My family must not have followed the pattern, then, as they roamed all over the place. My father’s family started out in VA in 1609 and opened KY after the Rev. War on land grants received for the patriarch’s service. Eventually my grandfather who was in MO by then (after the Civil War had dried up opportunities in the South) made his way to CA by building churches in small towns, working his way West. He’d take a church contract and complete it, and my grandmother would give birth to a baby, so all my aunts and uncles were born in different states until my father came along in Long Beach, CA.
On my mother’s side, my great grandfather left home at 18 (he was a half-orphan) and headed west to Oregon during the years of the Border Wars. I have a diary he kept for his firs couple of hears. He looked for gold, invested in land, felled trees, split logs, built barns, and attended every frontier dance held in the 1860s, and mourned the loss of a particular sweetheart who married another. Eventually he married, and his bride died, leaving him a 10 year old and an adopted baby. He went back to MO and married a cousin and eventually settled in CA.
The original patriarch on my mother’s side came from Sweden in 1632 (settling in PA) and made the trip twice, bringing a wife the 2nd time. His descendants populated the middle and southern states.
I think it is amazing how far these early settlers traveled, seeking their fortunes and a peaceful place to raise their families.
Oh yes...the country sure went west from early times, as your family history attests. However, the north/south and south/north route (other than the great African American south—> north migration in the early 20th century) were not often used.