Hi there, and thanks for visiting!
Today I’m looking at my maternal 4th great grandfather, Henry Varner, and his son, David Varner (my 3rd-great grandfather). I’ve been researching the Varners for a little while now, but I think this is an interesting junction and therefore a good place to start off.
Here’s what we know so far that’s relevant for today:
David J Varner was born 1835 in Nobleboro, ME. He married Mary F Ridley of Brunswick.
David’s parents were Henry Varner of Nobleboro, b about 1795 and Eleanor Clarke of Pittston, ME also b about 1795.
Sometime before 1850, David’s family moved to Bath, ME.
By 1860, David, his wife and their three children were living with his parents in Bath.
David had 4 sisters, per the 1850 census. Ellen (b 1824), Emily Ann (1827), Martha (1828) and Eliza (1836)
Sources so far:
- David’s death record lists his parents, including his mother’s maiden name, and their birth places
- 1850 and 1860 census records
The first thing I want to do is see if we can locate Henry Varner (or some variation of his name) in Bath in an earlier census. If that fails, we’ll check in Nobleboro. This will give us a date range for their move to Bath and might eventually help us to figure out who Henry’s father was, enabling more research. I’m starting in 1840 because I’ll be able to use the dates of David and his sisters’ births to cross-reference against any possible matches. The listing of every family member in a household did not begin until the 1850 census, so any records from 1840 or earlier will only list the name of the head of the household, and will give the number of household members in different age groups by gender. Therefore, if a Henry Varner is listed but doesn’t have children that match the age groups we’d expect David and his sister to be in when the 1840 census was taken, we’ll be able to rule that record out. The age groups shifted a bit from census to census, but here’s what we’d expect to see the family look like with the age buckets from the 1840 census:
Henry Varner, head
7 people in the household
1 male 40-49
1 female 40-49
1 male 5-9
1 female 15-19
2 females 10-15
1 female under 5 years old
There are two records for Henry Vannah living in Nobleborough (the ye olde spelling of Nobleboro) in 1840, and none in Bath. One record is for 6 people in the household, and appears to be a family – 2 girls and 1 boy aged 5-9, then a 15-19 year old male, and then possibly a husband aged 30-39 and a wife aged 20-29. So maybe the 30-something man’s second wife is the 20 something woman, and they have a blended family that includes his teenage son and a mix of children who are younger. Or it could be a husband, wife, their young children and the younger brother or cousin of one of the spouses. Whatever their relationships, these clearly don’t match up well – Henry and Eleanor would both have been in their 40s, and the children’s ages don’t line up. The second record for an 8-person household is a much better match:
Henry Vannah 1840
Family of 8
Male and female both 40-49 (Henry and his wife Eleanor Clark Varner, born in 1790s)
Children
1 Male 5-9 –> David Varner (b 1835)
1 Male 15-19 –> ??? (b. 1820 – 1825)
1 Female 15-19 –> likely Ellen Varner b. 1824
2 Females 10-14 –> Emily Ann (b 1827) + Martha Varner (b 1828)
1 Female Under 5 –> Eliza Varner (b 1836)
So in this record, there’s a likely match for everyone but the teenage boy. This is looking pretty good, and that one outlier, in my mind, definitely does not rule this record out. Given their ages, it’s quite possible David’s parents had older children. It also seems very possible that an older male child wouldn’t necessarily have moved to Bath with his parents in 1850, if perhaps he’d established himself and his own family in his hometown already.
I think it might be good to take a side trip to try verifying that theory. I’ll do a quick search in the 1850 census again to see if there are any male Vannahs or Varners in Nobleborough or Bath or the surrounding area that could be David’s unknown brother. We’re looking for a male born between 1820 and 1825.
The search yields 3 possibilities (Noah Vanney’s birth date is outside of our range). Francis Vannah living in Nobleboro is looking like the best bet so far, but we can revisit this later.
So, we may have found Henry Varner and his family prior to their move to Bath. The next step I’d like to take is to see if we can trace them back through a few more census records, with the goal of determining Henry’s father. Henry is as far back as I’ve managed to go, and I’d like to discover the origins of the Varner family. There are some digitized vital records for the Vannah/Varner family in Nobleboro so we’ll also be looking at those at some point. Eventually, I’d also like to look at the records for the First Baptist Church in Nobleboro, but as far as I can tell those records are not digitized and would require a note to the Historical Society or a trip to the town itself.
That’s all for now — thanks for reading!
Dirigo Descendants 