Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 15 July 2026 by Allen Gurney

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

Family — colonial collaterals

Two colonial-era Gurneys carry John’s own surname with no documented tie to his family, and a third apparent Gurney thread at Dorchester turns out not to involve a Gurney at all. John and Sarah Gurney of Providence, Rhode Island appear in that town’s own records between 1695 and 1714 — a stranger warned out of town, then a widow whose will names a surviving Gurney husband — with no record connecting either to John Gurney-1’s children or grandchildren. A single unread index line in Suffolk County’s earliest deed register, “Gurner, James,” is a genuinely open question, not yet a documented person. And a run of Dorchester town, church, and county-court references to a “Goodman Gurney” or a “Jane Gurnet” all resolve, on the same records’ own testimony, to one unrelated family, the Gurnells — not to a Gurney of any kind.

The Providence John and Sarah Gurney, 1695–1714

Providence, Rhode Island’s town council records carry a short, self-contained Gurney story two generations after John’s death. On 31 March 1695 the council took up a transient: “there is a person one John Gurney by name who belongs not unto our Towne yet is here come in & at present makes Residence here, but hath nought to maintaine him or supply his wants,” and ordered him to leave town within a fortnight. He was carried out by the constable but returned, and in 1696 the council escalated: he was to be apprehended, fined 5 shillings or whipped twelve stripes on his bare back, and removed from town either way.[1]

The same council’s records resume in 1714 with a will. On 30 April 1714 “Joseph ffield presented to the Councill the will & Testament of his deceased mother Sarah Gurney,” examined and allowed along with her inventory. Sarah had died 16 April 1714; her will of 31 March 1714 left small sums to sons Zachariah, John, James, and Daniel Field, household goods to daughter Sarah Field, and the working stock — cattle, sheep, swine, and tools — to son and executor Joseph Field, “the product of his Care & dilligence.” She signed by mark, “Sarah X Gurney.” Decisively, the same record shows her Gurney husband had not predeceased her: “Aprill the last day 1714: John Gurney the husband of the above named Sarah Gurney personally appeared before the Town Councill,” witnessed the will, and co-appraised the inventory alongside Josiah Thornton, both times by mark. He took nothing under the will, and Joseph Field posted a £150 executor’s bond. Every one of Sarah’s children carried the surname Field, so the Gurney marriage produced no recorded children of its own.[2]

Read together, the record traces one arc: the friendless stranger warned out of Providence in 1695–96 evidently stayed in the town’s orbit, married the widow Sarah Field, and was still alive there — an illiterate or mark-signing man — on 30 April 1714. Nothing in either record states his age, his origin, or any kinship to another Gurney, and nothing ties him to Braintree, Weymouth, or Mendon.

A possible grandson? Torrey’s Providence entry

Clarence Almon Torrey’s marriage compendium independently carries this same Providence couple at compendium level — “GURNEY, John3 (-1723) & Sarah (THORNTON) [FIELDS] (-1714), w Zachariah; b 1701?, b 1706, aft 4 Feb 1696, b 1714; Providence” — giving John a death year, 1723, that neither Providence record supplies. Torrey’s “Thornton” reading is most plausibly his own slip: the 1714 will and inventory name no Thornton relationship for Sarah at all, only a co-appraiser, Josiah Thornton, standing beside John Gurney in that one clerical role.[3]

Torrey’s page also carries a second, separate John3 marriage in the same generation — “GURNEY, John3 & Elizabeth [GREEN] (1664-); b 1689; Weymouth” — and a Samuel3, probably (but not conclusively) John Gurney Jr.'s Mendon-born son, “GURNEY, Samuel3 (1671-) & Sarah ATKINS? STAPLES/SHAPLEY… 26 Oct 1693; Boston/Little Compton, RI.” If that Samuel3 identification holds, Torrey’s generation-3 Gurneys are grandsons of John Gurney-1 through John Jr. and Ruth’s Mendon household — which would make the Providence John3 generationally consistent with being a grandson of the same household, and the separate Weymouth John3 (Elizabeth Green, 1689) consistent with staying in Richard G12’s own Weymouth line instead. Torrey’s entry states no parentage for either John3, so this reads as a plausible but unconfirmed identification stacked on another plausible but unconfirmed identification, not a finding: it would require an independent record naming the Providence John’s father before either grandson candidacy can be resolved.[3][4]

An unresolved deed-index entry: James Gurner

Suffolk County’s earliest deed register carries one more unresolved same-surname trace. The printed index to Suffolk Deeds, Liber I (1640–1653) lists “Gurner, James, 5,” immediately beside “Gurdon, John, 5” — an index line pointing to printed page 5, which has not yet been read. If “Gurner” is a Gurney variant, a James Gurner active in Boston’s earliest deed register would be a new same-surname colonial datum, comparable to the Norwich James Gurney (son of the laceweaver Francis) already tracked on the English side. If the page instead reads Garner or Gardner, it is a false friend of the same kind resolved below for Dorchester.[5]

Because the body text has not been read, this stays exactly what the index makes it: a name, a page number, and an open question.[5]

Not a Gurney at all: the Dorchester false friend

A third apparent Gurney thread at colonial Dorchester resolves, once its own record set is read in full, to a different family entirely. Margery Laver of Dorchester’s will, dated 4 (6) 1664 and proved 10 (9) 1664, leaves a small keepsake “to Jane Gurnet, 2s for a memorandum,” among bequests to Braintree’s minister William Tompson, Dorchester’s minister Richard Mather, and other Dorchester neighbors.[6] Separately, the Suffolk County Court’s record of a 1676/7 bastardy case names a surety: “Goodman Gurney of Dorchester engaged in Court to see the saide payments performed.”[7] Read on their own, either line could suggest a Dorchester Gurney household distinct from John’s Braintree–Weymouth family.

Dorchester’s own town and church records close the question. The Dorchester town book renders one resident, John Gurnell, under a dozen spellings across several decades — Gornell, Gornill, Gornehill, Gurnell, Gurnel, gornett, Gurnett, Gurnet, Gurnit — including “John Gurnet” in a 13 (12) 1653 fence-viewers list; he was a town officer into the 1670s, and the court’s 1676/7 “Goodman Gurney of Dorchester” is this same man, the county clerk drifting to the same Gurnet/Gurney spelling Dorchester’s own book already shows. No independent Gurney household existed at colonial Dorchester.[8] The town book’s own editorial footnote resolves Jane, too: “Jane Gornell, widow of John Gornell, married John Burge” — the same Jane the Laver will calls “Jane Gurnet.” First Church Dorchester’s record of 11 May 1709 still calls her “mrs. Burgesse alias Gurnet,” recovering a legacy she had left the church decades earlier — so the “Gurnet” form stuck to this Gornell widow even in the church’s own memory, seventeen years after Margery Laver’s will.[9] Every “Gurney”-form record at colonial Dorchester belongs to this one Gornell/Gurnell family. None is evidence of a Gurney there, and none should be read as John’s family or as a lead toward it.[8][9]

  1. The Early Records of the Town of Providence (printed series), town council proceedings: removal order of 31 March 1695, enforcement order, and the 1696 determination (5s fine or 12 stripes and removal). Via FamilySearch Full-Text Search, “Providence. Town Records 1677–1750,” images 166–168, ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9B8-WS3V-Y, ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9B8-WS3C-L, ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9B8-WS3F-S. Full treatment on research/people/john-and-sarah-gurney-providence-rhode-island.md. Source ID: familysearch-fulltext-search. ↩︎

  2. The Early Records of the Town of Providence, town council meeting of 30 April 1714 (will and inventory of Sarah Gurney presented by son Joseph Field), image 220, ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9B8-WS3H-N; will and attestation, image 412, ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9B8-GSPG-8; inventory and death-date recital, image 414, ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9B8-GSPP-T; Joseph Field’s £150 executor bond in “Probate files: Providence. Probate Records 1646–1885,” image 392, ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C95S-Q9DR-L. Source ID: familysearch-fulltext-search. ↩︎

  3. Clarence Almon Torrey, New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2004), p. 331, Gurney block: “John3 & Elizabeth [Green] (1664-); b 1689; Weymouth” and “John3 (-1723) & Sarah (Thornton) [Fields] (-1714), w Zachariah; b 1701?, b 1706, aft 4 Feb 1696, b 1714; Providence.” Transcribed extract at sources/corpus_supplement/torrey-new-england-marriages-prior-1700-page-331-gurney.md. Source ID: torrey-new-england-marriages-prior-1700. ↩︎ ↩︎

  4. The Mendon household itself, including its own son Samuel (b. 14 March 1671), is established in the Mendon descendants unit, G13-RI-000128. Whether that Samuel is the same man as Torrey’s Samuel3 (the 1693 Boston marriage) is a probable, not proven, open identification tested in the same unit, not restated here. ↩︎

  5. Suffolk Deeds, Liber I (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, City Printers, 1880), printed index, p. 5: “Gurner, James, 5,” adjacent to “Gurdon, John, 5.” Source ID: suffolk-deeds-liber-i-1880. ↩︎ ↩︎

  6. “Abstracts of Early Wills,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 13 (1859), p. 13: will of Margery Laver of Dorchester, dated 4 (6) 1664, proved 10 (9) 1664, “to Jane Gurnet, 2s for a memorandum,” among bequests to Mr. William Tompson (Braintree’s minister), Mr. Richard Mather (Dorchester’s minister), and the Wiswall and Preston families. Source ID: nehgr-13-abstracts-of-early-wills-1859. ↩︎

  7. Records of the Suffolk County Court, 1671–1680, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vols. 29–30 (Boston, 1933), p. 481, session c. January 1676/7–July 1677, Prise bastardy case: “Goodman Gurney of Dorchester engaged in Court to see the saide payments performed.” Source ID: suffolk-county-court-records-1671-1680-csm-29-30. ↩︎

  8. A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Dorchester Town Records (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, City Printers, 1880), fence-viewers list, 13 (12) 1653 (“John Gurnet”), recurring Gornell/Gurnell/Gurnett/Gurnit forms for the same resident across the town book, and editorial footnote (Jane Gornell, widow of John Gornell, married John Burge; gravestone reading “Jeane Gornell”). Source ID: boston-record-commissioners-fourth-report-1880. ↩︎ ↩︎

  9. Records of the First Church at Dorchester in New England, 1636–1734 (Boston: George H. Ellis, 1891), 11 May 1709 record: the church empowers attorneys to recover “a Certain Legacy of Three Pounds bequeathed by mrs. Burgesse alias Gurnet to be laid out in a Piece of Plate for the said Church.” Source ID: records-first-church-dorchester-1891. ↩︎ ↩︎