These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.
Negative result
Bury St Edmunds cleared as the emigrant's birthplace - no natal Gurney household in its registers
No John Gurney natal household capable of fathering the Braintree emigrant (born about 1602-1612) survives in the Bury St Edmunds parish registers. Across both Bury parishes searched - St James (a full Gurney-variant register sweep) and St Mary (National Burial Index) - the Gurney presence is either post-dated (the Thomas x Lidda Broddish household married about 1633-35) or an unconnected fragment, and the one Bury 'John Gurney' of the period was buried there in 1653. Bury St Edmunds is therefore cleared as the emigrant's birthplace: whatever Banks recorded, it was not a Bury natal record.
Search scope
- Searched: FamilySearch full-text; Findmypast National Burial Index (Bury St Edmunds parish registers, St James and St Mary) — Bury St Edmunds parish registers - St James (register sweep) and St Mary (burial index) - Gurney entries in the emigrant window
- Coverage window: 1580 to 1670
- Search: Gurney/Gournay/Girny variant search for a John Gurney natal household at Bury St Edmunds capable of fathering the emigrant (b. c.1602-1612).
- Results reviewed: 8
- Limitations: The St James register has a Commonwealth-era interruption; the register reopens only after the 1653 Civil Registration Act.; Parish-register survival for Bury is incomplete for the 1640s-50s.; St James read at FamilySearch machine-transcript level and St Mary at National-Burial-Index level, not a full image read of every Bury parish.
Why this conclusion
- Supports Finding Banks's Bury attribution is an unproven lead that most plausibly tracked Newgate's apprentice; consistent with a Norfolk originNo Bury natal household survives, so the attribution cannot be a birth record.
- Supported by Evidence Bury St James registers: only Gurney household is Thomas x Lidda Broddish (m. c.1633-35), too lateThe St James sweep is one leg of the cleared-birthplace negative.
- Supported by Evidence Bury St Mary burials 1653-56: a Bury 'John Gurney' buried 1653, not the Braintree emigrantThe St Mary burials are the other leg of the cleared-birthplace negative.
Sources
- Bury St Edmunds, St James, Suffolk, England. Parish Registers, 1561–1800. FamilySearch image group DGS 007413310., St James sweep (DGS 007413310): no pre-1633 John Gurney household
- National Burial Index for England & Wales (Findmypast). Three Gurney burials at St Mary, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk: John Gurney 11 December 1653; [given name not transcribed] Gurney 6 April 1655; [given name not transcribed] Gurney 13 May 1656 (notes 'Wife'). Anglican denomination., St Mary NBI: the one period 'John Gurney' was buried 1653, not born there in the emigrant window
Appears in
- John Gurney identity case file — Bury St Edmunds eliminated as the emigrant's birthplace
Topic file location: Origin — Bury connections
Technical details
- Research item:
G13-RI-000096 - Graph revision:
244 - Machine-readable JSON:
/assets/g13-graph/findings/G13-RI-000096.json
This is one research item from the John Gurney research graph; the fuller narrative treatment is in the linked topic above and the research library.