Scope and arrangement
The papers contain a number of handwritten notebooks, loose pages of handwritten notes, and numerous genealogical worksheets relating to Hastings’ research on the Barber family (descended from Patrick Barber of Ireland). Also included among the papers are galleys for notes on an article by Hastings published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Volume LXII (1931), “The Barbers of Orange County, N.Y., as well as illustrations, and a portion of a manuscript titled “The Barbers of Orange and Albany Counties, N.Y. and Elizabethtown, N.J.” There is also a small amount of correspondence, one photograph, and several booklets and clippings.
Novelist Henry James and psychologist William James were descendants of the Barber family through their grandmother Catherine Barber James. A few of the allied family names are Burnet (Burnett), Chetwood, Dill, Elliot, Levis, Mancius, and Yates.