Solved the mystery

 Remembering the 1200 deaths three years ago when Hamas attacked the kibbutz areas of Israel and the Music Festival where so many young people had come together to celebrate their love of music. God be ever with those murdered that day and with those who had to recover from the dreadful consequences of that act. 

Yesterday amazingly successful for a couple of items that have been on my mind for years.  A Margaret Gregorye married William Pyncombe the 26th Nov 1564 at North Molton. I have puzzled over this marriage because of the way it was recorded on Chart 1 of the original researchers in the Pincombe Pinkham study. The William Pincombe who actually married Margaret Gregorye was the son of John Pencombe and he had just buried all three of his children and his wife a year earlier and then he himself died about four months after this marriage. It was a mystery as the ages; the timing so many things just did not make sense. That corrects that glaring problem that was in the North Molton/South Molton Chart. It was purely by chance that I suddenly realized I likely had the burials of the father of William Pencombe interchanged with that of his infant son. Once fixed, it all fell into place. 

It was the son named William of William Pyncombe and Emott Snow that married Temperance Pollard and this William was a Coroner in Devon as listed on the Visitation not his grandson as shown on Chart1-2. But solving the Margaret Gregorye marriage and then the marriage of William Squire to Margaret Pyncombe was fortuitous because there isn't a Margaret Pyncombe in these families in this time period (1560s) at North Molton (but she would then have been a widow which works). There is a Margaret Pyncombe in the  early register at North Molton who married Philip Kingdon 15 Nov 1539 at North Molton and I suspect  she was the granddaughter of John Pencombe (arrived in 1486); daughter of his eldest son John. She would have been born in the early 1520s perhaps. There are few accurate dates of individuals in this time frame although on the Visitation William married to Temperance Pollard is 54 years of age in 1620 thus placing his birth in 1566. He was the second son of William and Emott Pincombe. In the will of Johanne Pencombe (mother of William married to Emott) she does not mention that William is married but does mention all other marriages of the six children she shared with Thomas Pencombe. One can perhaps assume that in 1563 (the year of her will) William did not yet have any children. It all fits together like a glove!

I completed the first 80 year search of Pencombe (including derivatives) from Find My Past. It was a very successful day and hopefully today equally promising as I continue to put together the third generation. I am in conversation with a member of the Pinkham family in the United States and an email between us revealed that Philip Pynkeham is his ancient relative - the father of the Richard Pinkham that came to the royal colony of now Maine in the 1600s. Who this Philip Pynkeham is is a mystery but not mine to solve other than putting it into my file system in case anyone asks me about him. He simply does not fit into the third generation of the Pencombe family of North Molton. He is at Tawstock on the 1543-45 Devon Lay Subsidy as an adult presumably. There remains the two other de Pencombe families that have appeared  in the records of Devon namely Roger de Pencombe at Bondleigh in the early 1300s and John de Pencomb' as an Assessor on the 1332 Devon Lay subsidy at Molland (he does not appear though in the tax list there). Are they related to this Philip Pynkeham? No ideas on that but I am not able to look at the very large Pinkham family in the United States in terms of publication; first of all I do not have that information at hand, it is too much work for me and I will stick with the smaller family of Pencombe which is my line of descent for the book publication and eventually Pyncombe and then Pincombe (although some members did use the Pinkham spelling) in Devon. John Pencombe of Northmolton is there in 1486 with John Lord Zouch who is attainted and has taken up residence with his cousin in North Molton (it was part of the la Zouche family holdings but gradually moved into a female line by 1486). 

I do hate to appear to be separating the two studies but at 81 I can manage the Pencombe in the book I have decided to write which I am familiar with but not the very large American Pinkham family which is in good hands already. I can see now that this is the moment when I truly do cut loose the two parts of the study in terms of writing my book but the study has been together for a long time and when I retire from the Guild of one-name Studies perhaps someone else will see it differently;  no ideas on that. The yDNA results do indicate that the founder lines are not the same and it is good to just continue with my project of following down the lines of John Pencombe at North Molton. I now have a good second generation although still working on the likely years for each of the three sons. Although I will continue extracting for the entire study into my system files I will only use the Pincombe material related to North Molton in the book. I do still get requests for information from the Pinkham family in the United States but I tend to refer that to the individual who has taken a strong interest in that history as he is more knowledgeable than I am for the Pinkham family of the United States. I did invite Galen Pinkham to work with me maybe fifteen years ago but he was busy with  his own family material which I understand completely in that I have two books on the go. I am too busy now to take on such involvement as I am now writing up what I have learned for the benefit of family members. 

I need to do the Blake Newsletter and will move to that likely this week to complete that. I have quite a bit I can report on the Blake book as it moves forward as well. Mind a bit active and it is 3:00 a.m. I will work for a bit and then back to sleep. 

Next step, the North Molton branches appear to be sorted in the second generation, is looking at the Pencombe family in South Molton as John (eldest son of John Pencombe) is already there and well propertied with G10 on the 1524-7 Devon Lay Subsidy and his son Christopher at G5 (presumably a very young child). The other son John does not appear in the tax records until the 1543-45 Devon Lay Subsidy. On Chart 1-2 John, son of John Pencombe, is not given a year of birth but his son John is listed as born in 1501 (Christopher does not have a year of birth listed). I would propose that the father of Christopher and John was likely born in this 1501 time period rather than his son and the dating in this Chart 1-2 is out by a generation. 

Looking at Chart 1-2 prepared by the earlier researchers one can see large changes in the family of Thomas already (he was not born in 1481 as he would have been 43 then on the 1524-7 Devon Lay Subsidy where he is listed as W1 just under John Pencombe (his father) and that is very unlikely (W meaning wages). In 1543 he is at East Buckland and listed as 9 (which is the level of taxes). William Pyncombe (listed as born in 1506 on Chart 1-2 (he left his will dated 1602 so another unlikely happening) was the son of Thomas Pencombe as listed on Chart 1-2. This chart does not include William's siblings Richard, John, Alice or the unnamed youngest sister. 

William married to Emotte Snowe is part of the fourth generation and he was likely born in the early 1530s or late 1520s. I always had a problem with that section of the chart. William (married to Emotte Snowe) left his will dated in 1602 where he lists his children as Johane, John, William, Symon, Richard, Thomas, Lewis, Peter and Katherin. Thomas (father of this William) was still earning wages in 1524-7 so late teens and then by 1543-45 at East Buckland on the Devon Lay Subsidy listed as 9 on the tax roll for value. The marriage with Emotte Snowe is not in the registers thus far but it is a while since I did a thorough search and I continue pulling that data, if I missed any earlier, today. Chart 1-2 lists William and Emotte's children as John, William, Agnes, Richard, Mary, and Ann which does not fit the will of William. Interestingly an Ann Pincombe married a Christopher Rashleigh (a very well known upper class Devon family) and has been listed as part of William and Emotte's family. The blog that I published which was a reprint has this Ann as part of the South Molton Pincombe family (which is principally John rather than Thomas although William Pincombe (son of William and Emott Pincombe) married to Temperance Pollard did live in South Molton for a period of time as Coroner). 

I consider sometimes recreating these charts but they are a part of history; how people saw these things and how they explained them and so we must just move on making our additions based on the available information and the book will contain my thoughts and certainly the material that the AI brings to the table as well in terms of looking at it with the knowledge of all available history at the AI's fingertips. That was how I treated James Sander's book on the Siderfin family. It remains an important book in the history of the Siderfin family mine simply attempted to add in more information but I must fix the index and will do that and add in my new material unless someone beats me to it!

Instead I will produce a generational chart that will, hopefully, capture all the male lines coming down and the female lines for one generation to show the surnames that married into the Pincombe family of North Molton (including my line!).  

Solitaire puzzles are next and it is basement cleaning day.  

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.