Re: Dafoe Abraham Jr.
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In reply to:
Dafoe Abraham Jr.
10/01/99
The Abrahama of whom you speak is a mystery man; we have only anecdotal evidence of his existence.The only reference to him that we've yet found is in an affidavit by John Dafoe UEL, about 1839, explaining how his brother Michael got his land grant that the Crown was threatening to vacate because he couldn't produce a title document. (It had burned up in a house fire.)He stated that Michael had been given the land by his cousin Abraham Dafoe Jr. in 1784 when Ab. Jr. went back to his family in New York.John went on to state that "since his father's death, Abraham Dafoe Jr. has been called Abraham Senior."
So this is where we get the name of Abraham, son of Abraham & A.M.C. Reiffenberg.We figure he was born around 1731, but it could have been earlier.Often the firstborn son was named for the father, but this wasn't always the case.
We know that this Abraham lived in NY, that he was still alive in 1784, and that he died sometime 1784-1834.He must have married by about 1755.Abraham Jr. UEL (or maybe I should call him ex-UEL) was also dead in 1834, as mentioned in Michael Dayfoot's land petition of that year.The Dayfoot petition mentions visiting Jr.'s grave and talking with his mother, but unfortunately doesn't give the mother's name, the father's name, the location of the grave, or where they lived other than that it was in the state of NY.
Devoe was the spelling of the name in NY.Unfortunately there are several Abraham Devoes in the early NY censuses, so we don't know which is which.The name Abraham was used in other families that are unrelated to us: one family was originally De Veaux, another was Dufour, and there may be more.