Once I had created a proof of life timeline for Robert (le) Blake and there is mention of a brother Adam le Blake, I had a better image of this family at Calne and the documents that are available. His son John became a Member of Parliament and his grandson (son of this John) John was also a Member of Parliament. They were associated with Calne but also Quemerford which is closeby. Also known to Robert le Blake was a John Malewayn with several transactions in the 1330s. That is quite interesting as Robert's great great grandson Robert Blake was also at Quemerford (he had a fulling mill there). No details on the middle generations between these two Roberts which is not surprising as one might have to search very thoroughly through the land records to see mention of these individuals (Henry Blake married to ? Dorrant, William Blake married to Elizabeth Power and Henry Blake married to Margaret Bellett). Is it enough to have these transactions between Robert le Blake and John Malewayn to prove a connection of any sort? Probably not although it is interesting that his 2x great grandson later marries Avice (Wallop) Malwyn (widow) who holds Quemerford at that time. I did contemplate it for a while and have still not come to any thoughts on proceeding. I will write it all up and mostly have done so. I did find a Dorrant/Durrant family in Norfolk and a number of wiki trees with Blake being all over the place including Wiltshire and Norfolk. I think differently in that I can just leave these things out that I can not prove rather than mystify the whole process by pulling information out of here and there that I can not find any support. Anyway thoughts for another day.
I did get to contemplating just what do I wish to achieve with this book on the Blake family of Andover. Why am I doing it? Well, my grandfather wanted to write a book about his family but he had a stroke and it just didn't work out for him to do that. Instead he filled my head with his thoughts which was a good idea because now I can bring a lot of this information that he told me onto my computer screen and verify his thoughts. So that is a leap forward for sure. Hence I do see a point in doing this and will continue but it may be that I just eliminate the chapter on the Calne Blake family or leave it in just because there did appear to be some sort of an association between the Blake family in Berkshire, the Blake family in Andover and the Blake family at Calne although I think the connection between Andover and Calne is weaker than the connection between Berkshire and Hampshire. Hence I will mostly concentrate on that connection although can put in the possibility that Richard le Blak of Rouen, Normandy was the founder of the Blake family found at Calne and not the son of Robert le Blake whose timeline is clearly provable along with that of his son John and his grandson John as is that of Richard le Blak of Rouen, Normandy.
That is good to have settled that in my mind. I have thought about it for the last month and a half which is a good length and probably sufficient to let me write the chapter and move on to the next phase of all of this which is pulling out the genealogical data namely BMBs available for the Blake family in the greater Andover area. Then I will have the two books at the same stage once again which is comfortable.
This week I shall work outside one hour per day to start and I need to prune the fruit bushes and want to start putting earth on the lawn and prepare it for grass seed. I will also lightly fill in the current flower beds with fresh soil and no digging. This is my daughter's idea to replenish the soil without disturbing it - regeneration of the soil. We started a couple of years ago and we are learning as we move along. The vegetable gardens will be very different this year I think. We need to be slow and steady planting them and then weeding them. Last year was interesting but a lot of weeds.
Teatime and Latin next. The day begins and the budget has been revealed. The desire of people to own land; buy up property shows up in my mailbox at least twice a week. The light rail is just a lovely walk away (about 3/4s of a kilometre) and there is a huge desire to buy these houses likely for the resell market. It would be good to eliminate that nuisance by regulating the turn around time on selling by investors for sure. I realize we live in this greedy society where everyone wants to be wealthy but being wealthy does have its drawbacks. I also did not like to see the GST totally removed from the builders need to pay it. Increase the GST to 10% and then you can maybe give them a break at 5% if what they are doing is beneficial. Helping out an already wealthy builder though is not my idea of sound financial government support. Not a socialist; just a practical fiscal conservative.
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