   • Migrations and “Nodal Points”      Philip S. Thayer
Published Date : December 1987      As in many family histories,
there is a pattern of migrations in the families of my father’s
ancestry, though on a much smaller scale than for those families
which participated in the opening of the West. Even within the
narrow confines of Massachusetts and Connecticut, there existed
quite distinct geographical groupings of families and migration
patterns.      The Thayers of our line did not leave Braintree
and vicinity for the first five generations in this country,
until Reuben6 went all the way west to Belchertown!  Thus the
story of the early Thayers and their wives is largely a story
which took place in one narrow area.  There they so intermarried
that I have four lines from Richard1 Thayer and two from his
putative brother, Thomas1, as well as multiple lines from other
early residents of Braintree, including three each from Moses1
Paine and Quinton1 Pray and four from John Hayden.  Once the
Thayers arrived