Definition of "seeking"

[…] the Company contemplated having their works at Esher—for they have had long and anxious seekings for a location—to store our gun-cotton in unlimited quantity […]

1873, Van Nostrand's Eclectic Engineering Magazine, volume 9, page 269

While De Anza was exploring the Bay of San Francisco, seeking a site for the presidio, the American colonists on the eastern seaboard, three thousand miles away, were celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

1948, Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico / The Spanish-Speaking People of The United States, J. B. Lippincott Company, page 25