Calling All Experts on Old Farmsites

[Digger Pop]

Looking for others experience on how far apart you’ve found buildings on old homesites. I located 3 separate homesteads thru research that were next to each other in the 1820-1850 timerange.
Found the first one about 5 yrs back. It had a cut out into a bank that I only found horseshoes so I assumed a barn. With in 100 yds, found the homesite. I’ve dug a lot of relics there.
The other 2, no such luck. I found almost identical cutout in banks. Same deal. Nothing found except for horseshoes. But I can’t find the house sites anywhere! I’ve covered a lot of ground over several years of hunting and have hit nothing. I would assume the house would be in sight of barns. This would be in western VA and these folks would have been the original homesteaders, so there wasn’t many people around at all. Each site Is several hundred acres in size, so talking about a lot of ground to cover. Anyone run across remote barns far away from the home place? This has me baffled.
I attached pic of one of the “barn” locations as well as 3 shoes I dug today. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks

 

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[Professor of Engineering]

Nice horseshoe finds! IMHO:I would not think to deep, you need to work the entire area from multiple directions and recover everything.

 

[Digger Pop]

Thanks, maybe I am over analyzing but around these spots I’ve hit zilch non iron targets and very few iron targets besides the horseshoes. Other old homesites I’ve found around here is loaded with targets. Between the house areas and dump site always hit lead, nails and house relics over a pretty big footprint. These two places are empty hundred yd plus radius. Maybe they didn’t have anything made from metal! Lol. I’ll keep grinding. That’s what it takes sometimes.

 

[against the wind]

That is unusual. The barn and the outhouse were always within a short walking distance from the main house. Probably, 30 to 50 feet. Go back to where you found the horseshoe and work a pattern of widening circles until you hit a concentration of targets.
Good luck and Happy Hunting.

 

[Digger Pop]

That’s how the first site was. Everything all together. These two are still lost. No spring flowers. Sometimes they will reveal the homesite. I know these old homes didn’t take up a lot of the farm. Field space was too precious for a big yard up here in the mountains. I’ll grid them all again. None of these places were on any maps I’ve found. They abandoned them around 1850 when a new road was put in about a mile away. It was all courthouse deed work about 10 years ago that I found these. Maybe someone researched this before me and beat me to it and dug everything. Someone crazier than me! Now that’s a scary thought!!! lol