Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Blake Newsletter, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2014



Blake Newsletter

Table of Contents
1. BritainsDNA

2. Galway Blake Family

3. Blake yDNA Study

4. Wills Transcription

The third year for Blake Newsletter and it continues at two pages. There is so much I could write about but I already am blogging most days on Blake with the ongoing transcription of wills. Another couple of days will see all the PCC wills for the Blake family in Wiltshire completed.

BritainsDNA

I decided to test my brother at BritainsDNA (and he kindly consented) to see how his results would look when he was tested by a UK company since all of our ancestry is known to be English. The results were pretty much as anticipated and very much in line with the results already obtained from FT DNA. However, there is a different look to the layout of the results and if spending money on DNA testing interests you then I would highly recommend testing with this company. Our paternal line continues without an exact match although that is because no one in our line has tested other than my brother and there are a number of known cousins. Perhaps the most important item I learned was that this is an ancient British Isles line most commonly found today in southern Ireland although less frequently in the Hampshire UK area where my line is located. Since, on paper, this line was in the Andover area from the late 1400s on using the surname Blake I am left to theorize that my line chose the name Blake at some point in the past prior to the late 1400s perhaps in a marriage with the Blake family. The Manor Records for this area interest me greatly in that regard and may provide a solution.

Galway Blake Family

Three members of the study can trace their lines back to the Galway Blake Family and possibly in another issue of the newsletter there will be a short story about their lines. Suffice it to say for the moment that these three members have now given a precise yDNA signature for their particular Galway lines which will be helpful to others trying to trace back to Galway, Ireland in their Blake lines.

Blake yDNA study

The Study continues to grow and expand in terms of results. We now have a result for a Suffolk line which does not match anyone else but is a founder line. Another member of the I2b1 grouping has a match with a Blake member (236981) who is not with FT DNA but has a known ancestry going back to Walcot (Bath), Somerset and Burbage/Wootton Basset, Wiltshire prior to that. A little boost for that member searching their ancestry.

Wills Transcription

Once Wiltshire is completed (this week!) I will move on to Hampshire where I have over 60 wills to transcribe which includes the PCC wills and wills from the Winchester Record Office. I have managed to acquire a dozen of the really early wills and will work on that group first.

Happy New Year to members of the Blake family everywhere. 

Elizabeth Kipp (née Blake)

No comments:

Post a Comment