Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Blake family at Bodmin, Cornwall, England

Finding the rather interesting record of a John Blake from Breton at Bodmin, Cornwall before 16 Feb 1525 in the England's Immigrant Database was timely in terms of my working on Cornwall. The parish records for Bodmin do go back into the 1500s with a John Blake baptizing William Blake 29 Jul 1565. The earliest marriage at Bodmin for Blake is Robert Blake marrying Kathren Cocke 28 May 1581. They baptize a son Roger 21 Oct 1582. No marriages though for a William Blake until 1636 at Bodmin. But if one is looking at Bodmin then closeby there is also St Breock, Egloshayle, Helland, Cardinham, Lanhydrock, Lanivet and Withiel. As I reach these parishes I shall try to link the information together knowing that they are closeby.

I am just working on the Bodmin parish records and entering them into Legacy. My plan for looking at Cornwall is slowly changing from the original thought of working first on Cornwall itself and then I moved to thinking about the Blake families at Landrake and I have now returned to looking at the entire county once again as I enter all the records that are listed on the OPC Cornwall website for Blake. Cornwall is my test county partly because it shares just the one border with Devon and was more or less isolated at the far southwest of England. Going to Wales was also a possibility and I will watch for that as I work my way through. But in general it was an isolated area and so a good spot to begin and try to work out a plan for looking at Blake families in particular areas. I would have loved to have chosen Hampshire but one  needs to look at Wiltshire/Dorset/Berkshire/Sussex/Surrey and even London when one is doing Hampshire.


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