Arkansas Migration

Value of Migration Research
Mountains, forests, waterways, and the gaps between them channeled migration into predictable settlement patterns. Events like gold or land rushes, and Indian treaties also affected settlement.

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.

Migration research may help you discover:
 * a place of origin, previous hometown, or place where an ancestor settled
 * biographical details such as what they experienced, or with whom they traveled on their journey
 * clues for finding other records

SEE ALSO: ARKANSAS EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION

Rivers and Lakes

 * Arkansas River
 * flows from Colorado east and southeast to the Mississippi River
 * Mississippi River
 * flows from Canada generally southward to the Gulf of Mexico
 * Ouachita River
 * flows from the Ouachita Mountains, near Mena, Arkansas generally southward into the Tensas River (near Jonesville, Louisiana) to form the Black River
 * Red River
 * flows from the Texas panhandle generally eastward ; a major tributary of the Mississippi and Atchafaloya Rivers; flows in southwest Arkansas for a relatively short distance
 * St. Francis River
 * flows generally southwest from Iron County, Missouri into the Mississippi River below Memphis, Tennessee
 * White River
 * flows from northwest Arkansas up into Missouri, then back into Arkansas, then generally southeast to its mouth at the Mississippi River Delta

Trails and Highways

 * Butterfield Overland Mail
 * route used to transport mail
 * California Road
 * route laid out by Captain Randolph B. Mercy escorting god seekers on their way to California
 * Great Osage Indian Trail
 * (also known as Old Wire Road)
 * Natchitoches Trace
 * (also known as Southwest Trail and Southwest Road and Military Road) primary pioneer route to Texas
 * Tombigbee and Arkansas River Trail
 * follows the Tombigbee and Arkansas Rivers
 * Trail of Tears
 * not a specific trail, but an expression of hardship of Native Americans as they were forced to march away from their homelands Some of the Native Americans were marched through Arkansas.

Railways

 * Frisco Railway
 * Texas and Pacific Railway