I’ve recently been going through some Westminster (Middlesex) parish register images for 1609. The Baffin family seem to have had a very tragic period in 1609.From the burials there are the following entries:
8 June Joseph
22 June Elizabeth
25 June Marie
11 July William
19 July William
20 July John
20 July Richard
21 July Alice
26 July Margerie
The Parish Registers give no further details about the individuals i.e. age or relationship. There were obviously at least one survivor, another William Baffin – the navigator after whom Baffin Island and Bay were named. His is first recorded in 1612 so it may be a case that he was on board a ship at the time in 1609. There were few Baffins after this date until there were changes to a Boffin line (unsure if deliberate or by accident) to Baffin. Although the explorer married Susan Hodges in 1607 I haven’t identified any offspring (may be in the above). He was killed on 23 April 1622 at Qeshm now in Iran. His wife remarried John Fisher in 1623.
I haven’t found any likely links of events about this time but of course it was not long before the Great Plague of 1615 and the Great Fire of 1666.
William Baffin’s widow was interviewed by the East India Company after his death and in 1628 received £500 in settlement of her claim for his estate. She was accompanied at the original hearing by a Robert Bourne. What the author(s) of ”The voyages of William Baffin”, printed by the Hakluyt Society, and others probably didn’t recognise was that Baffin is an alias* of Baughan and that ‘Bourne’ would have sounded the same. The search for more evidence continues.
* WILL OF SAMUEL BAUGHAN – 1692
BODLEIAN LIBRARY REF 1697 W 92.332;8/2/23 SAMUEL BAUGHAN
In the name of god Amen I Samuell Baughan alt Baffin of Rowlewright alt Rowlandwright in the County of Oxon collermaker being ……