Looking for Parents of James Babcock (~1785 - 1864)

Question

I am helping dig up my wife's family tree here on WikiTree, since I tried to do the same on Ancestry and kept running into all kinds of craziness.

Her 4x great-grandfather is James Babcock who was married to Jennett/Jennette Search. He was born approximately 1785 in New York, and died in 1864 in Sangamon County Illinois. He spent some time in Muskingum County, Ohio, which is where he married his wife. All this information lines up with his gravesite, the 1850 census, and the book "Past and Present of the City of Springfield and Sangamon County, Illinois" as cited in Babcock-3319.

However, I cannot find any solid evidence to who his parents were. Ancestry and the other big sites are all over the place on this, most listing [[Babcock-2874|Charles Babcock]] (Babcock-2874), supposedly a son of Oliver Babcock and Anna Avery.

I have the book Babcock Genealogy, which is commonly cited in old Babcock profiles, and I cannot find where my wife's Babcocks fit in here. I read about Oliver Babcock and Anna Avery on page 55-56 of that book and see the information on their birth dates and 12 children and realize that it cannot be Charles, because while Oliver Babcock and Anna Avery did have a son named Charles he died as a child. Pages 106-114 talk about each of Oliver Babcock's other children that survived to adulthood and listed their spouses and children, and none of their children are named James, so I can only conclude my James is probably not part of that Babcock family.

I've also seen "Henry Babcock" listed as a father of his but again with no sources to back it up.

I'm stuck. Any ideas?

Comments

In the 1790 US census there are 51 households for BABCOCK. Go through them and make a list of the ones with a male child about 5/6 years old.

Then check for wills and land records for your list and look for a son JAMES.

Check also for JAMES in the 1820/1830 census when he would be an adult. View the actual record and see if other BABCOCKs live near him.

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Thank you Eddie and Sara for your responses. I will start digging through the census entries today and go from there!

Answer 1

Excellent biographies for James I. Babcock's sons Elias, George and Isaac. Mentions their parents James Babcock and Jennett Search, but no further back. https://sangamon.illinoisgenweb.org/bio-1904-idx.htm

But I see it's the same source you already have: Wallace, Joseph. Past and Present of the City of Springfield and Sangamon County, Illinois. S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1904.

Answer 2

I'm not sure it helps any, but I have a Frank J Babcock b 4 Aug 1854 Resnnelaer, Jasper Co., IN son of James Bennet Babcock (1835-1858) and Ellen Jane Price. All from the Babcock Genealogy where James Bennet is a brother of my line.

Answer 3

I really like Eddie King's systematic approach, but have one caveat, since in the 1860 US Census James's birth year is estimated as 1790, so adapt his strategy to that.  The Census does confirm NY as birth location for James and NJ for his spouse. 

1860 US Census:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYBT-VKQ?i=29&cc=1473181

Also, the biographies of two sons lists James's middle initial as "I" and James had one son Isaac...so might be James's middle initial "I" stands for Isaac? One biography says James came from Orange County NY..

I found the Census link on the following  user submitted tree at Family Search. It  connects James to Charles Babcock born at Stonington and his spouse Mary Benedict, by with no sources to back up that exact connection, so please look it over, but take it with a grain of salt. 

Oh, and be careful about ruling out a connection to Oliver (who this chart lists unproven as a grandparent) Sometimes families reuse names when an infant dies, so Oliver could hypothetically have had two sons named Charles in such a circumstance.

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/LHD1-LDP. It has decent sources on James's children though (nine of them).

Good Luck! 

And Thank you for working on Babcocks!