Excerpt from Ancestry of John Davis, Governor and U. S. Senator, and Eliza Bancroft, His Wife, Both of Worcester, Massachusetts

The following pages contain the ancestry, as far as known, of Governor John Davis and Eliza Bancroft, his wife.

Governor Davis and Mrs. Davis were both much interested in their family history, and the accounts furnished by them form the germ of this record. The work of completing it has been principally done far from the original sources of information, consequently at great dis advantage. There are some gaps in it, and many of the sketches are mere skeletons of dates, but it seemed best to finish it, imperfect as it is, rather than encounter more delay. Perhaps it may stimulate some more fortunate searcher to complete the history.

I found in the search many cases of conflicting dates, a very com mon difficulty in the early records. Preference has usually been given to what seemed the best authority, but sometimes I have given the reader his choice.

For greater ease in following the record, Ihave divided it into four groups or headings, entitled, respectively, Davis, Brigham, Bancroft, and Chandler, each being devoted to the lineage of one of the parents of Governor Davis Or of his wife. The Chandler record is the most complete, as the printed sketches of the Chandler, Church, Paine, Gardiner, and Douglas families gave me the lineage of the female lines more completely than I was able to obtain in the other families. Next to this the Brigham history is fullest, where I had the aid Of the Brigham and Breck printed genealogies. In following the Bancroft family, I have received much help from the manuscript notes of Mr. John M. Bancroft, and from Eaton's History of Reading. There are deficiencies in the records of the Heald and Gates families from Stow, which can not be made up till the early history Of that town becomes accessible.

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