Thursday, January 30, 2014

Robert Blake of Andover, will dated 19 Sep 1678

The next will is that of Robert Blake of Andover and one of my Christmas presents. My I did not think it would be the end of January before I got to these. The work on the Routledge papers took me a little longer than I predicted and I am still working on those as well. I shall try to do one of them a day starting today.

It is unusual for me to do work that I do not blog but Thomas Routledge is much more knowledgeable on the Routledge family than I am and this is an opportunity to put together a history of this family from the earliest known times to the present. The publication of such a family history is essential to the understanding of this family for which much family lore exists but nothing written down thus far to collect all of the factual information and the family lore that went along with it.

Robert Blake of Andover leaving his will in 1678 has always been an interest of mine. I was given the opinion by other Blake researchers that I should look to the Robert Blake line at Andover as the likely ancestor of my Blake line and I have meant to look at these wills ever since. I did trace my line down from Nicholas and that does appear to be the best fit but I am always on the lookout for more information. In reality Nicholas and Robert were brothers and so the ancestral line back is ultimately the same. The fortunes of these two brothers were quite similar so not a great deal of difference in terms of tracing them both forwards and backwards.

Perhaps later today I will have accomplished this will and will post it but if not tomorrow. It is a two page will (A5) and three pages of Inventory so will make interesting reading. I have not yet read it but decided to do my usual of working through the will line by line trying to understand each line and any one mentioned in it. I generally check Family Search as I read through names as the resultant list of names is excellent and suits my purpose although I do subscribe to  Find My Past, Ancestry and My Heritage. Having these three valuable sources at my fingertips is handy but Family Search was my first tool and it continues to improve rapidly. Would I pay to use it if it became a paid service? Absolutely, the sets of images that they have put up are of pristine quality.

More later in this post as I discover details about Robert Blake at Andover leaving his will in 1678 and the entire will later today or tomorrow.

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