Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Misconnections arise once again

An email from a Blake descendant begins with a Blake at Calne born in 1465 and then claims a son Humphrey Blake born 1494 at Andover which was a creation of Horatio Gates Somerby to link the Calne Blake family (a wealthy, parliamentarian family) to the Somerset Blake family. He has Humphrey moving from Andover, Hampshire to Plainsfield, Somerset where a son of Humphrey named John Blake was baptized in 1521. Although I did respond that this was an error on the part of Horatio Gates Somerby which has been proven to be so by a number of researchers the response was that he had it from American researchers on Ancestry trees. As always it is difficult to convince people that this work by Gates is erroneous. The Wills of the Blake family of Andover tell the truth in this matter - there is no Humphrey Blake in their lines and they do appear to be the only Blakes at Andover from the early 1300s on. If he was unlanded (i.e. doesn't appear in the early records) then the odds of his being able to move to Somerset and purchase/acquire Tuxwell Manor are fairly low. The Blake Pedigree produced by the College of Arms does show the line that is believed to have come down from the Calne Blake line to the Plainsfield Blake line and it doesn't go through Andover. But at 77 I am getting past doing long rewrites back to people. I have written all of this in the newsletters and just leave it at that. God in is his wisdom has us wait patiently whilst we work away at the records as all will be revealed when one crosses the veil of time into the world of the spirits - our ancestors. 

My task has always been to simply make people aware of the error and leave it at that. The truth is also out there with regards to Horatio Gates Somerby's fraudulent claim about the Andover Blake family. 

Today I continue with re-phasing my grandparents just to keep that up to date with the latest 85 matches introduced into my database. I think it is a good idea to do that on a yearly basis. Once completed I shall move to phasing my great grandparents using the four 23 and Me Results. The nicest part of these results is the charting shows half matches and full matches on the chromosome lengths although you can also get this from GedMatch. 

I also need to update my "known" matches database to include the new matches where the individual is known to me in terms of a family tree relating them to me. 

Will we see peace on the horizon in Ukraine? One hopes so but the ball is really in Russia's court. They could simply drive back over the border to Russia today with all their equipment and troops and we would be done as they are the aggressor and they are responsible for all the killing that is happening in Ukraine including the deaths of their own soldiers. Russia wanted this war and has made up imaginary tales of why they invaded Ukraine but it is a nazi land grab which has killed so many Ukrainian men, women and children and also so many Russian soldiers. It is a sorrow that will go into the history books as greedy aggression on the part of Russia.  Tajikistan has it right; Russia needs to show more respect instead of being an imperialistic country bent on destruction and murder if they can not have what they desire. 

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