Sunday, November 13, 2011

Pincombe marriages after Civil Registration in 1837

I have now gone through all of the marriages on Find My Past where I can readily connect the correct spouse with the Pincombe spouse. I have 150 of 450 left to find through the census. Some of these are in my Legacy file and I will tease them out next and then the task of going through the census to find the matching spouse plus it lets me now look at the births and death and match them into families. How to label each family is uppermost in my mind at the moment. I have heard of a number of different methods and I think I will go for numerical since the Pincombe family is not that large and it doesn't matter which County. I can make that reference within the family grouping. I need to also work on the Pinkham family as I have them partially linked with the marriages. The Pincombe records outnumber the Pinkham records about 2:1 in most cases but there is sometimes a crossover where the Pincombe name is used in one set of records and Pinkham in another set and it is the same family. I must learn more about the origin of the Pinkham family name. It arose spontaneously within the Pincombe family it would appear and as noted earlier is by far the greatest occurrence of the surname in the United States of America.

Working away on the marriages I have discovered two new variants of Pincombe that I hadn't really noticed. The numbers are sufficient to merit thinking about adding them to the study and they include PINCHAM and PINKAM. Looking at Free BMD there are 181 records for Pincham between 1837 and the 1950s; for Pinkam there is only one but more on Find My Past.  It seems like a long stretch from PINCOMBE but if I look at PINKHAM as a variant then I need to consider whether or not to include these two new ones. Occasionally there is also a PINKCOMBE entry (11 in total on Free BMD which I have also ignored to date). If I move to including these three spellings I am wondering about Tincombe (87 records on Free BMD principally in the Exeter Devon area but moving into the London area especially in the 1900s)  which I am asked about as well - is it a variant of Pincombe? Listening to the Forum others go through this experience once they are heavily into data collection of whether or not to include the "rarer" variants of the surname.  Pincombe itself has 427 marriages and Pinkham has 293 records on Free BMD. If I include Pincham, Pinkam, Pinkcombe and Tincombe this would yield for my study around 1000 marriages between 1837 and the 1950s. Certainly doable as I am looking at that many marriages per county for my Blake one name study! But are they derived from the Pincombe (and originally Pencombe name).

Checking out these variants on the Public Profiler for British Names and they are less than 100 on the 1998 electoral list which I have already noted with the BMD records. Perhaps what I should do is take one of these variants and I think it should be Tincombe as that is the one most people ask me about with regard to being a variant of Pincombe and see if I can find the point at which a name change occurred.

The Tincombe name occurs (for marriages) in the following 34 Registration Districts from 1837 up to 1955:

Alresford
 Brighton
 Clerkenwell
 Crediton
 Croydon
 Devon Central
 Devonport
 Elham
 Essex S.W.
 Exeter
 Falmouth
 Gravesend
 Hackney
 Hampstead
 Holsworthy
 Honiton
 Lewisham
 Newton A
 Okehampton
 Plymouth
 Romford
 S. Molton
 Shoreditch
 St Thomas
 St. Saviour
 Surrey N.E.
 Swansea
 Tavistock
 Tavistock
 Tiverton
 Uckfield
 W. Ham
 Wandsworth
 Woolwich

If I look at 1837 to 1911 only the number of Registration Districts is now 19:

 Clerkenwell
 Crediton
 Croydon
 Devonport
 Exeter
 Falmouth
 Hackney
 Hampstead
 Honiton
 Newton A
 Okehampton
 Plymouth
 S. Molton
 Shoreditch
 St Thomas
 St. Saviour
 Tavistock
 Tiverton
 Woolwich

I can see this is primarily a Devon/London name and the Pincombe family up until the mid 1800s was primarily a Devon/London name. Point one in favour of Tincombe as being a variant of Pincombe - similar locality.

I then went to the IGI to look at the Tincombe family surname and with the new search I am able to bring up a box of information on locality:

Canada, USA, and Mexico 13,135
Europe 1,717

I excluded the other five entries as they were all less than 20 individual entries.

Why would the Tincombe surname be nearly ten times as frequent in the United States/Canada/Mexico than Europe (which is probably England primarily)? Perhaps transcription error of Pincombe which is fairly uncommon in the United States - the usual spelling is Pinkham in the United States.

I need to decide if this is a variant that I should include in my study? How far back does the Tincombe surname go in the Family Search records?There are almost 4000 results between 1400 and 1800 in the new family search. Narrowing this down to 1400 to 1600 gives fourty results which is quite a bit easier to work with.

Surname Forename Event Year Month Day Location Surname Forename Burial
Tinkombe Elizabetha C 1582 Jun 22 Bovey Tracey, Devon Tinkombe Willmi
Tinkcomb Wilms C 1577 Feb 25 Bovey Tracey, Devon Tinkcomb Willmi
Tinkham Richus C 1575 Dec 22 Bovey Tracey, Devon Tinkham Willmi 17 Jan 1586
Tynckombe Richardus C 1585 Mar 15 Bovey Tracey, Devon Tynckombe Johannis
Tingcombe Willms M 1592 Jul 15 Bovey Tracey, Devon Sprie Ebutta
Tinkham William C 1550 Nov 6 Bridford, Devon Tinkham Richard 30 Nov 1550
Tinkham Walter C 1552 Aug 13 Bridford, Devon Tinkham Richard
Tinkham Wilmot C 1563 Jan 21 Bridford, Devon Tinkham John
Tinckum Christofer C 1577 Jan 21 Dean Prior, Devon Tinckum Willm
Tynckum Margery C 1575 Oct 7 Dean Prior, Devon Tynckum Willm
Tinckum Joan C 1581 May 16 Dean Prior, Devon Tinckum Willm 24 Oct 1585
Tincombe John M 1593 Nov 12 Farway, Devon Perry Elsabeth
Tincombe Ede C 1589 May 11 Hatherleigh, Devon Tincombe Richord
Tingcombe John C 1587 Nov 21 Landrake, Cornwall Tingcombe Walter
Tynckom John C 1572 Feb 18 North Bovey, Devon Tynckom John
Tinckom Andrew C 1600 Aug 5 North Bovey, Devon Tinckom Pancrasse
Tynckom Johane C 1573 Feb 19 North Bovey, Devon Tynckom John
Tincumbe Henry M 1600 Oct 20 Saint Andrew, Plymouth, Devon Freende Anne
Tincome Christian M 1578 May 28 Saint Sidwell, Exeter, Devon Hill John
Tinkcombe John C 1584 Jan 19 South Tawton, Devon Tinkcombe Walter
Tinkombe Richardus C 1588 Jun 5 South Tawton, Devon Tinkombe Walter
Tinckcombe Walter M 1584 May 8 South Tawton, Devon Hoode Elizabeth
Tincombe Willmott M 1576 May 12 St Edmunds, Exeter, Devon Poole John
Tinckam William C 1600 Feb 8 Stepney, London Tinckam Robert
Tynckham Rose M 1573 Apr 13 Tedburn Saint Mary, Devon Ponsford Thomas
Tyncome Rochard M 1576 Nov 18 Totnes, Devon Masser John
Tincombe Henry C 1594 Mar 16 Whitestone, Devon Tincombe Gregory
Tinckham Robert C 1595 Feb 20 Whitestone, Devon Tinckham William 1 Mar 1595
Tynckeham Matthew C 1579 May 3 Wolborough and Newton Abbot, Devon Tynckeham Augustine 10 Jun 1579
Tynckeham George C 1590 Jun 25 Wolborough and Newton Abbot, Devon Tynckeham Augustine 19 Nov 1591
Tynckeham John C 1575 Feb 8 Wolborough and Newton Abbot, Devon Tynckeham Augustine
Tynckeham Susanna C 1573 Aug 20 Wolborough and Newton Abbot, Devon Tynckeham Augustine
Tynckeham Judith C 1582 May 11 Wolborough and Newton Abbot, Devon Tynckeham Augustine 31 Jan 1586
Tynckeham Augustine M 1568 Sep 4 Wolborough and Newton Abbot, Devon Polseland Beaton
Tynckeham Augustine M 1572 Oct 20 Wolborough and Newton Abbot, Devon Wyndett Elizabeth
Tynckeham Margaret M 1591 Aug 30 Wolborough and Newton Abbot, Devon Derante John
Tynckame Edward C 1569 Jun 26 York Tynckame John

The earliest entries were as expected in the mid 1500s (some parish registers do go back to 1538) but in general mid 1500s is fairly common. All of the entries with the exception of one are in Devon. The locations are in general around the Plymouth area. I do have a Pincombe family in the Plymouth area but the earliest is towards the end of the 1600s. In general they have used the surname Pinkham but not all; the Pincombe surname is certainly found there as well especially in the 1800s. This might appear to indicate that they are a separate family.

Looking online for a meaning for the surname Tincombe:

http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Tincombe

"Recorded in a very wide variety of spellings including Tincomb, Tincombe, Tincam, Tinkum, Tinkham Tinckombe, Tingcombe, and no doubt others, this is an English surname. From early recordings which we have discovered in surviving church registers, the original spelling could have been the pre 7th century Olde English 'tynincel' meaning a small farm, plus either 'cum' meaning a valley or 'ham', a hamlet or village."

I will continue to look at available information but it would appear that this is a surname that arose spontaneously and independent of the Pincombe surname.

I will look at the other two surnames as variants of Pinkham at another sitting.

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