I’ve settled into researching the apparent connections of the Combeinteignhead line and have come across a record that changes my understanding of several Pedigrees. There is still more work to do, but in my canvassing in Teignmouth, I came across a burial record for John Babb who died 05 Nov 1854 in East Teignmouth. He was 98 years old. I knew in an instant which John they were talking about. It was the John who was the head of the newly created Devon Pedigree (Combeinteignhead – 1788) line that I had just created last week.

The end result of this find is the joining of the Combeinteignhead line (which already encompasses the old Devon Pedigree 14 & 17) with Devon Pedigree (Chudleigh – 1754), which encompasses the old Devon Pedigree 26.

Making that match allowed me to have a more approximate age for John. Seeing that he transcended a timespan that is very difficult to track people I decided to dig into everything I could find about him before I turned my focus to the rest of Teignmouth.

I noted his wife Sarah whom he was with in Combeinteignhead in 1779 as they started having children. No marriage record seems to exist for this connection. Knowing that he lived into the timeframe where he could be recorded on the UK Census I first looked for him in 1851, which is the first UK Census to also list the place of birth.

I was excited to see the name Chudleigh as his birth place. It meant I had found the town this line came from. Looking through Chudleigh records I found another familiar face. A John Babb who was born in Chudleigh at exactly the right time about 13 Nov 1758.

Initially, I thought there was a problem because this John was already known to be married to Patience Coldridge in 1788.

But looking a little closer I realized that Patience was his second bride. Furthermore, her burial record shows that she was living in Alphington, which hosts some of the other trees I created last week near Exeter. It was these connections that led me to look further into this line already.

Armed with this information I have now discontinued use of the Combeinteignhead Pedigree and connected it with its parent tree, which currently stops at John’s father, who is also named John. The father married Mary Thomas.

So, this is where the story currently ends…or should I say begins! I’ve got more work to do on this line but if I didn’t get this out now, I wouldn’t be able to remember all that had already happened. I’ve now entered in all of the Teignmouth records, but am working on closing up the loose ends in Alphington and Exeter before moving on again. I’ll post about Teignmouth once I’ve done this.

This is the sort of results I’ve been hoping to see and this is the first I’ve seen something come together that just wasn’t apparent without a more complete record.

There are still 788 records left to go and then work is needed to try and pair them up with the other lines.