Reconstructing Lucia Babb Bronson: Solving a 19th-Century Identity Mystery
Another "unnamed relative" has been identified—and she is now right where she belongs, safely anchored in the genealogical history of the Bronson family of Kensington, Connecticut, and Livonia, New York!
For years, finding the true identity of Elnathan Bronson’s wife felt like chasing a ghost. With zero birth records for their children and no direct marriage record found, the paper trail was cold. But by piecing together court ledgers, land deeds, probate files, and one very revealing local newspaper clip, the indirect evidence finally snapped into place: Lucia Babb is home.
BACKGROUND & HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Our story starts with Elnathan Bronson, born in 1767 to Charles Bronson and Abigail Beach in Farmington, Connecticut Colony. After his father passed away in 1779, a 13-year-old Elnathan was placed under the guardianship of Selah Hart of Kensington in 1780.
For the next decade, his whereabouts were quiet—until January 1790, when a baptism record in Middletown names "Elnathan & Lucy Bronson" as parents, and the 1790 U.S. Census places them in the Kensington/Berlin area.
Meanwhile, several children of Benjamin and Sally Babb of Middletown packed up and migrated north to Loudon (now Otis), Massachusetts—including John Babb, Esther Babb Clark, and Benjamin Babb Jr.
Shortly after, Elnathan and Lucia Babb Bronson followed that same path north to join her siblings, appearing in Loudon court, land, and livestock records between 1791 and 1795.
THE RED HERRING: HOW A PUBLISHED ERROR MISLED GENERATIONS
In genealogy, compiled family histories from the late 1800s and early 1900s are famous for turning transcription mistakes into "immortalized facts." This case had a massive one that sent researchers down the wrong path for decades.
For years, trees and reports pointed back to Arthur Leffingwell Brown's compiled book, Genealogy of One Branch of the Bronson Family (p. 44), which claimed that Elnathan Bronson of Kensington married a "Louisa Babb" in 1818.
Why this printed record was completely wrong:
Wrong Name: The transcription misread "Lucia" / "Lucy" as "Louisa."
Wrong Location: By 1818, Elnathan had lived in Livonia, NY for years, not Kensington, CT.
Impossible Timeline: An 1818 marriage date makes zero sense for a couple whose children were already being baptized in the 1790s!
Because this book was digitized and widely circulated online, researchers assumed the 1818 entry was gospel. Was this a second marriage? A different Elnathan altogether? To dismantle this myth, we had to ignore the secondary book, go back to original primary records, and build the real timeline step-by-step.
THE EVIDENCE & PRIMARY SOURCES
When you bypass the erroneous genealogy book and look at the actual contemporary documents, the true paper trail is clearer:
January 1790 (Middletown, CT): A baptism record appears for Henry Bronson, infant son of "Elnathan & Lucy Bronson of Kensington." This establishes that Elnathan and Lucy were already married and having children before 1790.
September 1791 (Loudon, MA): An Elnathan Bronson is recorded as registering livestock ear marks in Loudon.
1792 (Loudon, MA): Multiple court documents place both John Babb and Elnathan Bronson "of Loudon" in the exact same jurisdiction.
1795 (Canaan, NY): A land deed selling acreage back in Loudon is signed jointly by Elnathan & Lucy Bronson, now listed as residents of Canaan, New York.
November 1816 (Livonia, NY): A local newspaper notice submitted by Elnathan Bronson makes a crucial mention of his 96-year-old mother-in-law, Sally Babb.
1828 (Livonia, NY): The probate administration on the Estate of Elnathan Bronson explicitly names his widow Lucy, alongside their sons Elnathan, Samuel, Horace, and Chauncey.
RESOLUTION & CONCLUSION
When you stack the timeline, land sales, probate records, and that golden 1816 newspaper mention of mother-in-law Sally Babb side-by-side, the conclusion is undeniable:
Elnathan Bronson married Lucia "Lucy" Babb of Middletown before 1790.
While the erroneous 1818 entry in the Brown genealogy book threw researchers off course for generations, indirect primary evidence—now supported by DNA testing—confirms Babb as her true maiden name. Another ancestral identity restored!
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY & SOURCES
Attached to the following profiles for Lucy Babb Bronson:
1. Lucia (Babb) Bronson on Family Search
2. Lucia (Babb) Bronson on WikiTree
