Branch 2
There are several books in our shop that relate to the branch 2 Braunds. You may also be interested in this information about Bucks Mills, Devon, which was the home of many branch 2 Braunds. For genealogical information about this branch of the family, contact us. If you would like to be put in touch with other members of branch 2, please ask for your contact details to be passed to Chris Braund, the branch co-ordinator. The family trees will enlarge if you click on them.
Branch 2 is one of the largest branches of the family, with many people descending from the couple at the top of the tree, William and Agnes Braund, who were having children in West Putford, Devon in the 1670s and 1680s. This branch includes the Braunds of Bucks Mills, the family arriving there in the early years of the nineteenth century. The surviving West Putford church records do not begin until the middle of the seventeenth century, so it is difficult to be certain of William’s ancestry. There are definitely close links with branches 5 and 25 and we can speculate on how these branches link and the identity of William’s parents. In the absence of more records, this remains an informed guess. It is also likely that branches 15,18 and 24 are closely connected.
The first four generations of the branch 2 tree are common to all known living branch 2 Braunds, so all descend from John Braund, who married Mary Morris in Woolfardisworthy West, Devon in 1770. Six of their seven children have present day descendants, three of the sons having children by four women from the Glover family. In all, John and Mary Braund née Morris are known to have had sixty two grandchildren. Until the twentieth century, almost all the men in this branch of the family were fishermen or sailors.
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The eldest son, John Braund, went to live in Bucks Mills. Nothing is known of the second son, William. Thomas settled in Clovelly, along with his sister, Mary and her husband, John Jewell. Elizabeth kept a shop at Bucks Cross, where her husband, Francis Cory, farmed. Joseph and James followed their brother, John, to Bucks Mills and together they became the ancestors of ‘The Braunds of Bucks’. The last Braund of Bucks to live in the village was Noel Braund, who died in 1997. Many descendants still live locally but others emigrated to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, often taking their skills as mariners with them.
The most notorious Bucks Mills resident was Captain James, known as the ‘King of Bucks’, the son of Joseph Braund and Susanna Glover. He married his cousin, Mary Braund, the daughter of his uncle James and they had eleven children. Although this generation were a little less prolific, particularly the girls, James and Mary had forty six grandchildren.
