Mary DUNN of Crowan, died 1832

[donne]

While browsing DUNN wills in the Kresen Kernow catalogue, I came across the admon for a Mary DUNN, widow, of Crowan - AP/D/2282. The admon is granted to her son Richard, her next of kin, and gives a date of death of 14 Jun 1832. This looks like a good match for the death of my great3grandmother since her eldest son was named Richard. However, I can't track down any burial record which may also give me her age at death. Any help would be appreciated - without much evidence I had previously attributed her death to an 1807 burial in St Erth of a Mary DUNN 'of Crowan'.

[Cornish Terrier]

Roger - I have just spent over an hour pondering this problem and I am at a loss save for the possibility that the date of death recorded on the Admon. document is an error. The only burials at Crowan in June 1832 were on the 10th and the 26th for William Kemp and Elizabeth Tellam respectively and there are no other remotely possible entries anywhere else in Cornwall for June 1832 that might be your Mary. I also checked the Bawden Transcripts as well as the BTs for Crowan but found nothing unusual.

I have also reconstructed what I think is the correct family except for children of James Dunn/Dunne (bp. 1795) just so that I could try and build a picture that might offer some clues. If I have it right then it was a small family:-

James Dunn and Mary Lobb married at Crowan 5th November 1790 with witnesses Henry Lobb and Henry Odger. James signed his name 'Donn' and Mary made her mark.

Two sons:-

Richard bp. 5th February 1792 (born 10th October 1791) at Crowan and died unmarried - buried at St Erth 6th June 1871
James bp. 3rd April 1795 (born 25th March 1795) at Crowan and married Sarah Heywood at St Blazey 21st April 1821 (he had been a sojourner in that Parish for 4 years).

As far as I can see James Dunn/Donne the elder was buried at St Erth 9th May 1802.

The only anomalies I have found is with the Heywood family. In the 1851 Census mother-in-law Mary Heywood is living with James and Sarah Donne and her age is recorded as 99. Now, in this same Census daughter Mary is age 46 (baptised at St Alfege, Greenwich 25th April 1804) which means that her mother would have been about age 53 at the time of her birth!!!!! (Mary Heywood was buried at St Blazey 4th May 1854 at the age of 102!! and according to the Census had been born in Newfoundland)

Returning to Mary Donne/Dunn and the 1832 Admon. - the only burial we have that makes sense is the one at St Erth in 1807. It would make sense that she were buried at St Erth if her husband were buried there and until this Admon. there was nothing to dispute the possibility.

Another thing to take into account is that Richard would have been only age 15 in 1807 so any estate could not have been administered by him at the time. Obviously no administrator was appointed by the Courts so hence the delay until 1832 when it would appear Richard 'finally got around to it'. (Or possibly he finally had the 200 quid to put up as Bond for an estate valued at under 100 quid!)

At this point I would be inclined to stick with the 1807 burial until something can be found to corroborate (or otherwise) the date of death recorded in the Admon. records.

But I think it is the identity of Mary Lobb that might be your main concern here so I will take a look at that as well.

CT

[Cornish Terrier]

Roger - I have now had a look at the Lobb family and I am reasonably sure I can identify Mary.
I began with the signiature of Henry Lobb who witnessed Mary's marrige to James Dunn and found that he had married twice - once at Phillack and then at Crowan. Henry was the executor for the Will of his father John Lobb who was buried at Crowan in 1784. Unfortunately John died with only one of his daughters married and that was Jenifer who married Richard Pearce at Crowan in 1772. But the signiatures of Henry Lobb at his two marriages are sufficient to make the link to Mary as witness to her marriage which then suggests that she was almost certainly also Henry's sister and another daughter to John Lobb.

John Lobb was married twice - first to Mary Trevarthen at Crowan in 1748 and then to Jane Heys at Corwan in 1770. His Will was written in 1772 and proved in 1784 with those named being his wife Jane, daughter Jenifer 'now the wife of Richard Pearce', daughter Mary, daughter Rebecka and son John. Son Henry was named Executor and residual legatee.

Henry Lobb married Elizabeth Anthony at Phillack 12th May 1781 and had two children in that Parish - Mary in 1782 and Henry in 1783. By 1787 Henry had returned to Crowan where on January 18th of that year daughter Elizabeth was baptised and wife Elizabeth buried the same day. Daughter Elizabeth was buried just a couple of weeks later on February 5th 1787.
On 28th May 1787 Henry then married Jane Davey and on 24th October 1790 his last child, John, was baptised. Henry Leggo was buried at Crowan 3rd December 1798.

So I believe Mary Lobb, wife of James Dunn/Donne, to have been the daughter of John Lobb and Mary Trevarthen. She was baptised at Crowan 25th February 1753 and so would have been almost 38 at the time of her marriage. This certainly explains why there were only two children from the marriage and perhaps also lends some support for her being the Mary Dunn buried in 1807.

CT

[donne]

Thanks, Ian, for spending so much time on my problem. I am descended from James DONN/DUNN/DONNE b. 25 Mar 1795 so I have managed to piece together a lot of the family history but I am very pleased to have your comprehensive analysis. The admon for Mary DONN's estate is a bit of a puzzle - it hadn't occurred to me that the death date could be an error on such an important document though it did seem to me that there was a remarkably short time between the supposed date of death in June 1828 and the granting of the admon in July 1828.

However, great2great-uncle Richard to whom the admon was granted is a bit of a mystery. 'My' family DUNN seemed to occupy the same tenement in Crowan leased from the Manor of Godolphin for almost 150 years - it was in Kerthen Water on the boundary of the St. Erth/Crowan parishes and Richard would seem to have inherited the lease on the death of his parents. However, he is missing from the 1841 census and from the 1841 Tithe Apportionments he is listed as the lessee but has sub-let the holding to another tenant -perhaps he went overseas to seek his fortune. He did return to Kerthen Water and appears there in 1851 and subsequent censuses until his death in 1871, which was the last association of this particular patch of ground with my family.

The other mystery is great3grandmother Mary Heywood who died at the age of 102 in 1854 at St. Blazey. If I read the 1851 census correctly she was said to have been born in Hampton, Newfoundland. However, I have never been able to trace Hampton to any particular place on the Newfoundland map and I have never been able to make any progress on this interesting connection though there are extensive links between the Westcountry and Newfoundland's fishing grounds.

[Cornish Terrier]

Hi Roger - the only other thing that springs to mind about that date of death on the Admon. is that it may have been done to avoid possible repercussions for delaying the process for so long. Mind you, if that was the case there was always the burial register and it would seem the normal thing for officials to check records to ensure the information presented was correct. Anyway ...

As for 'Hampton' .... well, it is not actually Hampton but rather HAMPDEN. The following Wiki Link will give you some information about it along with mapping coordinates.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampden,_Newfoundland_and_Labrador

CT

[donne]

As for 'Hampton' .... well, it is not actually Hampton but rather HAMPDEN. The following Wiki Link will give you some information about it along with mapping coordinates.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampden,_Newfoundland_and_Labrador

Thanks for that, Ian! It's really great to have her place of birth identified though it seems unlikely that I will ever be able to identify her origins, particularly since I don't have a surname at birth. However I do have a DNA match with some tantalising Newfoundland ancestors in the ancestral tree so you never know...

[Cornish Terrier]

There is actually a fair selection of Newfoundland records available on Ancestry although, as you say, without Mary's birthname it is a 'tad difficult'! I've had another look around to see if I might identify a possible marriage or even other potential children with some questionable success on the possible children. Working on Sarah having been born in Kent I have restricted the search to Kent and London:-

Baptisms
19th May 1771 Mary daughter of John and Mary Heywood at Charing, Kent (born 27th March 1771)
22nd March 1772 John son of John and Mary Haywood at Canterbury, Kent

There is also a James Haywood born and baptised at Marylebone in 1809 but if mother Mary was born about 1750 in Newfoundland then that is far more unrealistic than the thought of her being about 53 when Sarah was born.
But that brings me to another consideration - Mary is listed as 'mother-in-law' to James Donne in the 1851 Census and then age 99 whilst back in 1841 she is also in the household but her age rounded down to 80. Even if she were closer to 80 than 90 in 1841 she would have been nudging 50 at least in 1809. So I have been wondering if it might be possible that Mary Haywood/Heywood was actually the 'grandmother' of Sarah rather than her mother.
I could hypothesise that the two children born in Kent in 1771 and 1772 were the children of John and Mary from Tywardreath/St Blazey and that John (1772) was actually the father of Sarah with he having also married someone named Mary. And that now does bring up some options!

Kent Marriages (FamilySearch)

2nd November 1799 Wye, Kent - John Haywood and Mary Whitehead (also marriage notice (no details) dated 22nd September 1799)
7th January 1804 Dover, Kent - John Haywood and Mary Stokes

Just some idle thoughts.

Finally - have you thought of searching some of the military collections on FamilySearch and Ancestry? I don't know what John Heywood's occupation was but one possibility might be that he was stationed in Newfoundland in some capacity and then met and married his wife there.
It is also possible that it was Mary's family who were 'stationed' in Newfoundland with Mary and possibly some siblings born there before later returning to England.

CT

[donne]

It's good to think outside the box, though I believe that it was probably the maritime connection of Greenwich which is significant rather than the county. Then we have to wonder why the HEYWOODs moved from Greenwich to the rather obscure parish of St. Blazey without some sort of family connection to the area - I doubt that Cornwall then was quite the retirement dream it has since become. The only thing I know for certain is that John HEYWOOD was an inn keeper, at least in later life (he was 85 when he died in 1831). This piece of information I got from the death certificate of wife Mary which gives yet another variation on the name - HEAWOOD.

[Cornish Terrier]

St Blazey/Tywardreath are coastal areas and close to places like St Austell, Mevagissey and so on. During that period of the latter part of the 18th Century there a lot of Militias certainly on the South Coast all the way down to Penzance and Paul. In fact that was the case through and beyond the Napoleonic Wars with plenty of evidence in the marriage registers of the time.
There were some Heywoods in Cornwall prior to that but I would be inclined to suspect the reason John Heywood found himself in that area might be because he had something to do with the militias or some other part of the defences. That would also fit with the Greenwich connection and it is not difficult to imagine an old soldier retiring to life as a local publican!

CT

[zibetha]

RE: innkeepers. Some of mine seem to have moved from Crowan to other areas based on leases. I.e. Crowan to Marazion. There was a Glasson thread where this was discussed.

The 1841 Census gives Mary's year of birth as 1761 and I tend to see women's ages rounded up on that one?

Hampden was away from the major fishing area, so military might make sense. James Dunn was somewhat older than Mary-- was there perhaps an earlier marriage?

Zib

[Cornish Terrier]

Zib - I think things are getting a little confused here. You mention 'Mary' was born about 1861 according to the 1841 Census - by this I presume you mean Mary Heywood.
But then you mention 'James' was quite a bit older than Mary which tends to suggest you mean James Dunn/Donne .... but then he was the husband of Mary Heywood's daughter Sarah. So I wonder if when naming James you actually mean JOHN Heywood???

If you mean John Heywood then yes, if you go by Mary's age in the 1841 Census he would be anything up to about 15 years older. Problem is that we don't know where he came from and there are that many John Heywood/Haywood men outside Cornwall it would be impossible to determine if there had been a previous marriage based on the limited information we have.

BUT - you also need to skip forward to the 1851 Census where Mary Heyood's age is recorded as 99 and then the burial record at St Blazey in 1854 where her age at death was 102. That information infers Mary was born about 1751 or 1752 in which case John Heywood would have been only about six or seven years her senior.

CT