Frances (Pickering) Bernard, wife of John Bernard, is described in Burke's Landed Gentry as the daughter of Gilbert Pickering of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire (a Baronet of Nova Scotia).  She is also described as John's cousin. This information is clarified in the "Notes and Queries" by William White. He describes the Pickering family although he mistakenly describes the wife of John Bernard as Elizabeth, not Frances Pickering.

PICKERING or TICHMARCHE BARONETS.-In the second volume of Bridges's Northamptonshire by Whalley, and in Wotton's Baronetage (iii. 360), the pedigree of this family is given: the first of whom, Sir Gilbert (born 1613, died 1668), was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. He was succeeded by his eldest son Sir John, who died in 1703, aged sixty-three; and was succeeded by his only surviving son Sir Gilbert, born 1670, died 1735; and was succeeded by his only son Sir Edward, who died unmarried in July 1740. Since that date the title appears to have been in abeyance. The first baronet had eight sons; of whom Gilbert, the second, had in 1681 a daughter aged twelve; and the fifth son Mountague, of Birchmore, Beds, had a son Edward, nearly six months old in 1681. By an entry in Enshaw's Magazine, it appears that the lady of Sir Gilbert Pickering died in Ross, co. Wexford, Oct. 10, 1702; and, under the names of "Bernard" and " Cusack," in Burke's Landed Gentry, I find that Capt. John Bernard, R.N., of Straw Hall, co. Carlow, married Elizabeth [Frances], daughter and co-heir of Sir Gilbert Pickering, Bart. Then Sir Edward Pickering, Bart, appears to have married Anne, third daughter of Franks Bernard, Esq., of Castletown, King's County, and their daughter Mary Pickering was married at St. Mary's church, Dublin, on Aug. 10, 1773, to her cousin German Henry Rudkin, Esq, of Wells, Co. Carlow (son of Henry Rudkin and Deborah, fourth daughter of Franks Bernard), by whom she had a son Gilbert-Pickering Rudkin, Esq., who died in 1830, leaving two daughters his co-heirs. Sir Edward had been a cornet in some cavalry regiment, and afterwards held a staff appointment at Duncannon Fort, in the county of Wexford. He married at New Ross, in that county, on July 20, 1770, Miss Elizabeth Glascott, but" had no issue. He was buried April 28, 1803, at Whitechurch, Co. Wexford, having survived his wife, who was buried in the same place Sept. 20, 1791. In the old almanacs Sir Edward and Sir Gilbert were given under the head of "Nova Scotia Baronets resident in Ireland."

In the Irish Church Records for Carlow there is a Gilbert Pickering and his wife Mary, in Carlow who had children: Gilbert 1750 and Dorothy 1752.  It is possible that Frances was also a daughter of this couple. If her children, with John, were born, starting with Mary in 1768 it was likely she was married about 1766/7. If she were 18-20 when she married John Bernard she would have been born about 1746-48.

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