When a genealogist discovers a person moved from point A to point B, one of the immediate questions is “Why?”

It is a good question to ask. The problem is that sometimes it does not always get answered. The easy answer sometimes is that there were associates of one form or another who were in the new area. The problem is that there were not always associates in the new location and that once a person has lived in that new area for a while the moving relative now has new associates that only became associates after he moved to the new area.

And of course by that time the “new area” wasn’t as new as it once was.

Did a newspaper advertisement draw your ancestor to a new location? This 1873 ad for farm ground in northern Missouri appeared in a Warsaw newspaper. The distance is not as great as moving across the entire country, but there’s still a distance involved. Whenever there is an ancestral move one always wonders what brought it about?

Was it opportunities advertised in a local newspaper?

If the Missouri farm was eventually purchased by the person who moved there, the deed of purchase may indicate the seller was living in Warsaw. That’s assuming that the seller does not move himself before the property is sold or that J. E. Johnston is simply an agent and will not be listed on the deed.

And if the farm ends up being rented and never purchased by the person who moves there, there will be no deed to even potentially document a connection.