Sunday, December 29, 2019

New Post Challenge with the Guild of one-name Studies

We are having a 10 post challenge at the Guild of one-name studies. I will do Blake and I want to look once again at all the data I collected on the Cornwall Blake families. I never did publish any of the information and I feel I should make what I have found available in a genealogical sense. I will begin by the end of this week. I may try for publication dates of Thursday each week. The Challenge will run from the beginning of January to the end of March (that is 12 weeks but gives a little leeway especially for first namers that are still working!).

I will commence with a blog on the 1330-1550 Immigrants Database and the Blake entries found therein and what I have learned about some of these entries. I will then focus on Cornwall although I may change that to another area but at the moment I am thinking Cornwall would be most interesting. I found it quite fascinating.

My Blake line is from the Andover, Hampshire, England area with my father being born at Eastleigh and his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great grandfather all being born at Upper Clatford. The place of birth then switches to Andover where generation six to ten are baptized (one may have been born at Penton Mewsey), and then Knights Enham where generation eleven to fourteen were born.

The yDNA of my Blake line has been tested by two brothers and it is an ancient line to the British Isles (most commonly found in the central western counties of Ireland) found in several particular areas including Hampshire through to Devon. It was the Immigrants Database that alerted me to the passage from Ireland to Salisbury, England in 1425 of a Richard Blake immigrating to that area which is not that far from Andover in actual fact having traveled the roads now. The father of my 13x great grandfather was Robert Blake who died (left his will) in 1521 (and one of his sons was Richard interestingly enough). Robert Blake was elderly at the time of his death and no idea on the name of his father yet although the Manor Books for Andover are extant and they were at Knights Enham. I have noted the forename John thus far in the Latin in the 1300s and do need to read them. However, those particular records do go back earlier so it is a mystery for me and I hope one day to resolve it. It would be quite fascinating to discover that my Blake line was also found in the western part of Ireland but it does not match the known descendants of the Galway line there which is descendant of Richard Cadell. Passage of people between the Isles of the British Isles does appear to be quite fluid even in these ancient times. For instance, I noted that a number of Blake entries showed Blake members traveling from England to Ireland in this early time period and was it these men or descendants who came back to England. No ideas on that actually.

One of the best matches to my brothers lives in Ireland but I have not been able to contact him in the 12 years since I first tested my brother. It is only 12 markers but interestingly enough those 12 markers are significant for this Blake line in that there are no other perfect matches with the closest being 10 on 12. Needless to say there are no matches at 25, 37, 67 or 111!

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