Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 15 July 2026 by Allen Gurney

These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.

Benjamin Gurney (G10) Notes

Research notes for g10-benjamin-gurney-fact-sheet.md.

Current evidence summary

Benjamin Gurney G10 remains the best-supported father of Benjamin Gurney G9, but the evidence must be described carefully. The new John Harden will evidence confirms that Benjamin Gurney G9 was John Harden’s grandson, and the Abington baptismal entry identifies G9 as Benjamin, son of Jean, baptized 30 May 1730.[1][2]

The baptismal entry does not name G10 as father. The father identification comes from secondary compiled genealogy and from the coherence of the surrounding Harden/Gurney evidence chain: Jane/Jean Harden as likely mother, John Harden as confirmed grandfather, a 1730 baptism before G10’s 1731 marriage to Sarah Morse, and the later two-Benjamin problem created by the Sarah Morse child set.[3][4]

The fact sheet should therefore say that G10 is identified by secondary compiled genealogy as the father of G9 through a likely non-marital relationship with Jane/Jean Harden. It should not imply that the Abington baptism or the John Harden will directly names G10 as father.

The 1730 / 1731 sequence

The chronology is now sharper:

  • 30 May 1730: Benjamin, son of Jean, baptized at Abington, C.R.1 / First Church of Abington.[2]
  • 28 October 1730: Benjamin Gurney G10 and his father G11 are reported in secondary genealogy as buying Samuel Tinkham’s Middleborough land.[3]
  • 14 June 1731: Benjamin Gurney married Sarah Morse at Middleborough, according to the located Middleborough marriage index.[4]
  • 7 November 1731: G10 is reported in existing project data as buying eight acres at Middleborough from Sam Eddy Jr.

This sequence supports a pre-marital chronology if G10 is the father. Benjamin G9 was baptized about a year before the Sarah Morse marriage. The Middleborough land context belongs to G10’s transition into his married household, not to proof of the Jane Harden relationship.

Jane / Jean Harden relationship

The secondary compiled genealogy at The Neverending Hobby is the clearest current source saying that Benjamin Gurney G10 had a non-marital relationship with Jane Harden and fathered Benjamin in Abington. It also states that Jane returned to Braintree with her parents while Benjamin moved to Middleborough with his parents.[3]

This source should be used as corroborating secondary genealogy, not as a primary record. The primary-derived records now available are stronger on the Harden side than on the Gurney-father side:

  • Abington baptism: Benjamin, son of Jean.[2]
  • John Harden will: grandson Benjamin Gurney; daughter Jane Spear; daughter Sarah Gurney; Elizabeth Harden as witness.[1]

Those records make Jane/Jean Harden Spear the best-supported maternal candidate, but they do not independently name G10.

Sarah Morse marriage and later household

Benjamin Gurney married Sarah Morse at Middleborough on 14 June 1731, per the Middleborough marriage index.[4] The original marriage register should still be obtained before treating the index as final.

The Sarah Morse household is genealogically important because it apparently included a later son also named Benjamin. The secondary compiled genealogy lists a later Benjamin, born about 1743, in the Benjamin Gurney / Sarah Morse child set.[3] Existing project data also records a Rochester homestead division dated 1 January 1800 among sons Lemuel, Benjamin, and Levi, which fits the Sarah Morse child set rather than G9.[5]

The two-Benjamins problem

The direct line includes Benjamin G9, baptized in 1730 as son of Jean/Jane Harden, and a later Benjamin in the Sarah Morse child set. The two should be kept explicitly distinct in all data and narrative:

  • Benjamin Gurney G9 — baptized 30 May 1730, son of Jean/Jane Harden; John Harden’s grandson; direct line; later Cummington.[2][1]
  • Benjamin Gurney, son of Sarah Morse — later same-name half-brother, probably the Benjamin in the Rochester homestead division and likely the better fit for later Middleborough/Rochester same-name records.[3][5]

This is the most important G10 disambiguation issue. Any mid-eighteenth-century record simply naming Benjamin Gurney in Abington, Middleborough, Rochester, or Plymouth County could refer to either man depending on date, location, and kinship context.

Rochester homestead and Sarah Morse sons

Existing project data cites a 1 January 1800 Plymouth County deed, 95:139, GS film 559,140, by which Lemuel, Benjamin, and Levi divided the Rochester homestead farm.[5] The new Harden evidence does not change that deed’s importance. It does, however, sharpen the interpretation: the Benjamin in that division should be treated as the Sarah Morse son unless direct deed language proves otherwise.

Because G9 was already established in Cummington by 1800 and descended through the Harden/Jean line, he should not be casually folded into the Rochester homestead inheritance narrative.

G11 context

The secondary compiled genealogy also supports the three-Benjamin sequence: G11 Benjamin Gurney, G10 Benjamin Gurney, and G9 Benjamin Gurney.[3] This intake does not require a G11 fact-sheet update. G11’s existing companion should still obtain his original Plymouth probate image and deed records as a separate task.

Open questions

  1. Primary proof of G10 as father. Search Abington church discipline records, court records, bastardy/support proceedings, guardianships, or town records for a direct father identification.
  2. Original Middleborough marriage register. Confirm the G10/Sarah Morse marriage date from the register, not only the index.
  3. G10 probate or administration. A Rochester/Plymouth County estate file could clarify all Sarah Morse children and whether G9 was excluded or treated separately.
  4. Rochester homestead deed image. Directly examine Plymouth County 95:139 to confirm the identities and relationships of Lemuel, Benjamin, and Levi.
  5. Second Benjamin’s life course — largely resolved. Rigler carries the later Benjamin (b. c. 1743–45) marrying Thankful Ellis on 23 Aug. 1781, his Revolutionary War service, and his 1828 Rochester will (Plym. Prob. 66:215). The 1781 Thankful Ellis marriage belongs to him, not G9. Remaining work is only deed-level confirmation of which same-name records are his.

Rigler (1994) findings — direct page audit

Rigler’s Benjamin-4 (Benjamin-3, Richard-2) entry, transcribed at sources/corpus_supplement/rigler-gurney-aaron-zuinglius-g9-g12-extract.md, adds a second compiled-genealogy witness and several parentage facts.

Independent confirmation of the paternity. Rigler states Benjamin G10 “became enamoured of Jane (Jean) Harden & apparently fathered her son, Benjamin who was bpt. 30 May 1730 in Abington” — a second compiled genealogy, drawn from the Anna Gurney papers and Abington records, agreeing with The Neverending Hobby. Neither names the father from the baptism itself, so the careful phrasing stands; but the identification now rests on two independent compiled sources rather than one.[6]

Jane (Jean) Harden’s parentage. Daughter of Capt. John and Mary (Littlefield) Harden, b. 19 Nov. 1709 Abington, bpt. 1711 Braintree; she married Ebenezer Spear on 29 Dec. 1731. (Mary Littlefield is the mother-name not previously held here.) The Harden home stood near the “Little Comfort Mill,” which John Gurney-3 — Richard-2’s son — had started.[6]

Sarah Morse’s parentage. Daughter of Jonathan and Anna (Barden) Morse Jr., b. 7 Feb. 1711/12; married 14 June 1731 by Rev. Benjamin Ruggles.[6]

Death before 13 Dec. 1771. Sharper than the prior “before December 1772”: Rigler dates it from his son Lemuel’s mortgage of “a certain tract in Rochester… it being the estate of my father, Benjamin Gurney, late of Rochester” (Plym. Reg. 57:47).[6]

The second Benjamin — resolved. The Sarah Morse son Benjamin (b. c. 1743–45) married Thankful Ellis (bpt. 26 July 1761, d/o Mathias and Rachel (Tupper) Ellis) on 23 Aug. 1781; he was a Revolutionary War private (DAR Patriot Index 1:291; pension W-14837), a Rochester yeoman, wrote his will 16 Dec. 1826 (proved 11 Aug. 1828, Plym. Prob. 66:215), and died 4 July 1828 in his 85th year. He is the Benjamin in the 1800 Rochester homestead division — definitively not G9. The full Sarah Morse child set per Rigler: Susannah, Grace, Lemuel, Benjamin, Levi, and (uncertain) Sarah and Jemima.[6]

Minor variant to flag for the eventual deed check: Rigler’s Benjamin-4 entry dates the joint Samuel Tinkham purchase “26 Oct. 1730,” while her Benjamin-3 entry gives “28 Oct. 1730” (Plym. Reg. 39:79); the project keeps 28 October pending the deed.

Rigler worksheet (c. 1980)

The earlier Rigler family-group worksheet for Benjamin-4 agrees with the 1994 entry on Jane (Jean) Harden’s parentage (daughter of Capt. John and Mary (Littlefield) Harden, b. 19 Nov. 1709; m. Ebenezer Spear 29 Dec. 1731) and states directly, in its Sources box, that the son Benjamin (bapt. 1730) “was raised by Nathan-4 Gurney and his wife Sarah (Harden) Gurney, sister of Jean (Jane) Harden, in Abington” — the same aunt-upbringing carried on the G9 work. Its one extra, since-dropped item is a speculative child, “perhaps George (or else a grandson),” not carried into the 1994 child set; record it only as a discarded lead.[7]

Sources consulted

  • John Harden 1751 will.[1]
  • Abington vital-record entry for Benjamin, son of Jean.[2]
  • Middleborough marriage index for Benjamin Gurney and Sarah Morse.[4]
  • The Neverending Hobby — John Gurney, US 1636.[3]
  • Existing project-cited Plymouth County deed references for G10.
  • Jean Gurney Rigler, The Gurney Family from Aaron to Zuinglius (rev. and expanded ed., 1994), Benjamin-4 entry (pp. 19–21); audited — see the Rigler findings section above. Source ID rigler-gurney-family-aaron-zuinglius-1994. Transcribed extract at sources/corpus_supplement/rigler-gurney-aaron-zuinglius-g9-g12-extract.md.

  1. Massachusetts. Probate Court (Plymouth County), Probate records, 1686–1903; with index and docket, 1685–1967, Plymouth County Probate Court record book, manuscript pp. 383–384, will of John Harden of Bridgewater, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, blacksmith, dated 17 September 1751, proved 7 October 1751; FamilySearch catalog; p. 383 image; p. 384 image. Source ID: plymouth-probate-john-harden-1751-will. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. Vital Records of Abington, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, vol. 1, Births (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1912), Harden/Hardin/Hardeng entry for Benjamin, son of Jean, baptized 30 May 1730, C.R.1; PDF on Wikimedia Commons. Source ID: abington-vr-1850-vol1. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  3. “John Gurney, US 1636,” The Neverending Hobby, public compiled genealogy. Use as secondary compiled genealogy. Source ID: neverending-hobby-john-gurney-us-1636. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  4. Middleborough Public Library, “Marriages by Men’s Name,” marriage index PDF, entry for Benjamin Gurney and Sarah Morse, 14 June 1731. Source ID: middleborough-marriages-by-mens-name. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  5. Plymouth County land deed 95:139, GS film 559,140, Rochester homestead farm divided among Lemuel, Benjamin, and Levi Gurney, 1 January 1800; compiled in Rigler, Gurney Family from Aaron to Zuinglius (1994), Benjamin-4 entry. Source ID: rigler-gurney-family-aaron-zuinglius-1994. Direct deed image still needed before finalizing all relationship language. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  6. Jean Gurney Rigler, The Gurney Family from Aaron to Zuinglius: A Genealogical Dictionary, rev. ed. (Honolulu: J. G. Rigler, 1994), Benjamin-4 (Benjamin-3, Richard-2) entry (pp. 19–21), with the adjacent “second Benjamin” (Sarah Morse son) entry (pp. 21–22). Transcribed at sources/corpus_supplement/rigler-gurney-aaron-zuinglius-g9-g12-extract.md. Source ID: rigler-gurney-family-aaron-zuinglius-1994. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  7. Robert G. Rigler, M.D., Gurney family-group worksheet for Benjamin⁴ Gurney, c. 1980 (Honolulu). Image local-only at sources/media/rigler-genealogy-notes-c1980/_local/; transcription at sources/corpus_supplement/rigler-genealogy-notes-c1980-worksheets-extract.md. Source ID: rigler-genealogy-notes-c1980. ↩︎