Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy

John Bancroft

Male Abt 1593 - Abt 1637  (~ 44 years)


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  • Name John Bancroft 
    Born Abt 1593  of, Derbyshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Died Abt 1637  Atlantic Ocean Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Person ID I1981  Petersen-de Lanskoy
    Last Modified 27 May 2021 

    Father Thomas Bancroft,   bur. From 13 Oct 1626 to 11 Oct 1627, Swarkeston, Derbyshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Mother Rebecca,   bur. From 1627 to 1639, Swarkeston, Derbyshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F389  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Mrs. Bancroft,   d. Aft 1644, of Southampton, Long Island, New York, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Married , , England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Children 
     1. Anna Bancroft,   b. , , England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. From 17 Dec 1684 to 4 Apr 1694, Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, United States Find all individuals with events at this location
     2. John Bancroft,   b. , , England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 6 Aug 1662, Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, United States Find all individuals with events at this location
     3. Thomas Bancroft,   b. Abt 1625, of Chellaston, Derbyshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 14 Dec 1684, Enfield, Hartford, Connecticut, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 59 years)
    Last Modified 28 May 2021 
    Family ID F394  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Notes 
    • RESEARCH_NOTES:
      1. CAUTION! The connection of the "Widow Bancroft" as mother to the three Connecticut River Valley Bancrofts (Anna, John, and Thomas) is uncertain but tentatively possible. The name of her husband is unproven and so the connection to this "John Bancroft" is very uncertain and only speculative. She is not the Jane "Barcroft" married to John Barcroft. I have included below a noteworthy article in TAG by the well-respected Dr. McCracken with editing comments from the impeccable Donald Line Jacobus, editor of TAG. Other articles below are not as reliable as McCracken's and perhaps speculative, but of interest to better understand the progression of arguments. It should also be noted that this whole entry for "John Bancroft" is speculative and not proven.

      2. The periodical "The American Genealogist," 37(1961): 154-60, "Bancrofts in the Connecticut Valley," by George E. McCracken, F.A.S.G.:
      "In the middle of the seventeenth century we find living in the towns in the valley of the Connecticut River the following three persons named Bancroft:
      1. Anna or Hannah, d. Windsor between 17 Dec. 1684 and 4 Apr. 1694; m. there, 13 May 1647, Sergeant John Griffin, to whom she bore Hannah, Mary, Sarah, John, Thomas, Abigail, Mindwell, Ruth, Ephraim and Nathaniel.
      2. John, ferryman, d. Windsor b Aug. 1662; m. there 3 Dec. 1647, Hannah Dupper, who bore to him John, Nathaniel, Ephraim, Hannah and Sarah.
      3. Thomas, d. Enfield 14 Dec. 1684; m. (1) 8 Dec. 1653, probably in Springfield, Margaret Wright, mother of Lydia, Margaret, Anna, Thomas, Anna and Samuel; (2) ca. 1668 Hannah, said to have been a Gardner, mother of Samuel, Ruth, Rebecca and Nathaniel.
      While we lack positive evidence to prove relationship between the three, striking repetitions of the same names among the children of all three, and proximity of time and place, make it seem probable that we have here to deal with a sister and two brothers.
      A woman named Jane married Thomas Barber at Windsor on 7 Oct. 1640, her surname not being stated in the marriage record set down by no less a person than Matthew Grant. (Here it may be stated parenthetically that in Grant's record there are several instances in which the marriage date for a couple is given but not the bride's surname. I am inclined to believe that the explanation may be that the marriage took place elsewhere, and that Grant's primary concern in learning the date was to show that enough time elapsed before the birth of the first child, a point on which the Puritans were even more sensitive than are we.) The claim was made by Charles Edwin Booth, "One Branch of the Booth Family" (New York 1910), p. 44, that the said Jane had been Jane Bancroft and the widowed mother of the three Bancrofts mentioned above, but no proof is adduced and we have found none.
      That their mother was, indeed, named Jane had been claimed a little earlier by J. Henry Lea [New England Hist. and Gen. Register, 56:84-87, 196 f.), but he knew nothing of any marriage of Jane to Barber. Now between 1642 and 1654 Thomas and Jane (___) Barber became the parents of John, Thomas, Sarah, Samuel, Mary and Josiah, and it would have been physically possible for a woman who had previously given birth to Anna about 1629 and to John and Thomas within the next ten years, to have become the mother of the six Barber children after that. It involves, however, the conclusion that she had two sons named John and two sons named Thomas living at the same time, which although possible would have been unusual, and until actual evidence is produced that Jane Barber had been previously a Bancroft, we feel unable to accept the claim set forth in the Booth book. If some proof were now found that Jane had been a Bancroft at her marriage to Thomas Barber, it would be more probable that she was a sister to Anna, John and Thomas, than that she was their mother.
      The article by Mr. Lea, cited above, also assigns, on the authority of Hinman, two other brothers to Anna, namely Samuel and William, but Royal R. Hinman, "A catalogue of the names of the early Puritan settlers of the Colony of Connecticut" (Hartford, 2nd ed., 1852), p. 123, actually fails to assign either Samuel or William as stated, but includes an Ebenezer whom Lea overlooks. On the next page, however, Hinman does mention Samuel and William Bancroft as early at Windsor, but he says nothing more of them and suggests no relationship to anyone. Suffice it to say that neither the present writer nor Mr. Donald L. Jacobus has found evidence for Samuel, William, or Ebenezer, and unless contemporary evidence can be submitted for their existence, we are inclined to dismiss them as fictitious.
      According to Mr. Lea, all of these children, with the exception, of course, of Ebenezer whom he omits, were those of a John Bancroft with wife Jane, the father a native of Derbyshire. He claims that this couple came early to Boston and removed thence to Lynn where John died, and that Jane, and presumably her children, then migrated to Southampton, Long Island, whence the family once more removed to the valley of the Connecticut where we have found three of them.
      The evidence from Derbyshire wills is extensively and impressively presented by Mr. Lea. It goes back three generations behind a Thomas Bancroft, yeoman of Swarkston, Derbyshire, who died at Chellaston in the same county, testate, leaving a will dated 13 Dec.1626 and probated 11 Oct. 1627, in which he names Rebecca, eldest son John, second son Ralph, third son Thomas, and daughters Dorothy and Elizabeth, both of them married. The third son Thomas is described as a resident of Bradley, then married and with issue, and his death is dated by Lea in 1658. How much of this comes from the will and how much is deduced from other sources is not quite clear, but the said Thomas the younger is identified as a poet who in 1639 published at London a quarto volume of 86 pages bearing the title of "Two Bookes of Epigrammes and Epitaphs," containing among other verses the following dedicated to the poet's brother John:
      "You sold your land the lighter hence to go
      To foreign coasts, yet (Fate would have it so)
      Did ne'er New England reach, but went with them
      That journey toward the New Jerusalem."
      Passing over the implication that John, had he been willing to go to New England with more encumbrances, might have taken along his land, we must conclude that though he started on the journey, he did not complete it, dying enroute. Mr. Lea, however, is unwilling to accept this plain conclusion and resorts to the use of "poetic license." In his view, John did reach New England but died soon afterwards, hence might be said, in poetry though not in history, never to have arrived. This view is rejected by Meredith B. Colket, Jr. [supra, 17:20-22], and I must confess that I think he is right.
      Those who maintain that John, brother of the poet Thomas Bancroft, actually arrived in America, would point to evidence printed by John Camden Hotten, "Original Lists," p. 150, and by Charles E. Banks, "Planters of the Commonwealth," p. 98. A John Barcroft [sic] and wife Jane took the oath on 13 April 1632 and came on the Ship "James," Capt. Grant, 5 June 1632, no children being named in the passenger list for them, though some are noted for other families who also crossed in the same boat. In the next year Jane got into serious trouble at Boston. Winthrop notes in his famous Journal on 12 Sept. 1633 that Captain Stone had been found "with Barcrofte's wife ... lying in a bed one night." In Massachusetts Colonial Records 1:108 [Shurtleff] we read under date of 3 Sept. 1633:
      "Mr Barcrofte (sic) doeth acknowledge to owe vnto or Sovraigne the King the some of xlli & Mr Samil Mauacke (Maveracke) the some of xxl &c. The condicion of this recognizance is that Jane Barcrofte (sic) wife of the said John shall be of good behavr towards all psons.
      Whether these Barcrofts were also called Bancroft is, of course, problematical, but it should be noted that the three records, the ship list, Winthrop's "Journal," and the court record, are all in harmony in calling them Barcroft, not Bancroft. In any case, no certain trace of the Barcrofts, if such they really were, has been found elsewhere. On the other hand, a man whose brother was capable of publishing a volume of verse some years later may have been of sufficient prestige to be entitled to be called "Mr." even in so unsavory a connection as this. Mr. Lea does identify John Barcroft with the poet's brother and says the couple removed to Lynn in 1632, though they were surely, as we have seen, still in Boston in the fall of 1633.
      Mr. Lea is forced to conclude that John soon died in Lynn, as he asserts that his widow was given land at Lynn in 1637. The town votes of Lynn are now in the process of publication, but apparently there are none so early as 1637. There is, however, in "Essex County Court Records and Files," 2:270, a distribution of land at Lynn in 1638, and the seventh item among a large number is "widdow Bancraft, 100 acres." This is probably what Lea had to go on. Had this record called her Jane, We should have less hesitation in identifying her with the Jane Barcrofte of the Boston records, but since it did not, it would be well to be cautious.
      It seems true, however, that a scion of the Derbyshire Bancrofts did come to America, a Lieutenant Thomas Bancroft, born ca. 1625, died at Lynn 19 Aug. 1691, having previously been resident in Dedham and Reading. A lengthy and unsatisfactory account of this man and his descendants was published by John Kermott Allen in the "New England Hist. and Gen. Register" (94:215-224, 311-321; 95:56-69, 109-117, 276-285, 363-383; 96:49-57, 126-137, 284-291, 327-336; 97:65-77, 124-134, 214-220). His eighth child, born at Reading 20 Aug. 1660, died 13 July 1661, was named Ralph, a name which appears several times in the Derbyshire family. The reappearance of the name Ralph suggests that the lieutenant was a member of the Derbyshire family. Mr. Allen promised at the outset to return to the subject of Lieut. Thomas Bancroft's forebears in England but he never did so, perhaps because he never reached any satisfactory conclusion. Another descendant of the lieutenant, G. Andrews Moriarty, Esq., has informed me that he is inclined to believe that the lieutenant was a son of the poet, but that he has never been able to find the proof in English records.
      Though Mr. Allen says nothing of the poem, he would appear to have identified Lieut. Thomas Bancroft of Lynn as the poet, since he says he may have come with his brother John in 1632; and that Thomas's father died in 1627 and his stepmother in 1639. As to the last date he is following Lea, but Lea calls her his mother, not stepmother. He also quotes a history of Lynn to the effect that Thomas arrived there in 1640. The earliest record found of Thomas at Lynn is dated 1661, though he himself, in a deposition of 1681, says he hired a farm there in 1655. The history of Thomas is at least strange. He married at Dedham in 1647 and again in 1648 and had children recorded at Dedham in 1648-1650 and at Reading in 1653-1670, the twelfth and youngest child being Mary, born 16 May 1670, who is, incidentally, omitted by Mr. Allen though he notes her as unmarried and living in 1691 in connection with the probate of her father. While living at Lynn in Essex county, he served for many years as ensign for Reading which is in Middlesex County, though on modern maps the two places are but nine miles apart. He resigned this post in 1679 as he lived "remote from the said towns." Other errors of Mr. Allen do not affect our argument. To sum up what is certain about Lieut. Thomas Bancroft: he was almost certainly a member of the Derbyshire family described by Lea; he is first recorded at Dedham and Reading before he is recorded at Lynn; and there is a lacuna of seventeen years between the one appearance of the Widow Bancroft at Lynn and the first appearance of Thomas there as a tenant, not land owner. During this period Thomas Bancroft was for the last eight years recorded at Dedham and Reading. It is entirely possible that he was not connected either with the Barcrofts of Boston or the Widow Bancroft of Lynn.
      As for Mr. Lea's further statement that the Widow Bancroft, and presumably her children, moved to Southampton, Long Island, we are able to say that a Widow Bancroft, this one or another, undeniably owned land at Southampton in or before 1644. George Rogers Howell, "Early History of Southampton, Long Island, New York, with Genealogies" (Albany, 2nd ed., 1887), p. 421, cautiously admits that a Widow Bancroft had a land grant at Southampton in 1644, but thinks she probably never came there at all. In that case, how she came to have the grant is not clear. Mr. Colket, however, subceeded [supra, 17:20-22] in finding a petition of Iohn Stratton and Thomas Talmage Junr "for the quiet and peaceable Inioyment of the lott betwixt them which was formerly graunted Vnto Widow Bancroft," which was there-upon "graunted and consented Vnto by the Generall Court provided that they shall keep, Improve, and possesse the sayd lott in their handes three years after the tyme yt was by the said widdow Bancroft given vnto them" ["Records of the Town of Southampton," 1:34]. The Records of East Hampton [1:24] show that they still possessed the lot on 10 June 1652, and John Stratton's will of 30 Aug. 1684 mentions a parcel of meadow lying with Capt. Talmage undivided. Mr. Colket concludes that this appears to indicate that Stratton and Talmage had obtained the grant upon their marriages to daughters of the Widow Bancroft, but Mr. Jacobus informs me that he has seen examples of the use of the verb "give" in references to conveyances which were clearly land sales and not deeds of gift. I do not think it proved that Stratton and Talmage were sons-in-law of the Widow Bancroft, but in view of the fact that there were migrations from Lynn to Southampton, I tentatively accept the identification of the Widow Bancroft of Lynn with the Widow Bancroft of Southampton.
      To return to the Boston Barcrofts, stress should be laid on the absence of any child in the ship list. If these Boston Barcrofts were the parents of the three Connecticut Bancrofts, then we should expect at least that the daughter Anna would be with them, for her marriage in 1647 strongly implies that she was in existence when the Barcrofts sailed in 1632. Furthermore, Mr. Lea did not find in Derbyshire records any evidence as to the name of the wife of the poet's brother John. He assigns the name Jane to her solely on the basis of equating John Barcroft of Boston with John Bancroft of Derbyshire. There is thus no positive proof that the three Connecticut Bancrofts were children of a Jane, and not one of them named a known child Jane. Mr. Jacobus, to whom this study owes much, would interpret the absence of any record of John Barcroft of Boston after the year 1633 as evidence of a negative sort that he may have returned to England out of chagrin.
      The Widow Bancroft of Lynn, quite probably identical with the Widow Bancroft of Southampton, may well have been the wife and widow of the John who died on the crossing. But we are not inclined to believe that she was the mother of Lieut. Thomas Bancroft, since no record has been found to show that he inherited the 100 acres she was granted in 1638. As the lieutenant continued to be recorded in Essex County until his death in 1691, he must be carefully distinguished from the Thomas Bancroft who died at Enfield in 1684. If the lieutenant was not son of the widow, then she is left as a possible mother of the three Connecticut Bancrofts, but there is really not the slightest bit of evidence to show that she was, nor that her name was Jane.
      Editor's Note. Dr. McCracken has keenly analyzed the Bancroft problems. There are several interrelated problems, some of great complexity, and it may be helpful to the reader to summarize the conclusions reached, negative though many of the conclusions are.
      1. John Bancroft of Derbyshire, brother of Thomas the poet, was lost on the passage to New England. The name of his wife is unknown, but he may have been accompanied by a wife and children.
      2. John Barcroft of Boston with wife Jane was not a Bancroft so far as has been proved, and this couple has no known history in New England after 1633.
      3. The Widow Bancroft of Lynn 1638, quite likely identical with the Widow Bancroft of Southampton 1644, was not named Jane so far as actual records prove; she may have had daughters who married Stratton and Talmage but that is not positively proved.
      4. The said Widow Bancroft may have been mother of the three Bancrofts of the Connecticut River Valley, but there is no proof that she was. She may have married one of the Connecticut settlers, thus bringing her putative children into this area, but the claim that she was the Jane who married Thomas Barber of Windsor is extremely unlikely.
      5. Lieut. Thomas Bancroft first appears at Dedham in 1647 when aged about 22, removed to Reading, and did not settle in Lynn until many years after the Widow Bancroft's brief appearance there. There is no strong reason to assume that he was her son, but his own name and that of his son Ralph strongly suggest that he belonged to the Derbyshire family and his age conforms with the theory that he might be a son of Thomas the poet or of Ralph, who were brothers of the John who died on his passage to New England.
      So many false and improbable statements have appeared in print concerning the early Bancrofts that a careful appraisal of these claims in the light of what the records actually prove (and they fail to prove very much) was long overdue, and Dr. McCracken deserves our gratitude for undertaking the task."

      3. Henry R. Stiles, "The History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut," 1892, v. 2, p. 41:
      "John Bancroft came in the 'James' from London, Eng., Apr. 1632; arrived 12 Jun (8 weeks passage); res. Lynn Mass.; d. 1637; 'Col. Rec. Mass.,' 3 Sep 1633; 'Winthrop's Journal,' 12 Sep 1663; 'Hubbard's Hist. New Engl.,' p. 156. His wid. Jane received 100 acres of land at Lynn, 1638. Nov. 19, 1644, Jona. Strattan and Thos. Talmadge, Jr., of Southampton, Long Island (a settlement emanating from Lynn), petitioned for the peaceable settlement of the lot betwixt them, 'which formerly was gr. unto Widd. Bancroft,' which was consented to. Tradition in the Bancroft family says she m. (2) a man who removed with her and her children to Connecticut. "Savage' mentions ch. John and Thomas.
      Children (born England):
      A. Anna, m. 13 May 1647, John Griffin; sett. Simsbury; 10 children.
      B. John.
      C. Thomas.
      D. Samuel.
      E. William (acc. to 'Hinman,' for which we find no authority.)
      Thomas Bancroft, poet (a native of Swarkstone, on the Trent, Derbyshire, where his parents were buried and who produced a vol. of epigrams and epitaphs, 1639, London, Eng.) says of his brother John Bancroft:
      'You sold your land the lighter hence to go
      To foreign coasts, yet (Fate would have it so)
      Did ne'er New England reach, but went with them
      That journery toward New Jerusalem.'
      Tradition speaks of a sojourn on Long Island and the death there of one of the three brothers; that one then went to Mass. and one to Connecticut."

      4. Many modern genealogies incorrectly show the name of "Widow Bancroft" as Jane with various surnames including Bonython and Coggins. One of the most persistent errors, which is repeated over and over again, is that Jane was a Bonython. This appears to have got started from the book "The Israel Barlow Story and Modern Mores," by Ora Haven Barlow. This book's subject is the well-known Mormon whose ancestry comes through the Bancrofts. Without any given sources, they indicated the wife as Jane Bonython. This then got picked up many years ago by the LDS Ancestral File from which many copied the erroneous information without verifying it. It in turned got posted to many Internet genealogies and is then recopied ad nauseum. Not one of these Internet genealogies out of hundreds has any prime source or citation. A complete search of the entire New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 150 years makes no such mention, nor does any of the published genealogies from the 1800s for either the Bancroft or Bonython families make any such connection. The Bonythons are shown in England as being from Cornwall whereas the Bancrofts are surmised to be from Derbyshire. A pre-Colonial marriage between two such separate parts of the country seems highly unlikely considering most of the presumed Bancroft children were born before the immigration. Additionally the Bancrofts emigrated to Massachusetts and Connecticut, whereas the Bonythons were in the Saco River area of Maine. In looking over Bonython genealogies in the NEHGS, I find no Jane Bonython whatsoever in the Colonial early histories.
      In regards to John's wife even having the name Jane is currently dismissed. The following quote as well as others quoted in the other notes herein indicate that Jane has been falsely assumed from the ship record of John and Jane Barcroft. There appear to be no passenger records of the Bancrofts. The following is from "Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-33":
      "John BARCROFT: John and Jane Barcrofte are on a list of passengers from London on 12 April 1632 [Hotten 150]; this ship was the James [WJ 1:94]. 3 September 1633: "Mr. John Barcrofte doeth acknowledge to owe unto our Sovereign, the King, the sum of £xl, & Mr. Samuel Maverick the sum of £xx, &c. The condition of this recognizance is, that Jane Barcrofte, wife of the said John, shall be of good behavior towards all persons" [MBCR 1:108]. (Jane's offense was to be "found upon the bed in the night" with Capt. John STONE [WJ 1:132].) 1633: John Raymond, in a letter to Ambrose Gibbons of Newichawannock, notes that "John Barcraste owes me for 1 barr. of pease and six gallons of aqua, seven pounds of beaver which I pray take notice of, and call in as the rest of the debts accordingly" [NHPP 1:76].
      Comments: The ship on which the Barcroftes sailed was the James which arrived at Boston on 12 June. The association with Samuel Maverick suggests that they resided at Winnissimmet. Many writers have tried to make this name the same as Bancroft, and claim that John was ancestor of some of the early Bancrofts in New England. McCracken and Jacobus argue that the name was Barcrofte and there was no connection with the Bancrofts [TAG 37:154-60]. George Ely Russell presented evidence to show that John and Jane Barcroft had removed to Virginia by 10 September 1637 (and probably some time earlier) but that John had died there soon, without issue; John's brother Charles Barcroft, a London merchant, made several trips to Virginia, received grants of land and left descendants there [TAG 67:112-13]. (See also GDMNH 75-76.)
      Sources:
      TAG: The American Genealogist, Volume 9 to present (1932+).
      WJ: Medical Journals of John Winthrop Jr., 1657-1669, manuscript, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts.
      GDMNH: Sybil Noyes, Charles Thornton Libby and Walter Goodwin Davis, Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (Portland, Maine, 1928-1939; rpt. Baltimore 1972).
      NHPP: Provincial Papers, Documents and Records Relating to the Province of New Hampshire from 1686 to 1722, 40 volumes, Nathaniel Boulton, ed. (Manchester, N.H., 1867-1943).
      MBCR: Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1686, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., 5 volumes in 6 (Boston 1853-1854).
      Hotten: The Original Lists of Persons of Quality..., John Camden Hotten, ed. (London 1874; rpt. Baltimore 1974)."

      5. Whether John Bancroft descended from Thomas Bancroft of Swarkeston, Derby, England or not is a matter of ongoing debate. The two known facts revolve on (1) what Thomas Bancroft the poet meant by his epitaph for his brother John, and (2) whether the John Bancroft who died in an adjoining village of Derbyshire and left a will in 1634 was the John related to the poet or not. I don't believe either record is totally conclusive, but I tend for now towards John the Immigrant being the son of Thomas of Swarkestone. The following are arguments against my position:
      A. From the Internet 29 Dec 2007 <http://www.geocities.com/heartland/estates/9785/tag1.html> of the Souther Family Association provides the following alternate viewpoint which unlinks John Bancroft the Emigrant with Thomas Bancroft the poet:
      "Bancroft Addenda, with Sowther and Gilbert Notes, by John G. Hunt, B.S.C., Arlington, Virginia. This page was last updated on October 6, 2004.
      The following article is taken from: The American Genealogist, Volume 42, Number 4, pp. 210-116:
      In 1961 Dr. George E. McCracken (TAG, supra, 37; 154-160) developed these facts concerning Bancrofts of early New England;
      i. Thomas Bancroft, eminent poet, native of Swarkestone, Derbyshire, was alive at Bradley in that shire as late as 1658. His brothers were Ralph and John Bancroft, the latter of whom sold his land preparatory to removing to New England but died before 1639 prior to arriving in the New World; see evidence below.
      ii. To be distinguished from the said John Bancroft, a certain John Barcroft, with wife Jane, was of Boston, Massachusetts in 1633; not known to have had any children, nor is there record in America of this couple after 1633.
      iii. The Widow Bancroft of Lynn, Massachusetts, 1638, was likely in 1644 of Southampton, New York; there is no evidence that her name was Jane, as has sometimes been supposed, doubtless in confusion with Jane Barcroft, above. The widow possibly had daughters that married John Stratton and Thomas Talmage, Jr., two early settlers of Long Island.
      iv. The said Widow Bancroft may have had sons John and Thomas Bancroft who were living in the Connecticut valley in the 1640's and 1650's; their sister seems to have been Anne or Hannah who married Sgt. John Griffin at Windsor, Connecticut, in 1647.
      v. In records of Dedham, Massachusetts of the year 1647, appears the name of Thomas Bancroft, then aged about 22 years; although he later removed to Lynn, there is no good reason to think him akin to the Widow Bancroft. His name, however and that of his son Ralph, conform to the theory that he was somehow related to the aforesaid poet, Thomas Bancroft.
      Much of the material that Dr. McCracken reviewed had been gathered some sixty years earlier by J. Henry Lea who summarized his findings in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 56:84-87, 196 f. Most curiously, however, Mr. Lea seems to have neglected to consult the will of John Bancroft of Kings Newton, in the parish of Melbourne, Derbyshire, dated 5 Jan 1634/5 and proved 12 May following by his relict Anne (PCC 55 Sadler). Asking to be buried in the parish church of Melburne, the testator left his goods to wife Anne for life, stipulating that she should divide equally between the children, with the elder son John getting the usual double share and the other six children one share each, they not named but two of the seven children are minor sons and perhaps not yet apprenticed. And if any things shall happen to be doubtful concerning my meaning, ... "or that my wyfe shall happen to remoue from the place where shee now dwelleth it is my mynd and will that my Ouerseers hereafter named or any two of them shall expound the said doubt and it shalbe at my said wiues pleasure to remoue and dwell wth my children where shee pleaseth pvided that shee do yt by the consent of my said ouseers or any two of them." As will be seen below, this implication of a possible move elsewhere may be significant of plans laid before the final illness of the testator. Overseers were Henry Beighton of Ticknail, Nathaniel Sowther of Derby and John Ratcliffe of Kings Newton; witnesses were Nathaniel Sowther, Thomas Grimbold and Robte Draper [he by mark]. Sowther may have served as scrivener for the will, on which point see below.
      As shown by Dr. McCracken, Mr. Lea made some wrong assumptions, the worst of which was that John Bancroft, the poet's brother, actually arrived in New England, dying soon afterwards. Both Meredith B. Colket, Jr. and Dr. McCracken reject this assumption, and with reason, for in memory of John Bancroft, his brother, are these words of the poet Thomas Bancroft, printed in 1639, and reprinted by John Nichols, History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, (London 1804), vol. 3, pt. 2, p. *886 [sic, not 886].
      You sold your land, the lightlier hence to go To foreign coasts; yet (Fates would have it so) Did ne'er New England reach, but went with them That journey towards New Jerusalem.
      The question therefore now arises as to whether John Bancroft of Kings Newton, whose will we have abstracted, can have been brother to the poet, Thomas Bancroft. It must be noted that Kings Newton adjoins Swarkeston, the two being separated only by the River Trent. Moreover, the fact that the testator stipulated burial in the church seems to link him with the family of Bancroft long seated at Chellaston and Swarkeston, who in several wills abstracted by Mr. Lea, had also specified burial in their church, a privilege reserved for few persons. What seems much more meaningful, however, is the fact that Nathaniel Sowther of Derby, seemingly closest friend to the deceased John Bancroft, removed - almost immediately after Bancroft's death - to New England, where in 1636 he was given the position of Secretary to the colony of Plymouth. That Secretary Sowther of Plymouth was the Sowther of John Bancroft's will will be readily apparent from a comparison of the sign manual or cipher appended to his signature as witness to the Bancroft will with a similar signature to a 1653 deed of John and Martha Cogan of Boston where Sowther was then Notary Public. This deed is preserved in the Massachusetts Historical Society which kindly permits our reproduction of the part containing the signature.
      [Images of Signatures, not available here.]
      [In an appendix hereto we add notes concerning Sowther.]
      Considering the foregoing facts, we are entitled to think it possible that Sowther, as closest friend to John Bancroft, may have carried the latter's family to the New World in 1636 or that he may have been the instrument who made possible their removal to New England around that time. We know from the poet that his elder brother, John, who lived in any case in the immediate neighborhood of Kings Newton, had died before 1639, having planned removal to New England. It seems rather likely that it was the John Bancroft of Swarkeston who sold his lands, say in 1633, and removed to the hamlet across the river, dying there at Kings Newton before he could complete his plans to migrate from England.
      There are bits of evidence that conform to our reconstruction of the Bancroft story. In the first place, each of the three children attributed to the Widow Bancroft in Connecticut, had a daughter Anne or Hannah and a son Nathaniel. The girls' names easily could honor, the relict of John Bancroft of Kings Newton, their supposed grandmother, while the name Nathaniel could easily have been meant to honor Sowther, their supposed benefactor.
      Significantly, also, it is to be noted that Thomas Talmage, Jr., of Long Island, in 1644 named one of his sons Nathaniel (a name not earlier found in this family). Moreover, Talmage had a daughter Hannah or Anna. His position as secretary or recorder at Easthampton, L.I., ties in nicely with that of Nathaniel Sowther, who was, if we are right, benefactor of Talmage's supposed wife's family (see Arthur White Talmage, Talmage Genealogy, [1909], pp. 23 f.).
      In addition, we cite a Suffolk County, Massachusetts deed of 22d da. 9th mo. 1648 (Lib. 1, ff 96), which states: Mr. Robt Saltonstall of Boston (granted) to Mr. Nicholas Davison of Charlston his dwelling house in Windsor uppon Connecticut formerly the possession of ffrancis Stiles of Windsor, and now or late in the occupation of Tho. Gilbert and John Banckraft.
      That Gilbert and Bancroft occupied the same house could mean little, but when in Mr. Lea's cited paper we read of acquaintance between the Bancrofts of Chellaston and Swarkeston and the Gilberts of Barrow, which adjoins Swarkeston, we may commence to think that Bancroft of the Connecticut Valley in 1648 was quite possibly from the same part of England as Thomas Gilbert, and that their forefathers can have been acquainted. This, then, is a clue that the Connecticut valley Bancrofts and Gilberts may have come from Swarkeston or vicinity. Hand in glove with the foregoing facts is the comparable relationship that seems to have existed between Nathaniel Sowther and the Bancroft family on the one hand and between Elder William Brewster of Plymouth and Sowther, on the other.
      It appears obvious that the ruling elder's influence may have accounted for the immediate appointment of Sowther, a newcomer, as Secretary of Plymouth Colony in 1636. For the elder's son Jonathan had in 1624 married Lucretia Oldham of Derby, who must have known Sowther in that city, where he plainly seems to have been a scrivener. Indeed, it is not at all farfetched to think that Lucretia may have been closely akin to Sowther for here mother seems to have been that Philippa Sowther (daughter of John), who was baptized in the parish of All Saints, Derby, 6 July 1568 in which parish she married 17 November 1588 William Ouldham, known to have been the father of Lucretia, aforesaid (see New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 111:242 and the manuscript parish registers of All Saints, Derby).
      At the time of Sowther's arrival at Plymouth in 1636, Jonathan Brewster was occupying an important trading post for Plymouth on the then remote Connecticut River; see George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers, 1945 edition, pp. 296, 302; p. 347 in paperback edition (1965), which is neither a reprint nor condensation of the 1945 but a revision of it, by the author himself.
      It is not to be thought that Sowther's wife (whom he had married in 1613 at Derby) would have relished the continual shepherding of the Bancroft widow and her seven children, by her busy husband. So that even if Widow Bancroft came to Plymouth, where she has not been found recorded, it is likely that she may have removed not long afterwards. Connecticut was in 1636 too unstable for a widow with Children; Lynn appears to have been first stopping place and when many of that town removed to Long Island before 1650, the widow Bancroft may well have gone with them, Connecticut still not being thought too secure. Yet it is likely that some of her children found homes along the River Connecticut, perhaps through the influence of Sowtherand his kinsfolk, the Brewsters The trade of young John Bancroft of Windsor, a ferryman, suggests the fondness that his supposed uncle, the poet Thomas Bancroft, had for the River Trent. We give this extract from the poet's words (Nichols, loc. cit.):
      To Trent
      Sweet River, on whose flowery margin laid I with the slippery fish have often play'd At fast and loose. . .
      Bancroft descendants will perhaps wish to read what the poet said of his own parents "buried near together in Swarston church" (Nichols, ibid.):
      Here lies a pair of peerless friends Whose goodness (like a precious chain) Adorn'd their souls in lives and ends; Whom when Detraction's self would stain She drops her tears instead of gall And helps to mourn their funeral.
      In tracing back the Sowther family at Derby, we find that John Sowter occurs 6 January 1498 in an extract from the court roll of the manor of Belper (Beau Repaire), Derbyshire, at Duffield, re 1 acre at Stanley (some five miles northeast of Derby - Derbyshire Charters, p. 37, no. 288). It was perhaps his son and namesake who served as churchwarden of the parish of All Saints, Derby, between 1535 and 1545 (History of the Parish of All Saints, Derby). About 1547 and again about 1554, John Sowter of Derby, plumber, and Agnes his wife, daughter of Thomas Fynymore, deceased, claimed property at Hanbury, Staffordshire, against Elizabeth Stafford and Alice her daughter, wife of John Greenwaye (Public Records Office, Lists and Indexes, 54:163; 55:95).
      Perhaps a son of John and Agnes was that John Sower whose Children, baptized at All Saints, included:
      Thomas Sower, baptized April 1567 Philippa Sowter, baptized 6 July 1568, married at age 20 to William Ouldham (probably the man of that name buried at All Saints, Derby, 26 June 1636). Their daughter Lucretia, baptized 1600, married 1624 in New England (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 111:242).
      The aforesaid Thomas Sowter may well have been father of Nathaniel Sowther or Sowter of Derby, who deposed 19 October 1654 aged about 62 (Suffolk County, Massachusetts Deeds 2:85), so was born circa 1592. He married at St. Peter's, Derby, 28 March 1613, Alice DEVONPORT. In 1634 Nathaniel Sowther was appointed overseer of the will of John Bancroft, signed the will as a witness (see above) and possibly was the scrivener who wrote out the text of the will. In 1653 he also signed as witness the Cogan deed and there are clear resemblances at least in some words between the handwriting of the Bancroft will and the Cogan deed and whatever differences are visible may obviously be the result of the natural changes in the handwriting of any man in a period of nineteen years or the conditions surrounding the production of the document.
      For the subsequent history of Nathaniel Sowther in New England, see the fine article by Mrs. John E. Barclay which follows immediately. Now, however, there remains to be presented additional information tending to show the connection between Connecticut Gilberts and the part of Old England whence came, supposedly, our Connecticut Bancrofts.
      Thomas Gilbert, named above as at Windsor, Connecticut in 1648, had sons Jonathan and Josiah who were styled kinsmen by the Widow Katharine (relict of John) Harrison of Wethersfield, Connecticut, at the time of her extended trial as a witch (Homer W. Brainard, Harold S. Gilbert and Clarence A. Torrey, The Gilbert Family, (1954), 5 f..; Henry R. Stiles, History of Wethersfield, Connecticut, 1:276, 2:416). During the trial she testified in 1670 that she had been in Connecticut nineteen years, coming directly from England (R. E. Dale, Boston Evening Transcript, 11 July 1934).
      Earlier in the proceedings against Widow Harrison, Elizabeth, wife of Simon Smith of Thirty Miles Island testified in 1668 that "Katharine was ... one that told fortunes ... and also would oft speak and boast of her great familiarity with Mr. Lilly, one that told fortunes and foretold many matters that in future times were to be accomplished" (John M. Taylor, The Witchcraft Dulusion in Colonial Connecticut, (New York, 1908), p. 56. In responding to the accusation, the widow cited as witnesses, among others, both Jonathan and Josiah Gilbert - it seems clear that she was related to them.
      Who was the Mr. Lilly named by the widow's accuser? According to the Dictionary of National Biography, William Lilly (1602-1681), noted astrologer and fortune teller was born at Diseworth, Leics. In 1620, when 18 years of age, after being educated in a school at Ashby de la Zouch near Diseworth, he removed to London where his chequered career brought him into correspondence with the King of Sweden and friendship with Elias Ashmole, the famed antiquarian and astrologer.
      We doubt that Katharine, widow Harrison, personally knew Mr. Lilly; her first daughter Rebecca was born at Wethersfield in 1654 and it would seem that Katharine herself was not born much before 1624, if that early; yet we think it quite possible that either her husband or her kinfolk had known Lilly as a youth before Lilly left his native shire. Diseworth, his birthplace, lies about six miles from Barrow on Trent, adjoining Swarkeston, which could very well be the parish where the Gilberts of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield originated. Two men named John Harrison were testators in the early 1600's, both of Bredon (close to both Barrow and Diseworth (see British Record Society, Index to Leicestershire Wills, Vols. 27, 51).
      Too, it must be recalled that Thomas Bancroft of Swarkeston, father of the poet, in his will in 1626, named as overseer his neighbor, Roger Gilbert of Barrow, where the Gilberts had long flourished (see New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 56: 84-87; The Genealogist, n.s., 7:138-140). The original will of Elizabeth Gilbert, spinster, late of Barrow, dated 20 March 1614 (nuncupative), now in the Public Library, Lichfield, Staffordshire, tells us that her grandsire was William Gilbert, father of her uncle Roger Gilbert whose children she named as John, Elizabeth, Francis, William, Sarah and Anne. There is even a remote chance that the latter, Anne, may have been the wife of John Bancroft who died a resident of Melbourne. Note also that Thomas Gilbert married Anne Ward, 26 June 1611, at Swarkeston.
      [Editor's Note: We are happy to print Mr. Hunt's interesting speculation concerning the Bancroft origin. The newly discovered will is important and the onomastic arguments and chronology fit nicely, but it is a bit strange that the Widow Bancroft shows up first at Lynn and not at Plymouth with the Sowthers.]
      Richard Dennis Souther, Souther Family Association. Copyright © 1998 - 2007 - Richard Dennis Souther."
      B. From: "Stu Wilson" swilson8@twcny.rr.com 29 Dec 2001: "I recently found some information/discussion regarding the Bancroft family that seems to very much put into doubt that the Thomas Bancroft mentioned in the email I am responding to was married to a Jane. Here is a link to the GenForum page where I first was clued in to this issue: "genforum.genealogy.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?wright:bancroft:198.html" Overlapped thus have it without the http://, you will have to paste the link to get there. It is over at the Bancroft Surname Board. ERB] I suggest that those interested read all three of the TAG articles referenced in this link above, especially Vol 67, p.112 (1992). [The following is what is at that link. There are several responses to this post thus you may want to go through them. ERB] Thomas Bancroft (d. Enfield, 1684) Posted by: Hal Langworthy Date: August 10, 1999 at 16:57:42 of 564. A number of interesting articles have appeared in The American Genealogist (TAG) about the family of Thomas Bancroft, who died in Enfield, in 1684. At the end of one of these articles, Donald Lines Jacobus, one of the very best of the 'modern' genealogists and the former editor of TAG, wrote; "So many false and improbable statements have appeared in print concerning the early Bancrofts that a careful appraisal of these claims in light of what the records actually prove (and they fail to prove very much) was long overdue ..." I thought it might be useful to summarize the probable ancestors and family of Thomas Bancroft as described in these articles, which are found in Vol 37, p. 154 (1961), Vol 42, p. 210 (1966), and Vol 67, p. 112 (1992): * Thomas Bancroft, of Swarkeston, Derby, England, died ca 1626. His will mentions his wife Rebecca and five children: John, Ralph, Thomas, Dorothy and Elizabeth (NEH&GR, Vol 56, p.86) * John Bancroft apparently decided to emigrate to New England with his family and sold his holdings at Swarkeston, but died at nearby Kings Newton, Derby, England, before May 12, 1635 when his will was proved. Thus he did not come to New England in the James. John's wife, who is named in his will, was Anne not Jane. (The confusion seems to have been introduced by the early assumption (Savage?) that John Barcroft, whose wife was named Jane and who did come over on the James, was actually John Bancroft. However it seems that these were two different individuals; John and Jane Barcroft appear to have gotten in crosswise with the Puritans and may have moved to Virginia.)* The widow Anne Bancroft, with her seven children, probably came to New England with the influential Nathaniel Sowther, a witness to John's will and an overseer of his estate. She moved with her family from Massachusetts to Southampton, Long Island, NY; some of the family, including her children John, Thomas and Anna/Hannah, later moved to the Connecticut Valley. John married Hannah Dupper in 1650, and Anna married John Griffin in 1647. Thomas married (1) Margaret Wright, (2) Hannah, perhaps the daughter of Samuel Gardner, and died in Enfield in1684. * Lt. Thomas Bancroft of Dedham and Lynn, Massachusetts may well have been related to this family, but was probably not a son of John and Anne."

      6. Article "Genealogical Gleanings among the English Archives," from Ancestry.com's "English Origins of New England Families," vol III, pp. 514-518, communicated by J. Henry Lea, Esq.: 'The following extracts, taken from original wills filed in the Consistory Court of Lichfield, and the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, England, go far toward building a complete pedigree of the ancestry and collateral relatives of John Bancroft, who, with his wife Jane, came to New England in the "James" in 1632,(1) settled at Lynn, and died in 1637, leaving children Anne, John and Thomas (and possibly Samuel and William), probably all born in England, although they are not mentioned in the passenger list with their parents (2) (there called Barcroft, as noted by Savage), but perhaps omitted on account of their youth, as they were probably born after 1627. His widow had a grant of land in Lynn in 1638, and afterward removed to Southampton, L. I., and thence to Connecticut. She died before 19 November, 1644, when we find Jonathan Stratton and Thomas Talmadge, Jr., of Southampton, petitioning for a settlement between them of the lot "which formerly was granted to Widdow Bancroft."(3) He has left a large and notable posterity, preeminent among whom may be noted the distinguished historian, Hubert Howe Bancroft. The complete identification of the emigrant depends on a volume of poetry (4) published two years after his death, by a younger brother, Thomas Bancroft of Swarkeston, (5) who, beside mention of his parents as then buried in that place, refers to his elder brother, John Bancroft, in these lines: "You sold your land the lighter hence to go To foreign coasts, yet (Fate would have it so) Did ne'er New England reach, but went with them That journey toward New Jerusalem." In view of the proved facts, we may safely neglect the poetic license of the elegist, who.makes his brother die upon the passage instead of shortly after his arrival on our shores. The identity of the Thomas Bancroft of Swarkeston, whose will was proved in 1627, with the father of the two brothers, is unmistakable. A careful examination of the Swarkeston Parish Register (which fortunately dates from 1604), and perhaps others in the neighborhood, will of course be necessary to absolutely prove some conjectured points, as well as to provide cumulative proof regarding the emigrant, while an examination of the Derbv Feet of Fines, for the sale of his patrimony, might also be in order in this connection. Probate of the "Will of John Bancroft of Wolstanton,(6) Co. Stafford, granted 8 February, 1546-7, to Blanch Bancroft, the relict, and Thomas Rowley, the Executors named in the will. The above entry in the Act Books contains the earliest mention of the name in the Lichfield Consistory, and is the only record remaining, the will having perished. The Calendars show two earlier occurrences, both Johns, in 1543 and 1545, but examination of the original wills shows them to be Bromcroft and Bonrose respectively, and evidently not at all of the family in question. The testator, as being the earliest known of the name, may be conjectured, with much reason, to be the prepositor of the whole Derbyshire and Staffordshire clan, from whom our American emigrant certainly sprung. Will of Rauffe Bancroft of Chellaston, Co. Derby, dated 21 April 1557. To be buried in Church of Chellaston "nere my first wife." My mother shall have the land at Barrow. To my son Christopher land in Swarston and 6 spoones that were his mothers. To son Rauffe lease of Cottun(7) held of mayster Bradshaw of Osmaston. My leases of the Peake Hoone Lays (,) Parsons piece, etc., held of mayster Rolston of Swarston. To churches of Balton, Alvaston, Swarston, Barrow and Chellaston each Is. and sheep. Legacies to Swarston and Taine Bridges in the more. Godsons: Rauffe Bancroft, Rauffe "Wandyll, Rauffe Potter and Ellen "VVryght (sic). To each of the children of my sister Jane a lamb. Names Willm Tickyll, Richd Hoone and John Knight. To daughter Margaret her mothers goods at Barowe. Servant Robert Norman. Father in law Christopher Wryght. Godson Rauffe Pymm. To daughter Agnes goods wch. were my first wifes. Son William. My children all under 24. To dan. Marye pan that was her mothers. " My five children I had by my first wife. My gostly father Sr Thos. Gilbert." " Yf my wife be now with chylde." Wife Alice and son William Executors. Overseers: John Bancroft my brother, Richard Walleer, Willm Wandyll and Thos. Ryvett my brother in law. Witnesses: Sr John Gilbert, Curat, Jno. Bancroft, Richd: Walleer, "Wm: Wandyll, Thos. Ryvett, Robt. Nowell and Wm: Tyckyll. Inventory taken 10 May 1557 by Wm: Havre, Tho: Haryngworthe, Richd. Forde and Tho: Stone; total £269-19-5. " Proved at Lichfield 13 September 1557 by relict Alice, power reserved to William Bancroft the other Exor. Will of John Bancroft of Chellaston, Co. Derby, dated 11 May 1557. "My boys" under 21. To my eldest son, the Hall I now dwell in. To ___ my second son, the overhouse. To ___ my third son, part of land in Swarston, he paying his fourth brother xv. li. To daughter Margett goods &c., if any other daur. by my wife the same. GodChildren: Mary Bancroft, Phylyp Wandyll and Ciceley Hodkynson. " Every one of my sisters shall have a new xii. d." John Storer. Servant John Meakyn. My mayd Katheryn. My mother Bancroft shall have 2/. A lamb to each of my sister Jane's children. To sisters in law Joyce Mee and Alice Harynworth a new vi. d. To father in law and mother in law the same. George Haryngworth and Christopher my brother in law. To brothers in law Robert Mayre, Richard Walker and William Wandyll goods &c. To sisters in law Agnes Haryngworth and Alyce Bancroft vi. d. each. Master Rolston of Swarston, Roger Bryddon of Derby. To each of the children of my brother in law Wm: Wandyll and of my sister Alderman a lamb. To John Pereson Sen. and Jr. clothing. Wife Margaret and son Ralph Executors. Overseers: Richd. Walker, Wm: Wandyll, Richd: Haryngworth and Thomas Haryngworth my brother in law. Witnesses: Sr Thos. Gilbert, Curat, Ric Walker, Wm: Wandell, Henry Storer, and Richd: Haryngworth, Inventory taken 18 September 1557 by Thos. Haryngworth, Thos: Stone, Nicholas Peerson and Wm: Roberts; total £150-9-0. Proved at Lichfield 24 January 1557 by relict Margaret, power reserved for son Ralph, the other Exor. Admon. of William Bancroft of Chella«ton, Co. Derby, granted at Lichfield 22 April 1611 to Ralph Bancroft, the brother, for the tuition of Catherine, Thomas, Margaret and Mary, the children of the deceased, minors. Inventory taken 20 May 1611 by John Olyver, Willm More, Willm Smyeth & Roger Meare; total £125-16-2, exhibited at Derby 8 November 1611. Will of Thomas Bancroft of Swarston alias Swarkeston, Co. Derby, yeoman, dated 13 October 1626. To be buried in the Church of Swarkeston. To my Wife Rebecca £4 yearly out of land in Swarston. To Ralph Bancroft, my second son, house in Swarston now occupied by my eldest son John Bancroft. To Thomas Bancroft, my third son, 40/ yearly. To Katherine Bancroft, my kinswoman, 30/. To Margaret Bancroft, sister of the said Katherine. Thomas Byard, my apprentice servant. Alexander Arnefield, my servant. To every grandchild I have one ewe. Residue to my five children, John, Ralph, Thomas, Dorothy and Elizabeth. Executors: John Bancroft, my son, and John Erington, my son in lawe. Overseers: Roger Gilbert of Barrow, my neighbor, and Thomas Senior, my son in law. Witnesses: John Bould, Thomas Pomfret, Ralphe Bancrofte and Tbos: Senior. Inventory taken 19 October 2 Chas. I., by Roger Gilbert, John Joyner, Thos: Bould and Richd: Shepardd; total £275-17-2. Proved at Lichfield 11 October 1627 by John Bancroft the son, power reserved for John Errington, the other Exor.
      Will of Thomas Bancroft of Chellaston, County Derby, yeoman, dated 16 March 1628. My son William Bancroft, under 21. To Dorothy(8) my wife messuage farm &c in Chellaston and she Executrix (afterward called "my now wife"). Daughter Elizabeth Bancroft, under 21. The children of James Farman. To Margaret Bancroft 2/, and to Catherine Bancroft the same. Overseers: James Forman (sic) my loving father in law, and Thos: Hollingworth,(9) my loving unkle. Witnesses: Roger Allestrge (sic),(10). James Wildess and Richard Cartwright. Inventory (no date) taken by Richd: Whingates, William Soor and Richd: Farman; total £85-8-4. Proved at Lichfield 24 July 1629 by the Extrx. named. The above extracts cover all wills in the Lichfield Consistory, prior to the Commonwealth, which I can with certainty identify with the family of the Emigrant at this time. From the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, however, I obtain the following additional evidence: Will of William Bancrofte of Chelliston, Co. Derby, yeoman, dated 21 June 1649. I commit my body to be buried in the church or church-yard of the parish where I shall end my nat: life. I bequeath unto my sister Katherine Newton, 60 li. To my two uncles William Farman and John Farman, 15 li. apiece. I give to my aunt Elizabeth Farman, 151i. To my aunt Ellen, being the wife of John Farman, 15 li. I bequeath to Thomas Forman (sic), son of my aunt Elizabeth, 10 li. To Frances Farmer, daughter of John Farmer, 10 li. I give to the two eldest children of William Farman, my uncle, which are now living, to either of them, 10 li. I give to my aunt Katherine 10 li., provided that if she shall in any wise sue or molest my executors concerning any part of my lands and Tenements, then I give her only 10s. Item, to each one of the children of William Pickering of Chellaston, 20s. I give to the four children of my father-in-law, Gilbert Newton, 20 li. I give to Anne Orrne of Chellaston, 20s. To my uncle George Farman and my father-in-law, Gilbert Newton, to their only proper use and behoof, all my lands and tenements in Chellaston, in consideration that they be my executors, and pay my debts and legacies out of the same. Overseers: my friends James Wildes and Richard Domelawe. I give my cousin Thomas Bancroftes children of Bradley, 10 li. equally amongst them. (signed) Wm. Bancrofte. Witnesses: Tho. Lightwood; William Willis; Elizabeth Forman; Ellen Forman; Thomas Forman. Proved 8 June 1650 by George Farmer and Gilbert Newton, the executors named. (P. C. C. Pembroke, 89.) The above will is of especial interest as showing that Thomas Bancroft the Poet, brother of the Emigrant, was already residing at Bradley so early as 1649, aud that he was then married and had issue. In the next number of these Gleanings, I shall submit the pedigree deduced from all.
      Footnotes:
      (1) Hotton's Lists, p. 150. Col. Rec. of Mass., 3 Sept., 1633. Winthrop's Journal. Hubbard's Hist, of New England, p. 156. (2) Savage's Gen. Dict., I., 110.
      (3) Southampton Court Records, extracted by J.M. Bancroft, of Bloomfield, N.J.
      (4) "Two Bookes of Epigrammes and Epitaphs " (481), pp. 86, 4to, Lond. 1639. (5) Stephen's Biog. Dict., III, 112. (6) Wolstanton lies in the parish jurisdiction of Newcastle-under-Lyne and Stoke-upon-Trent, and about twenty miles n.w. of Derby, around which all the other localities named in the wills cluster closely.
      (7) There are no less than five hamlets called Cotton in Staffordshire, the adjoining county, one of which is no doubt intended. Osmaston is near Derby, to the northwest.
      (8) As this Dorothy seems certainly to have been daughter of James Forman, the following entry in the Lincoln Marriage Licenses is probably only a coincidence: "1602-3, March 1- Thos Bancrofte & Dorothy Burton. (St.' Mich.)," although she may have been a widow at the time. (9) A curious aud suggestive entry is found in the following marriage license in the Vicar funeral's office, at London, half a century later: 1676, Sep. 26- Robert Barcroft, of Westminster, Midx., Gent., Bach'r., abt. 35, & Mrs. Mary Hollingworth, of St. Sepulchre's, London, Spr., abt 21; consent of mother Mrs Elizabeth Hollingworth, of same, Widow; at St. George's, Southwark, or Kuightsbridge or Mirvbone, Midx."
      (10) Probably 'Allestry,' a well known Derbyshire family name, is intended."
      Next issue with continuation:
      "The search of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, which was promised for this number of these Gleanings, in completion of the testamentary evidences on the Bancrofts to the Commonwealth period, has proved most disappointing, for, while a large number of wills and admons. were found, none have been received which fit certainly into the direct ancestry of the emigrant, John Bancroft, although both here and in the Lichfield Court there are many which throw light on the collateral branches. The following Admon. seems to be that of Ralph, presumably the eldest son of John and Margaret (Hollingsworth) Bancroft of Chellaston, and while his location is somewhat remote, it is by no means impossible, and the absence of the name in that neighborhood before that time (1)adds to the probability that he was a Derbyshire man who had crossed the border. Admon. of Ralph Bancroft of South Cave, Co. Yorks., deceased intestate, granted 12 February 1616 to Alice Bancroft, widow, the relict, to administer the goods, credits, etc. P. C. C. Adm. Act Bk 105. A word may be in order in this connection as to the construction of the tentative pedigree which follows. It is absolutely certain that Thomas Bancroft of Swarkeston, father of our emigrant, was the grand-son of John and Margaret (Hollingsworth) Bancroft of Chellaston — the wills leave no possible doubt on this point, hut they do leave us in uncertainty as to which of the four sons of John was his parent; but of these we may dismiss William of Chellaston, who died intestate in 1611, as his son Thomas, then under age(2), could not have been a grandfather at the making of his will fifteen years after! Thomas of Chellaston, whose will we have in 1629, may be also dismissed, as he left an only son William, who died without issue before 1650. This reduces us to Ralph and the unknown fourth son, and as I believe the latter to have died long before, and unmarried, it narrows the probability to Ralph (of South Cave ?), to whom (by his wife Alice?) I have ventured to attribute the descent, subject to correction by future discoveries. It is greatly to be desired that the parish registers involved, all of which, with the exception of Barrow, go far back enough to serve our purpose, should be examined, but this of course falls outside the province of these Gleanings. The wills of the comigerous families of Hollingsworth, Wright, Ryvett, Forman, Alderman, and others, would also add much to our knowledge of this interesting family.
      Footnotes: (1) In Calendars of Exchequer Court York, 1389-1619. (2) See his tuition, on page 86, ante.
      (3) Viz: Chellaston 1570, Bradley 1579, Swarkeston 1604, So. Cave 1558, and Barrow 1736."
      Pedigree formulated from the research work of J. Henry Lea, Esq., in the English probate records (note he indicates additional work should be done to look at the parish records - something he had not done - to confirm this proposed pedigree). See notes with direct line Bancroft English-born males for full quote of Mr. Lea's research on which he based this pedigree:
      1. ___ Bancroft, of Chellaston, Barrow, or Swarkeston, Co. Derby? Md. ___ ___, relict, living in 1557 and legatee of lands in Barrow by will of her son Ralph, of Chellaston, Derby, dated 21 Apr 1557.
      2. Ralph Bancroft of Chellaston, co. Derby; will dated 21 Apr, probated 13 Sep 1557; bur. at Chellaston: md. (2) Alice (dau. of Christopher Wright; liv. and ex., 1557). First wife, dec'd before 1557 and bur. at Chellaston.
      2. Jane and other daus. (2 or 3), who married Thos. Ryvett, Wm. Wandyll, and ___ Alderman.
      2. John Bancroft, of Chellaston; son of above, married Margaret Hollingsworth (or Haryngworth); will dated May 11, 1556; proved at Lichfield, 24 Jan 1557, and inventoried 18 Sep 1557. Will refers to "my boys under 21. To my oldest son (Ralph) the Hall I now dwell in; to my second son the over house; to my third son part of the land in Swarston (Swarkeston), he paying his fourth brother xv li."
      3. Ralph Bancroft, liv. 1611, and admr. of his bro. William (Qu. - if of So. Cave, Yorks., and adm. 12 Feb 1616, to relict Alice.); md. Alice ___. By process of elimination, most likely candidate for father of Thomas Bancroft (see Henry Lea's rationale for this).
      4. Thomas Bancroft of Swarkeston, yeoman; will dated 13 Oct 1626; probated at Lichfield 11 Oct 1627; bur. at Swarkeston; md. Rebecca ___, liv. 1627, but bur. at Swarkeston before 1639.
      5. John Bancroft, eldest son, was of Swarkeston 1627; come to NE. in the "James," 12 Apr 1632; d. 1637; md. Jane ___, widow and had grant of 100 ac. of land in 1638, removed to Southhampton, L.I., and after to Windsor, Ct., was dec'd in 1644 when her land was divided between Jona. Stratton and Thos. Talmadge, Jr.; she had prob. mar. a second time.
      6. Anne Bancroft, m. 13 May 1647 to John Griffin of Windsor, CT.
      6. John Bancroft of Windsor, CT; md. 3 Dec 1650 Hannah Dupper; she md. 2d to John Ludlam.
      6. Thomas Bancroft of Enfield, CT.
      6. Samuel Bancroft. (According to Hinman.)
      6. William Bancroft. (According to Hinman.)
      5. Ralph Bancroft, second son; legatee of lands in Swarkeston, in 1627. The other Thomas who was born 1621 and died 1691 in Lynn, Mass., may have been the son of this Ralph.
      5. Thomas Bancroft, 3rd son; poet, author in 1639; of Bradley, near Ashbourne, Derby, 1649-1658; had issue.
      5. Dorothy. (Two daughters who married to John Errignton and Thomas Senior, but unsure as which daughter married which of the two men.)
      5. Elizabeth. (Two daughters who married to John Errignton and Thomas Senior, but unsure as which daughter married which of the two men.)
      3. William Bancroft of Chellaston, d. 1611; adm. 12 Apr to bro. Ralph; bur. 20 May 1611; wife's name unknown but dec'd before 1611.
      4. Thomas Bancroft, a minor in 1611.
      4. Catherine.
      4. Margaret.
      4. Mary.
      3. Thomas Bancroft of Chellaston, yeoman; will dated 16 mar 1628; probated 24 Jul 1629; wife is Dorothy, dau. of James Forman.
      4. William Bancroft, of Chellaston, yeoman; will dated 21 Jun 1649, probated 8 Jun 1650; no issue (Pembroke, 89.); md. dau. of Gilbert Newton.
      4. Elizabeth.
      4. Margaret.
      4. Catherine, md. ___ Newton.
      3. ___ Bancroft, a son; name unknown; liv. 1557.
      3. Margrett Bancroft, only daughter, liv. 1557.