> How about Ruth 1749?

Are you still in need of her ancestry?

> I am puzzling over why there was a large migration of my family
> from Scituate to Chesterfield, Hampshire Co MA.

By the mid- to late-1700s arable land in southeastern Massachusetts was largely under cultivation. That land was generally inherited by the eldest sons. In order for younger sons to have land to raise a family many of them moved to western Massachusetts. NEHGS has begun a new series on "Western Massachusetts Families in 1790," providing sketches of families in what are now the four western counties of the state. A large percentage of those families came from Plymouth County. In my work on the Packards I have traced many Packard branches which moved west (largely to Hampshire Co. and to the Swift River valley) from the Bridgewater area, and I am currently working on some Packard sketches for the Western MA 1790 project.

Dale H. Cook, Member, NEHGS and MA Society of Mayflower Descendants;
Plymouth Co. MA Coordinator for the USGenWeb Project
Administrator of http://plymouthcolony.net