Being frustrated with my lack of progress on the lineage of Thomas Babb of the Hopewell in London, I turned to something else in a recent post about a family unit in Sussex County, to the Southwest of London. The first family was in a tiny (and I do mean tiny) enclave of South Harting, Sussex. For perspective, I’ve included a roadmap of the entire township to help give perspectives a roadmap of South Harting. The entire town is scarcely 5 rugby pitches/3 American Football fields across or something like that. I’m not getting the tape measure out to figure out the exact dimensions.

While on that journey I realized that there was a secondary family in the town of Rye, Sussex. Unlike South Harting which is in the western part of Sussex, this this is a port city/town on the eastern coast.

Like in my last post, I went back to see what my predecessor, Ian Henry Babb, had found. The search yielded two exact matches. The first was a 1650 Administration of one Mary Babb of Rye, Sussex (Vol 2, Folio 128). As of this writing, I still haven’t located that exact record yet.

No Rest for the Wicked

The second hit shocked me. It led me back to the exact work of Elizabeth A.S. Babb that I’ve struggled to get through. This is the same work I needed a break from after struggling to normalize it into the family tree!

<Deep Sigh>

So, I was back where I started in virtually no time at all.

I’m now working to map out the Sussex Babbs and am finding that them all up and down the coastal map. Rye does seem to be the origin of the name. However, in something I’ve not seen before, their early records indicate the surname Babe which was normalized into Babb in the early to mid 1600s.

I also see a proliferation of the surname along the southern coast of Sussex over the course of, let’s go with 80 years. Sussex has a significant given the spread I’ve seen it would appear that the additional locations are outcroppings of the original family unit, which appears to be situated in the town of Rye.

I’ll continue to work through the records and report back as I have additional information to share.

What does it mean?

It means that the Babbs of Sussex are likely relatives of both Thomas Babb Mariner (1575) and of his son Thomas Babb (1620) of the Hopewell. These Thomas’ are connected to Newfoundland and to the American Colonies.

Don’t expect an exact match, just know that it is yet another piece in the great puzzle we call Babb!