Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Fourth great grandmothers - Blake and Coleman

I continue working on the Upper Clatford parish registers and I have now completed the baptisms (1684) and the buarials (1162) up to the end of 1812. I am working on the marriages now and have reached 1775 (282 marriages). Glancing ahead I note that in the year 1781 two of my 4x great grandmothers (widowed) remarried. Joanna Blake (maiden name King) was widowed in 1767 and Elizabeth Coleman (maiden name Pearse) was widowed in 1780. I had not noticed that particularly before. Thomas Blake (son of Joseph and Joanna Blake) married Sarah Coleman (daughter of John and Elizabeth Coleman).

Occasionally one hears the comment if you could go back and talk to just one of your ancestors which one would it be. I would really have to think that one carefully through as each of my ancestors has proven to be a most interesting person that it would be incredibly good to know more about them.

Once I complete the Upper Clatford parish registers to 1812 I will proofread them for submission to OPC Hampshire and then move on to Abbotts Ann Parish Registers.

In the meantime, I am starting to plan my collection of Blake information. Already I have extracted about 20,000 marriages from Free BMD (but only the Blake side thus far) for about 25 English counties. Once I have extracted all of them then I will go back and using the census try to put the couples together and I think my numbering system will be alphabetical for the 1800s - using the Chapman Code for location of marriage (although this may not be the location of the family since they could have gone away to marry but it is a starting point and will let me see where the marriage occurred for that family line). Then I will have HAM1, HAM2, family and so on. Then when I try to fit them in back into the 1700s I can have Blake1, Blake2, etc. When the marriage is not in the British Isles then I shall move to using Country-state/province (i.e. CAN-ONT-1) for marriages and when I can link them back into the 1700s then I shall move to Blake#. At a glance then I shall be able to see that a particular Blake line married in particular areas. It sounds workable and we will see how it comes in practice.

The Blake information that has already been collected for the one name study is on Barrie Blake's website and it is quite extensive covering a number of different Blake lines. The yDNA study is already most interesting and we hope to "grow" that study over the next couple of years to look even more deeply at the various Blake lines.

http://blakeheritage.synthasite.com/blake-family-dna-project.php (Barrie Blake's website)

It is excellent being able to work with Barrie Blake and Bill Bleak on the Blake family. There are also a couple of Blake descendants in England who are interested in the Blake one name study. It is only with everyone's help that this will be a successful study. The Blake Newsletter should also prove to be most interesting and will be published quarterly.

http://blakeheritage.synthasite.com/the-blake-newsletter.php

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