Blake marriages at Devon and Dorset 1837 on

I have now completed the Blake marriages at Devon and moved on to Dorset. Dorset has proven to be quite interesting. One of the smaller groups of marriages (less than 430 between 1837 and 1950s or about three or four a year). So far there have only been a couple that I couldn't find on the census. This Blake family is interesting because a descendant of the Blake family at Dorset has written to me about his line. I really have no ideas on the ancestry of this family in particular but I do know that the Blake family at Calne gradually moved down towards the south of England through Wiltshire and into Dorset and Hampshire. Are they descendants of Robert de Blakeland/Richard Blaake/Blake/Blague? yDNA testing may well have the answer to that or again it may not. People change their names; sometimes in a marriage a man stays with the wife's surname for whatever reason; nephews take their uncle's surname in order to inherit from them. There are many reasons for differing results. And of course there are sons born to Blake females out of wedlock that retain their mother's surname. If you know that your line goes back a long way that yDNA testing is surely the way to look at your deep ancestry. If you know that you have a so called non paternal event then you might be able to discover the possible father way back in your line through yDNA studies. It is just such a fascinating new genealogical tool.

I had expected to blog every day but I am catching up on emails and I am still very far behind. Plus a few new test results in the Blake and the Pincombe/Pinkham study have necessitated my looking at them for awhile and then writing to the individuals to see if they wish to become more involved in the study giving genealogical information to help me fit them into family lines. I have a lot of Blake information but if you cannot get back into the late 1700s there is quite a bit of looking to do. I am gradually working through the marriages but it will still be quite a while before I reach the end of my file. I am pleased with being at Dorset in my efforts but there is still a long way to go and then looking at the census to put families together and then make the leap back into the parish registers. A lifetime project but I am glad to have taken it on. Occasionally I contemplate eliminating email from my life entirely and just being in an ivory tower working away on my fiche but the emails do sometimes give me new "meat on the bones" material looking at the Blake and the Pincombe/Pinkham families.

I want to return to transcribing wills once again as well. Perhaps I will try to begin the 1st of October.