These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.
Finding
Standing: C(i) eliminated on age at about 1 percent, C(ii) held at about 4 percent
The elder Berkhamsted John is eliminated on his own age - fathering from 1597 puts his birth about 1570-75, twenty-five to thirty years before the colonial John - and that ground is immune to the same-name masking problem that weakens eliminations built on continuing residence. He holds at about 1 percent. The younger is a documented man of the right age whose household is documented dying rather than leaving, and he holds at about 4 percent. For him: the head himself has no recorded burial, inside a register window known to be defective. Against him: no Mary Gurney is baptised in the parish at any date, no John Gurney marriage occurs anywhere in the county in the window, and a Richard Gurney was buried in the parish in June 1638 who may well be his own son.
Why this conclusion
- Synthesizes Negative result No John Gurney marriage anywhere in Hertfordshire between 1600 and 1654The county-wide marriage blank prevents his wife being named or tested.
- Required by Analysis Where the matrix scores need explaining: the contextual leaders, the household leaders, and the two rows added at the closeThe C(ii) row's score rests on the Berkhamsted standing assessment.
- Synthesizes Finding C(ii)'s household stopped because his children were dying, not because he leftThe mortality reading is why the household is not emigrant-shaped.
- Synthesizes Negative result No Mary Gurney is baptised at Great Berkhamsted at any date, 1544-1888The parish-level absence of any Mary is the principal weight against the younger John.
Qualifications and conflicts
- Qualifies Open question The 28 June 1638 Richard Gurney burial: three readings, and only the register image discriminatesThe 4 percent is conditional on the June 1638 Richard not being his own son.
Sources
- Hertfordshire Baptisms, parish-register baptism records, Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies; served via Findmypast., The father-John baptism run 1597-1637, from which both men's birth windows are read
Appears in
- John Gurney identity case file — Section 11 carries C(i) at about 1 percent, eliminated on his own age, and C(ii) at about 4 percent.
Topic file location: Identity — Berkhamsted: Candidates C(i) and C(ii)
Technical details
- Research item:
G13-RI-000219 - Graph revision:
381 - Machine-readable JSON:
/assets/g13-graph/findings/G13-RI-000219.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.