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Travellers


 

The vast majority of those with the Dunbabin name and its variants are still found within 50 miles of Warrington, but some travelled much further, usually in search of work.

A sprinkling of family members are to be found in the London area from the 17th century onwards. Most are sightings I have yet to connect with other family members. They may well be the same individuals found in the registers of parishes "back home", but surviving records are few for earlier times.

Samuel Dunbibbin, born in Liverpool in 1737, moved to Southwark where he sold china. His father and two of his brothers were potters in Liverpool; some of that sought-after decorated Liverpool earthenware was their work. Samuel's uncle Daniel, though, went further afield. He was a merchant in North Carolina by 1740. Daniel's son Jonathan was politically active in the run up to the Declaration of Independence.

He was not the first to head westwards across the Atlantic, though. About the year 1698 one Thomas Dunbabin was indentured for six years to work in Virginia or Maryland for Mr. Tarleton who had large landholdings there.

Another Thomas Dunbabin, moved to Pennsylvania from the Daresbury area in 1714. Thomas was a Quaker, as were quite a few others in the area, and he took with him a certificate from Frodsham Meeting introducing him to the Friends in the new world. His will, dated 1715, allows us to link him to the family in Cheshire.

Later immigrants to the United States of America include:

Samuel Dunbabin (1833) a lithographer from Manchester who arrived with his wife Bridget at New York in 1873.

Tom Donbavand (1857), a textile worker from Dewsbury who settled in Worcester, Massachusetts.

John Dunbabin (1860) from Garston who married and raised nine children on the of the USA's west coast.

Harold Roper Donbavand (1867) from Warrington who, not long after his marriage in 1888 was convicted of theft in Salford. On his release he and his wife started afresh in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Robert Dunbabin (1887), a coal miner from Pendlebury who moved to the massive coal mines of West Virginia in 1907.

Robert Henry Dunbavin (1880), a gardener from Garston, who moved to New York in 1909. He eventually ended up in Illinois, working for William Sloan, inventor of the "Flushometer". After a visit at Christmas 1911, his sister Mildred headed to New York with him. His brother Richard (1890) left the copper works in Garston in 1913 for New York too. Richard joined the US Army and died in France at the end of the Great War.

Henry Donbavand (1886) took his wife and two children from Manchester to Brooklyn in 1919. He appears to have returned to the UK by 1930, though the rest of the family remained in the USA.

Canada started to attract family members in the late 19th century.

Thomas Henry Dunbabin (1856) left his family in Warrington and made a trip to Australia in 1891, but was home the following year.

Thomas Walter Dunbabin (1871) left Great Sutton on the Wirrall in 1891. He gave up working in a grocer's to become a miner, but ended up farming in the wheat fields of Craik, Saskatchewan.

Coincidentally, Mabel May Dunbabin (1894), from the branch in Sharpness, Gloucestershire, and who emigrated in 1913 with her sister Hilda, married in 1914 only a few miles from Walter's home. I have yet to find a link between their families. Hilda ended up in Manitoba.

Thomas Dunbavand (1877) emigrated to Vancouver from Liverpool in 1903. His brother Albert William Dunbavand followed him in 1911 to become a shoemaker there.

Alfred Dunbobbin (1898), having served in the Royal Navy, had his passage to Canada in 1924 paid for by the Liverpool Lord Mayor's P.O.W. Fund. He returned to the UK in 1932 with a wife and son

Mable & Hilda's uncle, Ernest Dunbabin (1898) also headed to Canada in 1924. He settled with his family in Schumacher, Ontario.

Australia was the destination for several Dunbabins.

John Dunbabin (1806) was convicted of horse theft in 1830 and sent to Van Diemen's Land. He turned his life around there, and became a pillar of the community. His descendants include Rhodes Scholar Thomas Charles Dunbabin (1883) who toured the world as a writer.

John Dunbabin (1825) left the family lands in Cheshire to make a new life in Victoria.

Robert Donbavand (1815) left a family in Huddersfield in 1855 and headed to Melbourne, where he taught dancing.

Joseph Dunbabin (1851) was a fireman on the railways in 1871,

Joseph Dunbavan (1897) took his family from Preston to Queensland in 1922, where he worked on the railways. Having already served in France from 1915, he joined the Australian army in 1941. He was captured by the Japanese in 1943 and returned to Australia, dangerously ill, in November 1945.

John Dunbavand (1865), after a long career in charge of a dredger on the Manchester Ship Canal, headed to Queensland with his wife and seven children in 1924 to take up farming.

There was also a Nicholas Dunbavin who headed to the Carribean. He bought property in St. Croix, which is now in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1748 and a couple of years later was on the Council in Anguilla. He owned slaves to work the land he owned, and their descendants now carry the Dunbavin surname.

In recent times, Europe has become home for several.

Service in the army was obviously the first time that several headed across the Channel, but warmer weather has drawn others. There are records of family members in Germany, Belgium, Spain and France. Several married locals in their new lands. One woman stayed in France after being a dancer at the Moulin Rouge in Paris.