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Pearsall Surname Project
Number of Pearsalls By Location
Maps by Family
Surname
History and Genealogy
of the Pearsall Family in England
and America:
Volume I
Front Cover
Inside Front Cover
The Motive
Thanks
Illustrations
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Appendix I
Volume II
Volume III
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In gathering and
arranging the information for this work, it has been found not only convenient,
but practically indispensable, to divide the family into groups, each
having its own common ancestor. Although this plan may violate the rules
of modern American genealogical arrangement, it has been followed in the
printed book because it is believed that the reader will find the same
grouping much more convenient than to jumble together all of each
generation without regard to their immediate ancestry.
A perfect or nearly perfect
genealogy of a family is a matter of years of search plus a lot of
criticism. There is therefore only one way by which even an approximately
correct family chart can be made; that is to collect and arrange all the
available information into as complete a pedigree as possible. Then to
publish this pedigree, thus inviting the criticism of all who are in any
way interested therein.
In England, Dugdale,
Camden, Mackenzie, Douglas, Collins, Chetwynd, Eyton, Erdeswicke, and many other learned men communicated
the best information they possessed concerning the noble families of England
and in their publications they gave many charts of ancestry. Since then
there has been an almost unbroken chain of criticism tending to the
correction of the errors into which these master genealogists had fallen
in consequence of other sources of knowledge being opened which they did
not possess or had not time to examine. While no one has thereby presumed
to detract from the high standing and accepted credibility of these older
genealogists, yet the result has been to bring the pedigree of certain
families nearer and nearer to perfection of detail. It can there-fore be
safely asserted that no family can hope to have anything like a generally
accepted chart until at least a century after the first publication of
the generations of their ancestry. The Pearsall family is fortunate in
this particular in that as early as 1530 Sampson Erdeswicke,
a very able genealogist, was employed by the family to collate their
pedigree, which was used as the basis of the reports severally made by
the Master of Arms at the visitations which followed shortly thereafter,
and hence was spread upon the public records. And Rev. Sir John Peshall published such a complete chart of the family
in the year 1771, in England,
and for certain patent reasons, no pedigree has
ever had to undergo such a fusillade of criticism nor to stand such
searching examination. Mr. Robert Pearsall of Teddington,
Middlesex, England, has kindly sent the
writer a copy of the original notes of Rev. Sir John which contains
reference to the proof and records upon which he relied for his
statement. All the visitations to Staffordshire passed upon the right of
the family to bear arms. The earliest of these was in 1558 and they
continued at intervals until 1664. At each of these visitations the
marshals made charts of ancestry running back in the case of the Peshall family to before the middle of the thirteenth
century. The Willsbridge Chart, which appears
in Burke's Founders and Royal Descendants, was made and approved by the College of Heraldry about 1809 and later
published by Burke. There have been other publications relating to the
English ancestry. It is therefore with more than usual confidence that
the following genealogy is set forth. And finally it should be stated
that no person has been permitted to contribute to his family history any
fact, based upon their own remembrance, farther than
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