Genealogy Jottings

This week I was able to dive into the research on my ancestor Benjamin E. Dunbar (1776-1831). Originally from Massachusetts, he and his family moved to Ohio shortly before his death.

The last time I looked at this family, over ten years ago, I did quite a bit of research on his children. His daughter Olive (1823-1902) was my second great-grandmother. He had eleven other children, but oddly I have had little success in locating descendants of any of them. I exchanged family photos with one woman who contacted me, but she did not know which of Benjamin’s children was her ancestor.

With no identifiable cousins available for swapping information, I have been on my own in tracing this family. They left few footprints.

I decided to begin the research on Benjamin by taking another look at his children, working down the list in birth order. The eldest was a daughter, Sophronia Dunbar (1805-1849). I know this about her:

1. She was born at Chatham, MA on 29 July 1805.
2. She married George Tiffany in Portage (now Summit) County, Ohio on 3 May 1832.
3. Her husband served with Sophronia’s mother Rhoda as co-administrator of Benjamin Dunbar’s estate. They were accused of mismanaging it, and some of the property was sold at a Sheriff’s sale.
4. Sophronia and George seem to have had no children. In 1840, a 5–10-year-old girl lived with them, but I suspect she was one of Sophronia’s younger sisters. A daughter that age was absent from Rhoda Dunbar’s household, two doors away.
5. Sophronia may have known she was terminally ill. She executed a will in the spring of 1849 leaving everything to George. She died that same year.

And what happened to the widower, George Tiffany? He would have been about 45 years old when Sophronia died.

Another researcher surmises that he was the George Tiffany, gold miner, found on the 1850 census in California. Perhaps he did leave Ohio to seek his fortune after his wife passed away.

Later, we find him back in Ohio in 1853 when he married Sophronia’s sister Lucy Snow Dunbar (1827-?). They appear in the Summit County, Ohio records a couple of times in subsequent years when they sell interest in the Dunbar land.

After 1856, the couple disappears. I have not found them on the 1860 census. But I do have a couple of clues:

1. A woman named Lucy Tiffany resided in Waukegan, IL in 1870. If this is our Lucy, perhaps George had passed away by then.
2. There are two graves for men named George Tiffany in Waukegan, IL. One marker is badly eroded, and the death date could say either 1869 or 1889. This George is buried with a wife named Roxanna, so he may not have been the George who married the Dunbar sisters. The marker for the second George Tiffany appears to say he died in 1869, and no wife is buried under a shared marker. This may be our George Tiffany. More research is needed to verify that the George and Lucy of Waukegan are the couple I seek.

I have yet to look at the land deeds from George Tiffany that are recorded in Summit County. After I do that, I will see if I can find anything in Waukegan, IL that connects the family there with the one in Ohio. If so, I need to follow this Lucy’s trail to see how her life ended. I would like to know if she ever had children.

This inquiry may not reveal any more about Benjamin E. Dunbar, but any information I uncover can help me prepare a more complete family history. His children’s lives are part of his story.