Monday, November 30, 2015

Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 1



Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter

Table of Contents
1.   Coat of Arms of the Pincombe Family of South Molton
2.   yDNA Study of the Pincombe-Pinkham Family
3.   Autosomal Study of the descendants of Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth Rowcliffe
4.   Visitation of Devon – Pincombe – 1620 (with additions) compared to earlier Visitations
5.   Pincombe line of the Editor

Coat of Arms of the Pincombe Family of South Molton
Only one line, as far as I am aware, of the Pincombe Family has ever been entitled to bear the coat of arms pictured in this newsletter. This was the Pincombe line at South Molton. The Grant from the Royal College was in 1616 to John Pyncombe who was married to Amy Dodridge sister to Judge Dodridge (daughter of Richard Dodridge of Barnstaple). His son also bore these arms, John Pincombe (Barister of the Middle Temple) married to Mary daughter of Sir John Carew of Crowcombe. I do not know if the son of John Pincombe, Richard Pincombe, ever bore these arms in the short year after his father died and before he died. I believe that Gertrude sister to Richard may have borne these arms as the eldest daughter but that would have ended with her. The wealth of this particular Pincombe family formed The Pyncombe Trust which still exists today at Poughill.

yDNA study of the Pincombe-Pinkham family
Although I started this project at FT DNA back in 2008, it is only at this time that there are sufficient results to really discuss the yDNA portion of the results for the Pincombe-Pinkham family. I should mention that I am developing very much of a hands-off approach to these DNA studies. Although this is likely a singleton family, there are still going to be possibilities for differing results. There could be an occasion where a line daughtered out and a male has taken his wife’s surname for whatever reason. There is always the possibility of adoption especially in the early years in the American Colonies given the high death rate. As well, the possibility of not the expected male line could also occur in the case of illegitimacy. 

Thus far there are two distinct lines for this family:

R1b haplogroup (North Devon ancestry) and I haplogroup (Colonial America).

Obviously these two are not related in any sort of genealogical timeframe. A suggestion was made to me by one of the members of the Pinkham-1 group that in his researching he had discovered the possibility that an ancient ancestor had been adopted by a Pincombe family in the 1600s in Colonial America. This would certainly account for the difference. 

The three results for the North Devon family (and the Pinkham result which has not yet been able to find their emigrant ancestor although I have placed him in this grouping because he matches the other two in a reasonable genealogical timeframe accounting for any differences) are from the R1b haplogroup generally referred to as R-L21. All results belong to R-L21 although the haplogroup testing has only been performed on the one sample but the SNP M269 is upstream of the SNP L21. None of these three men are an exact match but in each case they are separated by hundreds of years with the first sample being descendant of the Barnstaple/Bideford Pincombe family, the second being descendant of my line at Bishops Nympton and the third being in the American Colonies and traced back into the mid 1700s thus far. Family lore links the family at South Molton/North Molton with the Barnstaple/Bideford Pincombe family. In particular William Pincombe who left his will in 1602 probated 1605 had seven sons and to date I have only been able to trace three of them down into a reasonable time frame with all remaining in the South Molton/North Molton area into the 1800s. 

Unfortunately the three results for the group labeled Pinkham-1 are not quite so clearcut. Two members of this group are a good match but the third member does not match them although he too belongs to haplogroup I. Time may well answer all questions in that regard.
Until recently I have more or less ignored the yDNA study because I wasn’t able to resolve the differences in the results but the addition of the two R1b results has clarified the study and renewed my thoughts on the value of the yDNA study. 

I had received 14 charts (bulletin board sized) from the earlier Pincombe researchers which I am slowly entering into Legacy (I do have these charts in electronic form) which showed that Pincombe and Pinkham were used interchangeably by a number of the descendant families in North Devon and elsewhere although in my Pincomb/Pincombe line at Bishops Nympton the spelling Pinkham was never used in any English records.

Autosomal Study of the descendants of Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth Rowcliffe
The excitement of autosomal DNA is slowly seeping into one-name studies. Women can not test for their ancestors in any male line unless they have a male to test for them – father, brother, male cousin in that line, or uncle. But women can test their autosomal DNA and match with other descendants of particular ancestors. In this case I have a number of interesting matches with descendants of Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth Rowcliffe our mutual 3x great grandparents (or 4x great grandparents in one of the matches).
As these studies grow and more people test a number of interesting facts are emerging. Perhaps the most important is that siblings do not inherit equally from their grandparents; it can be quite amazingly different. A number of my siblings have tested and the differences between us are remarkable but well within the limits of being full siblings. In some cases one sibling may match a cousin on more chromosomes than another sibling giving a much rounder picture of the DNA of the most recent common ancestor.

The X-Descendant (red) set of results are male individuals who have tested their Y DNA and have joined the study because they have autosomal DNA results. Eventually I hope to come up with a method to display the Family Finder results but to date I have not yet been able to discover an interesting but anonymous way to reveal these results.

Visitation of Devon – Pincombe – 1620 (with additions) compared to earlier Visitations


The above image is of “The Visitations of the County of Devon” 1620 with additions. Over time, I tended to mostly use this particular copy because it appeared to be more complete than the others. However a rather interesting change had occurred over time between this particular Visitation and the original 1620 Visitation of Devon.



Probably the biggest change is the naming of the sons of the original Pyncombe of Northmolton who arrived there with Lord de la Zouche circa 1485. Of note, Lord de la Zouche was attainted after the Battle of Bosworth Field. One could wonder if our Pyncombe ancestor was also at Bosworth Field fighting with Richard III but to date I have not yet found anything to collaborate that possibility. The sons in the original Visitation were listed as Thomas (lived at Filleigh (and my ancestor), John and an unknown Pyncombe rather than two with the forename John and one Thomas. Now the Visitation with additions provides extra information beyond the 1620 Visitation and is rather handy to use which is why I forgot over time that the names of the sons had been altered.

Pincombe Line of the Editor
At the time of producing this list I am still in the process of gathering up all the references and I am in disagreement with the original study by the Pincombe-Pinkham one name study. A cousin of mine checking with the Royal College was told that it was probably not possible to separate out the descendant lines of John Pincombe and Johane Blackmoore so that there are a couple of generations below this couple down to my ancestor John PIncombe and Mary Charlie. However, I did transcribe the entire Bishops Nympton Parish Registers and feel that I have been able to separate out these lines and determine the generations between John Pincombe/Johane Blackmoore and John Pincombe/Mary Charlie. 

My ancestor Richard Pincombe at Bishops Nympton baptized his eldest son William in 1599 but his first wife died shortly after. He remarried and had a second family at Bishops Nympton. He did not marry his first wife at Bishops Nympton and I have not yet found that marriage but he is mentioned in his father’s will (William Pincombe of East Buckland) as is his son William. 

1. Elizabeth BLAKE
2. Helen Louise PINCOMBE
3. John Routledge PINCOMBE (b 10 Sep 1872)
4. William Robert PINCOMBE (b 11 Jun 1837) - Molland Devon
5. John PINCOMBE (b 5 Jul 1808) - Bishops Nympton Devon
6. Robert PINCOMBE (b 4 Oct 1775) - Bishops Nympton Devon
7. John PINCOMBE (b 13 Feb 1728) - Bishops Nympton Devon
8. John PNCOMBE (b 12 Jun 1692) - Bishops Nympton Devon
9. William PINCOMBE (b 18 Oct 1656) - Bishops Nympton Devon
10. John PINCOMBE (b 19 Jan 1622) - Bishops Nympton Devon
11. Willyam PINCOMBE (b 23 Mar 1599) - Bishops Nympton Devon
12. Richarde PINCOMBE (bc 1570s) - East Buckland Devon
13. Willyam PYNCOMBE (bc 1530s) - East Buckland Devon
14. Thomas PENCOMBE (bc 1500s) – North Molton/Filleigh Devon
15. Unknown PENCOMBE/PYNCOMBE

Submissions to the Newsletter
Please feel free to submit material to the Newsletter. I will publish the Pincombe entries in the Bishops Nympton Parish Registers and other Registers that I have transcribed in North Devon. 

Please submit the articles to: Kippeeb@rogers.com


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