This is exactly what happened to my family. In 1817 my family left Uplaw outside Galashields for Canada and then upstate New York. My G-G-G-Grandfather was a hynd (skilled farm worker, farm manager), when new farming techechinques and sheep were brought in. He was lucky in that he had enough money to take his wife and five children with him and purchase a small farm in Chazy on the Canadian U.S. border by Lake Champlain. His eldest son eventully was one of the first settlers of Calhoun Co. Michigan, with thousands of acres of farm land and a prosperous life. In the long run the immagration was probably the best thing that could have happend for the family. It's been almost 200 years now and the stories are being lost and forgotten, but that's what makes tracing ones family interesting. Its not the names and dates but the history that goes along with them.