Richard Buckner (abt. 1480 - bef. 1548)

Descendants

Died before 1 Mar 1548 before about age 68 in Cumnor, Berkshire, England [uncertain]

Biography

Richard Buckner is one of the earliest known Buckners in Berkshire, and apparently the ancestor of many the later ones, along with his contemporary William Buckner of Botley. Because Richard's family passed the freehold at Whitley in Cumnor parish down to the eldest son for several generations of X Buckners "of Whitley" (Richard->Thomas->Thomas->Phillip), the history of the family can be constructed fairly confidently over that period. Of Richard's three sons, the eldest Thomas definitely left a will,^[1] as did Thomas' widow Dorothy (Anne) Buckner.^[2] It is worth noting that the "third part of Whitley" (as Richard's will puts it) was part of the land confiscated by the Crown in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538, at which time it was probably in the tenure of Richard. At some point, the Buckners bought it outright, becoming freeholders. Richard is not mentioned in Whitley in the 1524 lay subsidy, so it came into the family sometime in that interval.

Richard left a will probated in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in 1548,^[3] which is the main source for information on him. He is mentioned in one other known contemporary record, the 1538 rental survey of Cumnor.^[4] One other reference is from a heralds visitation some time after his death, which notes that Lawrence Barry of Hampton Gay in Eynsham, Oxfordshire married Jane, the daughter of "Ric. Buckner of Whitley in com. Berks." ^[5] This is of course the "Johann Barry" listed as a daughter in Richard's will. The Barrys were a particularly prominent family in that area at the time.

The children listed in the will are:

• Thomas Buckner,eldest son
• John Buckner, son
• William Buckner, son
• Mary, daughter
• Agnes, daughter
• Johan Barry, daughter
• (uncertain) Elizabeth, (perhaps daughter-reading is ambiguous)

Many compiled genealogies state a birthdate, but no direct evidence for it is known. If he was about 70 when he died, he was born sometime around 1480, but this should be taken as a very rough estimate since we have little data to work with other than that he died in 1548 and had adult children of indeterminate ages.

Research Notes

Richard Buckner was claimed to be the ancestor of John Buckner of Virginia in the influential American genealogy the Buckners of Virginia, but that conclusion has turned out to be based on what appear to be fabricated sources. Their actual relationship, if any, is undetermined.

A number of secondary and tertiary genealogies state that Richard's wife was Mary Fabian and sometimes add that she was that daughter of a Thomas Fabian.^[6] No primary source for this assertion is known, and it should be considered dubious. The will of Thomas Fabian, mercer of London (d. 1488) has been examined and it provides no support for this idea.^[7] This theory has often been accommodated by proposing a birthdate for Richard in the 1450s (1451 is often seen), but clearly it is unlikely that his age would have been approaching 100 years at the time of his death.

Buckner genealogists often refer to this particular Richard Buckner as "Rychard Buckner" after the spelling used in the will to disambiguate from various other Richard Buckners. This given name has been relatively frequent among one line of Buckners in America even up to the present day, which is one reason why the present Richard Buckner has long been suspected to be a root ancestor of that immigrant line.

William Buckner of Botley

Some genealogies assume, again without clear evidence, that William Buckner of Botley (d. 1558) was identical to Richard's son William, but this question is still undecided. That they were closely related is clear from the frequent interactions of their children and grandchildren, but no direct evidence is known that would show whether they were father and son, brothers, cousins, uncle and nephew, and so on. On the whole, the evidence suggests the eldest of Richard and William's children were in early adulthood at the times of their deaths in 1548 and 1558, so it's not unreasonable to take this 10 year difference as reflecting the approximate difference in their ages. William of Botley had a daughter Rose who married in 1553, so he clearly had a number of children by 1548, and it's hard to read Richard's will as suggesting that any of his sons had married yet. The eldest son Thomas' children with known birthdates were born in the 1560s, so it's quite likely that he had not yet married at the 1548 date of the will.

Another piece of evidence is that Thomas Buckner of Whitley Sr. (definitely Richard's eldest son) seems to refer to John Buckner (of Botley) as his "cousin" in his 1587 will. John of Botley was the son of William of Botley, so if William was Richard's son, John of Botley should have been a nephew to Thomas of Whitley. While it's not impossible that Thomas used "cousin" in a more generic sense, it seems more likely that he meant it in the more usual sense of first cousins, which they would have been if Richard and William of Botley were brothers.

Finally, the will was witnessed by a William Buckner, which suggests that there were two different adult William Buckners alive and living in the area in 1548, 10 years before the death of William of Botley.

If the son William wasn't William of Botley, there are a few possibilities for what happened to him. For one, an Anne Buckner, d. of William Buckner was buried on 15 Mar 1575 in Soulbury, Bucks, so perhaps William moved to Soulbury and founded that branch of the family. Another is that he was William Buckner of Abbots Langley, Herts., who died in 1607.^[8]

Sources

1. ↑ prob. 1587, BRO Wills H.120
2. ↑ Of whom, see W. Harvey et al., The Visitations of the County of Oxford Taken in the Years 1566, Vol. 5, London: Harleian Sociey, 1871, Google Books
3. ↑ "Rychard Burken of Berkshire", UK Public Record Office PROB 11/32, see http://www.buckbd.com/genea/rychardbwill.html
4. ↑ http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/external/cumnor/documents/survey-1538.htm
5. ↑ W. Harvey et al., The Visitations of the County of Oxford Taken in the Years 1566, Vol. 5, London: Harleian Sociey, 1871, Google Books
6. ↑ e.g. C. Hart, A Genealogy of the Wives of the American Presidents and Their First Two Generations of Descent, McFarland, 2004, p. 221-222
7. ↑ UK National Archives PROB 11/8/145
8. ↑ UK National Archives Prob/11/110 http://www.buckbd.com/genea/wbucknerwill1607.html

• WikiTree profile Buckner-122 created through the import of Paula's family 5-28-2011.GED on May 29, 2011 by Paula Marksman. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Paula and others.

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