Background
According to long-standing family tradition, William Beardsley was born in 1605 in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. England, but documentation to support this tradition is lacking.
According to long-standing family tradition, William Beardsley was born in 1605 in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. England, but documentation to support this tradition is lacking.
Orcutt in his History of Stratford and other authorities state that he emigrated with Review Adam Blakeman from Saint Albans, Hertfordshire, England. Isaac Haight Beardsley conducted research on the English origins of the Beardsley line in 1891, and he reported after a thorough search of the extant records that no evidence to support the Stratford-on-Avon origins could be foundation
This evidence has evidently not been convincing to some family historians, since the traditional Stratford-on-Avon origins were again reported in a work by Nellie Beardsley Holt in 1951.
More research into primary sources is still needed to resolve the differing accounts. Many persons of the Beardsley surname live in that area today.
In December 1636, Beardsley took the oath of a freeman of Massachusetts.