Bishops Nympton Parish Records and the Blake family of Calne, Wiltshire

Back to proofreading Bishops Nympton Parish Records as I was lured away by several interesting email requests over the last couple of weeks. Definitely I will not complete this task in January but it was perhaps very optomistic of me to think that I would. Life moves on and there are always queries on Pincombe and Blake that I want to deal with in a timely fashion. Although Bishops Nympton is quite important for my Pincombe family, in the total overall look at records doing an entire transcription of the records was a bonus (mostly for those people who write to me for information as I am the Online Parish Clerk for the parish). Once I have the proofreading done though the information will be online on the Genuki website for Bishops Nympton along with tax records and other interesting items. That will definitely minimize my queries for that parish. Initially I thought it might be a way to meet up with lines related to me but as I worked my way through the Pincombe family I did not find anyone. I have moved on completely from that idea actually and tend to meet my cousins on Genes Reunited which is a terrific site.

I have reached 1586 for marriages in my proofreading but have a great deal more to read as I have not done any baptisms or burials yet. I am following the flow of the registers as presented on the fiche that I purchased and the marriages came first.

I discovered whilst conversing with another of the Blake researchers that the Blake crest had a second variety quite early on in the history of the Calne Blake family. I insert a copy of the image from a large Blake Pedigree that I purchased from the Swindon and Wiltshire Record Office. Since it is under copyright I will only put in a taster. It was a well spent ten pounds on the eight images. They were extremely good images.

Early Crest of the Blake Family of Calne, Wiltshire

This is a pike that is held by a knight and located around the timeperiod of 1300 to 1400 in the Pedigree Chart. Eventually the individual who shows this particular crest is William Blake who married Avice Ripley and lived at Eastontown. I am still sorting out the William Blakes who are paying taxes at Andover to discover just how many Blake lines lived at Andover (my own being one of them). Were they all related? or not? yDNA is the answer to that query and the yDNA study for the Blake family now has 47 members at FT DNA (see the link below if you are able to join this family grouping).

http://www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?code=A70410&Group=Blake

There is an enormous amount of information on this Pedigree Chart and for the most part it has been prepared from the Visitations according to the notes on the chart. The only confusion for me is William Blake marrying Avice Ripley and his being named as a son of Roger Blake and Mary Baynard. I have not been able to prove this relationship to date. Roger's will only mentions his eldest son Thomas and his youngest daughter Mary. I acquired the wills for the Baynard family and I need to transcribe them to see if they will provide any clues.