA or Frederick Co. VA (or might head south to the Carolinas) before the new lands opened up.
 
Getting Prepared to Follow Your Family's Migration

Make a list of your migrating families - this should include your family, neighbors that you suspect came from the same area, families with kinship ties.  If you don't know who they are go through your group sheets & documents and pull them.  Look who is next to them on census.  Use sites like  World Connect  http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/ [use the advanced search]  Family Search http://www.familysearch.org/  &  GenForum  http://genforum.genealogy.com/ to see if anyone has contributed research on those neighbors.  Do they come from the same area your family did?  Do they have any kinship ties to anyone you recognize?

Make an alternative spelling list of your surname.  This is critical - especially in the Middle Colonies which were full of MANY ethnic groups and dialects.  They talked differently and they wrote what they heard.   Computer searching is unforgiving. Remember that even if THEY were consistent, clerks and document keepers were not.  The SURNAME HELPER http://surhelp.rootsweb.com/srchall.html is a nice tool for perusing alternative spellings but some alternatives won't come up by soundex ie when O'Neal becomes O'Neely or even Nealy or Heden becomes Heady etc. 

maps maps maps - the internet has wonderful maps - here are some examples:

General Map of the Middle British Colonies 1776  http://www.davidrumsey.com/maps6343.html  from the David Rumsey Collection and Map of the Western Parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina
http://www.davidrumsey.com/maps6355.html

American Shores: Maps of the Middle Atlantic Region to 1850  http://www.nypl.org/research/midatlantic/

American Roads and Trails  http://groups.msn.com/AmericanRoadsandTrails/ by Beverly Whitaker, Kansas City, MO

Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection  [University of Texas] http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/

Historical Maps of Pennsylvania http://www.mapsofpa.com/  which includes
the Guide to Pennsylvania Classic County Atlases  http://www.mapsofpa.com/atlaslist.htm

Historical Maps of Maryland  [from the University of Alabama] http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/us_states/maryland/index.html

Maps of Historic Delaware  [University of Delaware]
http://fletcher.lib.udel.edu/collections/hmc/browse-subj.htm  and don't miss their
Maps & Guide to the "Hundreds" of Delaware   University of Delaware
http://www2.lib.udel.edu/subj/genealogy/resguide/hund.htm

Historical Maps of New Jersey  http://mapmaker.rutgers.edu/MAPS.html  [Rutgers]


Pitfalls / Problems in Middle Colony/State Research

Boundary Changes:   Pennsylvania Boundary Changes http://www.mypennsylvaniagenealogy.com/pa_maps.htm
Delaware Boundary Changes http://www.mydelawaregenealogy.com/de_maps.htm
Maryland Boundary Changes http://www.mymarylandgenealogy.com/md_maps.htm

Water Mobility - they could really get around - this is not surprising when you look at a map of the Delaware River Basin  http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/maps/drb_map.htm
or the Susquehanna River Basin  http://www.srbc.net/gis/image/maps/140b.pdf
when they couldn't navigate the waters they still walked/rode along the river banks

Religious movements that changed quickly - being Baptist, Quaker, Presbyterian, Moravian, Brethren, Lutheran, Congregationalist etc. often drove migrations in the middle colonies but just when you think you have them figured out a new revival comes through and they change affiliation.  

High rate of indentured servitude - by the American Revolution it has been estimated that 1 our of 3 living in the Maryland Colony had at one time been indentured.  Court records become very important for this reason. 
Links for Indentured Servants, Convict Servants & Redemptioners http://www.pricegen.com/immigrantservants/links.htm 
don't miss the Early Settlers of Maryland database  [Maryland State Archives] http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/speccol/sc4300/sc4341/html/search.html
Most colonial newspapers are not available online.  If your ancestor was a runaway servant he / she may be in their advertisements and that will include a physical description [example: http://members.tripod.com/~colonies/runaways/servants.htm]. Most of these have been abstracted in book form.

Lack of marriage records in Pennsylvania   

Large mix of ethnic groups – many dialects morphed surnames

 “Born In” is often meaningless because the man born in western MD just
 before the American Revolution may go through his life saying he is born in PA, MD & VA because of his migration AND because of boundary changes

 Questionable research has been done in the past - a lot of books and family histories have been written for this area that are based on SOME source documents but have been mixed with histories out of people's memory or make claims that can't be substantiated.  If you don't know why you know something be particularly careful in this time and place and question it. 

If your family is in MD, PA or DE before 1750 you need to be checking out ALL of those colonies [and should be aware that they may be ducking into NJ and VA]  Look for them with all spelling variants and look for their allied families

 Online Resources:

There is excellent help from FamilySearch Research Guides for all of these places
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/RG/frameset_rhelps.asp
example: choose the letter "D" for Delaware and scroll down to the Delaware guides

DELAWARE

Delaware Tax Transcription Project   [Delaware Genealogical Society http://delgensoc.org/detax.htm  [early originals look like this]

Delaware Digital Archives [State of Delaware]
http://archives.delaware.gov/exhibits/exhibits-toc.shtml has good  history resources

E-Books relating to early Delware  [from Digital Book Index]
 http://digitalbookindex.com/_search/search010hstregionaldelawarea.asp

Delaware GenWeb  http://www.degenweb.org/  & Delaware GenWeb Archives
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/de/

 New Castle County History Pages  http://xtinahs.org/

MARYLAND

Archives of Maryland Online http://aomol.net/html/search.html
 is a goldmine.  It can be easy to miss things and you need to really explore what they have but there are early court records here, early road crews, military, tax, land and many other kinds of records and they seem to be adding new things constantly so check back often

Maryland State Archives: Land Records page http://mdlandrec.net/msa/stagser/s1700/s1741/cfm/index.cfm which includes links to:

Maryland Land Records.Net  
http://mdlandrec.net/msa/stagser/s1700/s1741/cfm/index.cfm  it is "currently free" and in a pilot/testing program as they build the resources.  You can apply for a password to be one of the testers and you will find scanned indexes to deeds and a number of deed books.

Maryland Patent Index Online  [if you get an error message keep trying] http://guide.mdsa.net/description.cfm?series=S1426&action=stagser

Mid Maryland Roots
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~midmdroots/  don't miss their maps page if your ancestors were in early western or central MD

Military Records [Archives of Maryland Online]
 http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/html/military.html

E-Books relating to early Maryland  [from Digital Book Index]
 http://digitalbookindex.com/_search/search010hstregionalmarylandcoloniala.asp
Maryland Genweb http://www.mdgenweb.org/   & Maryland GenWeb Archives http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/md/mdfiles.htm

 for more Maryland resources see the WVC Maryland page
http://www.wvc.edu/library/Research/gen/States/RBStMD.html

New Jersey

New Jersey History
 http://www.rootsweb.com/roots-l/usa/nj/history.html

E-Books relating to early New Jersey  [from Digital Book Index]
 http://digitalbookindex.com/_search/search010hstregionalnewjerseya.asp

Origin of New Jersey Place Names [New Jersey State Library]
http://www.njstatelib.org/NJ_Information/Digital_Collections/Digidox7.php

New Jersey Archives
http://www.state.nj.us/state/darm/links/databases.html
includes marriage databases 1666-1799, 1848-1867 and every name indexes of anyone who showed up in state supreme court cases [the court search takes time but it indexes MANY early residents]

Researching Your Family's History [from the New Jersey Digital Highway]
http://www.njdigitalhighway.org/genealogy_ever.php

New Jersey GenWeb http://www.njgenweb.org/  & New Jersey GenWeb Archives http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/nj/njfiles.htm


Pennsylvania

E-Books relating to Colonial Pennsylvania [from Digital Book Index]
 http://digitalbookindex.com/_search/search010hstregionalpenncoloniala.asp

Pennsylvania Archives Series Online  [Footnote]
http://www.footnote.com/page/88   scanned images of the original multi-volume sets

Pennsylvania Land Records  [from the Pennsylvania State Archives] http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/BAH/DAM/landrec.htm  includes scanned images of the warrant registers.  Look carefully - they have just added the actual surveys [get the survey volume and page from the warrant register and then follow the links to get to the actual survey]
 [example: http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/BAH/DAM/rg/di/r17-114CopiedSurveyBooks/Book%20%20A1-A89/Book%20A-04/Book%20A-04%20pg%2052.pdf


Pennsylvania Digital Archives  [Pennsylvania State Archives]
http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/  has PA militia list index 1775-1800

Patent maps may be purchased from the  PA State Archives.   http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/bah/dam/WarranteeTwpMapPrices.htm and make sure that you check your GenWeb county page because some counties have these scanned online [example: Washington Co. PA GenWeb Page   http://www.chartiers.com/pages-new/maps.html - but remember that patents meant the land was paid for and many early warrants were filed but they moved on again before the patent was issued.

Historic Pittsburg Digital Collection
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/p/pitttext/  if your family was one of the many that migrate towards SW PA be sure and have a look at this

Pennsylvania GenWeb Archives http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/pa/pafiles.htm - the early counties have a wealth of abstracts of wills, deeds, marriages, cemetery records etc.  The Pennsylvania GenWeb http://www.rootsweb.com/~pagenweb/ county pages usually have wonderful maps and history

 for more Pennsylvania resources see the WVC Pennsylvania page at http://www.wvc.edu/library/Research/gen/States/RBStPA.html