Eliza (Starbuck) Barney (1802 - 1889)

Born 9 Apr 1802 in Nantucket, Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States

Ancestors

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Gregory Dunn [send private message]

Biography

Eliza (Starbuck) Barney is Notable.

Eliza Starbuck was born on 9 April 1802. ^[1] She married Nathaniel Barney, son of Jonathan Barney and Abial Coffin, on 18 May 1820.^[2]

Eliza was a Quaker.

Eliza and her husband, Nathaniel, were also abolitionists. From 1839 to 1840, she was Nantucket's Anti-Slavery Society's secretary. She hosted other notable abolitionists and social reformers at her home.

She was also a women's rights activist, attending the first women's suffrage convention in Massachusetts in 1851.

However, she is most well known for her accomplishments as a genealogist. In the nineteenth century, Eliza Starbuck Barney created a genealogical record that contained the births, deaths, and marriages of more than 40,000 Nantucketers over two and a half centuries The original genealogical record comprises 1,702 ledger pages in six volumes. Her record was based on data compiled by Benjamin Franklin Folger, who passed his records on to her at his death, and, no doubt, information gleaned from newspapers, public records, and family and friends. NHA staff consider the Barney Record to be its most reliable and comprehensive—although not infallible—genealogical resource. After Eliza Barney’s death in 1889, her niece continued with her work for more than a decade, although her entries were sparser and less complete. The database incorporates genealogical data for the island’s first European settlers, who arrived in 1659, to islanders of the first decade of the twentieth century. ^[3] (https://nha.org/research/nantucket-history/history-topics/eliza-starbuck-barney-1802-1889-mother-of-island-genealogy/)

Eliza Starbuck died on 18 March 1889 at age 86.^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ Barney Genealogical Record
2. ↑ Barney Genealogical Record
3. ↑ Nantucket Historical Association
4. ↑ Barney Genealogical Record

• Barney Genealogical Record Person ID I4990
• Nantucket Historical Association
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Starbuck_Barney