US Migration Canals

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Historic Background
Transportation canals in the United states helped connect isolated rural areas to urban population centers. The golden age of historic transportation canals from 1820 until the spread of railroads about 1860. Settlers flooded into regions serviced by such canals and the waterways they connected, because they could use the canals to sell their agricultural products and obtain manufactured goods. The Erie Canal connected New York City to the Great Lakes. The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River system. Pennsylvania combined canals and railroads. New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, and Indiana also built canals that were enticing to settlers.

Understanding the transportation systems available to ancestors can help genealogists better guess their place of origin. Connect the place where an ancestor settled to the nearby canals, waterways, trails, roads, and railroads to look for connections to places they may have lived previously.

List of Significant Canals
Some of the most significant canals to American settlers were: