These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.
Negative result
No Mary Gurney is baptised at Great Berkhamsted at any date, 1544-1888
Across every surname stem and every father's forename, the Great Berkhamsted baptism corpus contains no Mary Gurney at any date between 1544 and 1888; the only Mary Gurney in the parish is a burial of 1730. Mary Gurney married Daniel Shed at Braintree, Massachusetts in 1647 and was therefore born by 1631 at the latest, which is the one primary bound in the colonial child set. This is the single strongest objection to the younger Berkhamsted John, and it operates at parish level rather than at household level, so it cannot be explained by a mis-assigned father.
Search scope
- Searched: FindMyPast — Hertfordshire Baptisms (Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies)
- Coverage window: 1544 to 1888
- Search: lastname=gurn*&keywords=berkhamstead and lastname=gourn*&keywords=berkhamstead, read with the Father's and Mother's first-name columns, looking for any Mary under any father
- Results reviewed: 37
- Limitations: Two surname stems only (gurn*, gourn*); other stems were run against the burial set but not against this baptism set.; The place keyword 'berkhamstead' also matches Little Berkhamstead, a separate parish, so rows were read individually rather than counted.; An index negative, not a register negative: no register image was consulted.
Why this conclusion
- Synthesized by Finding Standing: C(i) eliminated on age at about 1 percent, C(ii) held at about 4 percentThe parish-level absence of any Mary is the principal weight against the younger John.
Sources
- Hertfordshire Baptisms, parish-register baptism records, Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies; served via Findmypast., lastname=gurn*&keywords=berkhamstead (19 rows) and lastname=gourn*&keywords=berkhamstead (18 rows), authenticated session 28 July 2026; no Mary in either result set at any date
Appears in
- John Gurney identity case file — Section 8.2, constraint 1: no Mary Gurney is baptised in the parish at any date, under any spelling or any father, between 1544 and 1888.
Topic file location: Identity — Berkhamsted: Candidates C(i) and C(ii)
Technical details
- Research item:
G13-RI-000215 - Graph revision:
381 - Machine-readable JSON:
/assets/g13-graph/findings/G13-RI-000215.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.