52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 26: JOHN HAWKES 1690-1738 PT3

As I said in the previous post, I realized that I had confused my ancestor John Hawkes
with his cousin, another John Hawkes, when I examined the probate file I thought belonged
to my ancestor. What tipped me off was that the names of the widow and children listed
in the probate file didn't match up with my John Hawkes' family. This is what I had in my
database already:

-John Hawkes married Mary Whitford in Lynn, Ma on 12 Aug 1710.

-They had six children, one boy and five girls. I have no birth dates for them but at least three of them were baptized together on  30June 1728 in Reading, Ma.

 -The names of the children were:
Adam
Elizabeth
Eunice (my 6x great grandmother)
Eve (my 6x great grandmother)
Lydia
Mary.

-Eve's first husband was Ebenezer Giles and after his death she married John Bancroft.

-Eunice married Jacob Walton

After discovering that my 7 great grandfather's Probate file had been filed in 1738, not 1748,
I went back to the Essex County, Ma: Probate File Papers, 1638-1881 collection on American
Ancestors and found the correct probate file which consisted of 52 images. My John Hawkes
had died intestate and most of the file deals with paying off his debts and dividing up his estate. I skimmed through the images first before downloading the file to make sure I had
the right person this time, and found the evidence I needed.

Here's an image of  a document from 1740 which mentions the widow Mary Hawks and the
provisions made for her by her son Adam, the executor of the estate. It then mentions
what was his sisters' shares, listing  "...Ebenezer Giles of Beverly in ye County of Essex in right
of his wife Eve...", and "...unto his Sister Euneece Hawkes...",

When Mary Hawks died on 20Apr 1758, the children returned to court to divide up her portion
of their father's estate in October of that year.  Twenty years had passed and there are changes that confirmed the information in my database. Receiving money were "... Eve Bancroft wife of John Bancroft..." and "...the Leagill Representatives of Unis Walton Dec'd late wife of Jacob Walton..."

There's an inventory of the estate and the description of the boundaries of the land owned
by John Hawkes in the file as well. It may take a wile to decipher everything because of the
difficult handwriting. And I now have the names of the men who married the other three
daughters of John Hawkes and Mary (Whitford) Hawkes.

But most importantly I've cleared up the confusion between my ancestor and his cousin
in my database and online family trees.