For the past couple of weeks, I have dwelt on the darker side of our family histories. The black sheep and the shame they brought to their families at the time. Sometimes looking at their actions through our current day values rehabilitates them and shows them just to be human. Sometimes what they did will remain a dark stain on the family tree for all time.
Occasionally, however, it is difficult to know whether someone was a black sheep or just had a very exciting and unusual life! I have an ancestor who I am hesitant to label a black sheep using the limited amount of information I have. I have my suspicions he wasn’t always the ‘good guy’ but suspect his full story will never be known.
The glimpses into his life that I have found have intrigued me and left me wanting more. But for a man who clearly lived his life to the fullest, he left remarkably few records of it. Okay, that’s probably not true. There will be records somewhere. It’s just time to pull out all stops to find them. And perhaps I shouldn’t be writing about him till I’ve done that, but he irresistibly draws me in while we’re on this topic of ‘outrageous ancestors’!
Captain Ferdinando Kuffeler
Ferdinando Kuffeler was born in 1646, the son of Johannes Siebertus Kuffeler and his wife Catherine Drebbel (daughter of Cornelis Drebbel). I am yet to find evidence of his baptism. He may have been born in London where his father operated a dye works in Stratford-by-Bow. More likely he was born in the Netherlands, where the family also had dye works in Katwijk and Hulckenstyn near Arnhem, and where his younger brother Edward was baptised. My next step in locating his baptism records will be to do a deep dive into Dutch records around these areas in particular.
The first official records I have of his existence appear in 1668. On 22nd October, a marriage allegation is completed in London, showing him to be a bachelor of St Margaret’s Westminster, and his intended bride Katherine Graves of St Clements Danes. That very same day, they rushed off to the Chapel of the Holy Trinity in Knightsbridge and got married. In that same year, he is listed as a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber of Charles II. This is somewhat unsurprising, given that his grandfather had been at the court of James I, and his father had been involved in attempting to develop an exploding torpedo for Charles II.
Bigamist or widower?
At some stage, probably in the early to mid-1770s his wife bore him a daughter, Catherine. No baptism has been found, but she married in 1697 at St Margaret’s Westminster, to a John Burchett. I have found no evidence of Ferdinando and Katherine having any other children together.
Recently I found a Dutch book of pedigrees published in 1760 which contained the Kuffeler family, including Ferdinando. Known names and dates tallied well and it provided the names of several additional siblings to Ferdinando that I had not known of. It even stated categorically that Ferdinando had one child.
I flipped the page expecting to see the child listed as being Catherine. But no…it was a Leonora! Herein lies another mystery. Was he widowed and did he remarry in the Netherlands? If so, why would the book not show both sets of offspring?
I am slightly suspicious that Ferdinando may have had a family on both sides of the sea. I have not found a marriage for him yet in the Netherlands, nor is his Dutch wife named in this document. No burial record for Katherine has yet been found.
Interestingly, Leonora’s son Abraham Engelgraaf was living in London at the time of his death in 1775, which names the same wife as in the document shown above – so the family definitely had links with England. Whether or not the Engelgraafs and Burchetts knew one another is yet to be discovered, however!
Privateer or Scammer?
Now here is where I get really mystified as to how so little has been written about Ferdinando. Look at the advertisement below, found in a compendium called Rariora. The story sounds like an Errol Flynn-style swashbuckling adventure! Interestingly he is referred to as Captain Kuffeler, hinting at some kind of military, perhaps naval career. No evidence has been found so far that this is the case.
There are a couple of possibilities here. Ferdinando really was taken prisoner and learnt of the wreck of a Spanish Galleon loaded with treasures galore. Or he made it up. Did he really swear an oath in Chancery? He may have, but it hasn’t turned up in the catalogue of the National Archives. Still digging. Did he really get a licence to fish for the wreck, or is it some elaborate hoax? Still looking. Regardless, at least one person bought shares…
Mr Charles Gostwick, a gentleman of St Giles in the Fields bought 120 of the 1000 shares from Ferdinando. If the expedition was successful, presumably he ended up an extremely wealthy man. I suspect he didn’t.
We know the Ferdinando Kuffeler selling the shares was the same Ferdinando as the one married to Katherine Graves (as if the strikingly unusual name wasn’t enough!). Take a look at the bottom of the Indenture and you can see his faint signature. A great match for the one on the marriage allegation.
I have as yet found no further mention of Ferdinando in records of the time, official or unofficial. He seems to have disappeared completely though he managed to remain partially obscured for most of his life.
Forgive me for doubting his integrity, but at this stage, I am unconvinced that he does not for one reason or another, deserve the black sheep title. Either way, he’s definitely a fascinating ancestor, about whom I hope to learn much much more…