Blake family at Penton Mewsey

Almost from the beginning of the day yesterday I was totally distracted from looking at the Devon Parish Registers which I had thought to do. Instead I started to think about the marriage between Thomas Blake and Ann "Carter" at Penton Mewsey. I have the Penton Mewsey fiche for parish registers and always meant to extract the Blake family items from there as I had purchased the will of John Blake at Penton Mewsey and he died there in 1757. The will mentions his eldest legal son as being John living at Andover which explains the John at Andover now in the 1750s. Almost the same day that John senior died his grandson (son of John) died at Penton Mewsey as a small child (John senior died a little later). So I had those three Johns and also as I extracted I discovered a Thomas b 1704 and a son Thomas who died in 1734. I thought this was my Joseph Blake's younger brother but I suddenly realized that the reference to the marriage of a Thomas Blake and Ann Carter at Penton Mewsey was not my Thomas.

The baptism for Joseph Blake (my 4x great grandfather) at Andover says Thomas and Ann and back in my early days of researching I had picked up the marriage at Penton Mewsey. I corrected my files to show Ann and I must now find that marriage if I am able to do so. I also found a marriage for Thomas (younger brother of Joseph) at Andover to Hester Stephens in 1852 (by Licence, Thomas was only 18). I corrected my webpage. I have always meant to look at Penton Mewsey to extract the entries but the will of John reminded me and I had gone looking for that first thing which is what distracted me from the Devon Parish Registers.

Now I have a list of the Blake family register entries at Penton Mewsey and I was noticing as I looked at the burial register at Andover that a number of Blake entries are at Little London which is just between Andover and Abbots Ann. It could be that I may have located the family line for the Blake family at Abbots Ann where John Blake malster leaves a will in 1796. There are two distinct Blake lines that have their initial entries at Knights/Kings Enham and Eastontown in the late 1400s. Hence they are quite distinctly separate by the time the registers are set up in the 1500s. Eventually I will get all the Blake entries extracted from the various parish registers that I have. But there is a Sacheverall Blake at Penton Mewsey (Charles Blake named one of his sons by this distinctive name). Was he doing so just as a gesture or was this a relative of Charles? A question I may place on my website for people looking for Charles Blake to find.

This has now given me pause to think about why Thomas King mentioned John Blake malster at Abbots Ann daughter in his will. Initially I was thinking it was because the Penton Mewsey and the Abbots Ann Blake family were related and the link was through the Blake family but now I will look more carefully at the King family to see what link may exist between John Blake at Abbots Ann and Thomas King at Upper Clatford. John mentions the church at Upper Clatford in his will. I do not have the marriage between John Blake and his wife Mary - it wasn't at Abbots Ann. There was a Blake family at Upper Clatford in the 1600s (Peter Blake) and there was one widow Mary Blake who died there in 1762 (I have her will and need to review that one as well). My Blake family did not commence at Upper Clatford until 1757 when Joseph Blake of Andover married Joanna King (daughter of Thomas King).

We went and saw the lights on Parliament Hill last night. Certainly one of the worst nights of the winter in terms of snow (we had about 30 cm yesterday) but it was the last night and we simply hadn't made it into the city this past couple of weeks. We have been so incredibly busy. I am looking forward to some quiet weeks so that I can assemble my thoughts and get some really constructive work done on my proofs for my 64 4x great grandparents. I am actually missing eight names entirely (seven mothers and one father) and have only the first name for two mothers. I have ten people for whom I need links to their parents. That means that I actually have 44 that I can find proofs for at hand which is phenomenal. For my mother's father's family I have no missing people and can readily trace all of the lines back to the 5x greatgrandparents and in many cases further back then that. This was a family that kept up contacts with their family members through the years (although not after my grandfather died in 1925 so I had to rely on my mother's memory and then the records to feel my way back). But as I did so I encountered people also searching who knew of my line through their family lines - very interesting!