Top floor cleaned and today the main floor

 Fortunately for this 81 year old the house is small so the top floor is all done this week (last week not as good) so today the main floor. The big thing with the main floor is moving everything about to make it easier to clean. I usually watch the TV and generally that is my big day of the week for watching news to see what is going on in the world and mostly in Canada. The weather is also very interesting. My father, when my oldest sister lived in Newfoundland, watched the weather every day to see what the weather was like there particularly. I think he missed her and did  not see her very often although she did bring the children in the summer for a good long visit. My mother too missed her eldest daughter for sure. 

I worked on the first three generations yesterday and in particular I reviewed the first table created by the original Pincombe/Pinkham researchers and this is for North Molton and South Molton. My revision dealt solely with the first and second generation. Along with that I am looking at the results in Find My Past for this time frame beginning with 1480 and then a 40 year spread which is part of the search tool which brings me to 1520 and then 1560 as it is + or - 40.  This is 913 results although quite a few of them I have or are not useful in this case. So I will look at them today. 

Cleaning soon to start as I was a late start yesterday and spread it out over the day but I think I will be organized today. 

Solitaire puzzles next.  

Doing a bit of contemplation

Working on the second generation at North Molton and quite quickly we have John, the likely eldest son of John Pencombe in South Molton married to Emma (need to find this) with two sons John and Christopher. Since Christopher has property on the 1624-7 Devon Lay Subsidy I suspect he is the oldest although the only death I find is Mar 1623 at South Molton. There is a Christopher Pyncombe on the 1624-7 Devon Lay Subsidy with G5 at South Molton. He could have inherited this property when he was born but that is still a pretty long life of 100 years plus. The registers for South Molton do not begin until 1601. At some point I acquired the date of 1575 for the burial of Christopher and I will have to see why I have that; at the beginning I was not always as careful to record where I found things although I quickly learned but again I am going back a long way looking at some of these items as I pursue the Second Generation of the Pencombe family. Interesting though that there is another Christopher Pyncombe at South Molton perhaps as not listed on the Visitation of Devon 1620. Often a lot of people can be missed on these Visitations. In particular this one has Richard and John (brothers of this William) as executors but reading my transcription it is his wife that will be executrix and his two oldest sons William and John are to assist with the will execution. One does have to be careful to check all the data. My Richard is mentioned along with his son William and I do think that he doesn't say where anyone is and at this point Richard is in Bishops Nympton. This will take a while as some times the Parish Registers have not yet begun or were lost and finding those tiny bits that let you recreate takes time. I did find them years ago but sometimes I  need to find them again! 

I have now vacuumed everything and it is time to dust. Then the bathroom to scrub and the day of cleaning is complete. I have still not used my antibiotic and it is actually feeling fine. The worst part was the drainage as I do not believe I have ever in my recall experienced a puncture wound. The draining was quite exceptional and one could feel it as it pushed out through the scab opening. A good one to avoid I think perhaps. But as always I recommend going to a doctor to be looked at; they are the experts.  

All fascinating really how health care works. I was contemplating how much I pay for health care as a tax paying citizen and how seldom I actually have needed to go which has been lucky for me just one visit a  year since my daughter said at my age (I think I was around 75) I really should (and I now have had two visits this year)  sees me paying a portion of my taxes (I assume that I pay the usual 24% to 25% as a family (even though I am just one person)) and my private health coverage ($2200)) so I estimate that I pay around $5000 per year but eventually I may cost the system money no ideas on that although I suspect I will die in my sleep at some point because I have sleep apnea. I have been in a hospital three times (2 pregnancies (seven days (difficult birth) and two days), one breakdown and I was on the Psychiatric Ward for 14 days (you do everything for yourself on this ward except food is provided in a cafeteria which you go and get so perhaps the cheapest ward to run no ideas on that) and the total number of days is 24 hospitalized in my lifetime plus I was born in a hospital but my mother came home quite soon actually (I think she said three days, forgot about that)). Some of the wards are very expensive to run and have far more people working in them.  I have now used five full days of my antibiotic and the redness is gone, the drainage stopped a couple of days ago and the wound is healed although I will have a scar (a tiny one) and I begin to wonder if I was bitten by an insect perhaps no ideas on that but the mark is so small. I really do not remember hitting my face with the branch but it was sort of a difficult couple of minutes as I pulled it off the fence where it was stuck and down from the tree where it was hanging and I could have missed noticing that. I did see it out the window for maybe a week before I tackled it. I think there might be a bit of nerve damage but it appears to be correcting itself.  The redness is all gone and my prescription doesn't say when to stop using it but my daughter (who has not seen me as she is 65 kilometres away) kindly told me that 5 - 7 days is common so this is day 6 (I must figure out  how to call the office I go to). I must say the antibiotic was very efficient. Chemically speaking though in another 23 days it is useless so really we should go back to packaging it in smaller quantities like the druggists of old (mind you that doesn't save the medical system money but does make a lot of money for pharmaceuticals). It is difficult to guage how much will need to be used so the common packaging is probably cheaper than having to measure it out constantly and protecting the product from contamination is very important so one has to take the down sides with the upsides (and the business case is made for larger packaging). Two weeks though on a psych ward was more than enough medical care to last me for a lifetime to be honest. I never like being a patient if I can help it and I will not move another downed branch over one metre long. It surely is time to move and maybe I will be lucky and it will be sooner rather than later. If it ever happens again I will remember to ask when one stops the medication. The tube is very large and you can hardly see that I used any. Never thought of it at the time; getting old for sure. Thank you to my daughter for helping me out.  We need to have a good medical system for all (I firmly believe in that); I worked in the hospital for more than 12 years of my working life and I do place a high value on our medical care system. I do not especially want to see children needing care; we are better than that for sure. I willingly pay all that is asked for my taxes and for my extra coverage. Personally I probably would never go except when I absolutely need care but I do not like to make my children stressed worrying and so I go once a year (or if I have an accident). It seems to work well. I have blood work to do and will eventually get there. Since I know some of the items in my family history I am not going to rush for sure; I remember my uncle needed these blood product transfusions the last maybe five years of his life and I am suspicious that I will end up that way. We will see. But he had them transfused in his house. Perhaps it is even easier now to acquire such items everything is so portable these days. 

Must accomplish more cleaning and than back to writing. I have a lot to do and must try to get to it all. My uncle though was 89 when he passed and still quite capable right up to the last few days.  

Dusting all done and just the bathroom to scrub. Dinner is chicken stew (my favourite by far and four days in a row is great) and I need to make my banana bread because I just have one piece left. That keeps my weight fairly stable because I do have this tendency to forget to eat on occasion. 

I actually found a will for a Simon Pincombe that I downloaded back in 2010 at Kew. I randomly picked some wills and that was one of them but I have never transcribed it. I might do that as it looks interesting but not the Symon (son of William mentioned above) who was gone from England in 1602 and I still haven't pulled up that blog discussing the person who wrote me from Sweden and had traced back and discovered a non-Swedish ancestor and also we matched on atDNA as did my siblings who are a much better match to Pincombe than I am. But there are a couple of lengths that we all share; all of us third cousins and fourth cousins and it goes on. 

I think I will spend a bit more time on Christopher to see what I can learn. He had a son John and this family is by family lore mentioned as some of them moving to the Barnstaple area where we do find Pincombe. It is linking them all together and the Barnstaple Parish Registers are quite good so will get into that. Having the path all the way back for my line is very helpful. I know where the bottlenecks are (i.e. only one descendant in a generation).  William's huge family (he was principally at East Buckland) really set up the Pincombe family for a large expansion as the two eldest pretty much inherited everything so the younger sons had to be inventive to get ahead and they were pretty much. Peter and Lewes, the youngest two, though I know virtually nothing about them but will try to discover what I can. 

 

A quiet day

Church was lovely and I do so love that organ music. Mind you a lot of churches online have organ music but this one I attended with Edward in our "empty nest" period of time which was actually not empty until our eldest went off to do her PhD after working in industry (an American company actually) for about five years. It was a great addition to her already excellent CV and work activity. Then our youngest was busy with university and then medical school and along the way getting married and having children although sadly they did leave us and move out on their own. But that is the way of life for sure. 

 But I digress from Church and the sermon was quite interesting as I love hearing the meshing of Old Testament and New Testament and how the Christian religion developed and grew. Mind you he did not use all those words but overall his sermons are very educational and there is nothing I enjoy more than learning for sure. A day gone by without learning is a lost day I used to tell my children and so at two and three they were busy learning to read and working with numbers, printing and having fun too with it. Ready for school far too early for the system but I think it is catching up. The school can not be everything to a child; it is a learning centre with learning and ethics top of the list from the earliest days as it should be. Every child matters; the First Nations are so right about that. 

 Not too much done in terms of work as I planned for a quiet day for the most part. The only time I went outside was to shake out the toaster crumbs onto the grass for the birds. There wasn't very much. 

I continued contemplating the first three generations as I gather up everything that I have to create this family tree along with the tree created by the two earlier researchers. This tree is Chart 1 and does not have any acknowledgements so likely it was put together using the Visitations and perhaps some knowledge of family lines coming down. I am bothered most by Thomas being given a date of birth in 1481 as he was a worker on the Devon Lay subsidy in 1524-27 since he received wages and he was listed right next to his likely father on the subsidy. That would make him 43 years of age and the son listed to him William is given a year of birth of 1506 and this individual wrote his will in 1602 and it was probated by 1605. This will listed all of his children and they do not match the children on the chart. William's will was probated by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and there were undoubtedly lots of problems having access especially during war years and the researchers did not live in the London area. On the other hand John Pyncombe in South Molton is not given a year of birth but his son John is given 1501 as that year of birth but Christopher his other son is not given an age but is on the Devon Lay subsidy with Goods of 5 and his father John Pencome with Goods of 10. My suspicion is that this record was perhaps seen by the creators of this table and gave John that age thinking he was at least 21 years of age but the large loss of life ended up with new laws on how to deal with underaged inheritors and they were listed at any age. So just a couple of items at the beginning that I found difficult to resolve with the parish registers where they exist and especially the tax records. Just wanted to explain that to anyone who has the Charts since I put them into the Newsletter a while ago. 

Today is cleaning day and I will be doing the top floor. Starting soon. Solitaire puzzles done in the night as I continue with a runaway mind because I am thinking too much. But soon will be resolved. I am that kind of a person who must think everything through; search out the documents if they exist and I can purchase them and then move forward once again.  

The Pincombe Charts created by Galen Pinkham and Dr. Richard Pinkham

 Sunday once again and I do love the flow of the week. Sunday is a quiet contemplative day. Another beautiful day in God's world. A bit cloudy but some sun expected for the day didn't check the weather forecast very closely. Church today and not sure where we will see. Perhaps always a surprise. The Anglican Church Services from England always remind me of my childhood which is very pleasant for sure. The Services here have the organ which is fabulous. The choir singing is spectacular. Still reading Job and it is slow reading as I go word by word. I am not sure I ever did that before. Job loved God and couild not be moved away from Him. From the depth of Job's soul he reaches out to God to understand and he feels fulfilled. The Psalms are next and I do love the Psalms. They surround one with beauty and mystery and God Himself. Thank you God for another morning in your world.

 For a long time after I acquired the Pincombe/Pinkham charts I mention in the title I contemplated how to best utilize this information. I photographed them all as a cousin in England had sent them to me. My line was incorrect I did notice that right away. My mother knew her line back to John Pincombe and Grace Manning at least that was what her father told her and my uncle did reinforce that (I have all of those Bishop Nympton records and there are several Pincombe families there in the 1700s and they readily separate out into their respective lines  descending from John Pincombe and Johane Blackmoore (married 22 Sep 1655 at Bishops Nympton)). So it was an incentive to really look at everything that I collected and I have a lot of information over time. All backed up on drives and shared around so as not to lose it. I have blogged a huge amount of it and my blog is backed up as well. Aside from that, it is time to utilize those charts and my account with Find My Past and do a little more sleuthing. I have purchased a number of sets of fiche from North Devon Parishes but Find My Past does have them online now and these old eyes like to be able to enlarge these fiche to read them. So I do that in preference. The Parish Registers were supposed to begin in 1538 which is really handy for this study. Many of them do but not all; some were lost to time and circumstance. Some are very difficult to read. There are nearly 1000 pages of Word text transcription for the Bishops Nympton registers beginning to end. That was my beginning and I discovered a real knack for reading the old script.

I have a study for Pincombe yDNA which I manage and Bill Bleak along with his supporters including me have one for the Blake yDNA. Both have been fascinating and I think finding these de Pencombe families in Devon in the 1300s is a real luxury to sorting out the lines of yDNA perhaps and it is also true of the Blake and I thank Barry Blake for his work initially in creating the different yDNA groups in the Blake lines (there are quite a few in England and Ireland and of course the United States and the Commonwealth plus other areas).  

The interesting part about the charts is that Dr. Richard Pinkham visited many Pincombe families in North Devon and they shared their family lines with him (he acknowledged them on the charts with their names). This work was done in the 1930s or into the early 1940s on I believe. I know that it was before or during the Second World War because he was able to read the Pincombe wills probated within the diocese held at the Exeter Archives. He then donated the Will Abstracts to the Society of Genealogists of which I was a member although I finally did let that membership go. Occasionally I think about picking it up again but for the moment I am not. We spent one day there collecting information that I knew they had and that included the wills which was marvelous as there was the will of my 4x great grandfather (John Pincombe) and others but especially his because I needed to know more about him in order to sort him for sure back to his parents John Pincombe and Grace Manning. 

This however is a research day and I am beginning the three generations starting with John Pencombe and given that his son John had a son Christopher who both also held goods (I must be more careful how I refer to ownership because the English are quite consistent with land or goods being the taxed item) one can not assume that John Pencombe (father to John, William and Thomas) was older because his children had all received goods plus his grandchildren also had goods. A quick check with the AI was revealing as I had a vague memory about the laws of inheritance which Henry VII quickly brought in because of all the deaths particularly young men at Bosworth Field in 1485 leaving a lot of underaged males as inheritors. Christopher and John have both inherited during the life of their father (and mother) but it could be from their mother's side and hence they could be quite young in 1524-7. None the less their father John was likely in his 20s and hence his father likely in his 40s or more. The ability of AI to recall all of this information in an organized manner is excellent and great help with my pursuit of the best story I can write (doing it myself so far from the documents is difficult - AI is a great addition to our lives). Although I normally use CoPilot I do sometimes use some of the others mostly out of curiosity. It will be a Creative Commons License under which I will produce this book and it will be free on my website plus I will upload it to the various places where I uploaded the Siderfin Books that I produced  (I do  need to do proofreading for the indexes which I will do in my spare time one of these days but I suspect it will be another year and I do have new material to add). Although some of the libraries I will upload to like the Guild of one name Studies does keep their Library for members of the Guild. But it will appear on my blog how you can download the book if you wish to have a copy. 

But back to the charts and the first chart is for North Molton and South Molton. For the most part I am not in agreement with this chart because it does not match the wills and the Devon Lay Subsidies or even the Visitation of Devon 1620 - it has some of the information but the descendancy then does not match the Parish Records. I will spend the day working my way through some of that data although this will also be a rest day for my eyes. They are getting old and need one day off a week. I may sort pictures for a while until Church time. 

Solitaire puzzles are done; I woke in the night and did them. I do that sometimes as it stops a runaway/busy mind that sometimes comes to me in the night. Breakfast also; exercises all done.  

 

 

 

Working with the AI for a bit today

 Today ends my one week looking at the old records and contemplating just what the one liner in the heading of the Visitation of 1620 Devon for the Pyncombe family really meant. 

Point one: The logic of choosing Pencombe as a surname with a village called that in Herefordshire was fairly common when surnames first came into being. generally it was de Pencombe so "of Pencombe" leaving one with the impression at least two sets of people from Herefordshire were in Devon in the 1300s - early 1300s Bondleigh (Roger de Pencombe) and as an Assessor on the 1332 Lay Subsidy for Devon at Molland (John de Pencomb'). Were they related? Then we have the third Pencombe family in 1486 at North Molton (one hundred and fifty years later) but they use the surname Pyncombe on the Visitation of Devon  1620. 

Point two: The only Pencombe/Pincombe/Pyncombe family members on the 1524-7 Devon Lay Subsidy are living in the North Molton area. I did try a number of spellings including Tencombe which has been suggested to me but on the early records it was spelled Teigncombe like the river nearby where they were and considerably further away from the Pencombe than Bondleigh was.  I have eliminated that line as being Pencombe. 

Point three:  

 The 1524-7 Devon Lay Subsidy for 1524 has in the index Pencombe pages 89, 90, 91; Pincombe page 89, which results in South Molton Borough: John Pencome G 10; South Molton Parish: Chris Pyncombe G5; North Molton Parish: John Pencombe G5, Thomas Pencombe W 1 (one after the other), William Pencombe G2.  The 1620 Visitation of the County of Devon for Pyncombe was submitted by William Pyncombe of South Molton and East Buckland the son of William Pincombe and Emot Snowe with this William being the son of Thomas Pencombe as noted on the Visitation. The sons of John Pencome/Pencombe at South Molton were John and Christopher with each having a son John. So this second generation coming down is visible with this chart and leads into the third but rather inadequately given the actual parish registers that exist and the Devon Lay Subsidy of 1543-45 and the Devon Muster Roll of 1569. But it does serve to separate out the two son's lines since they are the only two of three sons with descendants coming down past the third generation. Christopher's line appears to disappear but there was family lore in the South Molton family that some members of the South Molton family moved to the Barnstaple area and the one tester who matches the other four has a family history back to Barnstaple and is the basis of my thought that the two lines continue to be represented to the current time. The only Pencombe in  Devon at this time appears to be at North or South Molton.

Point four:

The 1543 - 45 Devon Lay subsidy has entries for Pencombe pages 62, 63, 77, 86, 105; Pincombe page 61, Pinkham page 94. This results in South Molton Parish (1544): John Pyncome 13, Christopher Pyncombe 10; North Molton Parish (1545): Alice Pencombe 5 (one notes this does not say widow), William Pencombe 6, John Pencombe 4; (1544) William Pyncum 13; Nymett Regis (Kings Nympton Parish (1545) Richard Pencombe 1; Estbuclond Parish (East Buckland (1544) Thomas Pencomb 9; Tawstock Parish (1544) Philip Pynkeham 8 (who is he?); Bedeford Parish (Bideford 1544) Richard Pencombe 5. 

Summing up: I have looked at all this data a number of times but it was back in my much earlier days into genealogy. First things I noticed was the Snow family here and there although said to be Anstey for Emot Snow the wife of Thomas Pencombe (there was actually one at Bishops Nympton). I found my eyes wandering over the areas around North Devon and contemplated whether everything made it into the index since this was prepared totally by hand but knowing the ancestors they tended towards accuracy but having discovered the page difference in 1332 for John de Pencomb' I feel I should spend perhaps another week looking at all of this data. 

Point five:

The Devon Muster 1569 was also very interesting: Pincombe pages 147, 162, 164, 165: East Buckland William Pyncomb G7, William Pyncombe pikeman; North Molton John Pincomb (presenter sworn); South Molton Parish with the Towne Christopher Pincomb G7, John Pincomb G6, John Pincombe G7, John Pincombe pikeman. Pinkham page 141 Yarnscombe: Richard Penkham pikeman;  A little more time on this database is needed as well.  (Yarnscombe is near Barnstaple). 

The one week revealed a few weaknesses in my work although I did review the Early Chancery Proceedings going backwards from 1486 and then forwards from 1486 but did not locate anything on the Pencombe (or any derivative spelling) in these records. 

Point six: 

The Purcome family on the 1543-45 Devon Lay subsidy I have eliminated in the past at Blackawton Parish. I could revisit that although I do not think they are the same family as they are in Exeter which is too far away for either of the two de Pencombe members found in the 1300s I still think.

Conclusion on the one week for me:

As suggested by the AI, the use of Pyncombe of Northmolton may have hinted at prior knowledge of Pyncombe elsewhere in Devon. It was not possible to link the two records from the 1300s with the family in the late 1400s. It was not that unusual for people to pick a place name as their surname. I think I will spend another week sorting and entering in all the information for the first three generations at North Molton. The line at South Molton was considered to have died out in the male line so will have to look at that carefully to see if indeed this line coming down into the 2000s is totally descendant of Thomas Pencombe son of John Pencombe. All testers match so one must be careful to consider all the written thoughts on the family at South Molton having moved there from North Molton in the early 1500s. 

Time for a bit of exercise. Breakfast finished and solitaire puzzles complete.  

 Put my points into my chat window with the Co-pilot and we agree. Another week still trying to locate information on Pencombe in Herefordshire or Devon. The importance of the la Zouche family in all of this is the location of Northmolton being in common to both at this moment in time and that the arrival was simultaneously occurring at the same time - the reason unknown and without reading into the la Zouche family papers I think that I would not find it. A number of young men were executed after the Battle of Bosworth Field and it is highly likely that anything that saved a youth in a family was probably kept pretty tight in the family. Releasing it in this way over one hundred and thirty four years later was likely considered to be history and the English are sticklers for history having grown up with two English born and raised grandparents and coming from families dating back hundreds of years and perhaps thousands. The English do appreciate their history and have been very speedy at saving it electronically for the generations ahead to enjoy. The lessons of the Second World War were well learned. Moving ahead in some terms with actually creating the three generations coming down from John Pencombe and possibly his wife Alice. The lack of the word widow in the record is troubling but at no point do we see a daughter in that second generation. The  name Alice was a popular one within the family in those generations along with Johane. 

I must continue to hunt out the mystery of the South Molton Pencombe family. Christopher and his son John disappear. John and his son John continue the line and it is well known and published. The wealth of that family became the Pyncombe Trust and has been very well utilized through the centuries in the village concerned. I have a Philip Pynkeham at Tawstock that is very interesting. 

Robert Pincombe (my 3x great grandfather and his wife Elizabeth Rowcliffe Pincombe) had eight children and the daughter was named Elizabeth; the seven sons were named (birth order) Robert, John, William, Thomas, George, Richard and Philip. Interesting that but Elizabeth's father's forename was Philip and her brothers' forenames were Philip, George and William so not referring back in time perhaps very far. The interesting part of all of this was I discovered Rowcliffe cousins in Huron County, Ontario. 

Must check on lunch.