Did your family emigrate from the 1870s onwards? (General)

by Roger Griffiths , Thursday, May 09, 2013, 16:03 (4221 days ago) @ messerschmitt

Going back to the original posts, emigration should be no surprise. The root cause was over-population. The rough average number of children per family in the 18th Century was 6 which increased to 12 in the 19th Century. The expanding Empire needed immigrants from Britain and the U.S. became a favoured destination for many. If you were born British, you were British and not allowed to emigrate and become naturalised anything else. This policy was not liberalised until after 1815 at the earliest.

The industrial Revolution absorbed a lot of the burgeoning population but not all by any means as illustrated by the emigration figures given.

My family was a bit of an exception. No emigrants although 12 children. My GGGrandfather 1792-1857 probably an ag lab left East Monmouthshire in the 1820's for the FoD to be a miner. The traditional shallow mines around Clearwell. A move to the Soudley valley in the 1840's as outside capitalists had come in and had the money to sink deep mines. The older children were miners but the younger ones were probably tempted by the GWR branch line through Soudley and became railway people.