BLAKE - Origin of the BLAKE families along the Cornwall/Devon border

This week's blog will look at the initially small number of BLAKE  marriages in the localities along the Cornwall side of the Cornwall/Devon border. I mentioned last week that up to 1600 there were seven marriages in total in this area along the border with five marriages having BLAKE as the groom and two marriages having BLAKE as the bride.

In the second blog of ten blogs on my BLAKE one-name study I mentioned the England's Immigrants Database 1330-1550 and the individuals who emigrated to the south-west of England from Breton.

This is the citation for this particular set of documents.  England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550 (www.englandsimmigrants.com, version 1.0, 15 February 2015).

In my search of this database I found two individuals mentioned as emigrating to Devon:

 Surname    Forename    Nationality    Day    Month    Year    Residence

BLAKE   John                   Fleming            24   Jul    1484               Devon, Exeter

BLAKE   William             Breton                 4    Apr    1524            Devon, Morchard Bishop

I have blogged a number of times on the BLAKE family in the North Molton area of Devon. The earliest BLAKE records in the parish registers of North Molton are for a Thomas BLAKE buried 8 May 1542 and a John BLAKE buried 5 Dec 1546. There is through the years an extensive BLAKE family at North Molton and the next BLAKE family noted at North Molton:

BLAKE    Mighell    married Agnes Squire    1558    Dec    2  
BLAKE    Johane    daughter   BLAKE    Mychell    baptized    1560    Sep    1  
BLAKE    John    son    BLAKE    Mighell        baptized    1564    Dec    10 (buried  1565    Dec    6)
BLAKE    John    son    BLAKE   Mighell        baptized    1565    Dec    6  
BLAKE    Mote    daughter    BLAKE    Mighell    baptized    1565    Dec    6 (buried   1565    Dec  7)
BLAKE   Anne    daughter    BLAKE    Mighell    baptized    1568  May  16 (buried  1568    Jun  17)
BLAKE Michael, husbandman, will probated PCC 13 Nov 1619

Of interest,  it is 36 kilometres from Morchard Bishop to North Molton and 73 kilometres from Exeter to North Molton. I have transcribed all of the BLAKE wills at the National Archives (UK) known to me for Devon and links to them can be found on the Devon Genuki pages (https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DEV/Probate).

The entries of interest along the Cornwall/Devon border include (Sheviock, Botus Fleming, Landulph, Marhamchurch, Launceston St Mary Magdalene):

Thomas BLAKE married Elizabeth (unknown) Sep 1551 (Landulph)
Patrik BLAKE married Sedwell Truskot 15 Oct 1570 (Botus Fleming)
Francis BLAKE married Jone Wills 15 May 1586 (Marhamchurch)
William BLAKE married Elizbeth Gyngar  5 May 1588 (Marhamchurch)
John BLAKE married Sybblye Holman 21 Oct 1591 (Sheviock)

There were two marriages with a BLAKE bride in this time period (Botus Fleming and Launceston St Mary Magdalene) but I do  not trace down any further than marriage so did not add these two in. The five marriages listed above do not trace down in the area in which they married.

Are there other Blake families in Devon in the border area with Cornwall?

Plymouth, Devon is the closest large city to Sheviock, Landulph and Botus Fleming.  Holsworthy and Okehampton are across the border from Landulph. In my studies of the BLAKE family in Devon thus far I have not located any families that would coincide with these marriages.

One of the oldest BLAKE lines (to the present) in this area of Cornwall was at Landrake which is about 14 kilometres from Plymouth.

Henry BLAKE married Margery Bake 22 Jun 1605 at Landrake with St Erney. Henry was buried 21 Jan 1664 (Landrake) and Margery was buried 29 Mar 1665 (Landrake). They appear to have had eight children and a number of them had descendants. This line is continuous in this general area to the present. But I could not discover any BLAKE members in this particular area prior to their marriage in 1605. I then moved to the Bodmin area working on the BLAKE family in that area.

Although it is tempting to conclude that the BLAKE family in Cornwall is composed of two distinct lines of BLAKE only yDNA testing could really verify the earlier ancestry of this family.

This concludes my look at the BLAKE family in Cornwall. I have extracted all the records and built all the reasonable trees from these records if anyone is particularly interested and I am most willing to share any of this information.

My next blog in this series of ten blogs will examine the oldest BLAKE will that I transcribed from the set of over 700 at the National Archives under PROB/11.That is the Will of John BLAKE probated 24 April 1504, PROB 11/14/117. There are two earlier wills both from 1487 that I have not yet completed (they are in Latin).