St Marys Church at Andover

We did not visit St Marys Church at Andover when we went to Upper Clatford. We were with my cousin and there was so much he wanted to show us in the area around Andover that we decided not to go into Andover itself. That is one place I would like to visit although I suspect it was probably bombed during the war so that old areas are probably gone for the most part. There were Blake families in Andover (mine) and Blake families at Enham (mine as well). But which Enham - Knights Enham or Kings Enham? Also there were Blake families at Finckley, Foxcott (likely mine), Charleton, Penton Mewsey, Abbotts Ann, Monxton, Vernham Dean and I still have other registers to look at with regard to this family.

But were they all the same Blake family? That is a curiosity for me that only yDNA testing can probably resolve. The variety of yDNA in the Blake family includes: R1a, R1b, I1, I2a (my line), I2b and as we continue with the study perhaps there will be other haplogroups. There are two William Blake families at Andover and/or Eastontown. There actually would appear to be two Blake families at Eastontown with the forename William in the mid 1500s. One would definitely be the son of Nicholas by wills and subsidy records. The other William is a bit of a mystery. Is he a son of Roger Blake and Mary Baynard as shown on the Wiltshire Chart mentioned earlier in my blogs? He is said to be married to Avice Ripley (daughter of Sir Gervase Ripley of Ripon Hampshire). William son of Nicholas is married to Elizabeth and leaves a will in 1582 naming his children (and wife). The other William is also said to have died in 1582 but his children are different from William son of Nicholas plus his wife is Avice.

It is interesting to contemplate - was William married twice? This is a question that I cannot answer but one would think that he would have mentioned the children from both marriages if that was the case. The answer lies in reading the manor books for Eastontown (Andover) and that will be one of my prime targets when we next go to Salt Lake City. I wish they were not in Latin but will work away at that problem.

Continuing with the burials at St Marys Andover, I now have 7575 burials to the end of December 1721. There were 9138 baptisms at St Mary Andover by the end of December 1721 so a good growth situation at Andover. New families have moved in and we are just now approaching the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England (between 1760 and 1780 appears to be the generally accepted time period for the commencement of this enormous change in what was primarily a manual labour and draft-animal–based economy towards machine based manufacturing. Towns were fairly small and the rural areas large with many hands needed to work the farms.

I will continue working on the Burials at St Marys heading to 1746 (25 years to do) and also reading my book on the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. It has proven to be most interesting reading. The sources listed include many of the books published about the Colonels of the 23rd Regiment as well as biographies about these particular men. My book report will mention some of the famous colonels of the regiment who went on to greater glory within the British Army.

Perhaps this weekend I will extract the names that have been at Andover since the early registers. I will select a cut off date of 1620 and then do 100 years to 1720. The variety of "home" locations for people marrying at Andover has also increased and I will augment that list as well. I am still hoping it will be helpful for me eventually.

One other mystery that I have in this area is the Coleman/Collman family at Goodworth Clatford. Sarah Coleman was my 3x great grandmother married to Thomas Blake at Upper Clatford. I can trace Sarah back several generations, her father was John Coleman son of Clement Coleman and Dinah Bever. This Clement was the son of Clement Collman and Katherine Holeridge. I have copies of an Inn License for Katherine Coleman in the 1720s at Goodworth Clatford and Clement and Katharine married at Goodworth Clatford 6 Oct 1695. But there I am still waiting but do need to transcribe the Goodworth Clatford registers just to be sure I haven't missed an earlier entry for either or both of them.