Donne, Anthony of Carmarthen and London born c 1693

[jacqueline cox]

How wise of your ancestors to leave England for Maryland when they did. Charles 1 was bad enough, but a Catholic family would have been at risk once the Civil War began.
My Living DNA analysis shows that I have about 4% DNA from the South West, which I cannot otherwise account for. Perhaps my Donnes had connections in Cornwall, but since my paper trail runs out in the late c17th in Kidwelly in Wales, I am unlikely ever to fnd a connection.

[sarah]

update from josephldunn

I've positively identified the original Thomas Donne, 14 y/o immigrant to Jamestown, along with his son, Robert Donne, who immigrated to Kent, Maryland. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/family/K8K1-F2Y
From there, I've tracked them back to Parkham, Devon, England. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/K4VG-NL6

[josephldunn]

https://dunnfamilyofvirginia.blogspot.com/2023/03/john-ross-dunn-esq-1697-1783.html

[roycymru]

Anthony Donne of Fforest Llangendeirne who died 1777 left a Will https://viewer.library.wales/238541 . In this Will is mentioned brother Robert Donne of Bedlyen (?) Street, Holborn, London. Anthony Donne Gentelman married a Margaret Rees on 31 May 1774 in Llangendeirne.

Mentioned are sons Anthony and Charles Dau Mary and brother Charles (as above). For some reason this Will doesn’t seem to be on Ancestry

[roycymru]

Anthony Donne, Gent. (no age given) was buried 06 Sep 1777, Llangendeirne

[roycymru]

Anthony Donne Gent. was previously married to Elizabeth Edwards in Llangendeirne on 03Sep 1765. At the time it says he was living in Swansea, but it is him, the signatures are the same, so some of the children mentioned in his Will may be from the previous marriage. On Findmypast there is a Charles Donne baptised 1774 and 1775 (presumably the first dies young), so Charles looks to be a result of his marriage to Margaret Rees and presumably the others from his previous marriage.

Ch Donne (1st) was buried 28 Mar 1774 Llangendeirne. Charles Donne (2nd) was baptised 09 Oct 1775 Llangendeirne

[jacqueline cox]

One brother in London, Robert, is my 5 x great grandfather and lived at Red Lion Street, Holborn. His father was Anthony born at Kidwelly in 1693. Anthony 1693 was also father to 2 other sons called Anthony, 1st born and died in 1725 and 2nd born in 1726; it was he who returned to Carmarthen and married Margaret Rees. Robert was born in 1733 and I think the 2 brothers conducted a London and Welsh end of a business; Anthony snr was apprenticed to a Carmarthan man named Morgan, in London,a clockmaker, and became a respected clockmaker himself. Both Anthony jnr and Robert were apprenticed to him, as well as other.

[roycymru]

Thank you for this information. Although my links to the Donnes are indirect it all very interesting.

It maybe worth you while exploring Welsh Wills on line further for Donne Wills.

https://www.library.wales/catalogues-searching/catalogues/specialist-catalogues/wills

There are several on there. You can search by name and Parish. You can just enter the name as Donne and then select a parish e.g. Cydweli. This brings up 5 wills.

e.g

David Donne of Cydweli/Kidwelly from 1661. The Will is difficult to read but it mentions a Robert Donne as his oldest son and executor. Also a daughter Sage and another son Thomas.

https://viewer.library.wales/905058

If you do the above and choose the parish as Llangynderyn it brings up the Anthony Donne will previously mentioned and that for his son Anthony Morgan Donne 1829 (from his first marriage)

https://viewer.library.wales/392111

[roycymru]

Also…., depending on how much you want to follow these up, extensive parish records are now on Ancestry, Findmypast and other sites. Personally, I find the search options on Findmypast much better than other sites and they seem to have done more transcribing of these records. You can do some basic searching on Findmypast without subscribing. You would start here

https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-united-kingdom-records-in-birth-marriage-death-and-parish-records

And then select Parish baptisms. Marriages or Burials as appropriate. To start with you could just select surname, Donne, (ensure you tick name variants) and then a date range. To narrow down the results in “Record Set” start typing in the parish of interest e.g. Carmarthenshire then select the appropriate options that pop up. As Anthony Donne lived in Swansea for a while you could also select Glamorganshire as the “Record Set”. You could narrow down further e.g. for baptisms you could select  Donne’s with father’s name Anthony.

Results can be sorted in year order

To find more details you would need to subscribe, but you can just subscribe on a monthly basis if you want. Alternatively you could use the results from your Findmypast search for finding the record on Ancestry, Freereg (https://www.freereg.org.uk/) or FamilySearch e.g. https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1403176