Andover Parish Records Transcription

Back to Andover Parish Records Transcription beginning yesterday and continuing today. I am now up to 1671 with 4731 baptisms. The priest is now separating the baptisms from the marriages and also the burials. This is one of the hardest and most difficult sections of the Registers. The time period covers the latter part of the reign of King Charles I, the Commonwealth and now I am in the restoration period when Charles II came to the throne. The records are gradually improving and becoming more legible. However, that means that the marriages and the burials will also be difficult and they are still to come!

I am on the fifth row of the first of the three fiche for the time period 1642 to 1684. This is also the period when I am trying to link back to the earlier Blake family at Andover which family lore tells me is my line. This line doesn't trace back to royalty or dukes/lords not even knights. The father of Nicholas Blake is unknown although his parents were married as his mother left a will mentioning her husband but not by name unfortunately. It is interesting that Somersby fabricated a story about this family. I suppose he did it to make the Blake family in the US appear to be very connected to what appeared to be a famous family. Certainly Admiral Robert Blake was an interesting Blake to link to but that was easily done since the Blake family of the Carolinas is definitely related to him but perhaps it was the Blake family in Boston that was the reason for his fabrication. He needed to link that family to the Somerset Blake family and instead of clearly checking the records and discovering that William the emigrant had come from OverStory he fabricated this enormous myth about the Blake families of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somerset being related. Paul Reed does an opposite turnabout and completely separate the Andover Blake family from any other without really investigating who this family may have been related to so missed the marriage of William Blake and Avice Ripley who are purported to be from Andover.

The Wiltshire chart implies that the Blake family at Andover descends from the Blake family at Calne, Wiltshire. However, the William on the chart stated as dying in 1582 at Eastontowne was not married to Avice Ripley. I suspect that this couple are the parents in law of one of William Blake, the linendraper, son John who married a Margaret Blake also listed on the chart. The Chart is important to establish the Blake line(s) of Diana, Princess of Wales but this William is named as a son of Roger Blake. The Visitation for Roger Blake does not list a son William. Very perplexing as my earlier blog states. I continue to draw out the relevant information.

The article by Paul Reed although interesting has failed to note the Tax records available in the 1500s listing three William Blakes in the Andover area and the Pedigree chart which was prepared in the latter part of the 1600s and added to in the 1700s by the College of Arms. These two serious omissions on his part limit his article to a certain extent. He is right about Somersby work on the Blake family though so that is a pity really. When you write an article and overlook some material your article is the one that becomes suspect unfortunately even though what you had to say about the earlier research is absolutely valid and right on.

Before I transcribe the wills I acquired for the Blake family I need to at least reach 1730 in my transcriptions and so I have returned to working on that for a while.