Absalom McAdam was born on November 12, 1864, son of Samuel McAdam II and Eliza Brown. He married the former Eliza Grace Dopking, a daughter of Charles and Senath Dopking in 1889 at Enterprise, Ontario. They had six children. The family moved to the Watertown, New York area in 1907. Absalom died in 1922 and Grace died in 1941. Some of their family spells their name "MacAdam," while most of the larger family has stayed with the original spelling "McAdam."