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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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regret was that Peter Pearsall
ever allowed so valuable a farm to slip away from him; and I wondered what
could have been the cause, little dreaming that I should later learn that
it was because of his very adherence to the customs of his ancestors.
Strange as it may seem, another Pilgrim, on a similar mission, from that
far off state where the setting sun casts its brilliant rays through the Golden Gate, crossed my path on the old farm, that
afternoon; a descendant of John Brill, brother of my grandmother,
Deborah-Ann Brill-Pearsall. Prior to this, neither of us had known of the
existence of the other. She passed on and I returned to my dreams.
Awakened therefrom by the rudely honking auto
horn, I was reminded of the lateness of the hour. Happy with the results
of the day, I returned to Saratoga
Springs, resolved to write the genealogy of my
immediate branch of the family. As I spent considerable time and money unraveling
the threads of my ancestry, I had to call upon those who were not in my
immediate family, and I soon accumulated a wealth of material relative to
other lines. The thought, that there might be others equally as
interested as I, determined me to broaden my work so as to include all of
the Pearsalls in America. Later I came in
touch with a branch of the family in Australia
and through them came to know the cousins in England. So almost before I
knew it I had compiled material for a history of the family, starting
from living members of the family on both sides of the ocean and in
Australia as well, an incident which, of itself, I am told is very
remarkable in works in this kind. I have derived a great deal of pleasure
out of the work, as step by step, I traced the family genealogy back to
the Second Virginia Company of 1609, in which my ancestor held a very
valuable concession. From this point it was easy to pass into the English
records and from there to our Anglo Saxon and Norman ancestors. Thus,
from a purely personal family genealogy the book resolved itself into a
history of a family of which records existed
running back to a time prior to the assumption of the family name. It is
confidently believed that these historical facts will not only prove
valuable and very interesting to those related to us, but they will open
up new fields of research for others.
I trust that the
reader will derive as much pleasure as he peruses this history, the result
of my labor, as I have had in compiling it, and I use the word compile
with a full comprehension of its meaning; namely, to make or form a
printed work by putting together in due order materials gathered from
various sources with only such changes and additions as may be deemed
necessary or desirable. So marvelous a story as our family history could
not be told in the words of any one connected with the family, without
his being accused of all sorts of disagree-able things. In fact it is all
so wonderful that I have had difficulty in believing that I was really
and truly connected with it, but the records are all so clear and
indisputable that they cannot be gainsaid. I have therefore taken pains
to fortify each statement as far as possible by reference to some
recognized authority. It can also be easily comprehended that the nearer
my text adheres to the original statements, the stronger will my story be
held to be. Consequently, so as to avoid marring the book with quotation
marks, the reader will kindly under-stand that a citation means that the
text is as nearly the exact words of the authority as my own version of
the weight of all the authorities would permit.
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