Thomas Barber, 1820 and 1810

    ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

Just when I thought I'd run out of available records to search for Thomas Barber, I remembered the U.S. census. I still needed to check the 1820 and 1810 census for him. Now that I knew more about him, I thought I might be able to pinpoint him in 1820.

He turned up on the 1820 Jefferson County, Georgia census. 

This census tells me a lot about Thomas Barber. First, Thomas Barber is between the age of 26 and 44. Since he was the father of four sons, I'd place his age at closer to the 30 to 36 age range. There is a wife with him who is about ten years younger. She is in the 16 to 24-year-old range. I believe that she is Elizabeth, who married Thomas Barber in Onslow County, North Carolina, after the death of his first wife Sarah but before he removed to Georgia.

There are four boys between the ages of one and nine in the household. If Edward Barber, who was born in 1818 in Georgia, was the son of Thomas and Elizabeth, then he was two years old in 1810 and was the youngest boy. His birth in 1818 means that Thomas and Elizabeth married by 1817. Of course, they could have married in late 1817 or early 1818 and had a son in 1818. This would also be the timeframe for their move to Georgia - about 1817. 

The other three boys would be the sons of Sarah Mashburn and Thomas Barber. Because their younger brother Edward was born in 1818, I would bracket the window for their births from 1810 to 1817. With most women averaging a birth every two years that seems about right. The three sons were Joseph, Thomas Jr., and Jackson Barber, of whom only Joseph survived well into adulthood. My ancestor Joseph Barber was born in North Carolina in 1811. If he was the son of Sarah and Thomas, then he may well have been their eldest child. That would make Thomas Jr. and Jackson the two sons born between 1812 and 1817. 

I would guess that Sarah (Mashburn) Barber died roughly between 1815 and 1817. Since she would have married Thomas Barber at least a year before her first child was born, I would guess that they married sometime between 1808 and 1810. That means they could be newlyweds without children on the 1810 census, and they should be found in Onslow County, North Carolina.

A search of the 1810 census for Onslow County, North Carolina did not turn up a Thomas Barber as head of household in the right age bracket to be the Thomas Barber for whom I am searching. There is a Thomas Barber there in 1810, but he was over 45 years old. Significantly, this Thomas Barber does not have a male in his household who is the right age to be my Thomas.

That means that Thomas Barber may have still been living with a family member as an unmarried man or as a newlywed. Three households are likely candidates. If Thomas Barber was still unmarried in 1810, which I doubt, he might have been living with Absalom Barber. However, I think it is more likely that he and Sarah were newlyweds without children. The most likely possibility is that they were living with Sarah's father Thomas Mashburn. There is both a male and female in Thomas Mashburn's household who could be Thomas and Sarah Barber. There is, though, an outside chance that they were living in the household of Mitchell Barber, where there is also a male and a female the right age to be Thomas and Sarah, but I don't know what sort of connection Thomas might have to Mitchell Barber. 

There was more than one Thomas Barber in Onslow County, North Carolina during this time, so I need to sort them out to figure out where my Thomas Barber fits in.