Two Thomas & Mary Bunney Families of St Stephen in Brannel 1789 & 1790

Research Note by Wesley Johnston (last updated 11 Jun 2012)

 

I may have the wrong children for the family of Thomas & Mary Bunney -- maybe even the wrong marriage. I just discovered this, and do not have time to research it properly. So I am just noting here what I have found.

Two Marriages: 1789, 1790

There were two marriages of a Thomas Bunney and a Mary in St Stephen in Brannel. It is not clear which Thomas Bunney was the son of Thomas Bunney and Mary Rickard (who is the sister of my ancestor Elizabeth Rickard who married John Butson). The following is from the Cornwall Family History Society research database.

Thomas BENNEY Mary HARRIS St Stephen in Brannel 7 Aug 1790

Thomas BUNNY Mary RICKARD St Stephen in Brannel 15 Apr 1789

The spelling as Benney may or may not have been intentionally different. But spelling at that time was highly variant, with no standardization and with many people not even being able to write their own name. So I am taking these both to be what we now call Bunney.

Baptisms

The CFHS DB has these baptisms of children of these two marriages. The ones with an asterisk are the ones that I have at this time included in my tree as children of Mary Rickard. All are at St Stephen in Brannel. The only baptism that can be assigned with certainty (in bold) is the 20 Jun 1790 Elizabeth Bu whose birth occured after the Mary Rickard marriage but before the Mary Harris marriage and thus is definitely the child of Mary Rickard and not of Mary Harris. 

BENNEY     Catherine     Dau     BENNEY     Thomas     -     Mary 5 Jan 1797     
BENNEY     John     Son     BENNEY     Thomas     -     Mary 2 Aug 1795     
BENNEY     Samuel     Son     BENNEY     Thomas     -     Mary 23 Mar 1792     
BENNEY     Thomas     Son     BENNEY     Thomas     -     Mary 1 Jan 1800     
BINNEY     William     Son     BINNEY     Thomas     -     Mary 26 Dec 1795     
*BUNNEY     Elizabeth     Dau     BUNNEY     Thomas     -     Mary 20 Jun 1790     
*BUNNEY     John     Son     BUNNEY     Thomas     -     Mary 19 May 1792     
*BUNNEY     Mary     Dau     BUNNEY     Thomas     -     Mary 25 Dec 1797     
*BUNNEY     Thomas     Son     BUNNEY     Thomas     -     Mary 4 Aug 1806

While spelling did vary, it is obvious that there was a definite choice of just two spellings, with one exception. This does not necessarily mean that those spelled with Be here are children of the Be marriage. There are these baptism pairs that are within a few months of each other:

1792 - John Bu 19 May - Samuel Be 23 Mar

1795 - John Be 2 Aug - William Bi 26 Dec

1797 - Catherine Be 5 Jan - Mary Bu 25 Dec

 

 

There is clearly much research that needs to be done to definitively separate out which baptisms go with which marriage -- and which Thomas Bunney was the husband in each marriage (i.e. who were the parents of each Thomas).