On January 1, 1886, Sanborn began office work in Omaha, Nebraska, for the
Burlington & Missouri River Railroad under the auditor of freight and passenger account. After a few months he was promoted to the passenger department, and for two years served as secretary to P.S. Eustis, general passenger agent. In 1888, Eustis was transferred to Chicago to take charge of the passenger department of the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and Sanborn went with him as his secretary. Two years later, Victor Sanborn was promoted to assistant clerk, and two years after that to chief clerk. He resigned January 1, 1898, and engaged in the real estate business in Chicago, entering the office of Clarance A. Burley. As an attorney involved in real estate, Clarence Burley's goal was to help re-build Chicago following the
Great Fire, having watched his family-home burn. Burley and Sanborn were eventually partners in this real estate venture. Although Sanborn remained engaged in the business of real estate for the remainder of his life as an agent with The Kenilworth Company, he received from his father an interest in genealogy. The Sanborn Genealogical Association was formed in 1853 for the purpose of compiling a family history. The Recording Secretary, Dr. Nathan Sanborn, first published his research in 1856 in the New England Historic Genealogical Register. This article, also published in pamphlet form, was one of the earliest American genealogies printed. Dr. Sanborn died in 1858 and his records were given to the SGA's president, Dyer H. Sanborn, who continued research and extensive correspondence until his death in 1871. Victor Sanborn became interested in continuing this research. By the age of seventeen, Sanborn had searched the
Hampton Falls and
Exeter, New Hampshire, records, laying the foundation for a book on the Samborne - Sanborn Genealogy in an article for
The New England Historical and Genealogical Register of July 1885, when he was eighteen. The first edition of his book,
The Genealogy of the Family of Samborne or Sanborn in England and America, 1194-1898, was published in 1887 when Sanborn was twenty years old, receiving favorable reviews from the beginning, including one in
The Nation stating, "This is one of those stupendous volumes peculiar to this country, which are without a parallel elsewhere." Sanborn's continued research and refinement of the Sanborn genealogical record took him to England and the European continent in 1895 and again in 1913, resulting in a source which remains foremost in the study of this family's history into the early twentieth century, and one of the best family genealogies in existence. Sanborn also wrote an authoritative work on his ancestors
Stephen Bachiler and
Thomas Leavitt. Victor Sanborn was a member of the
New Hampshire Historical Society, the
Chicago Historical Society, the Lincolnshire (England) Record Society, and various literary, social, and athletic organizations in Chicago. == Personal life ==