Fynney family Leek

[Boy Scout]

Goldie61,
I have photographs of the "Brass" if you would like a copy I am happy to share it. My mail address is on the pm which I sent to you.
There is a Fynney vault in the chancel at St. Edwards, Cheddleton frustratingly the church do not seem to have details of who is in it. I have contacted them on several occasions without success. As you point out the "Brass" is very high up and written in Latin. It bears the name of Fielding Best Fynney and his son Alfred Augustus Fynney 1782-1819, both of these men and others are in the tomb.

Cheers
Boy Scout

[goldie61]

Hi Boy Scout
I have the photo of the Fynney Brass from the Sleigh book thanks.
Do you have one in situ in the church? I'm afraid mine is a poor effort as I was trying to zoom in to see what it said - to no avail.
Do you know  who else is buried in the Fynney vault?

I have sent you an email.

[pantsdown]

Hello,
 My Last name is Phinney and the brass you are talking about i think i have an up close charcoal rub of it.

I can send a pic to you to verify if this is valid but it is all in latin and could be translated

I always wanted an actual picture of it to see the colours

[pantsdown]

Attempting to Do research of my Phinney last name.... I am from Canada so attempting to follow the trail and the reasoning my grandfather had the picture of our "apparent" coat of arms and if it legit or not

[Boy Scout]

Hello Pantsdown,

First of all welcome to RootsChat I hope that you find this forum as helpful as I have.

As you will see from this topic the "Brass" is not easy to photograph as it has been moved from it's original position in the chancel to high on a wall at the rear of the church. One of the contributors to this thread has taken the best photograph which has been kindly passed to me. This photograph is together with the Latin. In short what the wording asserts that Doctor Fielding Best Fynney 1743-1806 is a descendent of a line of Fynney the first of who came over to England in 1066 with William the Conqueror. I have not researched this assumption which appears in a book also referred to here called Sleigh's History of The Ancient Parish of Leek.

The "Brass" is in fact better described as a plaque the centre of which contains the writing may well be brass and when in it's original position in the Chancery could have been subject to copy by rubbing.

I am happy to forward to you what I have on this.

I have researched the Fynney family line from Fielding Best Fynney and have never come across your family spelling of the surname but with Genealogy anything is possible.

My understanding of this forum is that to use the PM system individuals need three posts you have two if you make a reply to this you can then send a PM to me with your e-mail address and I will forward the photographs to you.

Much has been said about this "Brass" and I have to confess that I'm not clear on how to post a picture for others to see. I am under grand parenting pressure at the moment due to the school summer break. I will make an effort to post a picture I'm sure it will be simple but still better for you that I send one to you direct you can then zoom if needed.

Thank you for posting.

Boy Scout

[pantsdown]

Thanks, Boy Scout for the run down...

I can also send you the rubbing of the Brass that we have in our family taken from that church apparently...

This is why I was asking questions to my family of how we got this brass charcoal rubbing when our name is Phinney etc...Some sites say Phinney originates from different spellings of it due to how the census people would hear it and write it down.

[goldie61]

Hi pantsdown and welcome to Rootschat

You don’t say who your ancestor was that went to America.
There is a famous Samuel Finney who went to America with William Penn in 1701, who by 1703  “had been appointed a member of Penn's Council in Pennsylvania. He built a house about 20 miles from Philadelphia and died there in 1711.”
 See this short bio for a bit more information about him.
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/c270aedc-ffcc-4440-bf87-9f9db321a529

I see you are interested in the colours of the Finney crest.
I’m not sure the photo of the Fynney Brass is going to help you much!
There are no colours on the actual brass itself of course.
There are a couple of oval ‘shields’ on either side of the actual brass plaque on the monument, that have smaller crests on, (plus some writing which is now impossible to read). These crests look as if they were coloured, but now are very difficult to make out.

They are a little different to the crest on the actual brass.
They look as if they are a version of the  “3 martlets with a chevron in the centre”. (A martlet was a bird like a swallow evidently, often used in heraldry). This shield is typically coloured red with a gold chevron and gold birds if you Google ‘Finney crest”. However, it is very difficult to say if these were the colours used on the Finney monument. Possibly the birds, (can’t even be sure they are the same birds), and chevron were gold, but the background now is  just black.

As you know, the crest on the actual brass is split. The left hand side has the 3 birds and chevron, (look like different sort of birds - not martlets), and the right hand side has possibly two different motifs. Possibly the arms of his mother? or wife?
If you are really interested in this you could contact the College of Arms  - they hold all the information about coats of arms, heraldry etc.
www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/

As to the Phinney/Fynney/Finney debate, you’re quite right in saying diferent clerks would have spelt the name differently.
This is from a search at The National Archives Discovery site.
The clerk has written ‘Phinney’ and ‘Finney’ even just within the same document.

Hope this has been of some interest.

[goldie61]

Just checking you have seen my post of a week ago with all the Finney information which I hope you found interesting. 

[pantsdown]

Yes, that information is awesome, thank you... also did you want a close-up copy of the brass from that tomb of Fielding Best-Fynney?

Cheers