The Buckners of Virginia and the allied families of Strother and Ashby by William Dickinson Buckner and William Armstrong Crozier, ed. (1907) is the most influential Buckner genealogy. Unfortunately, it contains a number of significant errors which have been propagated throughout genealogical databases everywhere, many of which arise from data that was clearly forged. In particular, I consider everything up to around page 16 to be so tainted that absolutely nothing in it should be trusted without corroboration from original documents. I list some of the most significant problems by page and in some cases present some expanded data and comments. The other two widest known Buckner genealogies, Anjou's unpublished "Buckner" manuscript and Buckner Descendant Generations by Jim White, are unsalvageable, so I'm not going to bother with them.
Gloucester Co. VA was formed in 1651, and obviously not all its records were destroyed by fire since he refers to them repeatedly.
The earliest known record of John Buckner in Virginia is in fact from 1655, when he witnessed a mortgage by Abraham Moone in Lancaster County, VA (Beverley Fleet, Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Genealogical Publishing, 2006, Vol 10, p. 103 - from Lanc. Co. Record Book No. 2, p. 15). This is especially important to note in that it makes an equation with any John Buckner in England after 1655 much more dubious.
That I know of, William Buckner is the next earliest mentioned (1657 - see VA Colonial Abstracts, Vol III, Charles City Co Court Orders 1655-1658, p 116, where Howell Price claimed a headright for both him and John Stith, who figures into the family history later) and then Gerrard Bucknor (1662).
Even in Crozier's time, it was generally accepted by historians that the Thomas Buckner on Ralegh's voyage was Thomas Buckner, a mercer of Oxford and London. Crozier exaggerates the originality of his work here.
This reference to Nathaniel Buckner may be related to the name "Natho. Buckner" in "Public Officers in Virginia 1680",The Virginia magazine of history and biography, 1893, v.1.n.1,p. 251. I strongly suspect this is a typo for "Antho. Buckner".
I would argue that while Richard Buckner's will does say he was a yeoman, it in no way indicates that he was stout. Crozier's conclusion that Berkshire was the home of the Buckners is somewhat in error, though their actual origin was not far off, on the other side of the Thames in Co. Oxfordshire. He has the direction of expansion reversed essentially. Historical records from the 13th and 14th centuries indicate the origin point was probably South Leigh in Oxfordshire.
This transcription of the will is rather abbreviated. The whole will contains much more information. Crozier also has the wrong children inheriting the house at Lechlade. William got that. See http://www.buckbd.com/genea/rychardbwill.html.
This is the first major genealogical mistake. The Dorothy Buckner that Crozier notes as having her estate administered in 1586 is apparently the widow of William Buckner, not Thomas Buckner. He probably made this mistake because Thomas Buckner was her executor. Her full will is available in the Berks. archives (B.R.O. Wills H.93). Thomas's wife, Dorothy (Anne) Buckner died in 1597 and left a fabulously detailed will (also in the Berkshire record office, B.R.O. Wills J.292) that identifies all of her then-living descendants and named her brother Thomas Anne (whom the herald's visitation designates "idiot"), giving us a certain indication that she is the Dorothy Anne in the visitation of Oxford. Thomas's 1587 will (B.R.O. Wills H.120) omitted several of his children, an oversight which Dorothy painstakingly and pointedly corrected. The impression one gets from her will is that Thomas's omissions caused a great deal of family strife, an outcome which she was striving to avoid. Crozier's conclusion from Thomas' will, that Dorothy was the only living child of Thomas, is about as wrong as wrong could be. In fact, it names sons Anthony, Edward, Adam, daughter Anne, and son-in-law William Ruffin, and makes his son John and wife Dorothy executors. How the situation could have been so drastically misinterpreted is a mystery, but I suspect that what happened was the researcher found a record of Dorothy executing the estate, assumed incorrectly that the wife Dorothy was already dead from the 1586 admin. record, and so assumed that the executor Dorothy must have been a daughter. Dorothy's will makes the full list of children: Anthony, Philip, John, Anne Goulding, Thomas, Edward, and Adam. A deceased daughter Lettice (Buckner) Ruffin can be assumed from the mention of her husband William Ruffin as a son in law. See the Cumnor Parish Records website. This mistake in particular is so wrong that it completely wrecks almost everything Crozier has to say about the Buckners in Berkshire. It has often been speculated that the infamous Gustave Anjou was doing the legwork for the book in the UK, and the mind-boggling scope of this mix up suggests that the UK researcher was not the most reliable.
For future reference, I call Thomas Buckner, the son of Richard, Thomas Buckner Sr. of Whitley, an appellation that occasionally appears in the records since he was the free holder of the estate at Whitley. His son Thomas inherited the freehold so I call him Thomas Buckner Jr. of Whitley.
This page also features the first two bits of data in the book that are clear forgeries. These quotations of the wills of William Buckner and John Buckner seem to have been constructed based on two wills that really do exist in the BRO, John Buckner of Chawley, Cumnor, pr. 1599 (J. 495) and William Buckner of Cumnor, pr. 1558 (D. 188), but the quotations he gives are completely false, and the citations seem to have been deliberately mangled to make them difficult to find.
William's is cited as "William Buckner of Cumnor Co Berks yeoman Dated 12 May 1558 Prob 24 May 1558 E 19 PPC". I have no idea what repository "PPC" might be, but this will certainly doesn't exist in the PCC (Prerogative Court of Canterbury) wills. We do however know that there is a will in the Berkshire Record Office for William Buckner of Cumnor probated in 1558 (BRO D. 188). The Cumnor Parish website kindly abstracted this will, and it in no way agrees with the will supposedly quoted in Crozier. At first, I thought this was just a funny coincidence that two William Buckners died in Cumnor in the same year.
An even funnier coincidence occurs with John's will, which Crozier bizarrely cites as "dated Nov 26 [1599] Proved Dec 30 Book (J.P.C.C.)" As luck would have it, the BRO has the will of John Buckner of Chawley (BRO J. 495), probated in - you guessed it - 1599. Yet again, the Cumnor Parish website comes through and provides an abstract of this will, and yet again it in no way resembles Crozier's quoted will. For a long time, I was willing to accept that coincidences happen, but the mounting list of examples of this kind of thing in the book points overwhelmingly to an the intent to fake up the wills based on index entries of existing wills but to muddle the references in such a way that they couldn't be found.
A further bit of evidence against the supposed will of William Buckner of Cumnor is the reference Crozier gives, "E .19". He says it's a "PPC" will, but E. 19 in the Berks Archdeacon's Court books at the BRO does indeed cover the year 1558 - and what wills appear on that page? The published will index lists three wills there: John Cox of Burton & Shrivenham, 1558, Helen Elgar of Speen, 1558, and Richard Hedges of Shrivenham, 1558; three short wills is about as many as you can fit on a page. This is typical of the style of forgery ascribed to Gustave Anjou, a lot of verifiable records glued together with a couple carefully constructed fakes.
I only have abstracts and some rather imperfect transcriptions for the real wills, but there is enough there that I can say that I think William who died in 1558 was probably Richard's son, but John who died in 1599 was definitely not.
It is unclear where this "St Mary's Parish" is in Oxford. There are really two in the City, St Mary Magdalene and St Mary the Virgin, though most commonly the phrase "Church of St Mary" seems to refer to SM Virgin, the University Church. Neither of them seems to have these parish register entries. A search is currently underway for this particular St Mary's, though most of the likely suspects, Iffley (St. Mary the Virgin right outside Oxford), Eynsham, Bampton, Combe, Abingdon (Berks), and Reading (Berks), have been eliminated. At this point in time, I consider it likely that these are completely fictitious.
For St Mary the Virgin in Reading, I can confirm the existence of the marriage of Thomas Bucknor to Alice Page in 1619 and the burial of John Buckner in 1672. (It's perhaps worth noting that there were many Blagraves in Reading, a name that is often associated with the Buckners in Virginia.)
In fact, the name Hugh Buckner occurred several times; of course, Crozier's "Hugh son of William of Cumnor" is known only from the forged will, so we have to look elsewhere to figure out who Hugh Buckner of Oxford really was. I can name two known from Cumnor wills and parish records, one a grandson of the real William Buckner of Cumnor, who died in 1558, by his probably eldest son Richard Buckner. The other was the son of John Buckner of Botley, d. 1609 (BRO Wills K. 496), who might have been the third and youngest son of the patriarch Richard. Of these two, Richard's Hugh was born about 1589 (from a Cumnor christening record) and thus clearly too young, but John's children with known birthdates were born around the 1560s, so John's Hugh was probably well old enough to have been the bailiff of Oxford.
While Crozier was unable to find records of Phillip Buckner in England after 1667, they nonetheless exist. There were apparently four or five Phillip Buckners alive in England in the 1600s, two definitely in the latter part. The first of those was Crozier's supposed and perhaps non-existant Phillip born in Oxford, for whom there are no other certain records that I know of. The second Phillip was a son of William Buckner of London, who was born in 1642 and apprenticed as a clockmaker to Peter Closon. Phillip apparently had a son Richard who was also a clockmaker. This becomes important on the next page. The other three were Phillip the son of Thomas Buckner Sr. of Whitley (above), Phillip the son of Thomas Buckner Jr. of Whitley (yes, he had one too), and this latter Phillip's son Phillip. Obviously, this profusion of Phillip Buckners makes many of Crozier's conclusions doubtful. I agree with him that the one born in Oxford in 1639 (son of a Thomas) would most likely the immigrant, but then again if the record was forged, it was probably forged to look that way.
Here is the next major error, Crozier's identification of John Buckner b. in Oxford in 1631 with the one who was married Debora Ferrers (whom I call John Buckner the salter Jr.) He really had no evidence for this, and as it turns out, it's completely and utterly wrong, which can be mostly established from the will of John Buckner the salter Sr. Various records, mostly christenings, show there were at least 15 John Buckners born in England in the right time frame, and the idea that you can just assume one of them is another solely based on their name is pretty ridiculous.
It's difficult to explain why he says "West Wickham and Cumnor are but a few miles apart" since there is no such place as "West Wickham" in Buckinghamshire. There is a West Wickham in Kent, but most likely "West Wickham" in the original marriage record is a clerical mistake for the identical-sounding "West Wycombe," which is in Bucks. and, from other records, is where the Ferrers family lived (or more accurately, the Ferrers alias Turner family). Cumnor and West Wycombe are about 30 miles apart by road.
Here Crozier's ignorance of the many Phillip Buckners causes another major error which has been copied endlessly by credulous researchers. The Phillip Buckner who married Elizabeth Sadler in 1667 in London was almost certainly Phillip Buckner the clockmaker, who started his 7-year apprenticeship in 1660. Anyone who's worked with the life histories of guild tradesmen knows this familiar pattern where the tradesman gets into the guild and straightaway marries. It's not proof, but neither is there any shred of proof that the Phillip in Virginia is the one who married her. An unfortunate tendency in the book is to grab onto any marriage of a Buckner of the name in question and to simply assume with no corroborating evidence that the marriage is of that particular Buckner, even with common names like John and William.
The choice of "without doubt" is interesting for the claim that the Thomas Buckner of Ralegh's voyage was from Berkshire, since all of the early references to him are in Oxford, and his close friend Thomas Harriot was also from Oxford. In fact, out of more than 30 original records relating to this Thomas Buckner, not one has anything to do with Berks. The earliest "of" I have for him is "Thomas Buckner of Bolshipton [in Oxford]" in 1589 when Thomas Rowe, mayor of Oxford, made him free of the mercer's guild.
I am aware of no significant error here; however Crozier failed to discover or perhaps mention that the first Rowland Holt was the victim in one of the most notorious murders in London of the early 1600s. The incident is recounted in a 1635 pamphlet by Henry Goodcole called "Heaven's Speedie Hue and Crie Against Lust and Murther". The details have often been recounted elsewhere, but the gist is that a certain "Canberry Bess" would pretend to be a prostitute and lure the victim into a secluded area (Clerkenwell Fields in this case) and then her accomplice "Country Tom" Sherwood would part the victim from his possessions and life. One might speculate that this is what motivated his son to go into law - his grandson became Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, as Crozier notes. The incident was so notorious in its day that it spawned not only Goodcole's broadside but also a ballad called "Murther upon Murther."
"One Master Holt of Winsor towne,/a Norwich Factor he,/Walking abroad to take the ayre,/felt next their buchery,/ For Sherwood with a fatall blow,/ This goodman kill'd, his quean wil so/ (refrain)/ His cloak, hat, ruffe, from him they took/ eleuen groats also,/ And were about his cloathes to stripe/ his shirt, shooes, hose thereto,/ But being scard away they flye,/ he hath confest this villany.
(Samuel Pepys & Hyder Edward Rollins, A Pepysian garland: black-letter broadside ballads of the years 1595-1639, The University Press, 1922, p. 432)
This list of the children of Thomas Buckner the mercer is incomplete, but aside from that, the listing of (II) Thomas Buckner is wrong. That Thomas Buckner, a doctor of divinity (DD), left a rather extensive will which combined with numerous Oxford university and church records firmly establishes that he was the son of John Buckner of Abingdon, son of Thomas Buckner of Whitley Sr. and Dorothy (Anne) Buckner. The fact that he named his uncles Edward and Adam, two rare names among the Buckners of this era, firmly cinches the identification. Dorothy (Anne) Buckner even names Thomas as John's son in her will. From parish christenings, it appears that Thomas Buckner the mercer had not one but two sons named Thomas, the first of whom died in infancy. The fate of the second son Thomas is unknown to me, but he was much too young to have been Thomas Buckner, DD. John, William, and Mary are the only children of Thomas Buckner the mercer to whom I can ascribe issue with some confidence.
William Bucknor of Coolefin, Esq., MP, and John Bucknor of Limerick were probably the sons of John Bucknor of Dromore (presumptive founder of the Irish lines), who was the son of Thomas Buckner of Whitley Jr. The argument for this is rather long; fortunately John's sons, brother Leonard (master of the London apothecaries guild), and nephews were prodigious authors of wills. Others of his sons were Capt. Thomas Bucknor of London and Dublin and Gerrard Bucknor of London, who has the distinction of being mentioned in Virginia records around 1662, though it does not appear that he was an immigrant.
Thomas "de Bocknor" was actually Thomas de Bykenore. The theory that "Buckner" evolved from "Bykenore" (Bicknor) seems to be a contribution of Gustave Anjou which has proved to be fanciful at best. Crozier and Anjou both freely mix the two names, without much justification other than wishful thinking and poor eyesight.
Again, the will of Robert "Bucknore" is read by everyone besides Crozier and Anjou as the will of Robert Byknore.
I have some skepticism that Richard Buckner was really from Westphalia, but this tradition is still current in their family today. There are a few minor errors in the following pedigree, but generally Crozier's source, T.E. Sharpe, is pretty reliable as her uncle was apparently married to Admiral Charles Buckner's granddaughter. This is the point at which the book starts to become reasonably accurate.
As mentioned earlier, the Debora Ferrers marriage is wrong.
A compelling piece of evidence for a second (and really elder) son named Thomas is a tombstone inscription reportedly published in the Caroline Co. VA Sentinel of Oct. 1, 1884, which indicates that Thomas Buckner was a son of John and Sarah Buckner, born 19 Mar 1739/40 in "Cuttarock" Co. NC (probably Currituck) and died 5 Jan 1777. (Lyon Gardiner Tyler et al., "Historical and Genealogical Notes", William and Mary quarterly, Vol. 7 (1899), p. 59). This has the interesting implication that John and Sarah were in Currituck in the 1740s. John and Sarah have long been a popular "dump family" for people trying to trying to connect to the Caroline County Buckners, so if you're trying to place a Thomas Buckner who was alive after 1777, this ain't him.
Note also an entry from the Currituck Co. Deed Book 3, pgs. 1-2: John BUCKNER to William HARDING. April 2, 1739. �10 current money of Virginia. 50 acres commonly known by the name of the Reedy Island Neck. /s/ John BUCKNER, Sarah BUCKNER. Wit: Thos. DAVIS, Saml. BAKER, Edwd. (x) COX. Acknowledged by John BUCKNER and his wife Sarah April 13, 1739. Registered June 21, 1739.
John Buckner also appears in the list of jurymen for Currituck in Feb 1739/40. (Colonial and State Records of North Carolina v. 4, p. 520).
If it is true, as Crozier claims (and he does not note his source), that Sarah was a Buckner by birth, one might consider the possibility that she was the daughter of Robert Buckner, NC clerk of court 1710-1712, who I think was the son of Phillip Buckner, the immigrant.
It would appear that John and Sarah Buckner left NC fairly early and returned to Caroline Co. VA in the 1740s, but this early sojourn into NC is probably why Crozier had so much difficulty locating information on them.
Francis was really the son of Capt. William Buckner of Bowling Green, Caroline Co., VA, as evidenced by William's 1783 will (prob. 1788), which names 11 other offspring as well (W.B. McGroarty, "William Buckner of Caroline," in Genealogies of Virginia Families from Tyler's Quarterly Historical Genealogical Magazine, Genealogical Publishing Company (1981), p. 281). The traditions Crozier is drawing from are a little confused, as Elizabeth Thornton was Francis' mother rather than his wife. William's second wife was named Mary. Capt. William Buckner was a veteran of the Virginia militia in the Revolutionary War; oddly there was another Capt. William Buckner who was in the Virginia Navy at the same time. The third William Buckner in the Revolution fortunately was just a private (VA Line 7th Regiment), so confusion does not completely reign.
Sarah Morgan's father was not Capt. Francis Morgan himself but rather Capt. Francis' son and namesake, Francis Morgan. For more information on the Morgans and extensive transcriptions of original sources, see Annie Frank (Noble) Sims & William Owen Nixon Scott, Francis Morgan, an early Virginia Burgess: and some of his descendants, Savannah, GA: Braid and Hutton, 1920. It's also worth pointing out that this is not the Captain Morgan, though they were roughly contemporaries.
It turns out that this is completely wrong. It was John Buckner who patented that land in 1669, not Thomas Buckner. The Library of Virginia notes this misreading in their index, though they have corrected it. Without this spurious "fact", the whole case for Thomas Buckner as an immigrant brother of John Buckner evaporates. It should have been fairly clear anyway how dubious that whole story was. Two Thomas Buckners, one married Sarah Morgan and one married Anne Morgan, both may or may not have had a son Samuel. I'm not sure what other data Stubbs was working with, but the whole theory is befuddled.
See comments for p. 154. This Thomas Buckner "of the Dragon" is a confused reflection of some data that really pertains to Thomas Royston, John Buckner, and Thomas Buckner the son of John Buckner. Both the cited 1000-acre 1669 and 2000 acre patents (the latter actually dated 2 May 1672) belonged to John. The Library of Virginia has the 1669 patent image on line. The 2000 acre patent can be found in E.W. Fleming, Historic periods of Fredericksburg, 1608-1861, Richmond, Va.: W. C. Hill Print. Co. (1921), p. 5.
Crozier's arguments for Samuel Buckner as the son of this Thomas are probably correctly transferred to the real Thomas Buckner.
See comments for Page 8. Elizabeth Sadler was not the wife of this Phillip Buckner. A complaint Phillip and Ann Buckner filed against William Fitzhugh in Oct. 1692 would suggest that his wife's name was Ann (Buckner family. Suit papers, 1692-1707. Accession 22391. Personal papers collection. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va. 23219.) There is also a "Mrs. Buckner" named as a daughter in the will of Andrew Gillson of Stafford Co. VA in 1697, so perhaps she was Ann Gillson (Adventurers of Purse and Person, 4th edition, vol. 1 (2004), p. 220-221). Crozier also somewhat misstates the situation with the 1669 land patent. Phillip didn't have a headright; he was a headright. John Buckner and John Vickers paid for his passage.
Crozier missed what is probably an important piece of information on Phillip's son Robert, which is that a Robert Buckner was clerk of court for North Carolina in 1712. Given that he was probably educated by his lawyer cousins after Phillip died, it is difficult to see this as anyone but Phillip's son. There are other records of a Robert in NC and VA in this period, and this may well be the same Robert Buckner who laid out the original plans for Fredericksburg with John Royston in the 1720s. There are subsequent records of Buckners in coastal North Carolina after Robert through the 1700s, and in my opinion, the Buckners of Bertie Co. NC were/are probably Robert's descendants.
I'm not sure how this is significant, but I should point out again that when Howell Price claimed headrights in 1657 in Charles City County, two of the heads were William Buckner and John Stith. (B. Fleet, VA Colonial Abstracts, Vol III, Charles City Co Court Orders 1655-1658, p 116).
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