When Elizabeth Bannister was born on 7 November 1746, in Brookfield, Worcester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America, her father, Capt. Seth Bannister, was 37 and her mother, Frances Hinds, was 32. She married Simeon Olds on 1 April 1773, in Brookfield, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 2 daughters. She died on 3 December 1831, in Brookfield, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States, at the age of 85.
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1745–1800 Male
1746–1831 Female
1772–1863 Male
1774–1863 Female
1775– Female
1781–1814 Male
1787–1817 Male
+1 More Child
1709–1783 Male
1713–1792 Female
1735–1822 Female
1737–1739 Male
1739–1819 Male
1741–1835 Male
1744–1822 Female
+4 More Children
English (of Norman origin): from Old French banaste, banastre ‘covering for a cart or wagon; basket’, i.e. a large wicker container. In the 12th century a Norman family of this name had estates in Orne, Normandy, and in England. Ricardus Banastre appears in charters relating to the Earls of Chester c. 1120–29. With what sense the Norman surname was acquired is unknown. It can hardly have been occupational, contrary to Reaney's view that it denoted a basket maker. It is possible that many or even all of the later bearers of the surname were descended from this knightly family. However, several men with this surname in the 14th-century Poll Tax Returns are described as servants or agricultural laborers, while Ricardus Banastr', recorded in 1381 was a butcher. It is conceivable that these men took their name from Middle English banastre, a borrowing of the French word, and that it referred to a basket or hamper they used in their work. Alternatively, they may have belonged to branches of the knightly family that had fallen in the social scale. The term denoting a stair rail is unconnected with this name; it was not used before the 17th century.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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