Working with the number of BLAKE entries in the Online Parish Clerks (OPC) database created by volunteers (worldwide the website states - https://cornwall-opc-database.org/) I extracted into the maps below all BLAKE entries in the Cornwall OPC database for baptism, then marriage, then burial. I have already put the maps for baptism and burial into last weeks blog but will add the marriages as well to this blog. There were 30 marriages for males with the BLAKE surname and 19 marriages for females with the BLAKE surname up to 1600 recorded by the transcribers of the Parish Registers in Cornwall. Some of the registers in Cornwall do not begin in 1538 so some marriages would be missing but the transcribers supplemented this data with other resources and that can be seen on their website. But even with all of that, marriages were likely missed I suspect but this study initially was just an overall look at BLAKE in Cornwall and the availability of records from the 1500s on.
Along the Cornwall-Devon border there are seven marriages in total with five marriages having BLAKE as the groom and two marriages having BLAKE as the bride. At a later time I will attempt to see if these marriages were members of the Devon BLAKE family marrying in Cornwall.
Again the clustering can be seen around Bodmin with four marriages at Bodmin, 19 at St Breock, and another 15 closeby to this particular area (a number of transcribers provided this information and their names can be located on the website). I do not follow the female BLAKE lines (including my own) for the BLAKE study. I record only the marriage itself.
Interestingly, the website Domesday Book Online (http://domesdaybook.co.uk/cornwall.html) does not list the BLAKE family but there were no surnames in England prior to the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the Domesday Book was initiated following the Conquest by William the Conqueror. I note that this is a for profit website and would note that I have no connection to this website other than accessing it with regard to the list of names which it includes. However, it is an interesting website.
I do happen to have Thomas Hinde's Edition of "The Domesday Book: England's Heritage, Then and Now, " 1995, Godalming, Surrey, England: ISBN 1-85833-440-3. The section on Cornwall is seven pages. The Exchequer version of the Domesday Book listed 248 manors and the Exon version listed 288 manors in Cornwall (an interesting item that appears to have been produced for or by The John Rylands Library: R. Welldon Finn, MA, "The immediate sources of the Exchequer Domesday" was quite handy to give me a better understanding of this difference, https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:1m1937&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS-DOCUMENT.PDF). The county was mentioned as being poor and sparsely populated in The Domesday Book as mentioned above (edited by Thomas Hinde). Ten of the manors listed were less than one acre. Bodmin is mentioned and it was noted by the Editor that this was a wealthier area and originally a religious settlement. The Domesday Book mentioned there were 68 houses there amongst other details. The OPC database for Cornwall, notably, lists 2,812 baptisms for Bodmin up to 1600, 3,474 burials for Bodmin up to 1600 and 1,488 marriages. At the time of the 2011 census Bodmin is said to have a population of 14,736 persons. From the Genuki website for Cornwall the population in Bodmin in 1811 was 2,050 persons, in 1821 population was 2,902 persons, in 1831 population was 3,375 persons and in 1841 population was 4,205 persons. We did travel through Bodmin when we were in England and it is a built-up area but I saw so many villages that I can not really mention anything in particular that I noted. We did not stop there unfortunately.
The four marriages at Bodmin for BLAKE from the OPC Cornwall database:
Thomas Skele married Elizabeth BLAKE 18 Oct 1562
Robert BLAKE married Kathren Cocke 28 May 1581
John Chapell married Maude BLAKE 2 Nov 1581
John BLAKE married Margett Maye 18 Nov 1588
None of the seven baptisms at Bodmin up to 1600 coincide with the names of the groom above except one baptism for a Roger BLAKE son of Robart baptized 21 Oct 1582 (as mentioned in last week's blog).
There are eight burials at Bodmin commencing in 1582 and they do not include any of the adult BLAKEs mentioned above with three being mentioned as the children of Thomas BLAKE.
Moving on into the next century at Bodmin, the baptisms commenced in 1626 and the priest has, in a number of cases, recorded the mother's first name. Thomas and Mary[e] BLAKE baptized the first five children noted and then another child in 1638 (they may have baptized one more child in 1643 but the name of the mother was not mentioned). A child, perhaps their child, was buried in 1643. At this point, it seemed reasonable as I worked my way through the records to try and discover where Thomas and Mary[e] could have been married.
A Thomas BLAKE married Mary Burne at Bodmin 25 Oct 1624.Thomas BLAKE (possibly the Thomas BLAKE baptized at Whitstone 12 Oct 1599 son of George BLAKE) and was buried 29 Dec 1676 at Bodmin. Thomas BLAKE and his wife Mary Burne baptized the following children at Bodmin:
Elizabeth BLAKE baptized 11 Jun 1626
Eustes BLAKE baptized 8 Jun 1628 and married Christopher Hawke 15 Apr 1661 (Bodmin)
Thomas BLAKE baptized 7 Feb 1629 and married Elizabeth Bond 29 May 1676 (Bodmin) and they appear to have had three known children. Thomas and Elizabeth were buried at Bodmin 10 Jan 1708 and 26 Oct 1708 respectively
William BLAKE baptized 22 Jun 1631 and buried 27 Nov 1632 (Bodmin)
Mary BLAKE baptized 27 Jan 1632
Nathaniel BLAKE baptized 5 Nov 1638
William BLAKE baptized 19 Mar 1643
Jane BLAKE buried 22 Oct 1643 (Bodmin)
The children of Thomas BLAKE and Elizabeth Bond were baptized at Bodmin:
Eustis BLAKE baptized 28 Oct 1677 and buried 8 Oct 1678 (Bodmin)
William BLAKE baptized 18 Feb 1679
Ezekiell BLAKE baptized 10 Nov 1685
I did not find marriages for Eustis or Ezekiell but did find a possibility for William.There was a marriage William BLAKE and Katharine Bennet 8 Jun 1700 (Bodmin) and three children baptized at Bodmin Nicholas 22 Apr 1701, Benjamyn 15 May 1704 and William 25 Feb 1707 but only the father was named.
The BLAKE family has been at Bodmin pretty much continuously through the centuries and Free BMD lists 212 births between 1838 and 1967, 136 marriages between 1837 and 1986 and 191 deaths between 1838 and 1983.
Curiosity led me to continue looking at the early records in the area around Bodmin. The next largest count on the map for marriages was St Breock. St Breock is about 11 kilometres from Bodmin as the crow flies and 15.3 km by road. The parish church at St Breoch was dedicated to St Briocus in 1259. Baptisms exist from 1563 on, Burials from 1561 on and Marriages (Boyd's Marriage Index) from 1561 on. The earliest records at St Breoch for Baptisms commence in 1700 and there was only 1 in 1700 for BLAKE, Burials commence in 1561 and there are 39 up to 1600, Marriages commenced in 1571 and there were ten where the groom was a Blake and eight where the bride was a Blake, Interesting that there were no baptisms at St Breock.
I did build family trees for these marriages where I could find all of the information.
Christopher BLAKE married Johan Cowche 21 Jun 1579 at St Breock.
Elizabeth BLAKE, daughter of Christopher living at Penhall, was buried 18 Apr 1581 (St Breock) (the transcriber Karen Duvall reports this as an other transcript, source unknown).
John BLAKE, son of Christopher, was buried in 1587 (St Breock) (a similar notation for this transcription as well).
John BLAKE, son of Christopher, was buried 1 Sep 1588 (St Breock) (again a similar notation for this transcription). No baptisms at St Breock, no further children for this couple mentioned at St Breock.
The wife of Christopher, Johan, was buried 18 Sep 1588 (St Breock) (similar notation for transcription).
A Christopher BLAKE was buried 8 May 1598, residence Tregonow (St Breock) (similar notation for transcription).
But again the BLAKE family at St Breock has 62 baptisms between 1700 and 1880, 137 marriages between 1574 and 1904 and 120 burials between 1561 and 1935.
I could see at this point in time that I really needed to examine the Manor Books for these areas in Cornwall to see what I could learn there about the BLAKE family. I did not like to jump to the conclusion that all of these BLAKE records belonged to individuals descendant of the one immigrant from Breton, John BLAKE arriving in Bodmin before 16 Feb 1525.
It is most interesting that the BLAKE records do appear most abundant in this area of Cornwall with a centre being locally in the area which includes Bodmin and St Breock. The Domesday Book does not have a BLAKE entry in Cornwall but that doesn't necessarily prove that all the BLAKE lines in the Bodmin/St Breock area descend from John BLAKE arriving in Bodmin before 16 Feb 1525.
The next blog will look at the BLAKE families that appear before 1600 along the border between Devon and Cornwall. I started first looking at these families but could not find a centre to this data which would help me to look at the BLAKE family overall in Cornwall particularly the large clusters in the Bodmin/St Breock area. I will investigate the possibility that these BLAKE families had migrated over the Devon border into Cornwall.
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