How the Industrial Revolution affected Society

You have just lost a person you've been tracking on Census Data...  Where did he go? What do you do now?
There are many reasons that people disappeared before and after 1849.  The first, obviously was death.  With 8 billion records at Family Search, 100,000  Geneanet records and well, I'm just not sure how many FindaGrave entries there are...point being, we have places to verify the names and date of demise.
The next reason was that in 1849 people dropped their shovels and rakes and hustled over to the train leaving for,,,,NOT California.  The Golden Spike at Promontory Point had not yet been connected, (until 1869), so the only way to get all the way through all of the mountain was with  to take a ship around the Great Horn and end up in San Francisco then off to Sacramento and the Sonororan mountains to find their weight in gold.. 
With the modernization of America came many pros and cons.  One was to change the face of the family forever.  It took Father away from the Farm, and encouraged mother to work outside the home.