These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.
This page expands an Evidence link in Identity — assessment: the findings, sources, and qualifications behind the marked passage.
Analysis
The unknown-corridor residual: eliminating named households does not clear the record's gaps
Eliminating named households is not the same as clearing the record. The same-name sweeps found more than forty distinct John Gurney heads of household in England between 1600 and 1670, and English parish-register coverage for the period is patchy enough that others existed unrecorded. The 1662-1666 London hearth-tax cluster makes the point concrete: eleven Gurney households in London alone, none of them surfaced by any candidate search, because a search built around a name, a wife, and a child set cannot see a household the registers never entered. The identity case file expresses this same residual as its two unknown-corridor scenarios, and it is the principal reason the estimate for Candidate B sits in the sixties rather than the nineties.
Why this conclusion
- Depends on Evidence English parish, probate, and muster comparators clearing the remaining same-name fieldThe forty-plus same-name heads of household come from the English parish, probate, and muster clearance sweep.
- Supported by Evidence Eleven Gurney households in the London hearth-tax returns, 1662-1666Eleven London Gurney households none of the candidate searches surfaced are the density evidence for the unknown-corridor residual.
- Synthesized by Analysis Two realistic end-states for the estimate and three levers that would move itThe residual space is what a Norfolk marriage record or kin-mention would have to shrink.
Qualifications and conflicts
- Qualifies Identity hypothesis Candidate B: John was probably the son of Francis Gurney and Margaret RybettThe residual candidate space is the standing limit on the parentage hypothesis's probability.
Related context
- Provides context for Finding Candidate landscape: 45 eliminated, 5 unlikely, Candidate B the sole survivor; probability model external-canonicalThe candidate-landscape finding clears named households; this analysis states what that leaves uncleared.
Sources
- Findmypast search-results bundle for John Gurney with surname variants (Gurney, Gurny, Gourney, Garney, Garnes, Garneys, Garrne, Gernne, Gerne, Girney, Girny, Guerne, Gourny, Gorme, Grune, Grone, Grine, Grene, Gurnoe), 1620-1680, across the following sets: England Births & Baptisms 1538-1975; England Deaths & Burials 1538-1991; England Marriages 1538-1973; National Burial Index for England & Wales; Bedfordshire Burials; Bedfordshire Baptisms; Bedfordshire Marriages; Buckinghamshire Burial Index; Buckinghamshire Baptism Index; Buckinghamshire Marriage Index; Berkshire Probate Index; Berkshire Baptisms Index; Britain Marriage Licences; Norfolk Burials; Norfolk Baptisms; Norfolk Monumental Inscriptions 1600-1900s Index; Norfolk Wills & Probate; Hertfordshire Banns & Marriages; Hertfordshire Probate Records Index; Yorkshire Burials; Westminster Burials; Northamptonshire And Rutland Probate Index; London Docklands and East End Baptisms., The forty-plus distinct John Gurney heads of household, England 1600–1670
- The National Archives, Kew, Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills and related probate acts referencing Gurney testators or kin 1577-1682: PROB 11/382/271 (John Gurney, merchant, St Botolph without Aldgate, will 23 April 1666); PROB 11/372/123 (John Gurney, yeoman, Winkfield, Berkshire, will 7 November 1682); PROB 11/337/37 (sentence of John Gurney of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, later 17th c.); PROB 11/347/122 (Daniell Gurney of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, 1669); PROB 11/260/14 (Anne Gurney, widow of Eythorne, Kent, 20 November 1656, probate 1657/8); PROB 11/338/493 (Richard Gurney, labourer of London, 1 March 1674/5); PROB 11/252/319 (John Gurney, yeoman of East Grinstead, 24 February 1654/5); PROB 11/241/246 and PROB 11/242/723 (John Gurney, shepherd, of East Chilton / East Chiltington, Sussex, mid-1650s); PROB 11/252/152 (William Gurney, sons John, Abell, Walter, London, mid-1650s); PROB 11/335/425 (John Gurney, husbandman, of Albury, Hertfordshire, 1676); PROB 11/201/723 (Sir Richard Gurney, knight, mid-17th c.); PROB 11/54/173 (Tobias Gurney and Edward Gurney, 1577)., Seven distinct John Gurneys fixed in England after 1637 by PCC probate
Appears in
- John Gurney identity case file — Case file section 11 carries the two unknown-corridor residual rows.
- John Gurney identity case file — Case file section 10.1, Evidence Against Candidate B, row 5: common-name density and parish-coverage gaps.
Also covered here
Technical details
- Evidence marker:
G13-PM-000106 - Primary research item:
G13-RI-000174 - Graph revision:
244 - Machine-readable JSON:
/assets/g13-graph/marker-bundles/G13-PM-000106.json