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This article is from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

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Chancy (Chancey, Chansy), Edmund (Edmond)

by Mattie Erma E. Parker, 1979

d. ca. 1677

Edmund (Edmond) Chancy (Chancey, Chansy), council member in North Carolina, came to the colony before September 1670 and settled in Pasquotank Precinct. He was a member of the council in 1672 and died in or before 1677. Little more is known about his life.

In his will, Chancy named Valentine Bird trustee of his estate and custodian of his children; Bird died soon after Chancy's death, and his widow, Margaret Bird, settled the Chancy estate which was appraised at about £226. The estate was later placed in the custody of Matthias Towler, who was appointed guardian for Chancy's orphans.

Chancy left three or perhaps four children, apparently already motherless. Hannah, who seems to have been the eldest, married Thomas Burnsby (Bonsby, Burnby) in 1684. Edmund, Jr. (called Edward in some records), was about fourteen at the time of Hannah's marriage. He requested that his new brother-in-law be made his guardian, and the court complied. Edmund himself was married by September 1703 to a woman named Sarah. A third Chancy orphan was William, who married Deborah Simons, daughter of Jeremiah Simons, in February 1700/1701. An Elizabeth Chancy, who married Samuel Nicholson in about 1688, probably was a daughter of Edmund Chancy, Sr., but has not been positively identified as such. Edmund, Jr., William, and Elizabeth were Quakers; Hannah appears not to have belonged to that faith.

References:

North Carolina Historical and Genealogical Register, 3 vols. (1900–1903).

William Wade Hinshaw, comp., Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, vol. 1 (1936).

Mary Weeks Lambeth, Memories and Records of Eastern North Carolina (1957).

North Carolina State Archives (Raleigh), for Albemarle Book of Warrants and Surveys (1681–1706), application of Thomas Burnsby and Hannah Chancy for marriage license in 1684 (in Albemarle County Papers, 1678–1714), Council Minutes, Wills, Inventories (1677–1701), Guardians' bonds of Thomas Burnsby and Matthias Towler (in Administrators' Bonds), Perquimans Births, Marriages, Deaths, and Flesh Marks (1701–1820), Wills of Thomas Burnby [sic] and Jeremiah Simons (in North Carolina Wills).

Mattie Erma Edwards Parker, ed., North Carolina Higher-Court Records, 1670–1696 (1968).

William S. Powell, ed., Ye Countie of Albemarle in Carolina (1958).

Quaker Collection (Guilford College Library, Greensboro), for records of Pasquotank and Perquimans Monthly Meetings.

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