Bancroft

I knew or at least suspected that much of the information regarding the Pickering's of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts was to be found in books published in the 19th century and long out of print. Also, I knew (or at least suspected) that other genealogists in present-times were activity researching the same lines as I was. So, for the first time I found that I was able to make use of a couple of research techniques that I had not used before. I started out by collecting information from personal trees posted to Ancestry.com's OneWorld section. I was aware that it was important to keep in mind that a lot of the information found in OneWorld is, for the most part, un-sourced and rarely scrutinized for errors, but at least I was able to get clues and leads. From this "harvesting" - as I like to call it - I was able to put together a "framework" based on what Ancestry.com's automated processes had pieced together from other people's GEDCOM uploads.

After reviewing the "framework" for obvious mistakes such as an entry showing a child with both parents named "Henry Eaton", I then paid a visit to the on-line forums that focused on the surnames and families where I reviewed messages that discussed any issues that I had found so far. Here I was able to learn about any issues regarding the families and pedigrees that I was not yet aware of.

With this knowledge at hand, I then paid a visit to Google's Book Search (http://books.google.com/). Book Search is a tool from Google that searches the full text of books that Google scans and stores in its digital database. Working with several high-profile university and public libraries, including the University of Michigan, Harvard (Widener Library), Stanford (Green Library), Oxford (Bodleian Library), and the New York Public Library, Google has made available for full-view, on-line some 10,000 works in the public domain. Searching Google's Book Search for topics that included the surnames of interest and locales in which those names were found, I found a number of titles, all dating from the mid-to-late 19th century, that provided me with a enough information to put together a not-so-fuzzy picture of the lines which I was focusing on.

The lines that I focused on primarily were those of Hannah Bancroft, great-great grandmother of Cordelia Pickering, daughter of John Bancroft & Elizabeth Eaton, and grand-daughter of Elizabeth Kendall. I was intrigued by these lines because in my review of the "harvesting" from Ancestry.com I noted that other researchers, operating at least as a consensus, had traced the Kendall branch back to the 15th century and the Eaton branch back to the century following the Norman invasion of England and in some cases back further to the years before William the Conqueror.

Hannah Bancroft was born on 5 March 1702 at Lynnfield, Essex, Massachusetts. She married Edward Pickering, son of Benjamin William Pickering and Jane Hobby, on 12 March 1724 at Lynn, Massachusetts. She died on 19 October 1764 at Mendon, Worcester, Massachusetts, at age 62. She was buried at Pine Hill Cem, Mendon, Massachusetts. Her father, John Bancroft was born on 3 February 1651 at Lynn, Massachusetts. He was born on 3 March 1656 at Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Eaton, daughter of John Eaton and Elizabeth Kendall, on 24 September 1678 at Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts. He died on 25 January 1740 at Lynnfield, Essex, Massachusetts, at age 88. Hannah's mother, Elizabeth Eaton was born on 8 September 1662 at Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts. She married John Bancroft, son of Thomas Bancroft and Elizabeth Metcalf, on 24 September 1678 at Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts. She died on 12 March 1705 at Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts, at age 42.

"She [speaking of Abigail Eaton] was undoubtedly the daughter of John and Elizabeth [Kendall] Eaton, of Reading. Her name does not appear in the list of their children in the history of Reading. In that list is Elizabeth m. ____Bancroft. This I find to be John Bancroft.".

Hannah Bancroft's grandfather, John Eaton was born on 20 December 1635 at Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Kendall, daughter of Thomas Kendall and Rebecca Paine, on 8 March 1658 at Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts. He died on 17 December 1695 at Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts, at age 59.

John, son of William and Martha Eaton was born in England, December 20, 1635. He lived in Reading, where he died May 25, 1601. He married in 1658. Elizabeth Kendall, born 1642. daughter of Deacon Thomas Kendall, and they had children. He died May 13, 1673. She died in 1680 or 1681.

John Eaton, eldest son and third of the five children of William, resided in Reading; married. March 8, 1668 or 1669, Elizabeth Kendall, dau. of Deacon Thomas Kendall of Reading; he died Dec. 17, 1695.

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