After last week’s 52 Ancestors “challenging” line, this week’s “easy” was super easy to choose. It’s my Tarbox family, likely due to the fact that the surname is rare, the family settled in colonial New England and articles about the family have been submitted to the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, now housed on AmericanAncestors.org, the website of the New England Historic Genealogical Society located in Boston, Massachusetts.
Back in the olden days of 1979, when I first caught the genealogy bug, two of my friends caught the same bug at the same time. They both had significantly more difficult outside-the-U.S. family lines to trace and I felt a bit guilty at that time because my first steps were through New England.
I have written about my 3x great grandfather, George Rogers Tarbox, in earlier posts. Stepping back in time from George was incredibly easy.
1. One of my first genealogical letters was to the City Clerk of Calais, Maine, requesting a death certificate for George Rogers Tarbox, who died on 27 January 1895.
Calais, Maine Death Certificate
Although it turned out that his father was William Tarbox, not John Tarbox, the important information here was that George was born in New Gloucester, Maine, which is in Cumberland County, near Portland.
2. From the New Gloucester Town Clerk, recipient of my next letter, came the transcribed page of birth records for the family of William Tarbox and Judith Haskell.
Births of William Tarbox’s Children
3. Next, I checked the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for Tarbox entries and found that Rev. Increase N. Tarbox was kind enough to write an article for me way back in 1888, detailing descendants of John Tarbox who had settled in Lynn, Massachusetts by June 1639.
NEHGR, 1888
4. By the 1990’s, The Essex Genealogist published information about John Tarbox’s origins in Ippollits, Hertfordshire, England, along with information about his first wife, Mary Overall, their children.
This is one of the shortest posts I think I’ve written, but it doesn’t take many words to explain “easy”!
We are probably related. My grandfather, Pierce Newcombe Tarbox, was born in Calais, ME. We are related to Increase Niles Tarbox, as well!
All of the Tarboxes are related – they also descend from John Tarbox in Lynn, Massachusetts c1640. Hello, cousin!
I too am related. John Tarbox is my 7x grandfather
Looking for family of Lyman Tarbox who was in Texas by 1840. Married Jane Carroll.
Hi Judy, It looks like Lyman was born in New York c1813. There were a handful of Tarbox families (8) living there in 1820, assuming Lyman’s family stayed put. If you can’t find any evidence of Lyman’s parents working backwards, I would try working forward and investigate the 8 men who had males under 10 in their households in 1820 – John, Benjamin, Isaac, Zenas, Henry, Dudley, Samuel and William. William in Otsego had a daughter Eleanor who apparently married Lyman Eugene Brown. That’s an unusual given name so perhaps there is a family connection. They lived in Otsego County, NY. Good luck with your research.
Very likely that Lyman Tarbox was the son of Peter and Mary Woodruff Tarbox and may have been born in Onandago. This all matches if he is the brother of Horace Tarbox, and there are some striking connections with the two. Still nothing to show what happened to Lyman after he joined with William Walker and went to Nicaragua in 1856.
Looking for Esther Hannah TARBOX b. abt 1826 in Maine. She was a nurse in Boston by 1839 and was “of Boston” when she married Austin Warren WOOD in CT in 1842. They moved to Philadelphia, where they both died. They have a number of descendants.
The only other TARBOX I see in the Boston Directory for that time period is a William, but I have no idea if they are related…
Thanks for any information you can provide!
My grandmother is Annie Ruth tarbox born 1911 west kennebunkport main. He father was jessie tarbox. I’m looking for that family line. Is these tarboxes that same line?
My grandfather was Fred Oliver Tarbox born late 1890’s . He was a Wyoming cowboy
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Lisa, We are very distant cousins since our common ancestor is John Tarbox of Lynn, MA. From him, we descend from different sons.