Along with the extensive collection of Ian Babb’s papers, was a USB Pen Drive that included what appears to be 74 English Pedigrees that he outlined prior to his death. They were the culmination of his lifetime of research and a key to understanding the remainder of his work.
Each Pedigree is sorted into the corresponding county where it originates. Many of these disparate trees are no doubt connected, but the paper trail didn’t exist for him to link them together. So, he tracked them separately to make sure he covered virtually every Babb in England somewhere in these files. He was not able to add source information to these files before his passing, but the structure of the family units and key dates are included.
Technology has come a long way in the 7 years since he worked on these and source information is far easier to connect than it used to be. So, I’ve been working hard to get those included before I release them to the public. Some files are large and some are just fragments that he wanted to keep track of. I’ve taken the added step of normalizing the place names, so they can be searched across and I’ve also dropped a header entry for each line that discusses the lines name, origination date and location.
Somewhere in these 74 Pedigrees lays the cousins and ancestors of each of our lines in the US. Having this big picture will allow us through process of elimination to match them up and transform our search.
Once we have the pedigrees updated and imported into the Master File, we will be able to start looking for commonality. We hope to reunite many of these lineages using a combination of old fashioned research, social media & DNA testing to prove these lines out and prove our theories.
So with that, let me introduce you to the first 3 Pedigrees which make up the Babb Families of Buckinghamshire, England. Buckinghamshire is just to the North and West of London and is often loosely referred to as Bucks or Buckingham. Follow the links below to review the Descendants of each line:
- buckinghamshire-pedigree-01 (before 1774 in Great Hampden, Buckinghamshire)
- buckinghamshire-pedigree-02 (about 1813 in Penn, Buckinghamshire)
- buckinghamshire-pedigree-03 (about 1800 in Great & Little Hampden, Buckinghamshire)
You will notice that these families are likely related. The early cities mentioned are a mere 8 miles (13 Kilometers) apart and very close to Heathrow Airport. Proving them out is the long term goal of this project.
Watch for additional posts like this one for other counties as I have them completed.
5 responses to “The Babbs of Buckinghamshire, England”
Although a descendent of the Somerset Babbs, I was also very interested to read about the Bucks Babbs on this page. Before moving to Devon (UK) we lived just a mile from Great Hampden in Buckinghamshire, the area you mention. We know a family of Babbs who live in that area. I don’t think they have researched their family tree. Phil Babb’s father was a butcher who owned a butchery in Prestwood (you can see on a map that Prestwood is not that far from the Hampdens), and so the family goes back at least one generation in the area. I am happy to contact these Babbs and make some enquiries. Best wishes, Mary Stewart
Mary,
That would be lovely! Thank you for thinking of us. Prestwood only comes up in the first Pedigree (Buckinghamshire Pedigree 01), so that is the most likely match for them. As always, the Babb Family Association will be happy to pay for the DNA test once we know how they connect into these trees. Finding these connections is our key mission. Let’s continue this conversation privately so as to protect the individuals identity.
Dan
Phil Babbs father would probably be Derek Babb who had an identical twin brother Peter . Both Derek and Peter were both special policemen in their spare time !
Refresh my memory. Is this the same Phil Babb who is the Soccer (Football) player in England? We don’t get much of that over here, but I know of him.
[…] 01 dates back to before 1774 in the town of Great Hampden. As you may recall from my previous post The Babbs of Buckinghamshire, the area lays to the Northwest side of London and the other two lines in this county are tracked […]