Monday, August 13, 2012

Blake marriages in Cheshire

Returning to "work" between Olympics and still working on Cheshire. Learning a lot about emigration with this particular area. The percentage of people who came to this area from Ireland is very large in this time period (1830s to late 1800s and possibly later but haven't noticed it there as many families have now married into "English" families). The Blake family here is possibly primarily Irish Blake family. Have they returned to their roots in England is a good question as I look at all of this information. More people testing their yDNA in England would be oh so helpful looking at the Blake family. Was there an "original" Blake family in Ireland or are they descendants of the earlier Blake family in England? Would love to know the answer to that question given my one and only "match" for Blake in the study. Mind you Blood of the Isles database has several matches to my line so I have not yet despaired on being dropped on this planet at some point in the past :)

The movement from Cheshire to London can also be noted as being very interesting and possibly quite significant. Later census will reveal those details when I get to that. In the meantime I am completely engrossed in my Blake one name study. It has turned out to be quite fascinating.

However, I continue to receive queries on my other lines namely one on the Question family which quite intrigues me but not so much that I will find every member in a one name study! I will leave that quest to someone else.

The newest member joining the Pincombe/Pinkham study is most welcomed. I would like to build that yDNA study as well but suspect it will be a very slow process. When it is such a singleton name I suspect most just assume they are all related and do not really get into the idea of a surname study. At the moment I remain in limbo on the study because of the different results that I have for the Pincombe and Pinkham family names. Thought to have common ancestry by the earlier group I have to just grope along in the dark waiting to see if I can inspire others to test and apparently I may have. The one thought on the Pinkham results is adoption back in the 1600s when families died out leaving small children who were assimilated into other families. I know the person who wrote to me and tested is looking into that with his line.

The summer has passed very quickly amazingly so. Our new status as grandparents is slowly sinking in although the little fellow is distant from us so not a daily growth observance. Perhaps we will move closer to them as time passes. I can do my genealogy anywhere actually and the further from a big city perhaps the better. I mostly purchase all of my records where I can and with such strong "English" ancestry I am not going to find very much at the archives here. I believe I have mostly found it all for my lines. All were known to me which is the main reason that I am so late to genealogy although in truth I did not find it fascinating to look through microfilm - I knew everything that I could know here! Now I spend days looking at microfiche! Amazing how one short trip to London, England back in 2001 has impacted on my life.

Lucille Campy's latest book (mentioned on John Reid's blog)  brings out a comment that I have often felt myself. "English" heritage is basically ignored in Canada. Lumping all those of us with "English" heritage and calling us "English" Canadians is such a misnomer. Few people who are labelled "English" Canadians are actually English. They come from all over the world and in reality there isn't any such thing as an "English" Canadian. They are all Canadian (and hyphenated if you must with their country of origin). This tendency to call people "English" Canadian has completely hidden any actual English heritage here.

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