Category: General Research
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The “final” accounting of our Loss in Devon
I’ve finally finished entering the stubs of the estate documents that miraculously remain after the Nazi Bombing which is known as the “Exeter Blitz” of 1942. This was perhaps the most discouraging task I’ve tried to accomplish in my 20+ years of Genealogy. To have a fragment of information of the lost records, but not…
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Old English is not just a Furniture Polish
I’ve begun to locate some of the original Babb documents on file through the Court of Chancery in England. I was immediately struck by how much harder to read they were than the will I recently translated. In some the penmanship is so poor that some words are barely a scribble. These records are significantly…
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The Arms Race is Over!
As quickly as it began our Arms Race has ended with the report from the Chester Herald of the College of Arms in London, England. The letter covers 4 different Babbs, news about the known crest, etc. The report is only a few pages in length, but contains a number of revelations. I’m still working…
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William & Grace (Halls) Babb and the Power of Color Correction
This is a simple little post with some powerful advice. I received this picture of William & Grace (Halls) Babb who are also members of DNA-10: The Celts of Cornwall & Cornwall Pedigree 02. The image I received had a deep green hue, which makes it stand out. At first I believed that it was…
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Too Big For Our Britches
We have outstripped the capabilities of Family Tree Maker 2019 (FTM) and now find it necessary to split the trees up into 3 separate trees. This move comes with mixed emotions for me and I’ve struggled against it for the last several years. In 2001 I started converting Jean A. Sargent’s book Babb Families of…
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New York Adoption Records to finally be opened
The Governor of New York State recently signed a bill into law that allows adoptees to gain access to their original Birth Certificates once they reach the age of 18 years old. The Bill becomes Law on January 15, 2020 and I plan to place an order that very day to help a friend who…
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I’m About to Bust!
I’ve been holding this secret for almost 10 months now and as I believe the event is fast approaching I just can’t hold it in any longer! In January, I was contacted by the research team for Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. I must admit that as I read the message and…
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Naming Private Ryan
A co-worker took a flight recently and knowing my passion for all things genealogy (seriously, it’s pretty hard to miss) snapped a picture of this article in American Way Magazine. The website has a very noble mission to bring the voices back to the millions of people in the photos from the Civil War. This…
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Most American Adoptees Can’t Access Their Birth Certificates. That Could Be About to Change.
For anyone whose family has been touched by adoption, you likely already know how it is often almost impossible to understand your family history. Over the last few years I’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to help adoptees locate information on their Ancestry. This often comes with mixed results and DNA research often…
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Bobs your Uncle
I’ve been heads down the last two weeks trying to update captions for the roughly 10,000 images that will become part of the second edition of my book series. About half of those are new since the first edition and often lack consistency. I get tickled at the information people attach to their photos. Some…
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Saving your Family Photos
Today I wanted to share a number of tips and tricks to help preserve the precious family photos in your own family, by discussing my photo preservation journey. I’m back from my long European Vacation (I did not see Chevy Chase) and with my body aching from all the great fun I’d had, I decided…
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The Science & Art of family trees in today’s world
As I wonder through other peoples research looking for tidbits of info, I see a variety of methods employed by previous researchers that they found helpful before the advent of computing. Some of those have endured through to this very day. I’m very particular about how the data appears in my database and wanted to…
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How the Numbering System Works
I’ve received some questions about how the numbering system works in the family tree. I’ve copied the full description here for your convenience. The system I use is not proprietary and I encourage everyone working with the early Babbs of the United States to include the tree number as an AKA/Person ID in their work.…
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Babb DNA
Occasionally, I receive questions about where we stand on the DNA project and wanted to give an update. We verified large portions of the descendant tree of Phillip (1) of the Isles of Shoals and Christopher Babb (5) of North Carolina. the Bavarian Babb’s have their own known lineage back to Bavaria and thus there…
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Babb Y-DNA Colorized Chart
Have you ever wondered how your DNA stacks up against the rest of the Babb’s? With a little assistance of the people at Family Tree DNA you are now able to see this for yourself: http://www.familytreedna.com/public/babb/default.aspx?section=ycolorized As we stand we have 20 total members in our DNA group and I’ve clustered them by lineage. 8…
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Family trees: Tracing the world’s ancestor
This article really helped to put things into perspective regarding my genealogical pursuits. Guess I need to get ready for a bigger tree. 🙂 Family trees: Tracing the world’s ancestor By Dr Yan Wong Evolutionary biologist Link to the Article on BBC Repost: Originally posted on Aug 27, 12