Who Do You Think You Are - Olivia Colman 9th Jul

[Merry]

There's a smattering of entries for people apparently named Doncler on Ancestry, but for the most part they only appear on one record, having a different spelling elsewhere and, where I am able to look at the original image, could very easily be mistranscriptions.

There's a Doncler couple from Czechoslovakia appearing on the US census. If you wanted Seraphina to have links to Czechoslovakia instead of Holland would you have chosen to add this couple to your tree instead of Jacobus?

Thus we can pretty confidently say she was a “Dutch Burgher” from Ceylon

That shouldn't say, 'we' - it's just you who is confident!!!

[Blaquiere Talbot]

You are correct. The term "Dutch Burgher" does indeed include the descendants of traders, mercenaries etc. from all over Europe who worked for the Dutch East India Company, regarded themselves as "Dutch", settled in Ceylon and married/cohabited with the widows & daughters of the previous Portuguese settlers. So when the British took over from the Dutch they naturally also married/cohabited with these "Dutch Burgher" ladies including two of my 3rd great grandfathers Lt-Col Dunbar Hunter and Capt. Thomas Ajax Anderson. Which is hardly surprising since they were both in their 20s and their regiment the 19th Regiment of Foot (aka "The Green Howards") was stationed in Ceylon for an amazing 25 years!

[Blaquiere Talbot]

The surname "Donclere" remains incredibly elusive. However in addition to the one on Facebook (above) I have now found two more mentions:
1: In the "Dutch East India Company Crew Index, 1633-1795" I found "Jacobus Donclere" departing Sluis, Zederik, Zuid-Holland for Batavia.
2: In "Recueil he?raldique avec des notices ge?ne?alogiques et historiques sur un grand nombre de familles nobles et patriciennes de la ville et du franconat de Bruges" a book on heraldic families in Bruges I found "Dame Ann-Thérése de Donclere".

[Blaquiere Talbot]

The origins of my 3rd great-grandmother remains a mystery. In her John Company “probate” she is described as “Mrs. Seraphina Donclere” so it is possible that when she met Lt-Col Dunbar Hunter she was a young “widow” whose Dutch “Husband” had either died or left with the Dutch exodus for Batavia, The Cape or Holland when the British took over Ceylon in 1796. I have now retained a Singhalese genealogist who is going to start searching for “Donclere” (or variants) in Trincomalee. Fingers crossed! In any event I think we can conclude she was an absolute “stunner” to have seduced two very eligible senior British officers! Her looks and intelligence must have been continued by her two daughters who both made amazingly good marriages after being returned to their respective grand-mothers in UK!

[kiterunner]

I think I have explained a few times already that in those days the word Mrs did not necessarily mean that a woman was married or widowed, just denoted her social status.

[Blaquiere Talbot]

Understood. However since her first child (Charlotte Hunter) was born in 1802 we can assume she was of marriageable age in 1796 when the British drove the Dutch out of Ceylon. If she was "married" to a Dutch or Dutch Burgher named Donclere he may have died or perhaps been killed in the British attack or perhaps he departed Ceylon with the exodus of Dutch officials, soldiers and settlers under the peace treaty with the British. So in 1801 she may have been a young widow or a "divorcee" when she met Lt-Col Hunter. As a result I have asked my Singhalese researcher to expand her search for Donclere from just births to births, marriages & deaths.

[kiterunner]

Sorry, but if her first child was born in 1802 she might have been too young to marry 6 years before that.

[Blaquiere Talbot]

One would hope but as I recall the legal age for girls in Scotland was 12 and also in Ceylon Sarah Hollowell married Thomas Ajax Anderson in Colombo when she was 13!

[Merry]

I agree with kiterunner. For example, if she was 15 when she had her first child then she would only have been nine years old in 1796.

[Blaquiere Talbot]

So probably born c 1786?