John Maybury of Sussex
Common ancestor of most Mayburys, Mayberrys, Mabrys, etc.

John Maybury, the common ancestor of nearly all Mayburys, Mayberrys, Mabrys, etc., was probably born about 1540 in England. Because parish records prior to about 1550 are very rare, we have not been able to determine the names of his parents. However, we have found a handful of Maybury records from that period with given names and locations which may well be an earlier generation of the family of John Maybury of Sussex.

The first positive record we have for John Maybury's immediate family is that of his marriage to Margaret Bourder at Brightling, Sussex in 1565. We also have the record of his second marriage to the widow, Alice Fuller at Mayfield, Sussex in June 1576; records of the baptism of several of his children; and burial records of Margaret Bourder, Alice Fuller, and several of the children. We have also found a significant number of records relating to John Maybury's employment as a "hammerman" in various iron works.

John and Margaret Bourder Maybury were the parents of four sons and three daughters when Margaret died in February 1576. She and three of John Maybury's children are buried at St. Dunstan's Church in Mayfield, Sussex (picture at left). John Maybury's second wife was Alice Fuller, by whom he had two more children. In the late 1590s the iron industry, having depleted most of the forests of the Weald, began to move to other parts of England. By about 1600 John Maybury and two of his sons were working in Staffordshire and Derbyshire. John may have been working near Ellastone in Staffordshire when his wife, Alice, died in May 1603. John then married a woman named Eleanor, by whom he had at least one more child, William, born in Monmouthshire in 1606.

John Maybury also had two illegitimate children, a daughter and a son, who were born about 1570 and 1573 in Sussex. Thus he was the father of seven sons and six daughters. The Maybury name has been passed on through at least three of his sons, Nicholas, Clement and John (1577).

The children of John Maybury

The children of John Maybury and his wife, Margaret Border, are named in the will of Margaret's brother, Richard Border, which was proved in Sussex in 1582.

1. Joan Maybury [by Margaret Border] - probably born in 1566 or 1567, the oldest child of John and Margaret Border. was likely named for her maternal grandmother, Joan Border. Johan Maybery (sic) was married to James Turnys on 4 June 1593 at Burwash, Sussex. On 22 March 1593/94 was buried at Etchingham, Sussex after giving birth to a son, who was baptized the same day.
2. Nicholas Maybury [by Margaret Border] - was born about 1567 or 1568 at Brightling or Etchingham in Sussex. Nicholas, like his father was a hammerman. He married a woman named Marye (Mary), who died in 1633 in Whittington, Shropshire. We know that in 1633 he was a hammerman atf Fernhill forge near Oswestry in Shropshire. Nicholas was buried on 13 March 1634 also at Whittington, Shropshire.
3. Elizabeth Maybury [by Margaret Border] - was baptized at Etchingham, Sussex on 30 January 1568/69. She died in January 1592/92 at Etchingham and was unmarried.
4. John Maybury - a "base born child of John Mayberie", was baptized on 13 August 1570 at Etchingham, Sussex. The parish record does not identify the mother. He very likely the John Mayberie (sic) who was buried on 5 May 1593 at Bexhill in Sussex.
5. Richard Maybury [by Margaret Border] - was baptized on 10 September 1570 at Etchingham, Sussex. Richard died in infancy sometime in the year 1572 and was buried at Mayfield, Sussex.
6. Dorothy Maybury [by Margaret Border] - was baptized on 17 January 1571/72 at Mayfield, Sussex. Dorothy died in infancy and was buried on 5 February 1571/72 at Mayfield, Sussex.
7. Christopher Maybury [by Margaret Border] - was baptized on 1 March 1572/73 at Mayfield, Sussex. He is probably the same Christopher Maybowrie (sic), whose daughter, Elizabeth, was baptized at St. Botolph's Parish in London on 3 August 1600. Beyond that we have found no other record of Christopher Maybury. He may or may not have had other children.
8. Awdryan Maybury - "a base born daughter" was baptized to John Maybury sometime in 1573 at Mayfield. She apparently lived only two months and was buried at Mayfield the same year. There is nothing in the record to identify the mother.
9. Mary Maybury [by Margaret Border] - was baptized on 25 April 1574 at Mayfield, Sussex. No additional record of Mary Maybury has been found.
10. Clement Maybury [by Margaret Border] - was baptized on 4 December 1575 at Mayfield, Sussex. He was a hammerman and is known to have worked at Wednesbury, Staffordshire, where he had several children baptized, and also at Parkend Forge in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, where he had a child baptized in 1617. Just over two months after Clement Maybury was baptized, his mother, Margaret Maberye (sic) died. Four months later, his father Jonathan Maberye (sic) married his second wife, Alice Fuller at Mayfield. Alice was the widow of William Fuller.
11. John Maybury [by Alice Fuller] - was baptized on 6 April 1577 at Mayfield, Sussex. He was also a hammerman, was at Makeney in Derbyshire by 1598 and remained there until about 1605 when he moved to Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. He was buried at Cleobury Mortimer on 20 January 1655.
12. Agnes Maybury [by Alice Fuller] - was baptized on 30 November 1578 at Mayfield, Sussex. No additional records of Agnes have been found.
13. William Maybury [by Eleanor _____] - was baptized on 25 July 1606 at Monmouth in Monmouthshire. We have found no further record of this William and it may be that he died as a child.

In recent years our progress has been considerable. We know that most of John Maybury's sons and many of his grandsons continued in the iron trade as "hammermen" or "forgemen". We are also discovering where they worked along with other details of their families. The records left by John Maybury and his children spell the family name several different ways including: Meberie, Maberye, Mayberye, Mayberie, Maybery, Maybury, etc.

We are now working to reconstruct the third and fourth generations of the family in England. This is difficult because the same given names (John, William, Thomas, Richard, Elizabeth and Mary) were used over and over in succeeding generations. While our chart of John Maybury's descendants will never be complete, we are trying to make it as accurate as possible. Once this is done it should be somewhat easier for modern Mayburys to trace their ancestry back to John Maybury of Sussex through one of his children. And even those who are unable to document their line using conventional genealogical methods now have a good chance of proving it by a simple DNA test.








February 2009