Amazingly I have completed Penton Mewsey up to 1812 (I do not have the fiche for the later years). In total I only have five fiche for this parish. Baptisms 1064 but this includes a duplication as the priest in the early 1700s decided to rewrite the earlier register (good of him actually as his was easier to read but I did a new transcription to compare with the original since it became a secondary source automatically. The duplication is 157 although the priest captured a few that I could not read readily. We will see what the end tally is when I proofread and send the copy into the OPC Hampshire site. I will not include the duplication I do not think but rather a transcription that combines the two sets of data. Marriages 229 with 33 duplications but again I must check and see if he found material that wasn't in the original register. There is the occasional note that says items had been missed and they were inserted several years (or even 20) later. Burials 751 with 121 duplications to be checked against the original entries.
There were 29 heads of household on the Hearth Tax list of 1665. This is a parish in the lower division of the hundred of Andover and lies 3 miles north west of the town of Andover. The Church is Holy Trinity Penton Mewsey Parish. The area was rural and agricultural and continues to be that to this day. As I moved through the centuries, the original names continued in the village but I recognized names from Andover marrying into this village. There were, however, some entirely new names as well. Perhaps the local manor houses reflect the names that come from further away - London, etc.
According to Wikipedia, the village consists of about 110 dwellings and a population of 400 people. Working with 29 heads of household and a family size of 5 in 1665 one might expect the population to have been about 150. The census of 1841 lists 250 people at Penton Mewsey. The census of 1851 lists 211 people at Penton Mewsey. The census of 1861 lists 287 people at Penton Mewsey. The census of 1871 lists 344 people at Penton Mewsey. The census of 1881 lists 377 people at Penton Mewsey. The census of 1891 lists 280 people at Penton Mewsey. The census of 1901 lists 227 people at Penton Mewsey. I used the enumerator book and came up with only 100 people on the 1911 which doesn't seem quite right. I would need to determine if Foxcott, Weyhill and Hatherden were always included within Penton Mewsey in these census. They were separate places on the 1665 Hearth Tax Assessment. The 400 now listed perhaps reflects Penton Mewsey becoming a "commuter" town as Hampshire becomes the Technological Centre of England. Between 1665 and 1841 there appears to be an increase from about 150 to 250.
Penton Mewsey did not give me support for my hypothesis of a couple of days ago which was that Robert Blake and Elizabeth Russell Blake were baptizing children there in the absent years from Andover 1703 to 1710. The 1710 baptism of Sacheverell Blake as the son of Robert was very welcome news but the 1714 baptism of John is coincidental with the baptism of a child of theirs at Andover. Back to the thinking board but will not let the Robert Blake/Elizabeth Russell marriage slip away because the children fit nicely into the John Blake will that is my linchpin for all of the discussion on the Charles Blake family with respect to my own at Upper Clatford.
Who is the Robert Blake at Penton Mewsey? There is a large Blake family - John Blake and Sarah Towler who married at Quarley baptize all their children there and their sons continue to do so and even grandsons (possibly this is the Blake family that continues to live there to this day). I wish I could persuade them to test their yDNA to see if there was a mixture of Blake families at Andover. The name Blake occurs as Blague, Blaake, and Blake. It is always possible that indeed there was more than one grouping of people who ended up using the name Blake at Andover. The two Blake lines at Andover though intermarried and their descendant will one day sit on the throne of England (Prince William son of Diana, Princess of Wales). The Pedigree Chart at the Swindon and Wiltshire Record Office clearly shows this relationship although I am still puzzled by the marriage between William Blake and Avis Ripley and that this William is a son of Roger Blake and Mary Baynard. The extant visitation does not list him, the will of Roger Blake lists only his eldest son and youngest daughter but it was prepared by the College of Arms. I expect that we will see more information on Williams' line in the years to come.
Once I have proofread Penton Mewsey then I shall move on to Upper Clatford as being my next place to transcribe. I have only extracted my own family information from this parish back to Joseph Blake and Joanna King marrying in 1757 at Upper Clatford. I have glanced at the King family there to a certain extent trying to put the King families together there somewhat successfully. It is time now to look at the beginning of the registers as there was a Blake family there earlier and I think I need to know more about that family. They were there in the 1600s but had disappeared from Upper Clatford by the early 1700s or perhaps earlier.
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