There was a branch of the
name BURNETT already established at Bishop Monkton in
the late fifteenth century. Documents exist which give
an account of the "beating of the bounds" of the Liberty
of Ripon, in 1485, in which were involved two men named
John BURNETT, both from Bishop Monkton. The earliest
will so far found for a Bishop Monkton BURNETT is the
will of John BURNETT of Monketon [sic] proved in 1517 -
almost certainly one of the two John's mentioned above.
The will named John's daughter Agnes, son Thomas, wife
Catherine and sister Isabell PAGE. The will of Henry
BURNETT of Bishop Monkton, in 1542, named sons John and
Roger and daughters Agnes and Janet. The recurrence of
the name Agnes and the fact that Henry named a son John
provide some circumstantial evidence that Henry was very
closely related to John who died in 1517.
The first entry in the Ripon
parish register which specified Bishop Monkton as the
residence was the baptism of Ann, daughter of Thomas
BURNETT of Mouncton [sic], on 26 Dec 1579. From other
entries in the Ripon register, it is possible to
identify three more individuals, William, Miles and
Roger BURNETT, who were raising families in Bishop
Monkton between 1590 and 1630. It does not require a
great stretch of the imagination to link Roger back to
Henry BURNETT who died in 1542. Roger had a son named
Edward baptised in 1628 and we can speculate that this
was the Edward BURNETT of Bishop Monkton who had
children baptised between 1670 and 1680. A William
BURNETT of Bishop Monkton also had children baptised
during this time, one of whom was named Roger. There
were three Bishop Monkton men having children baptised
between 1700 and 1720; Peter BURNETT, Thomas BURNETT and
William BURNETT. Any one of these men could have been
the father of a Thomas BURNETT of Bishop Monkton who
married Mary DICKENSON in 1729.
There can be little doubt
that all of the individuals mentioned above were closely
related members of the same family line. We can only
speculate at their family trees, there are just too many
gaps in the Ripon parish register, particularly in the
returns for the chapelry of Bishop Monkton. However,
enough evidence has survived to enable two family trees
to be constructed as follows: