BAPTIZED: 11 September 1596, St. Thomas, Bristol,
Gloucester, England, son of John Eaton and Dorothy Smith.
DIED: between 25 October and 8 November 1633
MARRIED:
CHILDREN (by wife Sarah):
| NAME | BIRTH | DEATH | MARRIAGE |
| Samuel | 1620, England | bef. 29 October 1684, Middleboro, MA | (1). Elizabeth (---), bef. 10 March 1646, Plymouth
(2). Martha Billington, 10 January 1660/1, Plymouth |
CHILDREN (by wife Christian):
| NAME | BIRTH | DEATH | MARRIAGE |
| Rachel | 1625, Plymouth | between 3 June 1656 and October, 1661 | Joseph Ramsdell, 2 March 1645, Plymouth |
| Benjamin | between June 1 and August 31, 1627, Plymouth | 16 January 1711/12, Plympton | Sarah Hoskins, 4 December 1660, Plymouth |
| child (called "an ideote" by Bradford) | unknown | after 1651 | unmarried |
The English ancestry of Francis Eaton was only recently discovered.
In 1929, Charles E. Banks in his English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers brought to light a Bristol apprenticeship document dated 4 December 1626, in which John Morgan son of Edward Morgan was apprenticed to Francis Eaton, carpenter, and his wife Dorothy. In the margin the document it says "The Mr at New England", and on the reverse it states John Morgan would receive 25 acres of land in New England and 15 bushels of wheat.
In Mayflower Families for Five Generations: Francis Eaton (volume 1, updated in volume 9) and Plymouth Colony: Its History and Its People, this record was rejected as relating to Francis Eaton of the Mayflower because by 1626 Francis' wife was Christiana Penn, not somebody named Dorothy, and further the record says Eaton was "at New England" and "of Bristol", instead of being listed as "of Plymouth".
The rejection of this record was challenged by myself on this web page in September 1995, and was again challenged by David Greene, editor of The American Genealogist in his review of Mayflower Families: Eaton (The American Genealogist, April 1996, p. 125-6). The reasons for our objection was that the Francis Eaton listed in the Bristol records is called a carpenter, as was the Francis Eaton of the Mayflower. And further, there are no records of any Francis Eaton in America by 1626, except for the Francis Eaton of the Mayflower. The slow travel of news could easily be the cause for the delayed information about the death of Francis Eaton's wife.
In response, David Greene requested Neil D. Thompson, FASG, to search the parish registers of Bristol for information on the Francis Eaton in the apprentice record, to see if he was the Mayflower passenger. The results of the successful search were published in The American Genealogist, 72:301-309. The baptismal record of Francis Eaton of the Mayflower was discovered in the parish of St. Thomas, Bristol, on 11 September 1596, son of John Eaton. Two years earlier, the marriage of his parents were discovered: John Eaton and Dorothy Smith were married on 14 October 1594. Francis had other siblings as well: John (bp. 26 July 1595), Jane (bp. 20 January 1598/9), Samuel (bp. 8 November 1600), and Welthian (buried 20 March 1603/4). Francis' brother John died within three days of his baptism; and Jane, Samuel, and Welthian all died in March 1603/4 suggesting an illness wiped out the young children. The only brother Francis would remember would be Samuel--a significant find, since Francis Eaton of the Mayflower named his first son Samuel. Another record shows that in the 1615 will of Christopher Cary of Bristol, he gives to his eldest son "a garden ground, with a lodge in the same, in the parish of St. Phillip's, now in the occupation of Frances [sic] Eaton, house carpenter."
A back issue of The American Genealogist issue (volume 72, July-October 1997, number 3-4) with the Francis Eaton article can be ordered for $15 from:
The American Genealogist
PO Box 398
Demorest GA 30534.
Francis Eaton was baptized in St. Thomas, Bristol, Gloucester, England in 1596, and came on the Mayflower at the age of 24, with his first wife Sarah and their "sucking child" Samuel. Sarah died the first winter, and Francis remarried to Dorothy (---), John Carver's maidservant. She died about two years later, and Francis married Christiana Penn about 1625 in Plymouth. Francis was a "house carpenter" by the age of 19, and is called a "carpenter" in the 1626 Bristol apprenticeship record and in his 1633 estate inventory.
Francis died in 1633 in Plymouth, likely from a disease that was going around that year and also claimed Mayflower passenger Peter Browne. The inventory of Francis Eaton's estate included one cow and a calf, two hogs, fifty bushels of corn, a black suit, a white hat and a black hat, boots, saws, hammers, an adze, square, augers, a chisel, boards, fishing lead, and some kitchen items.
Neil D. Thompson, "The Origin and Parentage of Francis Eaton of the Mayflower," The American Genealogist 72(1997):301-309
Lee Douglas van Antwerp, Mayflower Families for Five Generations: Francis Eaton, volume 1 (Plymouth: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1988).
George Bowman, "Francis Eaton's Estate Inventory, The Mayflower Descendant 1(1899):198-199.
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random House, 1952).
Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and Its People, 1620-1691 (Ancestry Publishing: Salt Lake City, 1986).