Today a Knight in Shining Armor showed us the light at the end of the tunnel and pushed us over our Fundraising GOAL by donating $2000 to the effort.
These pictures represent how I feel right now as I’m nearly speechless (which is a miracle all it’s own).
I want to thank all the people who have supported our organization and this effort. Tomorrow I will set about “setting it in stone”, but for tonight we celebrate!
With a variety of new donations we have received through the US Mail we have now raised a total of $8250 towards our goal of $10,000! The matching funds have now been fully consumed!
We are in final discussions to purchase the stone needed for the work and should be able to start construction very soon.
Thanks to all the people who have donated already. For the rest of you, we still have $1750 left to go.
Please help us fulfill this gift and your money will go twice as far. If online transactions aren’t your thing, you can simply mail a check to:
Babb Family Association
4252 Keys Dr
Dallas, TX 75056
I need your help founding the tree for your branch of the family. I’ve located a number of databases that will aid in the research and pulling together a tree of what is known is the first step needed to know who to DNA test and what results to expect.
Thanks to Jason, one of our members, we have a record of what I believe is the first Babb to reach Barbados in 1659 as an indentured servant coming from Cornwall, England. We don’t have any further evidence yet to start making connections and this is where you come in.
To help me get going on this, I need your help connecting you to the records available online. Once I’m able to find one of your ancestors in the records, I should be able to trace your line back much further.
Please follow this link and complete the form on that page. There is no requirement to become a paying member of the association to do this, but we always appreciate that too.
https://babbunabridged.com/adding-your-branch-to-the-master-tree/
If you happen to have your tree online somewhere please send me a link to it. Also if you use any genealogy program, I can accept Family Tree Maker and GEDCOM files.
I have great news! We have received $1000 in donations towards the project via US Mail!
Additionally, I am proud to announce a Challenge Matching Gift just in time for Giving Tuesday (Nov 27). For every dollar you donate/pledge our donor will match it up to $2500.
Please help us fulfill this gift and your money will go twice as far.
If online transactions aren’t your thing, you can simply mail a check to:
Babb Family Association
4252 Keys Dr
Dallas, TX 75056
I have great news! We have now s received another $1000 in donations towards the protective stone skirt for Seth’s Homestead via US Mail bringing our total raised to $2750 ($2,000 US Mail, $750 Online).
Additionally, I am proud to announce a Challenge Matching Gift just in time for Giving Tuesday (Nov 27). For every dollar you donate/pledge our donor will match it up to $2500.
Please help us fulfill this gift and your money will go twice as far. If online transactions aren’t your thing, you can simply mail a check to:
Babb Family Association
4252 Keys Dr
Dallas, TX 75056
To donate online or check progress go to: http://gofundme.com/babbhomestead
With these new donations we will secure the antiquelimestone needed to complete the job and begin our wait to have it installed.We hope to conduct construction during the winter months and be ready forspring.
For some unknown reason Family Tree DNA pushed out the results for our Staffordshire, England Babb in record time, cutting their original estimate by a full 30 days. Our wait is over and the results, once again are not what I was expecting. Once again DNA has taken us in a new direction.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Winston Churchill
Unfortunately, our candidate didn’t match to any lineage in the US or the UK and thus we are founding our 9th unique DNA-Proven lineage. So, without further adieu let me introduce you to the Potters of Staffordshire.
Our newly minted crest draws from the County Flag for its backdrop and upon its history for the Roman & Greek figures seen along the top side.
Staffordshire is a known the world over as a producer of Fine China and is the home to a remarkable potters such as Royal Worchester, Spode, Minton, Royal Doulton, Fenton, Royal Albert & Churchhill which is better known for its ubiquitous patter Blue Willow. These companies, collectively referred to as the Staffordshire Potteries are contained in the city of Stoke-on-Trent. The area became a center of ceramic production in the early 17th Century due to the local availability of clay, salt, lead & coal.
In my mind at least, one company stands head and shoulders above all others and that is Wedgwood. Josiah Wedgewood and Sons was founded in 1759 and has since become a symbol of quality and a mainstay of formal dining rooms throughout the world.
One of Wedgewood’s legendary patterns goes by the name Jasperware. Jasperware is a type of pottery first developed by Josiah in the 1770s. It has an unglazed matte finish which in the industry is referred to as a “Biscuit” finish. The pieces are pale blue and features reliefs which are typically in white. The scenes depicted often rely on ancient Greek and Roman iconology that give an heir of grandiosity. The technique is still in production to this day and original pieces often adorn museums. It is this concept which is reflected at the top of the crest which features a Greek Urn and two Roman Hoplites engaged in battle.
The 9 collective pedigrees contained inside this collection account for 1453 people currently and though we have only tested 1 of those lines at this time, it is highly probable that these lines are intertwined as all 9 are found within a 11 mile (17 km) radius.
So, where does this leave those who are still looking for a connection? I’ve included a short list of the remaining untested groups and their numbers.
So far in England we have established DNA trails for 5074 individuals and have 2817 to go. Somewhere in that 2817 should lie the connections we are searching for in the US. This puts us 2/3 of the way through the list and as it currently stands we only see significant numbers of Babbs remaining in 3 counties. West Midlands and Staffordshire could easily overlap due to place name changes over time.
So it appears we are now able to tighten our net and concentrate of Devon & Cornwall where we will continue our search and expect/hope to find those long sought connections. Armed with my new data I’ll be setting out to find some living descendants of these linages and get them tested.
In my 20s I worked for 5 years at Macy’s as a salesman in the Fine China, Crystal & Silver department. During this time I learned far more about these products than one person should ever need to know. But it never occurred to me that half our china collection would have come from the same city in England. So, I was immensely pleased at being able to travel down memory lane while pulling this crest and story together.
Please join me in welcoming this newest lineage into our fold. It isn’t the connection I hoped for, but just another major step towards those answers.
Cheers!
Dan
Thanks to the work of a very determined member we have added 3921 new Babb descendants to the English Babb lines. Almost have of those are in the Somerset lineage and together they connect the existing tree to modern day. The disconnect was a result of the English system of not releasing Census records for 100 years (In the US it’s 72 years). Cynthia Babb has extensively leveraged alternative resources to link the existing tree which often ended in 1911 with modern day. She graciously lent her findings to the Babb Family Association to be included in the Master Tree.
The effect of this addition cannot be underestimated. She has spent many years pulling together this information which will allow an untold number of Babbs in England to connect to their roots. As they do this they will encounter the Babb Family Association and become available for DNA Testing.
This approach has already proven valuable in the US where we were able to leverage the work of Jean A. Sargent, my predecessor, to accurately predict to which lineage you belong. It has long been a goal of mine to be able to produce this same quality of prediction in the UK and the new info will save me an incredible amount of time in figuring out how new members connect. This in turn allows me to know which candidates are of particular interest to be tested. The addition will reap rewards for years to come.
In addition to all those “new” Babbs Cynthia has also provided approximately 5000 new source documents, which adds to the 10,000 I already had established. I’ll let that addition speak for itself as I’ve been doing this for 20 years. The files are online now and available for your review at: https://tinyurl.com/BabbTree
The DNA test kit for our Stratford, England descendant has been nestled all snug in its container and shipped to the Lab for processing. The results are expected back on December 17th at the earliest.
Set the Countdown Clock to 36 Days and get ready because I believe that this test is going to FINALLY going to answer the question as to where one of the US Babb Lines descend from. But DNA has had many tricks up its sleeves in the past and I wouldn’t put it in the win column just yet.
But if my suspicions are confirmed this find is going to blow the roof off of more than 45 years of research (between me and my predecessor) to finally answer this basic question:
Where do we come from?
Keep your fingers crossed and say a little prayer that we get a match!
Amazon Smile
While you are out doing your Christmas or other Holiday shopping remember that you can help the Babb Family Association while you shop on Amazon by starting your purchase at http://smile.amazon.com. On your first visit you will be asked to pick a Non-Profit to support. Just select the Babb Family Association. Then each time you shop they will make a donation to the BFA.
