Some of my distant cousins are going to acquire some Pencombe documents for me when they travel to England later this year. They should prove interesting although also in Latin likely. I have to get back to working on the Inquisition Postmortem but discovering that the information in British History Online captures most of the material the incentive has not been quite so strong.
So my premise, that the John Pencombe (still alive on the 1524-27 Lay Subsidy of Devon) at North Molton from 1486 or thereabouts and arriving with John Lord Zouche is descendant of the Pencombe family of Herefordshire. The missing information is not actually all that long in terms of years. The last Pencombe I have information on in Pencombe, Herefordshire is a Thomas de Pencombe named in his father's Inquisition Postmortem. There are a couple of documents in the early 1400s to mid 1400s but concern female members of the family according to the translations online at the Herefordshire Archives. Could he still be alive in 1486, Thomas that is? The Inquisition was taken 10 September 37 Edward III. Regnal year 37 Edward III translates to 1335 so the answer is no he is not alive. Thomas was 14.5 years when his father died and a guardian was named who would arrange the child's marriage. One thing I always try to keep in the back of my mind was marriages at a young age were not uncommon amongst royalty and the wealthy so you do have a potential of more generations per century than you might find with "the common people." This family was not wealthy in the 1400s as the women of the family were struggling to maintain property. A family could quickly go from riches to rags in a generation in this time frame but the social support net that now exists does ease that for individuals caught up in death of a wage earner type of thing.
I will continue working on the Pencombe family for this month and then move on to the generations that come down from the North Molton Pencombe family which does include a large area of north west Devon extending from Rose Ash in the east to Bideford in the west. By the end of the 1500s this family has mostly moved away from North Molton although there continues to be a Pencombe family at North Molton in the 1600s. As the surname evolves I will change it to Pincomb/Pincombe/Pinkham and there are a couple of other similar derivates that I can find the records in the Parish Registers and the Lay Subsidies and other documents that are extant in Devon like the Rebuilding contribution for St Pauls Cathedral in London and others created by the Friends of the Devon Archives. My own line retained the Pincomb/Pincombe spelling to the present day.
Since I have no plans to complete this before January 2026 there is a lot of time. I may be lucky and acquire cousins who offer information to take particular lines that I am not able to take back to North Molton but land records could direct one back there for which I will give them credit because I am not going to Devon to read those files.
I think I might just go back into the various archives today and make sure I have not missed anything in my searches of the last couple of weeks. There are no published works on the Pencombe family but I do have a complete set of the Herald's Visitations for England and will review them as well. And also go into Internet Archive to see what I can find.
I do find it interesting the forenames that have appeared in this family - John with the Inquisition Postmortem and his son Thomas. There is a William in another record in Herefordshire and overall John, Thomas and William are quite common names and indeed John Pencombe who arrived with John Lord Zouch named his three sons John, William and Thomas. In the next generation we find Christopher, Richard as new additions and in the third generation Symon, Lewis and Peter as new additions.
I did review "Index of Persons Named in Early Chancery Proceedings 1385-1467" produced as The Publication of The Harleian Society Volume LXXIX (1928). There are no Pencombe/Pinkcombe/Pinkham entries but not overly surprisingly given that the Pencombe family of Herefordshire is not doing well in this time period. There are however Pykenham entries for a John, a Richard and a William. Richard and William are in the same document. To me it is a far stretch but I will now check out this spelling searching the Discovery Catalogue at the UK National Archives.
There are also Blake entries namely John Blak, Rawlyn Blak, Richard Blak, Andrew Blake, Edmond Blake, Edmund Blake (6 entries), John Blake (4 entries), Simon Blake (2 entries), Thomas Blake (4 entries), Walter Blake, William Blake (3 entries).
Name Page Suit #
John Pykenham 305 (2) 164
Richard Pykenham 56 72
William Pykenham 56 (2) 72
So a bit of sleuthing there today and a few more CDs to look at from my collection.
John Pykenham. There are 53 records for John Pykenham on the Discovery Catalogue at Kew. None are for Devon or Herefordshire.
Richard Pykenham. There are 34 records and none from Devon or Herefordshire.
William Pykenham. There are 48 records and none from Devon or Herefordshire.
A good day yesterday and I did a grocery shopping as well so salmon for dinner yesterday, today and tomorrow. I do love salmon and sweet potato mashed with a mixture of vegetables.
Today up early and have the recyclable food container to put out to the waste management truck so will get that done after breakfast. The rest is all ready out there. Although I do not put out very much. I tried just putting out my white plastic bag but it wasn't picked up so have to put that into a green bag and it takes me a month to fill a green bag and it still isn't really full so just once a month for actual garbage. The green recycling bin is out for this pickup but not always a lot there either.
Blake day today and I will do the entries I found in Early Chancery Proceedings - no Robert Blake thought that was a surprise perhaps although not particularly unexpected. I have not seen the Inquisition Postmortem on which Robert le Blake is said to be a juror in 1336. The individual who did locate it though is a highly respected College of Arms individual so I think he did likely find it but who was Robert le Blake. I must look at the Calendar of Patent Rolls to see where Robert le Blake comes up in there as I think he does.
Teatime and then Latin lessons.
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