Books of Barnum Genealogy Available

The Barnum Family, 1517-1904, by Noah G. Barnum. Albion, New York: Privately printed, 1904 and The Barnum Family, 1350-1907, by Noah G. Barnum. Albion, New York: Privately printed, 1907 [the two separate editions have been reprinted as a single volume] (55 pp). The two editions of Noah Greeley Barnum’s The Barnum Family were published only three years apart. While replete with errors of both commission and omission, they represent the first early attempts at codifying Barnum genealogy.

Genealogical Record of the Barnum Family, Presenting a Conspectus of the Male Descendants of Thomas Barnum 1625-1695, by Eben Lewis Barnum and Fr. Francis Barnum, SJ. Gardner, MA: Meals Printing Company, 1912 (127 pp). Following closely on the heels of Noah G. Barnum’s first attempts at codifying the genealogy of the Barnum family, this much more ambitious work corrected a few errors and added greatly to the volume of material published. Together with the two editions of its predecessor, this volume for many years represented the starting point for research into Barnum family genealogy.

The Life of Alice Barnham (1592-1650), Wife of Sir Francis Bacon, by Alice Chambers Bunten. London: Page and Thomas, 1919; London: Oliphants, Ltd., 1928 (88 pp). While not strictly speaking a genealogy, this book is interesting in that it documents the connection of the English ancestral line of Barnham with the famous Sir Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England, philosopher and man of letters. Alice Barnham (1592-1650), wife of Sir Francis Bacon, is said to have been a cousin of the immigrant ancestor of the Barnum family, Thomas Barnum (1625-1695).

This extract from the History of Stratford, Connecticut, 1639-1969, by William Howard Wilcoxson, Stratford Tercentenary Commission, 1969 (5 pp) provides notes about members of the Barnum family who resided in early Stratford.

Barnum Genealogy: 650 Years of Family History (2 vol.), by Patrick W. Barnum. Boston: Higginson Book Company, 2006 (1,387 pp). This is the first major genealogy and history of the Barnum family to be published in 94 years – since the publication of the Genealogical Record of the Barnum Family in 1912. This vast new work – two volumes totaling nearly 1,400 pages – has been compiled from the original sources and corrected and significantly enlarged based upon new research, information from the Barnum Family Genealogy website and data provided by hundreds of Barnum descendants, relations and other researchers.

Barnum Genealogy, Second Edition (3 vol.), by Patrick W. Barnum. Boston: Higginson Book Company, 2011 (2,242 pp). A revision and update of the 2006 edition of Barnum Genealogy. Nearly 2,000 persons have been added to the Barnum family tree since the publication of the first edition and additional, more-detailed information has been found for members of the English branch (Barnham) of the family. Errors were also found in the original assignment of parentage or ancestry for several Barnham and Barnum lines of descent, and the corresponding corrections and documentation have been added. Documentation has also been found that allowed a number of the “orphan” generations listed in the first edition of this genealogy to be connected to the rest of the Barnum family tree. Additional descriptive information has been added to the entries of many family members and 450 new source citations have been included.