JOHN BURGOYNE'S DEATH + WILL
A very helpful member of staff at PRONI has e-mailed me an extract from the old Dublin PPR probate calendar, which advances matters usefully:
BURGOYNE John 2 March [1874] Letters of Administration (with the Will annexed) of the personal estate of John Burgoyne late of Magdala Villa Belvidere County Kent England C.E. deceased who died 13 June 1873 at same place were granted at the Principal Registry to Maria Teresa Burgoyne of 21 Saint George’s-road London County Middlesex Spinster Daughter of deceased the Residuary Legatee. Effects under £1,500
I had discovered via the UHF site that there was one single Burgoyne entry in the 1858-78 consolidated Irish calendar, and I wanted to check whether it concerned Cleo's father or not before making plans for a (seemingly less promising) search at the PPR in London. In the event, given that he had moved back to England, there should almost certainly be a parallel English admon grant with will annexed: so an expedition to High Holborn ought to prove fruitful -- and avoid the need to send off to PRONI for the Irish edition. (Presumably "C.E." was a recognised marker for a civil engineer, rather than a very obscure Victorian gong?) The implication of the form of the grant may well be that the testator failed to appoint a valid -- or any -- executor.
The date of death in the calendar entry sent me straight to FreeBMD, and sure enough there is a GRO death for a John Burgoyne in the right RD -- Dartford -- in Q3 1873 (not unreasonable as only 17 days' delay were needed to push the registration quarter back from Q2 to Q3); and the age-at-death was recorded as 54 -- the first chance to attach an age to him, given that he seems to have missed all the English censuses except the imprecise 1841. This would match a birth between June 1818 and June 1819: not quite an exact fit with Fizzy's 1817 Plymouth Charles baptism (Reply 5 above), but certainly "within shouting distance". (Belvedere is apparently in the parish of Erith -- I wonder if his MI has been transcribed?)
Anyway, one way and another life was pretty difficult for Cleo round about 1873-74 . . .
GRANT'S PUBLIC FAMILY TREE
I was also able to visit the local library for a short while on 1 May (unusual for me), and used the opportunity to gain fuller access (via the Anc***rylibrary.proquest scheme) to the "public family tree" placed online at Anc***ry.com by Grant -- the man who posted extensively last year as "grant_4" on the Burgoyne message board.
Unfortunately the library's printer was not working and I only had time to make brief handwritten notes; but it was very clear that Grant was satisfied that Cleo's father John Burgoyne was indeed the son of William Burgoyne and Dorothy Maddick -- just as hypothesised by Fizzy -- and that the baptism at Plymouth Charles on 23 December 1817 was the right one. John is shown as having two siblings, another William (1811- . . . .) and Sarah Hardy (1814-1815).
For those Burgoyne-watchers who have an Anc***ry sub. and so can gain easy access to it, Grant's public tree is well worth a look: I just wish that it had also been made truly open to all via the allied Rootsweb WorldConnect format. Like her father as a young man, Cleo's grandfather William Burgoyne is described as living in Raleigh Street, Plymouth, and earning his living as a builder (1841 and 1851 censuses). He is said to have been born at Kingsbridge, Devon, in 1783, and to have married Dorothy Maddick there on 11 August 1807. He is shown as buried at Ford Park Cemetery, Plymouth, on 30 March 1854, aged 71 years. (Any MI?) His siblings are listed as Sarah b.1780, Mary Bellamy 1785, Martha Randall 1788, Susanna Randall 1795, Ann 1795 and finally Andrew Randall 1798 (d.1861).
A quick examination suggests that Grant has sourced his work pretty securely. He carries the male line back three generations further -- through two more William Burgoynes (1749-1829 and 1720- . . . . ) to a John Burgoyne, born in 1680.
However, unless in my haste I missed it, or he has omitted to keep his public tree up to date with his underlying research, Grant does not yet seem to have uncovered the will and date of death of John Burgoyne the civil engineer, nor the existence and careers of the two sisters of his direct ancestor John Thomas -- who together, of course, have been the main focus of attention in this thread and its Northumberland predecessor. So perhaps there are some surprises ahead for him!
Does Grant's work inspire fresh thoughts about the Burgoynes or open up new perspectives for anybody?
Rol