These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.
Negative result
No English John Gurney household outside the named candidates carries a Richard, John Jr., Peter, or Isaac
A search anchored on the colonial John's two rarest children's names -- Richard and Isaac -- across every English collection FamilySearch indexes returns exactly one Richard Gurney baptism with a father named John (Richard Gurnie, baptized 15 December 1626, St Peter, Hertfordshire -- Candidate C's own already-eliminated Richard) and zero Isaac Gurney baptisms with a father named John. No English John Gurney household anywhere, outside the candidates already named, carries a Richard, a John Jr., a Peter, or an Isaac in any combination. This is not treated as a definitive elimination on its own: it is equally consistent with the colonial John fathering his distinctive children entirely in Massachusetts after his June 1641 emigration, which is what the colonial record in fact shows.
Search scope
- Searched: FamilySearch — Records (all collections)
- Coverage window: 1620-01-01 to 1650-12-31
- Search: Baptism of a child named Richard Gurney or Isaac Gurney (and spelling variants) with father John Gurney (and variants), England, filtered to results tagged 'Principal' for the baptized child
- Results reviewed: 675
- Limitations: FamilySearch's cross-collection index does not cover every English parish register or non-conformist record, so an unindexed Richard or Isaac baptism could exist outside this search.; The search filtered to entries tagged 'Principal' for the baptized child; a mis-tagged or mis-indexed entry naming father John could have been missed.
Why this conclusion
- Synthesized by Finding Other named households and the wider sweep hold ~8% combined residual; Candidate B remains the sole survivorThe Richard/Isaac negative search is part of the same clearing exercise.
Sources
- England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975. FamilySearch indexed records., Cluster-anchor searches for Richard Gurney (father John, 1620-1645, 388 results reviewed) and Isaac Gurney (father John, 1620-1650, 287 results reviewed), 2026-05-11
Topic file location: Identity — Other Eliminations and Earsham
Technical details
- Research item:
G13-RI-000118 - Graph revision:
244 - Machine-readable JSON:
/assets/g13-graph/findings/G13-RI-000118.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.