Buckner Immigrants to America

This is an incomplete list to be sure, but it gives an idea what the name's immigration history is like. I had previously estimated that there have been less than 10 such immigrations of Buckners to the US before 1900 (counting sets of related individuals rather than each Buckner). Since then, I've been able to access more immigration data from the 19th century, and the numbers of Buckners listed is enormous, especially from Germany. This presents a certain logical problem, as the present number of Buckners in Germany is estimated to be approximately 88. Not 88,000 - eighty-eight, which is approximately 1 per million. Ancestry.Com identifies 38 Buckners immigrating to the US from Germany from 1851 to 1890, which would essentially imply that every single Buckner then living in Germany came to the US, and then some. I find this somewhat improbable. My guess as to the explanation for this is that many Bu/üchners (several hundred times more common) were either recorded as Buckners or adopted a more Americanized spelling upon arrival. Whether they usually kept the Americanized spelling is unclear. Also, my examination of some of the original images in Ancestry.com's database shows that at least some of the "Buckners" were actually written down as "Buchners" in the manuscript only to be mistranscribed into the Ancestry data base index (e.g. George Buchner & family arriving from Bremen in New Orleans on the Arabella in 1846.)

It's also worth noting how few of these immigrants can be confidently identified in their home countries.

1585: Thomas "Bookener"

Accompanied Sir Walter Ralegh's settlement venture at Roanoke in Virginia, the first English colony on the continent. I and most historians of Ralegh's voyage tend to identify him with Thomas Buckner (ca. 1565-aft. 1634), a mercer and alderman of London.

Before 1657: Charles Buckner

Settled in New Hampshire and later Boston, Massachusetts. W.A. Crozier thought that this line died out, but I think he was wrong on that point, since there appears to have been a son named Samuel. It's worth pointing out that "Charles" was a politically charged name in England - Charles Buckner's parents were quite likely royalists and he was almost certainly born after the accession of Charles I in 1625. Charles also has the distinction of being one of the few Buckner immigrants who can be identified in England with some certainty, and he was probably the grandson of Thomas Buckner the mercer, above, who visited America in 1585.

ca. 1650s-1660s: London/Oxford/Berkshire Buckners (Gerrard, Thomas, John, Phillip, etc.)

Small group of apparently related Buckners who came from England to Virginia. Early works on their genealogy identified John Buckner as the original immigrant, but most genealogists who've worked on them tend to argue that several members of the same family immigrated within a few decades. The earliest mention of a Buckner I can find in 17th century Virginia is John Buckner in 1655 (as a witness of a mortgage by Abraham Moone). A William Buckner was imported 1657. Their relationship is unknown, though the later-appearing Phillip Buckner (probably imported by John Buckner in 1667 or 1668) seems to have been John's younger brother. Crozier identified John and Phillip as the sons of Thomas Buckner of Oxford, which seems likely, though most of the other things Crozier had to say about their English origins were wrong; he was completely oblivious to the existence of William Buckner and Gerrard Bucknor. Gerrard Bucknor is mentioned in documents related to the Eastern Shore (1662), but Gerrard died without issue and did not settle there. His cousin Thomas, executor of his estate, also did business on the Eastern Shore with a "kinsman" named Ralph Allen. Other Buckners show up in the 1670s, but their relationship to Gerrard and Thomas (if any) is still a mystery, though they are almost certainly related to John.

Before 1737: Thomas Buckner

Irish immigrant, probably arrived in the late 1730s. Settled in South Carolina, many modern descendants.

Before 1772: Benjamin, Jesse, and John Buckner

According to a few sources (most convincingly R.S. Duncan, A history of the Baptists in Missouri: embracing an account of the organization and growth of Baptist churches and associations; biographical sketches of ministers of the gospel and other prominent members of the denomination; the founding of Baptist institutions, periodicals, &C., Scammell & Company, Publishers, 1882, p. 441. ) these three brothers immigrated from England, probably in the mid-1700s, and after arriving in Virginia moved south to found a major Buckner line in the Carolinas and Georgia. This is still somewhat controversial, however, as many researchers have attempted to connect them to the Buckners of the first Virginia immigration.

Before 1776: William Cornelius Bucknor

Said to have been visiting New York from the West Indies before the Revolution where he met and married Catherine Goelet, daughter of prominent merchant Peter Goelet. Probably one of the Jamaican Bucknors.

Before 1777: Patrick [Mc]Buckner

Irish immigrant, probably arrived in the 1760s-1770s. Descendants concentrated in Eastern KY and Southwestern VA.

ca.1847: Johann Buckner

Immigrated from Germany, settled in Indiana or Illinois.

ca. 1855: James and Thomas Buckner

Immigrated from Scotland, settled in Massachusetts (see queries for Nov. 22, 1997.)