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Smuggling Punnetts

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RE: Smuggling Punnetts
by susanlescurrie on Sun, Feb 28 2010 9:50 AM
Last Edit: Sun, Feb 28 2010 9:55 AM
This is interesting - I've not heard of any reference for Punnetts from the Isle of Jersey....

Has Betty Jane responded to the query of whether "her" smugglers in her family lore came from the UK, France or Barbados and environs?

Betty, if you are reading this, good to "meet" you. My husband Les, is a Punnett descendant, born at Ivy Cottage in Punnetts Town. We reside in BC Canada, but we came from Montreal and met at McGill. It looks like you were at McGill the same time we were - small world!
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susanlescurrie
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RE: Smuggling Punnetts
by VictoriaPunnett on Sat, Feb 27 2010 7:33 PM
Most people researching the family have concluded that James came from Hooe, and I'm inclined to that hypothesis. However, we don't know that for a fact. Ephraim Punnett (my great granduncle who came to the US from Punnetts Town as a toddler) said that the Punnetts came from the Ise of Jersey. This is from my Uncle Dick, who has been encouraging me to follow up on that idea. Where Thomas came from is just conjecture as far as I know. There were generations of Punnetts living in nearby Crowhurst at that time. Any of those locations were likely to be home to smugglers. The more I learn, the less I know!
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VictoriaPunnett
VictoriaPunnett
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RE: Smuggling Punnetts
by susanlescurrie on Sun, Feb 21 2010 10:37 AM
If one picks up on the idea that the "smugglers" were originally three brothers, the first Punnett who went ot Punnetts Town didn't have three brothers. I'm wondering if the original "smuggler" with or without brothers, was Thomas (Punnitt) of Hooe, which was a hotbed of smuggling activity at that time. The smuggling story may have become part of the family lore when James arrived several generations later, in Punnetts Town.
Speaking of Thomas, I have a reference passed along to me, not sourced, that Thomas was born in 1662, in Rye Sussex. Can anybody source this date? Then perhaps one could research whether Thomas had brothers....
VictoriaPunnett Wrote:It has been said that the first Punnett to arrive in the location now known as Punnetts Town was a smuggler, a Frenchman who was escaping the law by hiding in the now Punnetts Town and fell in love with a local maiden. Another story I have heard is that he was not precisely a smuggler, but a privateer, who was hired by the English king to help French aristocrats escape to England, presumably during the French Revolution. What have you heard, or what do you know?
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susanlescurrie
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RE: Smuggling Punnetts
by VictoriaPunnett on Sat, Feb 21 2009 8:12 AM
BJ, do you suppose "your" smugglers and "my" smuggler(s) could be the same? Do you think that we could get John to swab his cheek for the DNA project? That would tell us at least whether the Punnetts Town Punnetts and the Caribbean Punnetts were related in the last 1.000 years. Did the smugglers of your family's lore operate out of the Caribbean, England, or France?
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VictoriaPunnett
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RE: Smuggling Punnetts
by bettyjanepunnett on Sat, Feb 21 2009 7:29 AM
Last Edit: Sat, Feb 21 2009 7:30 AM
VictoriaPunnett Wrote:It has been said that the first Punnett to arrive in the location now known as Punnetts Town was a smuggler, a Frenchman who was escaping the law by hiding in the now Punnetts Town and fell in love with a local maiden. Another story I have heard is that he was not precisely a smuggler, but a privateer, who was hired by the English king to help French aristocrats escape to England, presumably during the French Revolution. What have you heard, or what do you know?


The Caribbean Punnett lore has always been that the Punnetts were smugglers. We knew them as three brothers. Wonder what others have heard.
Betty Jane Punnett
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Smuggling Punnetts
by VictoriaPunnett on Fri, Feb 20 2009 5:34 PM
It has been said that the first Punnett to arrive in the location now known as Punnetts Town was a smuggler, a Frenchman who was escaping the law by hiding in the now Punnetts Town and fell in love with a local maiden. Another story I have heard is that he was not precisely a smuggler, but a privateer, who was hired by the English king to help French aristocrats escape to England, presumably during the French Revolution. What have you heard, or what do you know?
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VictoriaPunnett
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