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Monday, May 25, 2015

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 20: JOHN BANCROFT 4th

For entry #20 of the 2015 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks my subject is 5x great grandfather John
Bancroft 4th. It is now that I've arrived at a point I reach in all my father's ancestral lines: the
time when they move north to New Hampshire or Maine. In the case of John and his family,
the destination was Norway, Maine. This was sometime in the early 1800's, and the information I've found is sparse. Here's what I know (or think I know).

John Bancroft the 4th was born on 21 Oct 1749 in Lynn, Ma. On 24 Oct 1768, he married first
cousin Mary Walton of Reading, Ma., daughter of Jacob Walton and Eunice Hawkes.  They had
eleven children, all born in Ma,. mostly in Lynn:
John Bancroft 29Nov 1768
Nathaniel Bancroft 7Feb 1769
Mary Bancroft 4Sep 1770
Eunice Bancroft 3Oct 1772
Betty Bancroft 18Oct 1776
Jacob Bancroft 27feb 1779
Rhoda Bancroft 7May 1781
Sarah Bancroft 8July 1783
Jane Bancroft Oct 1785
Ellen Bancroft 30Dec 1787
Lucy Bancroft  1789?

I have a few problems with that information. One is the apparent short time between
John's marriage to Mary on 24Oct 1768 and the birth of their first child John Bancroft 5th
on 29Nov 1768. The second is that as of yet I haven't found a record of John 4th's death.
I don't know if he died in Massachusetts or Maine. I do know that between 1797 and 1800,
two of his sons, Nathaniel and Jacob, settled in Albany, Maine. Some of the family either
went with them or followed soon after, including 4x great grandmother Sarah Bancroft
who married Francis Upton there. But I can find no record of John 4th's death at Norway,
Me., nor at the three towns associated with him: Lynn, Lynnfield, and Reading, Ma.

So in a family where I have little information, I have the least amount the most recent member
of it.

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