Returning to Blake Wills

Finally after more than three months I am getting back to blogging once again. I spent most of two months just walking about on my feet whenever I was awake as that worked best for my recovery! I am still limited somewhat at the computer but hope to do a will a day except when I am working on family reconstruction.

I have decided that Family Reconstruction is perhaps one of the very important parts of my Blake one name study. I think looking at the work that Martin Blake did on the Galway Blake family I am likely right in that regard. The drawback for me is my limited oral knowledge of any Blake family in England other than my own. But I shall forge ahead and continue working on the Cornwall family as it is most interesting. I think what I ponder is the age of these family lines - is the Devon line the oldest one and does it predate the line in Somerset which takes me back to the Blake family near Calne which appears to have the deepest roots for this perhaps continuous family. My own line at Andover is back to the mid 1400s but given the yDNA results my line has likely taken on the Blake surname prior to that time and likely towards the end of the 1200s or into the early 1300s. Why did they take it on is the mystery? Did my ancient ancestor marry a Blake descendant of Richard le Blak[e] as this family was living not far away from Andover. Richard le Blak[e] appears to be the progenitor of the Blake family near Calne if one looks at the Pedigree Chart of the Blake family held at the Swindon and Wiltshire Record Office.

Exciting time for my line as I try to work my way back and discover if that is a possibility. English people did not have surnames until the arrival of the Normans in 1066 and it was a gradual assumption of surnames through the centuries that followed until most English people had acquired or were made to acquire a surname in the latter part of the 1400s into the 1500s. Since my ancient ancestor did have a piece of property at Knights Enham I expect that there was less of a random picking of a surname but more inclined towards a marriage with someone who already had a surname. Time will tell on that.

I hope to blog the next will later today and it is an administration for a Samuel Blake in 1744 at Chipping Sodbury.