Finally a research day

Today will be principally a research day. Just a few hits now left in the search at Find My past looking at results for "Pencombe" all variations between births from 1480 to  1560. It did pull out a lot of information but seemed to miss some items so will do searches on the lines pulled out now. Some agreement with the Charts here and there. I will do some searches in existing trees to see what emerges. My own tree has not actually been up on the system that long so should not see a strong effect there but we will see. The real question is can this be done with so much information destroyed in the bombing of the Exeter Registery Office in 1942. A lot of the land records fortunately are still available which is the basis often enough of the sort in the 1500s. The 1600s have a different problem with the Cromwell period and a change from the Church maintaining the records to the municipal level. I am seeing somewhat less of that being a factor as compared to the Hampshire records at that time though I must admit. Further from London perhaps so the rules were not quite so strictly maintained, a thought anyway. 

Having the proof back to John Pincombe and Mary Charly is handy. Plus the transcription of John's will by Dr Richard Pinkham prior to the wills being destroyed also very lucky. Being able to clearly prove that the parents of this John were John Pincombe and Grace Manning would be a plus. Not having contributors to the Bishops Nympton page is a drawback perhaps but the land records may still solve that problem. Interesting that John mentions a property in North Molton but the distance between all of these places in North Devon is quite small. According to the AI the straight line distance is four to five miles.  We traveled this road in 2008 from North Molton to Bishops Nympton. 

I do plan on getting back to Blake today and will begin with what I know about the Blake families at Enham and review that first and second generation information in the Legacy file. The wills are abundant in this family at that time and very helpful. I postulated that Robert (left his will in 1521) had a third son deceased who was married to Joane Blake widow at Enham who also left a will naming her three children Robert, Nicholas and Elizabeth.  That would have given the Robert (will 1521) three sons namely unknown, Richard and Thomas. Sometimes the simplest method is the logical path and Joane was definitely married to a Blake and all of them are at Enham in this time frame. Robert's sons Richard and Thomas both left wills to help in this as well Joane's sons Robert and Nicholas also fortuitously left wills to aid this process. I shall review them today and make sure I have gleaned everything possible from the wills. 

Middle of the night and I woke up so decided to look a bit at my day ahead. Back to sleep.  

Morning, how nice and probably about seven hours sleep. Plenty of sleep but broken up by a 2.5 hour period of awake. My mind is restless and it shows. I have lived with that all of my days as long as I can remember. As a child I used to wake up and wander the house and discovered that my father did the same thing. Anyway tonight I will sleep better I always say to  myself and we will see. At least I get enough sleep. 

Thinking of John Pincombe and Mary Charly and whether I can prove that John Pincombe and Grace Manning were John's parents. One possible clue is the naming of their daughters Mary the eldest daughter and Grace the younger daughter.  It seems easy but how common was the name Grace; that is my curiosity. My mother was convinced that John Pincombe and Grace Manning were the names of this John's parents. What do I know about them. John Pincombe was born and baptized 12 Jul 1692 at Bishops Nympton and he was married to Grace Manning 20 Mar 1725 at Bishops Nympton. Grace was baptized 20 Junm 1693 at Bishops Nympton and buried 27 Jul 1765 at Bishops Nympton. The eldest child of John and Grace Pincombe was William and he married Grace Smyth at North Molton 13 Jun 1758. Their only child was also William baptized 31 May 1759 at Bishops Nympton. Unfortunately this William was buried 26 Dec 1780 at Bishops Nympton. His father William Pincombe was buried 7 Dec 1783 at Bishops Nympton and Grace his wife was buried 3 Apr 1783 at Bishops Nympton. At that point in time 26 Dec 1780 when the son William died John would have inherited any property in that family. 

John married Mary Charly 8 Nov 1767 at Bishops Nympton when he was 39 years of age; his older brother John had married at 31 years of age. 

William and John also had a sister Grace who married John Butcher 31 Mar 1755 at Bishops Nympton and she was 23 years of age. She died five months after her infant son 16 Jun 1763 leaving behind two daughters (Mary her second daughter died as a young child). Her daughters were named Grace, Mary and Mary. So a true alignment of naming for sure and one is certainly tempted to think that my mother was correct with remembering the names of John Pincombe's parents. 

Since John and Mary (Charly) Pincombe named their daughter Grace before their sister in law Grace passed away but after John's mother passed away it does seem reasonable that his mother was named Grace. But I will keep tentative in my mind although it does seem very significant this naming. 

At this point in the trace back I was thinking of what my cousin had said after she talked to an individual at the College of Arms who said (and I agree having transcribed the parish registers of Bishops Nympton) that the Pincombe families at Bishops Nympton were principally descendant of John Pincombe and Jane/Johane Blackmoore who had married  25 Sep 1655 at Bishops Nympton. In total they had six children - William, Johan, Wilmote, John, Thomas, Hugh. All survived to adulthood with the exception of John who died at 13 years of age. The naming of the daughters interesting (they were twins actually) Johan and Wilmote. I spent quite a while sorting out the descendants of these children. In between John married to Johan Blackmoore and John married to Grace Manning was a period of 70 years. I examined all the Pincombe marriages in this time period and the best fit I felt was William Pincombe married to Mary Vicary. This William had inherited the titles to the property as the eldest and it does show in the records. Again it does not agree with the chart that Galen Pinkham and Dr Richard Pinkham produced. But it was partly choosing John Pincombe of Knowstone that was the difference. I could not find anything about a John PIncombe of Knowstone and that continues to this day. When I pick this up again I will be working from Richard Pincombe married to Anne (unknown) and Frances Gill and their children as part of that fourth and fifth generation. That will be when I have purchased the document that I have asked to be paged. 

My plan today is to work on Blake although I will complete the ten hits in the search that I still have to do just to leave that a completed search. But I wanted to relate into my blog why I did not agree with the chart for my line at Bishops Nympton. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Third cleaning day of the week

It is the third cleaning day of the week and the top floor today. Will start in a couple of hours since my vacuum is very very noisy. Looking forward to a vacuum made in Canada but must admit I have not shopped for one so have no idea. Eventually I will get a new vacuum.

Worked on some of the search results on Find My Past and will continue with that today along with planning my research on Blake starting tomorrow. I interrupted the steady progression through the 245 results of the search with small searches looking at the lines rather than just one result after another basically unrelated. I did bring together another set that worked well as there are a number of unlinked results in the overall Legacy file. 

I continued working with the Charts from the earlier researchers Galen Pinkham and Dr Richard Pinkham, Galen was American and Richard British so a good working team for sure. The Bishops Nympton page as I really have a close look at it is mostly unlinked or has linking for a couple of generations. The John at Knowstone said to be the father of John married to Jane Blackmoore continues down in the John line to William Pincomb married to Mary Vicary with their marriage 17 Jun 1685 at Bishops Nympton with Mary being from Rose Ash. I plan today to look at the Registers at Knowstone for a bit. 

As I enter another winter I see myself staying here for a while yet not so much the downsizing as that is happening quickly but rather I want to move but where is the question and I have not yet found a solution to that. Nor am I seeking one to be honest. I just take the days one at a time. Another winter and my favourite season by far. I do wonder where I will be at with the books by spring. 

Solitaire puzzles and cleaning next. 

Was thinking about God and how He has ruled our lives. He gave so much and asked so little after Jesus came and told us the two new commandments - Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself. Simple and peace would be with us if everyone followed the rules. Still reading the Psalms and there are 150 of them so will take a while; I am not half way yet. 

Taking a break and dusting and then scrubbing the bathroom and washing the floors follows all of that. Then I am finished for another week. I actually do not mind cleaning; it gives me a long period to think about items whilst I work away. 

I never really looked at the Charts so closely before and I can see that my line is broken up whereas I have it all linked but only on the basis of what my mother remembered. And she herself said beyond John Pincombe and Mary Charly it was somewhat vague in her memory but she told me what she thought was her father's memory. So that is handy. Certainly all those people exist which is not a bad starting point. Moving further back was very difficult when I did it so I am content to now try working forward and see if I can prove that backward push. It will likely involve ordering a number of papers that I do not have; I do have quite a few that I photographed for Pincombe in  Devon. This one I am waiting for is really the beginning and it may or may not help me with the descendants of John at South Molton. We will see. 

I have to say John Pincombe's will in 1795 transcribed by Dr Richard Pinkham was a gift as it is gone in the bombing of the Exeter Registry Office. The will transcription itself is not the full will. 

SOG abstract information

This information from the Principal Registry Exeter.

John Pincombe of Bishops Nympton
John Pincombe, proved (at Exeter CC) 7 May 1795

John Pincombe of Bishops Nympton, yeoman
Will dated 14 Jun 1794
To my wife Mary £200 & goods

To my son John P. an estate called c in North Molton
on condition he pays his two sisters £20 each in five years 

To my son Robert Pincombe £ 80 when he is 21 & £ 5 yearly until then

To my two sons William & Robert Pincombe half each of
 the copyhold estate called West Wood in Bishops Nympton when
they are 21

To my son Thomas £ 300 when he is 21 and £ 5 a year until then

To my daughter Grace Pincombe £ 110


Residue to my son William Executor


Witnesses W. Bowden, Grace Down


Seal (a stag)


Proved 7 May 1795 by William Pincombe Executor

What made this significant was the names, the properties named. Perhaps he wrote this will because his daughter Mary had just died in childbirth a couple of months earlier. She is not mentioned in this transcript. He does not have any grandchildren although he is 66 years of age. He was almost 40 years of age when he married. According to my traceback he was the second son in a family of  two males and one female. His older brother William was deceased as was the son of this William namely William. The property West Wood was mentioned in Robert's will (my 3x great grandfather). It was interesting to see he still held property in North Molton and I tried to use that thought when I was tracing back. Since this was a positive match including a descendant of William the second son who lived in Australia and shared the same yDNA as the line coming down from Robert I was very comfortable with this fit plus the name Charly quite stuck in my mother's mind and the will verifies this is Robert's father. 

 So basically I will be looking for the properties named West Wood, East Wood and Park when I am making all these connections coming forward. But people moved from one property to another often enough. So may not be a definitive answer.

Time for lunch and then dusting and scrubbing.  

A break before dusting and I will have a look at the research hits on Find My Past.  

I have about ten left to do and will finish them up later or tomorrow. I do think though I shall examine some of the trees and see what people who actually live in England have. Never did that before. 

Next spring I shall get a company to do the yards. That will eliminate all of that outside work. I have a few items that I need repaired at some point; no rush but staying here sounds like a good plan for me. Just have to keep having jobs that I can no longer do get out-sourced. Inside is fine unless I break bones or something. The stairs are good exercise. 

Up to Psalm 90 now and this has been a wondrous trip down memory lane as I sang in the Choir for quite a few years in childhood and youth and the Psalms were always such a beautiful piece of music in my Anglican Church that I attended my entire life until Edward and I got married and then we went to Metropolitan United in downtown London near where we lived actually and he had attended that Church before we were married.  I used to go sometimes to early service at my home Anglican Church before we moved away from London as my father always went to that service and it was fun to do that. 

If I should survive so long when my daughter retires and returns we will move somewhere else. But it is fun waking up every day in the house where my children were little, then off to school and then out in the world working. The memory of them is everywhere and I enjoy working in that memory stream for sure. I think my older daughter is more relaxed now as my health has bounded back and she is not worried about me so much anymore plus my younger daughter is now closer to me. 

 

 

Main floor cleaning

Yesterday I made a decision after working most of the day on Pincombe to move to Blake today. I need to decide what I am doing so will spend a little time working on that. However, I may continue with my Pincombe hits at Find My Past just to complete that project. I am missing some items though it appears so will have to review how I am doing this drawing out of the 50,000 items on Pincombe. I can see that if I work on lines that I get more data so will contemplate that a little as well. Hopefully I will soon hear about the document that I want to have scanned at the UK Archives. 

The earlier researchers Galen Pinkham and Dr Richard Pinkham linked the line of John Pincombe and Jane Blackmore back to a John Pincombe of Knowstone giving John a number of siblings namely Mary, Elizabeth, Emotte, Rose and William all born between 1629 and 1641. Interestingly speaking with a cousin who had spoken with the College of Arms about the Pincombe family at Bishops Nympton said that the descendants in Bishops Nympton were predominantly from this family and the Parish Registers certainly show that to be very much the case having transcribed the entire set of them. The Bishops Nympton Chart does not have any Acknowledgements so has been put together from the records I am assuming as there are more dates on this chart than others. Since the line from Knowstone does not include John Pincombe married to Grace Manning I do not agree with it and have stayed with the line as my mother remembered it. But I will also be proving my own line as I work through it since I have simply stayed with her thoughts on it. I need to learn more about Knowstone though and how a Pincombe ended up there especially as one of the daughter's names is Emotte. William Pincombe and Emotte Snow likely married around 1564 and the John Pincombe at Knowstone would have married around the mid 1620s. My suspicion is that Dr. Richard Pinkham did not know where to place John Pincombe married to Jane Blackmoore and this family at Knowstone was handy. I used the land records from the 1700s to help me but now I will review all of that coming forward from John Pencombe (1486). I will use the Living DNA Pincombe matches as well to see if any trees that they might have on Find My Past might assist if they have always lived in England. What I do remember is that they always lived at Bishops Nympton back into the late 1500s as that was another memory my mother had which was why I moved back to Richard who had a son William and was mentioned in his father's will (William Pincombe married to Emotte Snowe). So we will see because she was only eight when her father died and they moved into the City of London away from close family as most of them stayed on the Pincombe farms around London. 

I went and voted yesterday and it was a nice walk (had my rain suit and it works very well). I think I have had that rain suit for about fifty or more years actually. It isn't like you wear one that often and mostly it was camping when I wore it. I did love camping for sure and canoeing. It was great fun especially in the northern woods; north of Sault Ste Marie was generally where we went  When you are there you get a sense of the magnificence of God in our world as you look around at the wondrous surroundings of Northern Ontario.  I did give the canoe away to a First Nations family in the north a few years ago and they had two young children so I know they are enjoying that cedar strip canoe. It was a beauty. A person I know does a lot of work with her people (First Nations) and has been very helpful with my giving such items away. 

Still reading the Psalms and they are wondrous. When I sang in the Choir in my childhood and youth the Psalm of that day was always my favourite part of the service. I love the hymns as well but the psalms are so much about God. They are beautiful. Ed asked me to be in the Choir at his church (he sang in it for seventeen years and loved it) but I said it isn't me.  When I am in a place which is not my Church or anywhere else really that is not mine; then I do not suggest anything. I leave when I have no reason to be there. I notice in my older years though that I do sometimes make comments but generally exit almost immediately when I am doing things like that and leave it to those in charge.  I just collected data as the Volunteer Secretary at Edward's Church although certainly I enjoyed going to the United Church with my grandmother, uncle and aunt as a child. I remember they were always so very nice to me and they knew I was Anglican but invited me to their Sunday School anyway. I preferred to be with my children whilst Edward was in the Choir or anywhere else for that matter. Babysitters were rare in our house. It was a time when my Church was starting to fight the lawsuits over the Residential Schools and I felt that they should simply settle and apologize and that would happen; the Anglican Church was the first to do so. What we were hearing was very upsetting. My memory was of the First Nations children coming to my High School in London, Ontario. Since I was very shy in High School I do not know if they were comfortable. I seldom spoke to anyone I did  not know. 

But I do know that we are moving more together in Canada with further to go but the National Chief of the First Nations Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak was standing beside  Prime Minister Mark Carney when I was watching the news and it was good seeing them together; working together. I must agree with Premier Wab Kinew that it is time to move past the Indian Act. He is such a marvelous person and has a wondrous ability at public speaking and managing the province of Manitoba. He does save the NDP party in my mind because otherwise I do not care for it particularly.

On to work; another busy day of cleaning.  

 

Cleaning day and it is the basement

Continuing prayers for the soldiers recovering from the fire at CFB Wainwright Alberta and for their families who are supporting them. 

Yesterday when I discussed the parentage of the William Pincombe at Molland who left his will dated 1639 and probated 1642 I tentatively named John the eldest son of William Pincombe married to Emotte Snow as his father. I did give reasons to eliminate Richard because it just didn't fit in with the comments in the will, I also eliminate William, the second son, because he had two sons known to me Hugh (died young) and William, the third son is Symon and I have no information on him other than his father said he had left England, the fourth son was Richard already mentioned, the fifth son Thomas and again the will eliminates him as he is named as an uncle, the sixth son was Peter and he likely died at Bideford in 1622  but that still remains to be proven if possible, and the seventh son Lewis I have not located any information on him at all. John seems like the most logical as he had two sons and a daughter namely William, John and Marye. 

Today in my break time I will continue to extract the information from Find My Past. I am now on Page 10 of the data hits using Pencombe (any variation of) as the search between 1480 and 1560 although the search does extend into the 1600s now but that is because I am using birth and anyone born up to 1560 could have survived into the mid 1600s. 

Slowly this fourth and fifth generations are building and the more difficult sorts are to come in the Bideford/Barnstaple area where we have Richard son of Thomas (John (1486)) and the descendants of Philip father of Richard the emigrant to the Royal Colonies in the now United States. I postulate that Philip's father was also a Philip but his father remains unknown in the data thus far. The first Philip is found at Tawstock on the 1524-7 Devon Lay Subsidy and again on the 1543-45 Devon Lay Subsidy at Tawstock, then fourty years later a Phillippe Pyncombe marries  Wilmote Beare 10 Feb 1583 at Bideford and they were the parents of Richard mentioned above (using the dating that is in the Charts produced by the earlier researchers for the Pinkham family of the United States). The cluster of Pencombe derivatives in this area is large and can perhaps be separated out. But the Protestation Returns had a surprise with Richard Pencomb Senior and Richard Pencomb Junior being listed at Abbotsham (three miles from Bideford) in 1641-2. To the best of my knowledge thus far Richard (son of Thomas) only had two children Thomas and Helen. It is separating out this family that comes next in my thinking I suspect and that will solve the fourth and fifth generations in that line coming down from Thomas (son of John (1486)). Thomas' eldest son John married to Emet Hodge (1 Jul 1560) had three daughters none of whom appear to have married although will continue to do secondary checks on that. 

I am still  enthusiastic that I can reach into the sixth and seventh generations which bring me to more parish registers available and complete; the 1500s were less complete but into the 1600s more information is becoming available to the reader. That also gets me past a bottle neck in English records during the Commonwealth as they returned to the parishes at Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 with Charles II becoming King. The land records in the 1700s are very useful as well. Then the census from 1841 on will get me to the early 1900s. Chittlehampton does appear to be the Pincombe families in that area including Filleigh and Molland. which is very helpful. The one tester in the study who matches the known descendants of John Pincombe (1728 Bishops Nympton) has a history back to Barnstaple and my suspicion continues to be the eldest son of John (1486) who lived at South Molton. If correct this does give two distinct matching lines coming down from John (1486) to the present.  Basically I await the Inheritance Dispute document that is being paged at the moment at the Archives. 

I will be moving to Blake this week and will have to review to see where I will begin. I often get tracked back to Nicholas Blake who was misused by Horatio Gates Somerby and given family members and parents that are incorrect. Correcting this is very difficult and as often as I write the proofs I still find people who are devoted to the books Somerby wrote and sold privately to people. Paul Reed, an American genealogist exposed the fraud in the 1990s but still the fraud exists as real in many people's minds. Sad really and unfair to them. I actually dislike giving Somerby so much space but getting rid of that fraud is very important. 

On to the cleaning. First Solitaire puzzles.  

Today I should work on the Blake Newsletter as it is definitely late now (usually the 1st of October or close to that but I was into Pincombe and just had a good run with the records; I suspect that will happen a lot over the next two years). I may just write a little in the first section of the newsletter on how the book is going. Newsletter is completed and uploaded for review. 

Basement just needs to be restored and that will be in a bit. 

Returning to the records for Pencombe and its derivatives at Find My Past. Over these couple of cleaning days I will try to complete the first 245 hits (I have maybe 50 left, we will see).  

Beautiful Sunday in God's world

A perfect Sunday morning, blue sky, sun bright and warm in the eastern sky as God looks down on the earth another day has come in His world. Will it be a perfect day; a day of peace amongst the peoples He created. Why do so many people have greed for what is not theirs? It is hard to understand; I never understood greed. Church today online and it has become my way of life. I was meant for an online life I think from the days that I thought about being an astronaut way back in the 1950s and then  it was a doctor in Africa and then it was Edward's wife. I have led a quiet life for the most part and will continue in that trend. I actually abhor public speaking but I was good at it as it turned out even though I vacated it as quickly as I could. It is the dream of others to do that and I wish them God speed in their efforts. I always did. I feel blessed every day to still be in the house where my children were little, went to school and followed their dreams. My not being here is in the distant future or maybe closer time will tell but where ever I am I will be the same living my online life and writing my books slowly but surely. 

Continuing prayers for the soldiers recovering from the fire at CFB Wainwright. God be with them and their families in this time of worry. 

Yesterdays work on the books was interesting. I do have this William Pincombe at Molland leaving his will dated in 1639 and probated in 1642 where he mentions his children Johane, Elizabeth and William as well as his wife Johane. Placing him has always been a challenge. Was he the son of Richard or was he the son of John? It makes sense for him to be John's son except he is living at Molland and I would have anticipated that John (being the eldest) would have his son living at North Molton but the testator William mentions his uncle Thomas and certainly John and Richard (and all the others) had a brother Thomas (Thomas was to inherit the Molland property along with Symon and Richard). The testator William mentions his brother John and both of these individuals Richard and John had sons William and John. He mentions  John at Bishops Nympton and William at Filleigh (those are Richard's descendants). William at Filleigh was married to Mary Harvey at Chittlehampton and he is the son of William ((b 1599) son of Richard at Bishops Nympton). John at Bishops Nympton is married to Johan Blackmoore and also a son of William (b 1599). Again it is looking at the tax rolls and the Protestation Returns that might clarify what I have written. These two  men are brothers and sons of William (b 1599). The William at Molland would be the eldest son of John (brother to Richard at Bishops Nympton) and born before 1602 because  he is  mentioned in his grandfather's will as John's children. But it does fit nicely into the paperwork thus far. I have added this unlinked William into John's family tentatively. I do like the use of this word that I acquired from the AI. To me it told me that the AI is becoming sentient; respecting the possibility that in the future an item could change due to yet another document or set of data from an economic review. It is not set in stone. 

Not a lot of work today as my eyes  need to rest one day a week. I wanted to think this through freshly in the morning and thus I have. Solitaire puzzles all done. 

Church was interesting. The picture feed did not happen but the sound feed did and it was a lovely service which I greatly appreciated. To be honest I do not watch a lot of TV as it is hard on my eyes and always  has been - fluttering light is not my friend for sure. I avoid all such lighting in as much as it is absolutely possible. The Sermon was particularly appreciated as it centered around Moses and that he did not enter the promised land and what that means to us to learn that you do not always end up doing what you thought you might. God loved Moses and took him home to be with Him. The path Moses tread doing God's work was a hard path but he accomplished it and brought his people to the Promised land as God asked him to do. 

Time for lunch and then clothes washing. A busy day ahead with lots of exercise.