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Finding My Varney Cousins in Dover, New Hampshire

Photo: Whitcher's Falls, Dover, New Hampshire; from a c. 1910 postcard. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

The past several days I’ve been researching the Varney family, a branch of my family tree from Dover, Strafford County, New Hampshire. The patriarch of the Dover Varney line was Humphrey Varney (1636-1714), who moved to Dover from his father’s home in Ipswich as a young man, and began the long line of Varney descendants who live across the United States today.

One of those Dover descendants is Esther C. Varney, whose obituary I discovered while searching for Varney cousins in GenealogyBank’s Recent Obituaries Database.

Source: GenealogyBank, Foster’s Daily Democrat (Dover, New Hampshire), 14 February 2013. Accessed 3 November 2017

I was able to locate Esther’s FamilySearch page, which showed me that she and I are both descendants of Humphrey Varney. Humphrey is Esther’s 7th-great-grandfather and my 8th-great-grandfather.

The Varney’s have long been a part of Dover’s history. Humphrey’s son Ebenezer Varney (1664-1753), my 7th-great-grandfather and Esther’s 6th-great-uncle, was the original builder of the “Varney-Ham House” which sat on the west side of Varney Hill in Dover for nearly 300 years.

There is an essay about the Ham Varney House, with a photo, on the Dover Public Library website:

Source: Ham Varney House, Dover (New Hampshire) Public Library, http://www.dover.nh.gov/government/city-operations/library/historical-images/houses/houses-t-y/ham-varney-house.html

It’s always amazing to find and document our cousins in the family tree.

Genealogy Tip: GenealogyBank’s Recent Obituaries Database can be a great way to find your own cousins whom you may not be aware of, and to learn interesting stories about your common ancestors.

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