To whom was Robert Blake married?

 Years ago now when I first started to do genealogy at the National Institute (2003) one of our courses had us find information on our ancestors as far back as we could in a systematic fashion. Since all of my known lines are from the British Isles with the exception of the Question family of Dunster which is said to be Huguenot arriving in the Dunster area in the early part of the 1500s or the late 1400s this worked very well for me as I was studying English records (namely records of those counties known as England in the British Isles). This data appears to follow logically from the first couple found namely William Question and Susan Millet. The Question surname was perhaps Cuestion in France - I have not yet determined that and for the Blake book I do not need to know that so it will wait for that exploratory work. Interesting though that our daughters have Huguenot ancestry from both Edward and I with his being much closer to the present and we visited Ile de Re (off the coast of France) where the many lines of Huguenots from which they descend lived and they came to Staten Island, New York in the early 1700s. In Edward's case his great grandmother was Hannah Catherine Parlee descendant of those many Huguenot lines (Perlier, Arnaud, Rezeau, Coursier, Gallihaut, Neau and others). 

But given that all of my ancestry is from the British Isles primarily the counties of England and amazingly I can trace back into a goodly number (Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Surrey, London, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Leicestershire, Herefordshire, Cumberland, East Riding of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Shropshire) but back just three generations I am looking at Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset on my father's side (he was born in Hampshire) and Devon, Somerset, Warwickshire on my mother's side (she was born in Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada). Three of my four grandparents were born and raised to adulthood in England and the fourth my Grandfather Pincombe was also born in Middlesex County as was his mother (her parents were born in East Riding of Yorkshire and Cumberland) and his father was born in Devon. My footprint in Canada is a small one - first generation Canadian on my father's side (I was born in Canada before 1st of January 1947 so grandfathered to Canadian citizenship by the act) and fourth generation on my mother's side. Should be straightforward I thought as I delved into the records and fortunately at that same time we were traveling to the British Isles and Europe (my husband and I). His interest primarily Europe and mine British Isles but he also had Dissenters from the British Isles which meant looking back a long way in British records. And we did do that spending hours at Kew and I was able to put together a reasonable tree based on all of those original records but I did have a few gaps and my latin was pretty rough but gradually it is improving although at 81 my memory may be the weak point recalling items that I considered and thought about ten to twenty years ago now. The good thing is that I blogged it all and can search my own blog to see what my thoughts were at different times. 

My other British Isles ancestry comes from the Routledge/Tweddle/Robson and in particular the Oakshaw Routledge family from which both of my 3x great grandparents (Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth Routledge) were descended (they were Highland Scot who left Scotland quickly (interesting story I have related before) and settled in the Border Regions of England). The DNA identifies Irish in the lines of three out of five siblings including mine. Mine from Eire and the other two from Northern Ireland but these lines are unknown to me other than they are probably Ellen Taylor who married Edwin Denner Buller in 1885 (marriage not yet located) and was said to be Irish in the past. A mystery which I will have a look at after the Blake and Pincombe books. 

 I have now settled on the first generation of Blake namely Robert Blake with his wife unknown, he does not name her in his will. He names two sons Thomas and Richard with Richard being the elder and reading through the writing of the will one is definitely left with the impression that Thomas is much younger than Richard. Richard leaves his will in 1522 and dated 12 Apr 1522 and probated 23 May 1522. I have continued using AI and it has been very thought provoking. I had thought that Robert Blake in Richard's will was his son but within the will he says that Robert Blake is the first signer on the indenture so are there two Robert Blake males of adult age in 1522 in Enham? I went through this interesting conundrum with William Blake who left his will in 1582 and is claimed by two Blake family lines (Calne and Andover) earlier so will look at this carefully as a thought although I ended up deciding that there was only on William Blake living at Eastontown who left his will in 1582.  So moving on to the second generation is going to be interesting. I already know there is an Andrew Blake and a William Blake mentioned in Robert Blake's will (dated December 1521) so presumably contemporaries to him and I have already found interesting Blake lines in Berkshire that are known to the Andover Blake family. Well enough known to each other to discuss and own property together possibly by marriage. So, at this moment in time I have a Robert Blake (1st generation) with two sons Richard and Thomas. Richard Blake's will is probated in 1522 where he mentions his brother Thomas which was very obliging. So was the statement "Robert Blake primus mei nichi" in the will of Richard Blake telling the reader that Richard's father Robert is dead or that this is some one not related to him but the first signer on the indenture which they share. I am left with those two thoughts. The unique presence of the Blake family at Andover and the Blake family at Calne is that the distance between them is small relatively speaking; the Blake at Calne moves west to Gloucestershire, east towards Over Wallop near the Wiltshire/Hampshire border and south of Calne towards the English Channel through Wiltshire and Dorset. I need to find more lay subsidies for this 1300/1400/1500 period in Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. 

So a lot of time on research and certainly a great conversation with the AI which has become quite experienced in genealogy so will be an interesting companion on this trek writing the Blake Book. Since the book will be under a Creative Commons License I do not have to worry about sharing my material to any extent with the AI but I gather that I need to put any government documents up on One Drive for security (need to understand this better) as I can not tell the AI to keep a document private with my own personal Microsoft 365 subscription. I think that the genealogical agencies need to think about how to manage AI within the system myself. It is a powerful tool and one that works very well although will always pull up information that exists and in this case some genealogists have these two generations formed in a way that I do not agree with so could get led astray with that. Mind you I will wait before I claim I am right for quite a while probably. I am not into that sort of thing; I will just publish the book and let people disagree with me!

Interesting that Richard says his mother is still alive in his will but Robert does not mention his wife in his will. Yet one is left with such a strong impression that this is a family group with Robert the father and Richard and Thomas the sons mentioned in both wills living at Enham. Robert in his will appears to imply that a Robert Blake will receive all of his goods moveable and immoveable and then in the very next sentence Robert states that Richard will receive the same and the executors (it is plural) will process his will. Richard does not name his wife still living other than wife, his mother still living other than mother and his children are unnamed. An interesting first and second generation one might say and then there is Nicholas Blake and my grandfather and father used to talk about Nicholas and that an American genealogist had it wrong; Nicholas Blake was a small farmer at Enham and did not have a brother Humphrey Blake living at Plainfield, Somerset! Fascinating this story for sure. Why did it come up when you have a family (mine) living just south of Andover in the late 1890s? Nicholas left his will in 1547 but it is an unusual name in the Blake family - it does occur more than once but not common at all. So it stuck in this child's brain way back when I was just six, seven and eight because it was not a name I heard very often and when I started in to doing research on Blake there were papers discussing Horatio Gates Somerby's theft of Nicholas Blake's actual lineage giving him different parents and siblings (he did get to keep some of the ones he had but Humphrey Blake of Plainfield Somerset was added). Amazing perhaps that I have such a good memory but even more so that my grandfather repeated these stories time over time and gradually they just worked their way to the surface as I got into more and more into study on my lines. I spent hours and hours with my grandfather and listening to him talk about Upper Clatford and his family when I was a young child.   

 The  contrast between Tobit and Judith is huge; the first a story of love and the second a story of war. I have read the first 5 chapters of Judith and there are 16 chapters in total. I will continue with the next 5 or 6 chapters today. These two books are not in the King James Version (original and revised). The reading of the Bible is important to me and today is Sunday so also church today either here or in England. We will see. 

Up early, exercise is next and then breakfast followed by Solitaire puzzles.  

 

 

 

Tweaking the will of Robert Blake (16 Dec 1521)

 I  used Co-Pilot to review my transcription of the latin will of Robert Blake written 16 Dec 1521. One interesting change and I can see it now near the end of the will where Robert gives all of his goods moveable and immoveable to Robert Blake. I suspected this was his grandson (son of Richard) and when he writes the last part Robert clearly states 

 "Likewise I give and bequeath to Robert Blayke one cow and the residue of all my goods of my movable goods as well as my immovable property.  Likewise, I give and bequeath to my son Richard whom I appoint as my true executors so that he himself may dispose of for the salvation of my soul " 

Richard dies very soon after his father so Robert is protecting the inheritance by passing it primarily to his grandson but includes Robert's father Richard in that statement. Finally proof that Richard is likely the father of Robert Blake (it appears so but at no point does Robert in this will say that Robert is his grandson). Robert also identifies his younger son as Thomas. That certainly helps to clarify this generation at Andover. 

While I am producing the genealogical chart coming down from Robert (will dated 16 Dec 1521) I will also be checking other earlier records for Blake at Enham to see if I can link the John Blake of the early 1300s in this area with this Robert Blake.  It continues to be interesting that in the Emigrant Database 1330-1550 there is a Richard Blake arriving at Salisbury, Wiltshire 10 Jul 1440, if the same individual also 10 Aug 1441 at St Leonard, Gloucestershire and again in 7 Sep 1441 at Salisbury, Wiltshire and the database states that he (if all three are the same individual) is Irish. In 1521 Robert Blake leaving his will 16 Dec 1521 is elderly and he does name his eldest son Richard who has a son Robert probably over the age of 21 but this would still be a guess although Charlou Dolan's work on Robert's family line would tend to support this premise as well. Perhaps even more interesting in the light of modern research the yDNA of my Blake line had its first match in the Blake study with a tester living in Dublin, Ireland. Mind you many of the Blake lines in Ireland were from England including the Galway Blake family descendant of Richard Caddell from Wales who took on the surname Blake (this line well represented in the yDNA Blake study has a good group of matches all with ancestry back to Galway). 

This is an exciting time in genealogical research and having yDNA at our fingertips is such a gift and certainly I would not be so into it without that extra tool. Thank you to Bill Bleak for creating the yDNA Blake Study at FT DNA quite early with my inserting my brother into the study around 2008. 

Today I continue with my planned work including the genealogical table as well as working on the photo books to create a set of six to eight binders with family pictures. I am beginning with the pictures of Edward as a child as there are quite a few (mine tend to be electronic as I do not wish to keep originals and so my younger sister maintains that original set of documents where it is likely they will be available to family members since I do not live in the same area). I have a couple of me as a child that I will add to the appropriate binder. I am also collecting the pictures of Edward's nieces to send to them since he took pictures of them throughout much of our marriage and before that. 

Thinking on my non-categorized nervous disorder which I mentioned earlier and I could have added that initially it was thought to be multiple sclerosis. But I never completed all the testing and I suspect given my now age of 81 I did not have multiple sclerosis given my current level of health. The psychiatrist felt that my severe migraines (also considered to be a nervous disorder) had just worn me down at the time as I was doing a great deal having just given birth a few months earlier. So his conclusion that what I had to do was to rest when I was tired especially when I had a migraine and not push myself beyond the limits any more since I had had the breakdown. Interesting really. I have followed his advice all of these years.  Thank you very much to him although I know he is no longer working since he was older than I was at that time. The term nervous disorder is a catch-all I think until it is categorized but does include migraine headaches. I do not actually know if migraines are familial or just spontaneous in an individual. I have had mine as long as I can remember although they have certainly decreased remarkably since I had the cataract surgery - so an interesting happening for sure that may or may not have anything to do with the surgery. I really do not know. Basically my contact with the medical world for that surgery was practically nil. I went for the appointment to set up the surgery. I went for two surgeries and my conversations with the specialist were very short so I have no idea on that. There was no followup six weeks later after the surgery (it wasn't mentioned and getting places is not easy for me so I didn't push for anything like that since I was using a private clinic (I had my daughter to help me but I needed specific times and so it was on me to solve that problem for myself) although the operations were done in the local hospital). I simply went back to an optometrist and had a pair of glasses made to suit the time. Then a year later I had a pair made for reading only as I rather liked not wearing glasses anymore except for up close work. One never knows the future of course but I am enjoying not wearing glasses except for bugs flying into your eyes which I never experienced until after cataract surgery - it is a rare occasion though in actual fact and not enough for me to give up the freedom of no glasses having worn them since I was one year of age!

It continues to amaze me to see the detail in the world that I missed all of those years; no regrets for sure but amazing in one's old age to have all these distractions particularly paintings which have so much detail - it does provide a great deal of amusement one might say in my old age.  

Breakfast time. I am early writing my blog but the thoughts were in my brain and so I spilled them out onto my blog and now time to eat.  

 

 

Tobit completed and the Book of Judith is next

 Such a beautiful story of faith and love in the Book of Tobit. The Bible is the most read book in the world and if we all but followed its commandments we would be a world at peace loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and loving (respecting) our neighbour as ourself. Thank you God for all that you have done for your people. May this land become a perfect land worshiping God and following His commandments. 

Two people rescued from the floods in Nepal and Tibet and they have brought the news to the surface that there are more people alive to save. What wondrous news after so many days. Prayers that more will be rescued alive. 

Some accomplishment on the genealogical table; I am gathering and sorting at the moment the material that will go into this genealogical table. It will only come up to my Grandfather and his peers. Samuel George Blake was born in 1875 and by now the census is very complete and anyone can trace back to this time period given that records are so available from this time forward. The book is for Grandpa so it is fitting that it would discover his Blake family coming back from him deep into the past. 

Yesterday would have been our 60th Wedding Anniversary and as always on the anniversary I donated to the Ottawa Branch Library of Ontario Ancestors (was Ontario Genealogical Society). I did not yet renew my yearly membership. I am still thinking about that although I do want to be supportive of an organization that meant so much to Edward. I also donated to our Alma Mater Western University in his memory. I have meant to be doing that but the years pass and I am becoming much more in unison with how he donated. Basically I forgot but will stay with it now. They are small amounts for sure but every dollar counts to help keep these organizations going and to provide particularly for the young in the case of universities. 

Today I want to start on the family photo books and begin to produce the six to eight that are solely about us. They will begin with all of Edward's pictures when he was a child (mine are all electronic as the originals are held by my youngest sister which suits me very well). I decided I did not want to keep originals if I can avoid it. I do have a few pictures of me as a young child that I will put in the books. 

 At Thanksgiving I will remember the Ottawa Hospital with a donation in Edward's memory (usually when someone wealthy is going to double or triple or whatever the amount) and then at Christmas again in Edward's memory I will remember the other organizations that meant a lot to both of us. 

Another beautiful day in God's world and may all His blessings fall down upon this world. Just a little yellowing of the leaves on the tree out front as Fall makes its appearance. I have taken down the bird feeder until May comes around once again. It is all scrubbed up and cleaned ready for the next year. The Cardinal family still comes and perches on the branch because this is their territory and it doesn't matter whether there is a bird feeder there or not. It is still theirs; interesting really. 

Another busy day and it is a research day so shall try to accomplish as much as I am able. My strength has returned after a long summer of being just very busy. At 81 my ability to maintain that very busy for four months is disappearing. Next summer I shall have to maintain a schedule that sees me rest a little more than this year as I became quite exhausted. 

Solitaire puzzles and breakfast. I had my last piece of banana bread before exercise and so today must be a baking day and I need to have my breakfast because I am hungry. 

Genealogical tree in process

 Finally down to work on the genealogical tree for Blake. It will begin with Robert Blake and he has two sons Richard and Thomas. Both of these men leave their wills and Richard leaves his just a couple of months after his father passed away with Thomas' will (younger brother) being nearly twenty years later. Jone Blake (widow) does not name her husband but the wills of Richard and Jone do give one the impression that they were husband and wife. Jone names her children as Robert, Nicholas and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is married to (unknown) Mylne although in her father's will she is not married. Richard naming his eldest son Robert  in his will is helpful as well as in that his father was also Robert who left his will dated 14 Dec 1521. I have quite a bit on these lines which I will now pull into my legacy file. Charlou Dolan worked on the family of Robert (son of Richard) and I have all of her work but the dates are just approximate. I have more details now from other records. But I will credit her with her work in the book when I write it up. 

I need to do a little more work on the Latin in Robert's will just to clarify a couple of small points.   That was lucky learning all that Latin but I need to get back to the Mango Languages Latin and will be doing that soon just to keep it fresh. 

Up early, mind is racing. It happens and I just have to work through it and then sleep for a while to keep the brain rested. So doing some short projects just to wear me out once again and back to sleep for a couple of hours. 

This was a very busy summer and really never stopped from early May right to the end of August nearly. I am looking forward to this fairly quiet September and then on into the Fall. The one hour a day on the yard will be good exercise and lots of fresh air. Plus the yard will look better. The plants that Edward guarded are still there to a certain extent but some are lost and that is sort of sad but it happens in nature all the time so must not dwell on it. Something always replaces it and sometimes that is just as beautiful as what was there and less fragile generally. 

I also need to get to work on the Kipp Newsletters as I promised them to Chilliwack Archives. I need to add a Creative Commons License to them and I did write the final one yesterday and put it up online. I remembered to put that on Edward's blog as well. I will try to send the email again today to the members of the yDNA Kip-Kipp study. I may have been tired putting it in and missed something.  There is a little bit of work to do there as there are about a dozen newsletters that I wrote. Edward did not want to do that; he preferred just writing anything in his blog but I decided it would be quicker for me to add everything from the blog into newsletters and make it available to the entire study group. That does appear to be going to work well as they would like the Newsletters at the Archives and then I can just take them down. 

It is possible that my older daughter when she retires sometime into the future and it will probably be quite a while as she loves working especially teaching and helping students doing their masters and PhD but she also teaches undergraduate as well during each calendar year. She has several research projects ongoing with past students who now have their own academic positions in the United States and around the world. But I digress at some point into the future I suspect my eldest daughter will take over the DNA Studies so I am ensuring that I have complete files so that she doesn't have to start it all over again. I do have to put together Edward's files as I just gave him sort of final information on his different lines as especially Ancestry proved all of his lines to be accurate which was all he wanted. But he also tested at all the different companies and so there is a lot of data but never put into databases or saved as single name files for each match. So a lot of work to do there and I am in the thought process on how to proceed getting that done. I will use the same principle as I used with my own. When he saw my phasing of my grandparents he wanted that as well and did ask his one niece. The only difference really is I have a set of five siblings and for Edward I have himself and many many cousins from 1st cousin to third  in large numbers and even larger numbers of more than third cousins. I believe I can phase his grandparents with all this data so we will see how that goes. I wish I had the DNA of his nieces and perhaps one day hard to say. Both of them would be great as they are not a great deal alike and so would cover both sides of the family likely. The older one is very like Edward in her younger pictures (Edward's first cousins (six males I think, I have forgotten as I do not know his family only met them rarely) look alike in many ways) and the younger one very like her father Allen in her younger pictures although both look like their mother as well but 1/2 is great. The people that I most knew in Princeton were friends of his father (and mother) that filled Edward in on lots of interesting stories about his father. But we only visited with them a few times but wonderful conversations. They were primarily people that Edward worked for when he was young; he first started to work in tobacco when he was just 12/13 years of age. Too young really; not good to be around all those chemicals when you are growing without taking good precautions such as they do now a days. 

Back to bed. Solitaire puzzles when I wake up again as I am getting sleepy.  

Tiredness is creeping in once again.  

 

The Book of Tobit

 The Book of Tobit and I do not remember this story. It is a story of God's love and protection; a beautiful story and I will complete the reading tomorrow. I am finding that it is good to read all of these stories passed down through the ages. 

The genealogical accounts seem to fit into my life these days as I continue my genealogical trace down of the Blake family of Andover. My grandfather knew all of his ancestral line but I only retained the newest part from Joseph down to the present (except for a jumble of names which included Nicholas, William, Thomas, John and Richard). Joseph was baptized in 21 Oct 1730 at St Mary Andover the son of Thomas Blake and Ann (Carter) Blake who had married 8 Dec 1728 at Holy Trinity Church Penton Mewsey. Thomas was baptized 4 May 1709 at St Mary Andover the son of Thomas Blake and Mary (Spring) Blake and they had married 6 Nov 1708 at St Mary Andover. Thomas Blake was baptized 21 Feb 1685 at St Mary Andover the son of John Blake and Elizabeth (unknown) Blake and their marriage details are unknown. Eleven children were baptized to this couple at St Mary Andover (and five of these were buried there as infants or young children). The baptism for John Blake was written into the Parish Register at St Mary Andover 10 May 1649 likely by his father William Blake (married to Ann Hellier 5 Sep 1644 at St Mary Andover). There were three entries made by likely the same individual William during the time when only non-secular records of birth were supposed to be maintained when Cromwell was in power. The Blake line continues back to the beginning of the Parish Registers at St Mary Andover in 1588 for the Baptisms. The will of William Blake in 1582 lists all of his children as does the will of Richard Blake his son thus giving a list of the children of these two Blake lines at Eastontown and Andover. The same is true of the other Blake lines and all will be entered into the genealogical charting in Legacy.

Yesterday the top floor all cleaned as well as the vacuuming of the basement since the dog hair is everywhere and now nowhere hopefully. Today it is the basement to clean and I will soon start the robot cleaning the rugs. 

I hope to get a little work done on my research today and will see how that goes. Still avoiding the news somewhat. and it will likely stay that way as I inch further and further into my 80s. I did say when I was 70 and mapping out my likely time working away on my family genealogy that I would see myself slowly pulling away from genealogy as I hit my 80s but then I was also thinking of my husband and I spending more time walking and watching television and traveling still. But life did change that as did COVID and instead of spending time with my husband in my 80s as he was gradually pulling away from his intensive concentration on genealogy I will remain with that and try to get all of his work organized and off to cousins who are researching. It is a possibility that our older daughter in the years ahead (maybe ten or twenty) will pick up the threads of the DNA work as it is quite fascinating where that is going and she has all the skill sets to do that sort of work along with everything else that she does. 

Next week I begin my one hour a day on the lawns throughout September and into October to get that all ready for winter. Never a dull moment for sure. 

Solitaire puzzles are next.  

Finally decided to drive to the grocery store and took my time carefully proceeding along my usual path and except for a lot of parked vehicles it was a smooth drive. Going past this set of three vehicles parked I went about 5 km per hour and passed a few people walking perhaps back from the store. Then I always drive back along the main road. I suppose I could do that both ways but have got into that habit of taking the side roads over and the main road back. But no children in sight on motor bikes thank goodness. It was fine the other day and I can see now as you approach that three way intersection that the turn at the main road is visible but blocked by visuals somewhat so very necessary to maintain extra caution there. But now that school is in it will be somewhat rarer to see a child on a motorbike on the street.