Evidence

English parish, probate, and muster comparators clearing the remaining same-name field

A run of further English parish, probate, and muster records clears or bounds the remaining same-name field. Two burials place a continuing English John-and-Mary household well past the emigrant's own death: at St Mary, Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, a John and Mary Gurney 'of Okington' buried a daughter Ann on 30 January 1669 and a son Isaac on 8 February 1669. At Toddington, Bedfordshire, John Gurney (married Elizabeth Moreton there in 1624) was himself buried in September 1641, three months after the colonial John's Weymouth fine and twenty-one years before the Braintree John's 1662/3 death. A third London burial, of 'John sonne of ffrancis Garney Joyner' at St Giles Cripplegate in December 1640, documents a third, trade-distinct Cripplegate-area Garney/Gurney family. A dozen further Prerogative Court of Canterbury probate records anchor separate English clusters kept apart from Candidates A and C: Anne Gurney, widow of Eythorne, Kent (will 1656); Daniel Gurney of Aylesbury (will 1669, naming a brother John) and a probate sentence for a further Aylesbury John; William Gurney of London (will 1655, sons John, Abel, Walter); Richard Gurney, a London labourer (will 1674/5); and Sir Richard Gurney together with the 1577 Tobias/Edward Gurney wills, both too early or unrelated to the Norfolk family. The 1641-42 Protestation Returns add a final negative: the surviving Buckinghamshire returns name several Gurneys at Stewkley and neighbouring parishes but no John anywhere, consistent with Candidate A having already moved into Northamptonshire by 1641.

Confidence: High

Topic file location: Identity — Other Eliminations and Earsham