BUNCE
                        by Bonnie Bunce
                        Tue Nov 17 1992
               -------------------------------
 -=> Quoting Linda Beilein to Bonnie Bunce <=-

 LB> I am looking for information on Mary Ellen BUNCE daughter of
 LB> John BUNCE AND MARY O'BRIEN.  She married Robert KIRBY in
 LB> either Ontario, Canada or the Rochester, New york area.  Any
 LB> possiblity of a connection 

Linda, how nice to hear from another Bunce researcher; there seems to
be so few of us.  No, I don't have a record of either John or Mary
Ellen Bunce in my own family tree.  To my knowledge, the only male in
my line that lived to have children was my g.grandfather, Peter
Bunce, Jr. b.1823 in NY.  His brothers all died young and none was
named John. Peter moved to Kansas in 1857 and had a a son named John
Jay who was b.1851, but John Jay stayed in Kansas, didn't go back
East.  I will check through my file and see if anyone else has sent
me information about them over the years.  You didn't provide me with
any dates, but may I assume they lived in the 1800's?

Have you heard of Mrs. Alice K. Howard's 250-page manuscript on the
Bunce family?  It's entitled "Genealogy of the Bunce Family of Conn.
compiled by Alice Kennedy Howard during period of 1960-71."  It seems
to be the only book written on the Bunces of Conn.  She wrote it up
back in the mid-1970's and was the result of her research on tracing
the descendants of Thomas Bunce who was b. in England in 1612, and
settled in Hartford, Conn. about 1636.  Mrs. Howard had had a
step-father named Bunce for whom she had a high regard and she
compiled the book in his memory. I corresponded with her a couple of
times before she died, and she told me that she had given copies of
her manuscript to 4 institutions where Bunces had lived:  Conn. State
Library in Hartford, Conn.; New Bedford Library in Providence, RI;
Bennington Vermont Museum; and the Worcester Antiquarian Society,
Worcester MA.  Perhaps one of these is close to where you live or you
can write one of them for help.

My Peter Bunce, Sr. was in the section of the manuscript Mrs. Howard
called "Unclaimed Bunces" and it was only a reference to his marriage
to Rhoda Loomis.  I have copies of those pages from her manuscript,
because once I offered to exchange work with a genealogist who lived
in Mass. and he got them for me.  There are a number of John Bunces
in that section but none who married a woman named Mary O'Brien.
It's possible your John Bunce appears elsewhere in the manuscript and
his line can be traced back to Thomas Bunce of Hartford.  The
manuscript does have an index, so it wouldn't take long to do a
search for John Bunces.  You should try to find a copy.

Also, if you don't think that Mrs. Howard's book may have your
ancestor, you might try writing to the Long Island Genealogical
Society in New York.

When I first started working on genealogy, I wrote them a letter and
received an answer from Mrs. Arthur W. (Harriett) Davis who was
researching Bunces on Long Island.  She was the one who told me about
Mrs. Howard's work.  Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Howard determined that there
seemed to be no connection between the Bunces on Long Island and
those who descended from Thomas Bunce. Perhaps your line comes from
the Long Island Bunces.  Mrs. Davis was working on a compiling a
genealogy, too, but I never heard whether she had it published or
not, but she was good friends with the woman who was president of the
Long Island Genealogical Society at that time (1975) and they might
be able to tell you whether a book had been published on Long Island
Bunces.

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