Bolger Heritage Center, Ridgewood Public Library. Do you have an Arrow Yearbook looking for a new home? Is it from 1912, 1915, 1944, 1966, 1972, 1975, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1993, 1997, or 2011?
Ridgewood resident brings family’s history to life
AUGUST 25, 2014 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 2014, 3:22 PM
BY BY JODI WEINBERGER
STAFF WRITER
In 2012, John Dabney was newly retired and looking for a project to fill his time.
He began researching his family’s history with the goal of learning more about his past, but the personal exploration quickly grew to an “extended family investigation” that took him all over the country interviewing relatives.
Not long after his research began, he connected with a third cousin and award-winning author Joseph Dabney, who had also been collecting family history, and the two decided over a lunch in Georgia to combine their efforts into a book.
Called, “The Dabneys of South Carolina, A Family History in Stories and Pictures,” the book traces the family to 1795 with the birth of Alexander Dabney, who emigrated from Ireland to South Carolina.
From that start, John and Joseph Dabney were able to track down 2,500 Dabneys in 1,700 families and conducted more than 250 interviews with relatives in almost every state.
“I figured I would travel with my wife and do as much research as needed and ended up doing seven to 10 hours of work a day,” John Dabney said.
However, a lot of the research, as he discovered, could be done right in Ridgewood.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/ridgewood-resident-brings-family-s-history-to-life-1.1075742#sthash.hmkr7K6V.dpuf
