Elizabeth (Cooke) Buckner (abt. 1662 - 1748)

Born about 1662 in Mordecai's Mount, Gloucester, Virginia

Descendants

Died 14 Sep 1748 at about age 86 in Golden Vale, Caroline, Virginia

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Stormy Knight [send private message]

Note: See Detached Profiles (below) for information about two sets of parents that were detached. For a note about reattaching profiles as her parents, see the section following Detached Profiles.

Biography

Elizabeth (Cooke) Buckner was a Virginia colonist.

Elizabeth Cooke^[1]

Husband: Richard Buckner of Essex county, son of John Buckner, of Gloucester county^[2]

"clerk of Essex County in 1703, and clerk of House of Burgess in 1713, will March 4th, 1733"^[1]

Children

"for descendants, see The Buckners of Virginia, p 34 et seq."^[1]

see also corrections to The Buckners of Virginia by Ben Buckner (and Ben's review of the book)

The first certain mention of her is from an Essex Co. land transfer between Richard Buckner and Robert Dudley dated 15 Sep 1719, when she relinquished her dower rights. (Incidentally, their marriage date might possibly be bracketed if there are any earlier transfers by Richard that lacked the legally necessary dower relinquishment.) There is another possible earlier reference in the Essex Co. deed books dated 18-19 Jul 1715 when Richard and Elizabeth Buckner witnessed a lease & release deed from Samuel Prosser.

An 8 Nov 1753 Caroline County Order Book entry shows an order for Robert Gilchrist, Nicholas Bataille, James Taylor, and William Allcock Gent to divide the estate of Richard Buckner according to his will, per the petition of the widow Eliza. Buckner. This suggests that Elizabeth survived her husband by many years. A "widow Buckner" and "Elizabeth Buckner" mentioned frequently in Caroline Co. records during the period may be her, though she may be easily confused with Elizabeth Buckner, the widow of Richard's nephew John Buckner whose estate was administrated in Caroline Co. around 1740.

Marriage

The date of her marriage to Richard Buckner is not known, and since the birthdates of their certain children are also not known very well, with the exception of Susanna around 1721, it is difficult to estimate with any accuracy, but clearly it was before the Dudley deed of 1719. Their (probably) eldest son Richard (q.v.) was probably born before 1712 though (based on legal majority), so it's reasonable to suppose it was in the 1700-1710 range, but earlier dates cannot be easily ruled out. Many secondary sources have stated dates, but these seem to be based on assumptions about the ages and identities of their children that are uncertain at best.^[3]

Research Notes

Reliable sources needed for father, whom Stubbs says was Mordecai (also Mordecay) Cooke, "the Immigrant in 1639". He died before 1667.^[1]

following was previously posted to the profile

Birth Year Note: 1662 to 1680 = range of years during which she was born. Considering that she would have been 50 years old when John was born, using the earlier date, 1680 is more likely. Place of birth appears variously as London, England, or Gloucester Co., Virginia.

Born c1680 puts her birth well after the death dates on the profiles of Mordecai I and his wife Susannah Thresher. Mordecai is said to have had had five known children & that daughter Elizabeth married Richard Buckner. Elizabeth and Richard are said to have had a daughter, Susannah, born 1721. Pushing Elizabeth's birth year back to the 1660s doesn't work with a daughter born 1721.

This profile was detached from Mordecai Mordecai Cooke and Susannah Thresher 2 April 2021.

Personal opinion of Ben Buckner: Stubbs is very error-prone and should generally be avoided as a source.

Stubbs (p. 22) bases the Cooke identification on Elizabeth and Anne Buckner being called aunts of Henry Fitzhugh's son John, since Henry's wife was Susannah Cooke. Now, if two Buckner wives were aunts, does it seem likely that they were aunts through the Cookes? These are probably the wives of John Buckner and Richard Buckner, two brothers, so, assuming "aunt" isn't just a casual courtesy expression here, one would think it more likely that Henry Fitzhugh's wife was a sister of John and Richard. It's also possible that they were blood sisters of Henry Fitzhugh, though it seems more likely that there was an undocumented Buckner daughter than two undocumented Fitzhugh daughters, the Fitzhughs being much more prominent people. Unfortunately, the primary source for Susannah being a Cooke by birth is unclear, making it difficult to check this possibility (she definitely was named Cooke when they married, so this would only work if she was a young Cooke widow). Worth noting, perhaps, is that Richard and Elizabeth Buckner named a daughter Susannah.

Elizabeth was born about 1662. She passed away about 1748. ^[4]

Detached Profiles

Her parents are not known. Per message from Ben Buckner (29 Sep 2017), regarding uncertainty of Elizabeth's purported relationships to Mordecai Cooke II and Frances (Ironmonger) Cooke of Gloucester (both born 1649, married in 1674, and died 1718 & 1695, respectively, according to their profiles as of 3 June 2023), they were removed as parents in 2017. In 2021, the profiles attached as parents were Mordecai Cooke I and Susanna. Although that had some support, the death dates on their profiles were earlier than 1675 (Elizabeth's birth year on this profile at the time) and they were also detached as her parents. While dates on this profile and on Mordecai and Susanna's profiles accommodate a 1662 birth of a child as of 3 June 2023, Susanna would have been 54 (according to the birth year on her profile), which is more than a decade past normal childbearing years for women in colonial America:

• Mordecai Cooke I (abt.1610-bef.1664)
• Susannah (Thresher) Cooke (abt.1608-aft.1667)

Merge Note

This profile is the result of a merger of two Elizabeth (Cooke) Buckners, married to the same man, Richard Buckner. They were not two individuals, The dates associated with both profiles are estimates. The 1662 date is consistent with her being a daughter of Mordecai¹ as reported in Stubbs, p 22, where the date of birth of 1648/9 was given for her brother Mordecai. If their father died before 1667, a birth year of 1662 is not unlikely. That said, it is recognized that solid sources for this time and place were destroyed by fire, and therefore hard to come by, and that one researcher, at least, has declared Stubbs unreliable. All that said, we have different interpretations, and therefore multiple profiles for each of the members of this complex family. The point made about a 1662 birth year rendering too old to be giving birth in her 50s and 60s is well taken, and it may be that THIS Elizabeth isn't the one who married a Buckner, and, similarly, the Richard Buckner she is alleged to have married is not the one she is attached to here. For all these reasons, it would seem that more research is needed to see if there was a different Elizabeth and/or Richard - one couple born in the 1660s, and the other born n the 1690s. Ish. Finally, there is a rumor that one Elizabeth Buckner married a Mordecai. Some folks say that particular Mordecai married Francis Whiting. If Elizabeth Buckner married anyone, wouldn't she be the child of a Buckner, not a Cooke? I think that this Elizabeth Cooke should be reattached to Mordecai Cooke, son of the Immigrant.

Data Warning

Upon saving on 3 June 2023, the following automated message was received:

Caution: Unusual information. Is the following correct?

• It's unusual for a mother's birth date (Cooke-52 born 1662) to be more than 55 years before the birth date of one of her children (Buckner-1232 born 1720).

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} William Carter Stubbs and Elizabeth Saunders Blair Stubbs, Descendants of Mordecai Cooke of Mordecai's Mount, Gloucester Co., Va., 1650, and Thomas Booth of Ware Neck, Gloucester Co., Va., 1685 (page 22) Hathi Trust
2. ↑ Richard Buckner, Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, Lyon Gardiner Tyler
3. ↑ Yates Publishing, U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 (Ancestry Online publication, 2004). Original data...extracted from a variety of sources including family group sheets and electronic databases. APID: 7836::0
4. ↑ Unsourced family tree handed down to Stormy Knight.

• FSFTID 27JV-4QH, source cited for the WikiTree profile Cooke-1117 created 20 June 2011:
  • FamilySearch Person: 27JV-4QH for Elizabeth Cooke (about 1660–7 May 1734) - "Person 27JV-4QH has been combined. The new PID for this person is LZPN-JB7." FamilySearch Person: LZPN-JB7 - "This person was deleted by merge. Surviving person: Elizabeth Cooke"... FamilySearch Person: MDC7-45W, the surviving person, was deleted with the note "Too young to have been Elizabeth's mother".
• Mattel, Inc. Title: World Family Tree Vol. 36, Ed. 1 Abbreviation: World Family Tree Vol. 36, Ed. 1 Publication: Release date: June 1999 Note: Customer pedigree.
• GenGophers book

Acknowledgments

• A profile for this person was created through the import of WikiTree.ged on 20 February 2011.
• A profile for this person was created on 19 March 2011 through the import of KRH Family Tree_2010-12-30.ged.
• WikiTree profile Cook-2336 created through the import of Shurtliff Family.ged on Jun 20, 2011 by Mark Shurtliff.
• Theresa Ellenwood created WikiTree profile Cooke-1852 through the import of LucindaElizaBatesAncestors.ged on Mar 5, 2013.
• WikiTree profile Cooke-2547 created by Sjana Dreyer through the import of 01_26_07_complete.ged on Jul 15, 2014.
• Wilkey, Donald C. - GEDCOM file wilkey_peterkin.ged