01-08-06

Pierre Chastain settled in Virginia Colony in 1700, and for much of the next century Virginia was home to most American Chastains. About the time of the American Revolution, the Chastain families began migrating, and by 1840 there were only two families left in Virginia. Where did they go? Well, they did not spread themselves evenly among the states. Georgia, Indiana, and South Carolina were important Chastain states early on, and over time other states such as Arkansas and Missouri, and later Oklahoma and Texas, joined them.

Chastain Families Ranked by Census Records

Charts #1-4 are based on data provided by Ancestry.com's Family Distribution Maps, taken from the censuses of 1840, 1880, and 1920. Chastain Central compiled state totals by adding together the four most common spellings and misspellings (Chastain, Chasteen, Chastine, and Chesteen). The four spellings break down according to Chart #1. Counts for each spelling are numbers of families, not numbers of individuals, and keep in mind that the spellings do not necessarily reflect how individuals spelled their own names. Census takers were notorious for writing what they heard or thought rather than the spelling used by the individual.

Chart #2 shows state rankings in total number of families after the four spellings have been combined. All states with 2% or more of Chastain families are shown, and Chart #3 is a summary of rankings for the three years. By 1840, Georgia and Indiana had become the strongest Chastain states and maintained their ranks of first and second place through the 1920 census. An 1820 chart would tell an entirely different story. The migration to North Georgia would have just begun, so Georgia would have been near the bottom of the list; and since many of those North Georgia families came from South Carolina, South Carolina would have been much stronger. 1880 shows that many Chastains had moved west to Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas. 1920 indicates some shuffling of familiar states, but the remarkable exception is the appearance of Oklahoma in the number three spot. There was at least one Chastain family in every state of the Union in at least one of the three censuses except for Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, and Vermont.

Chart #4 shows gain or loss in trends by state.

Chart #1 Breakdown of Spellings in Censuses

Spelling	1840 Census		1880 Census		1920 Census
Chastain	52	58.43%	1566	67.79%	1034	64.06%
Chasteen	30	33.71%	383	16.58%	270	16.73%
Chastine	5	5.62%	344	14.89%	243	15.06%
Chesteen	2	2.25%	17	0.74%	67	4.15%
Total	89		2310		1614

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Chart #2 Ranking of States by Number and Percentage of Chastain Families

Rank	1840			1880			1920
1	Georgia	26	29.21%	Georgia	719	31.13%	Georgia	329	20.38%
2	Indiana	18	20.22%	Indiana	331	14.33%	Indiana	204	12.64%
3	South Carolina	16	17.98%	Arkansas	213	9.22%	Oklahoma	122	7.56%
4	Kentucky	8	8.99%	Missouri	198	8.57%	Texas	117	7.25%
5	Illinois	6	6.74%	South Carolina	127	5.50%	Missouri	105	6.51%
6	Tennessee	3	3.37%	Illinois	115	4.98%	South Carolina	84	5.20%
7	Florida	2	2.25%	Kentucky	109	4.72%	Arkansas	83	5.14%
8	Louisiana	2	2.25%	Texas	79	3.42%	Alabama	63	3.90%
9	Missouri	2	2.25%	Tennessee	78	3.38%	Tennessee	61	3.78%
10	Virginia	2	2.25%	Alabama	68	2.94%	Kentucky	52	3.22%
11	---------	--	-------	North Carolina	68	2.94%	Florida	42	2.60%
12	---------	--	-------	---------	---	-------	Illinois	42	2.60%
13	---------	--	-------	---------	---	-------	Mississippi	33	2.04%

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Chart #3 Summary of Rankings

Rank	1840	1880	1920
1	Georgia	Georgia	Georgia
2	Indiana	Indiana	Indiana
3	South Carolina	Arkansas	Oklahoma
4	Kentucky	Missouri	Texas
5	Illinois	South Carolina	Missouri
6	Tennessee	Illinois	South Carolina
7	Florida	Kentucky	Arkansas
8	Louisiana	Texas	Alabama
9	Missouri	Tennessee	Tennessee
10	Virginia	Alabama	Kentucky
11	---------	North Carolina	Florida
12	---------	---------	Illinois
13	---------	---------	Mississippi

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Chart #4 Gain or Loss in Rankings

State	1840	1880	1920	Trend
Alabama	-	10	8	up
Arkansas	-	3	7	up and down
Florida	7	-	11	down
Georgia	1	1	1	steady
Illinois	5	6	12	down
Indiana	2	2	2	steady
Kentucky	4	7	10	down
Louisiana	8	-	-	down
Mississippi	-	-	13	up
Missouri	9	4	5	up
North Carolina	-	11	-	up and down
Oklahoma	-	-	3	up
South Carolina	3	5	6	down
Tennessee	6	9	-	down
Texas	-	8	4	up
Virginia	10	-	-	down

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Chastain Families Ranked by Civil War Service

The Civil War occurred almost exactly between the 1840 and 1880 censuses. A count of Chastain soldiers serving in the Civil War will provide insight independent of the census records. However, we should not expect the military records to be as accurate as the census in determining the distribution of Chastains among the states for a number of reasons. Some individuals are duplicated with different spellings; some served in more than one state during the war, the percentage of the population enlisted in the military may have varied from state to state, and so forth. Even so, results should resemble the state lists from the 1840 and 1880 censuses, and Chart 5 shows that they do. However, there are some surprises. South Carolina is much higher on the list than expected, and Indiana is much lower. Perhaps this reflects a difference in fervor in these two states, or in accuracy of state records. Despite the variances in rank, the states are the same ones predominating on the censuses, and the Civil War list more closely resembles the 1880 census than the 1840.

Chart #5 Ranking by Civil War Service

State	Soldiers	Percent
Georgia	54	13.04%
South Carolina	54	13.04%
Arkansas	51	12.32%
Tennessee	47	11.35%
Missouri	38	9.18%
Kentucky	31	7.49%
Indiana	28	6.76%
North Carolina	25	6.04%
Mississippi	19	4.59%
Alabama	16	3.86%
Illinois	16	3.86%
Texas	13	3.14%
Total	414 names

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Top Chastain States from 1990 Census

A 1990 compilation of names based on percentages of population shows many of the same strong states from the census records above. In fact, these states represent eight of the top nine states from the 1920 census; only Texas is missing. States with the largest percentage of Chastains by population (about 1 per thousand) are (in alphabetical order):

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Shasteen Rankings

We did not include the Shasteen spelling in the statistical totals, but show them separately in Chart #6. As is evident from the chart, Shasteens were centered in the Midwest and Tennessee. The 1990 data is from Hamrick. As Shasteen is a less common name, ranking #20,539 among names on the 2000 census, only two states show more than 1 Shasteen family in 10,000. Wyoming may seem a big surprise, but it has a very small population, so only a few Shasteens could make a percentage showing. Chart #7 shows Shasteen distribution results among Civil War soldiers. They are not very surprising, and like the Chastain Civil War data, they resemble the 1880 census more than the 1840.

Chart #6 Shasteen Rankings from Census

Rank	1840			1880			1920			1990
1	Ohio	7	54%	Ohio	57	49%	Ohio	23	34%	Tennessee
2	Indiana	5	38%	Tennessee	26	22%	Illinois	13	19%	Wyoming
3	Illinois	1	8%	Illinois	19	19%	Tennessee	12	18%
4	-------	--	---	Indiana	6	5%	Indiana	3	4%
5	-------	--	---	Missouri	6	5%	Arkansas	2	3%
6	-------	--	---	Minnesota	2	2%	Georgia	2	3%
7	-------	--	---	-------	--	---	Missouri	2	3%
8	-------	--	---	-------	--	---	Nebraska	2	3%
9	-------	--	---	-------	--	---	Oklahoma	2	3%
Total	13 families			116 families			68 families

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Chart #7 Shasteen Rankings from Civil War Service

Rank	State	Soldiers	Percent
1	Tennessee	12	37.50%
2	Ohio	11	34.38%
3	Missouri	4	12.50%
4	Illinois	3	9.38%
5	Indiana	2	6.25%
.	Total	32	.

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