These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.
Finding
John Jr. and Ruth's Mendon household, 1671-1676
John Gurney Jr., son of the emigrant John Gurney-1, had settled at Mendon by the early 1670s with his wife Ruth and children John, Samuel (b. 14 March 1671), and Mary. He was among the dead when Nipmuc forces struck Mendon on 14 July 1675, the opening bloodshed of King Philip's War, and Ruth remarried John Bundy of Taunton on 9 January 1676.
Date: household documented 1671-1676: Samuel's birth (14 March 1671) to John's death at Mendon (14 July 1675) to Ruth's remarriage (9 January 1676)
Why this conclusion
- Required by Finding Two Gurney lot-holders at post-1667 Mendon: the son and the widowReading the resident lot-holder as John Jr. depends on his Mendon household being established.
- Required by Open question Is the 1693 Samuel Gurney John Jr. and Ruth's Mendon-born son?The identification is tested against this household's own documented third child, Samuel, born 14 March 1671.
- Required by Open question Unresolved John-Jr.-line leads: the Nevis-will Mary and the Taunton Cooper marriageBoth leads are evaluated against the established John Jr./Ruth household as the candidate family they might extend.
- Depends on Finding Reconstructed family group: five children (Sarah, Mary, Richard, John Jr., Peter) + Isaac uncertain, all Mary'sThe household finding rests on the family-group roster's identification of John Jr. as a son of John Gurney-1.
- Supported by Evidence Mendon town birth record: Samuel son of John & Ruth Gurney (14 March 1671)The Mendon birth record fixes Ruth's name and the household's third child.
- Supported by Evidence Plymouth/Taunton primary record: Ruth (Gurney) m. John Bundy, 9 Jan 1676The Plymouth/Taunton primary record fixes the remarriage date and corrects Pope's bride name.
Qualifications and conflicts
- Qualified by Analysis Which John died at Mendon in 1675: G13's son, not Richard G12's sonThe two-Johns disambiguation confirms which same-named cousin the household finding's Mendon casualty refers to.
Related context
- Context from Analysis Torrey's John3 entries: a plausible but unconfirmed grandson readingTorrey's Samuel3 (Sarah Shapley, 1693) is the independently-identified Mendon-born son of this household; the same generation-3 numbering plausibly but unprovenly extends to the Providence John3.
Sources
- Rigler, Jean Gurney. The Gurney Family from Aaron to Zuinglius: A Genealogical Dictionary; Some Descendants of Richard Gurney Who Settled at Weymouth, MA before 1656. Rev. and expanded ed. Honolulu, Hawaii: J. G. Rigler, 1994., John Gurney-1 children entry
- Sprague, Waldo Chamberlain. Genealogies of the Families of Braintree, Mass., 1640–1850. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001., p. 695, John Gurney entry
- Torrey, Clarence Almon. New England Marriages Prior to 1700. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2004. Page 331, Gurney entries. Accessed via Ancestry.com, U.S., New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2012), database collection 3824., p. 331, third Gurney line: "John\" (-1675?) & Ruth ?Retchell, m/2 John Bundy 1676, m/3 Guydo Bailey; b 1671(2?); Menden (had John, Samuel, Mary)."
Appears in
- John Gurney fact sheet — John Gurney Jr. table row: of Weymouth and Mendon, killed in the Mendon massacre, July 1675.
Topic file location: Family — Mendon: John Jr. and Ruth Bundy
Technical details
- Research item:
G13-RI-000128 - Graph revision:
244 - Machine-readable JSON:
/assets/g13-graph/findings/G13-RI-000128.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.