The accompanying notes were gathered chiefly at the Principal Probate Registry, Somerset House, Strand, the Public Record Office, Fetter Lane, and the British Museum, Bloomsbury, while on a visit in London during the summer and fall of 1879. They were written mostly with a pencil, and done in great haste in order to cover as much ground in as short lime as possible. No claim therefore is made for entire accuracy, though it is hoped that very few essential mistakes will be found. They are put forward rather as hints and clues, with a view to promote further research and in the hope that they will lead to additional discoveries that shall result in the inter-weaving of new strands into the great bond of kinship which unites the New World to the Old.
In order that those interested in the various names referred to may know where to look for the full text of any record of which an abstract is here given, the reference, in almost every case, is appended to such abstract, indicating, if a will, the book and leaf, and, if an inquisition or fine roll, the regnal year and part and number. Most of the wills examined were recorded in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury; a few extracts were made from the records of the Consistory and the Commissary Courts of London, and the references in these latter cases indicate which Registry is meant; where no such indication is given the registry of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury is to be understood. Besides the wills thus referred to, a very slight examination was made of the old Pichmondshire wills (now kept in Somerset House), the Devonshire wills (at Exeter) and the Yorkshire wills (at York).
Appended to some of these abstracts will be found more or less copious notes made up from the (rather scanty) resources at hand in Salem, and added with the hope of exciting an interest in other investigators who may have larger means or better opportunities to extend these investigations.
English Gleanings
[box]Source: Emmerton, James A. and Waters, Henry F. <cite>Gleanings from English Records about New England Families</cite>. Historical Collections, Essex Institute, Volume XVII, No. 1. Salem: Salem Press. 1880.[/box]