Ancestors

Ferris Quenell

Ferris Quenell was baptised at Horsham, in Sussex, on 17 April 1587: "Ferris the daughter of Henry Quynnell by Beatrix his wife." Her parents had married there on 30 January 1585/6. Horsham had two Henry Quynnells at the time, and her father was the younger. The 1945 Bushnell genealogy makes her a granddaughter of the elder Henry and a great-granddaughter of a third. Her mother was buried at Horsham on 2 July 1610, in a year of plague, when Ferris had two small sons. Other Sussex Quenells of the period lived at Petworth, Rogate, Linchmere and Pulborough.

On 13 May 1605 she married Francis Bushnell in the parish church of St Mary the Virgin at Horsham. She was eighteen. The clerks wrote her name as Ferris, Pharis and Pherris. Over the next twenty two years she bore eleven children there: Edmund, Francis, William, Steephen, Joane, Thomas, Mary, Rebeca, Richard, Sara and Elizabeth. Thomas died at two weeks in 1617. Steephen was buried at twelve in March 1624/5.

In 1626, when the parish drew up a seating plan, she was given "a Seate under the new gallary stayers for Pharis Bushnell, the wife of Frauncis Bushnell, to belong to him and his heirs for ever." Her husband was churchwarden that year.

Her last child, Elizabeth, was baptised on 5 March 1627/8. Five days later mother and daughter were buried together. The register reads: "Pherris BUSHNELL, wife of Frauncis," buried 10 March 1627/8. The Bushnell genealogy says she died in childbirth. She was about forty. Her husband married Joane Kinward in June 1629.

Five of her sons went to New England in 1635, and her husband followed in 1639 with her daughters Sarah and Rebecca. William settled at Saybrook and Richard at Norwalk, and both founded Connecticut families.

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Cite: Heirology, "Ferris Quenell (1587-1627)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/ferris-quenell-1587-1627-9840f3.