Until the publication of this book, the majority of Crosbys in America were known to be descended from Simon Crosby of Rowley, Massachusetts, who emigrated from England in 1635, but very little was known of this important patriarch's family background and life prior to America. However, after thirty-six years of compiling information on the Crosby descendants, the author made a breakthrough discovery with the help of an English genealogist, who determined that Simon Crosby's hometown had been Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, York County. Suddenly it was possible to research Simon Crosby's ancestors as well as his descendants. The author traced the family line back another five generations to 1440 and the birth of John Crosby. The first chapter gives an account of this English ancestry up to Simon's father, Thomas, who eventually followed his son to Massachusetts and who is more fully treated in the second chapter. In addition to descriptions of the family estate and the surrounding countryside in York, the first chapter also includes brief biographies of the Reverends Thomas Shepard and Ezekiel Rogers, the two ministers who influenced the religious convictions that prompted the Crosbys to immigrate to New England. Subsequent chapters focus on Simon (both in England and Massachusetts), other early Crosbys in Massachusetts, Crosbys in the Revolutionary War, the first merchant in the family, and "present-day" Crosbys (fifteen generations after John Crosby in 1914). While this book is a valuable genealogical record with abundant quotes from original sources, the author's voice is always present as a helpful and interesting guide. Appendices list Crosbys in Yorkshire, and give a deed made by Thomas and Simon Crosby. A genealogical and a general index are included.
Eleanor Davis Crosby
(1914, 1995), 2011, 5.5" x 8.5", paper, indices, 196 pp.
ISBN: 9780788403262
101-C0326
