Just found it odd that not even a full year after a revolution, my ancestor's entire family moved to the states. Parents and children just got up and left, which seems odd as I can find no reason for them to move here as they had no family in the United States. Basically, what could make a French family in 1849 pack up and move to a nation where they knew no one. And from what I've gathered they were not poor either, which further confuses me as to why they left. Political upheaval?

If it helps to narrow it at all, they seem to have come from Western France, kind of near present day Switzerland and Germany.