The strong association between weak health and immobility suggests why there is insufficient knowledge on how disability affects human migration, historically and today. Swedish parish registers digitized by the Demographic Data Base (DDB), Umeå University, enable this study to investigate a 19th-century population of more than 35,000 including a group long hidden in research and society because of disability. First, rates and regressions demonstrate that disability impeded the migration of both men and women albeit with variations by disability type and over time. During industrialisation the overall migration risk was increasing, but not in case of disability. Second, spatial analysis shows that disability limited the distance migrants crossed, especially in the pre-industrial period and among women. During industrial time, migrants’ distance and destinations became less determined by disability. We address healthy migrant perspectives and lock-in mechanisms to discuss the disability differences in migration.