Basement cleaning completed and the Somerby chapter moving along

 Another successful cleaning day with the basement completed yesterday. Today the main floor and will begin that in a little while. Yesterday I also went out and collected up all the wood that has come off the big maple tree at the back. This year quite a bit came down actually. I wonder if I should get it trimmed but last year I couldn't see any dead branches. Will watch once the budding goes to leaves. The same with the front tree. They are both enormous trees now. The one at the front is 47 years old I think and the one at the back is 44 years old (my daughter grew it from a maple key and tenderly cared for the sapling until Edward and she transplanted it to the back of the yard). She was so proud of her tree (my eldest daughter) but equally proud was my younger daughter as she too joined in with the planting of the tree although pretty young then. 

The hedge back there is at least ten feet tall and hasn't been trimmed since before COVID. Should think about having the tops clipped to keep it bushing out. I think I will get a lawn company to cut the lawns this year. Just looking at them and will call this one that looks particularly interesting and closeby. 

Today I will work on Paul Reed's articles about the Somerby frauds and add them in to the chapter. Then a short set of thoughts on my part at the end and that chapter will be complete. Still working on the Latin wills and translating them into English which is a slow process but I was pretty close my first time through translating them as it turns out. 

Then a little more work on the matches and probably at the same time I will start to work on the Genealogical Chart. I still believe I will put Robert Blake who left his will in 1521 at the top followed by his sons Richard and Thomas and then come down from those two.  Although Enham was around 1000 acres, I still find it hard to believe that all these Blake individuals who left their wills living in Enham were not related. For a while I toyed with the idea that there could have been two William Blakes but the reality is that the only record that referred to two Williams in the 1580s was looking at a father and son (William Senior who died in 1582 and William Junior his son). I think having spent time looking at that and realizing that there simply was lack of consequential information to think that these families were not related. I should  move ahead and put to paper so to speak my thoughts because in the future others will have the opportunity to debate what I have written and perhaps with even greater availability and transcription of old records new snipits will inspire thoughts which generate probabilities and will continue to assist in understanding the Blake family of Andover. 

Although I keep referring back to new matches I am not finding anything significant that would change any thoughts on the phasing of the grand parents and I will return to phasing the great grandparents although not truly phasing because I am using data that phased grandparents and simply moving back in a direct line to the two individuals who produced each of those grandparents and doing a split as seems reasonable given the data. 

Hard to believe we are into the third week of April and soon May. The year is passing rather quickly for me actually. As usual the change in the direction that the sun's rays hit the earth from late March to early May always affects my eyes somewhat and it does take a while for me to adjust to the change in the light as the sun works its way northward to give us summer. Perhaps it is my tendency to be inside far more than outside but I think at 80 that is not going to change. Working in an attic without windows was actually lovely when I was a child and I did spend hours at that. Do I ever regret destroying all my writing from those years before I married? Not really; it was inconsequential to how I lived the rest of my life. It was just the thoughts of a child raised in a family of seven children as the middle child. I was the one that looked after the little ones and I enjoyed it well enough. But I was never really close to my siblings other than my brothers when we were all young but we moved away from each other as I caught up to them and perhaps that made them feel somewhat uncomfortable. Doug did say that later in life that my catching up to him in school made him feel uncomfortable. Funny really thinking about that now. 

The middle of the night saw me write in my blog and I did not realize it was so early. Amazing how a piece of lovely banana bread can put one back to sleep once again. Must get my tea made and do my solitaire puzzles.  Soon the process of cleaning will begin as I drink my tea and do my solitaire puzzles. 

 

Outline for the Somerby Chapter

 1. Review of the fraud committed by Horatio Gates Somerby

2. Who was Nicholas Blake who left  his will in 1547 living at Old Hall, Enham, near Andover

3. Will of Jone Blake, mother of Nicholas Blake 

4. Short Discussion

5. Will of Richard Blake (Latin translation to finish)

6.  Discussion on the work of Charlou Dolan with regard to the children of Jone Blake, in her case, namely Robert Blake (her ancestor)

7. Blake Pedigree (College of Arms) and Blake Chart (Blake Museum, Bridgwater, Somerset) and Edward J Blake

8. Increase Blake of Boston, his ancestors and descendants, with a full account of William Blake of Dorchester and his five children, author: Francis E Blake, Published 1898 at Boston, Massachusetts. 

9. Communications between Edward J Blake and Francis E Blake 

10. Sir William Blake of Kensington, to discuss

11. Paul Reed's papers

12. Thoughts of mine

To be used at some point in the genealogical descents

Nicholas, in his will, refers to the individuals who appear in the Berkshire Blake wills but this Robert does not in his will. I do have this theory about the Blake family in Berkshire being descendant of the le Blak family of Rouen, Normandy and eventually ending up in Calne as the founder Blake family there. Given their status I suspect that they were descendant of the Rouen Le Blak family which had come to England in 1274 to setup a market having received permission duly noted in the Calendar of Patent Rolls. That one finds the le Blak family at Wargrave near Windsor in 1301 is so very interesting and I suggest they gradually moved to Calne fascinating actually (just  need to prove it beyond a doubt). Socially speaking the Blake family at Calne were at the "top of the ladder" so to speak in the 1300s and they continue at that social level through several centuries at least until the disagreement between the Blake family of Calne (refusing to accept a knighthood from King Charles I in the 1630s (need to check that date)) and they were basically chased off from the Calne area it appears for their refusal. Their manor house at Pynhills was demolished.

 But I digress. It does make sense that they are all related in this time period as there are not a lot of records for the Blake family in the Andover area this early (i.e. early 1500s) and the frequency of particular forenames does tend to give one the impression that this is one family. Looking at the Calendar of Patent Rolls for Blake between 1323 and 1452:

Table 6: Calendar of Patent Rolls for Blake between 1323 and 1452.

Year	Issuing Body	Surname	Forename	Applicant Location	Reign of
1323	Faxfleet	le Blak	Simon	Hampshire	Edward II
1343	Westminster	Blake	Robert	Hampshire	Edward III
1352	Westminster	la Blake	Alice	Hampshire	Edward III
1352	Westminster	le Blake	Walter	Hampshire	Edward III
1352	Westminster	le Blake	Henry	Hampshire	Edward III
1389	Clarendon Manor	Blake	John	Hampshire	Richard II
1389	Clarendon Manor	Blake	John	Hampshire	Richard II
1392	Windsor	Blake	Thomas	Hampshire	Richard II
1394	Westminster	Blake	John	Hampshire	Richard II
1402	Westminster	Blake	Andrew	Hampshire	Henry IV
1405	Westminster	Blake	John	Hampshire	Henry IV
1421	Westminster	Blake	John	Hampshire	Henry V
1452	Westminster	Blake	George	Hampshire	Henry VI

           

The entries are rather interesting although do not in this list give the location in Hampshire but the presence of the le Blak in Hampshire most intriguing and the forenames of the family members also interesting. There are really not very many items in this list. As an aside the Le Blak family at Wargrave appears to move towards Hungerford and then Calne through the 1300s after they received the right to set up a market in England in 1274 (they were from Rouen, Normandy as mentioned). Robert, John, Thomas are all names seen in this Blake family at Andover. Alice la Blake is likely the daughter of Richard Le Blak (or a descendant) who applied for the license to set up a market. Alice la Blake is mentioned in the Pipe Rolls of 1301 at Wargrave. My thought is that she married into the family at Andover that then took on her surname as they did not have one which was pretty typical of the times in England at the end of the 1200s and into the 1300s. The advantages to  having a marriage between a Briton and a Norman are large for sure in that time frame.

So more thinking and considering the work of Charlou as I know she did a great deal of research but she did not have all the original wills for this family at Andover as I received only points from these documents from her. I do believe this is all the same Blake family (the la Blake family would be associated by marriage rather than being related) but will continue considering how to fit them together. Richard Blake does identify one of his sons as Robert and another son appears to be Nichi on the will which I interpreted as Nicholas (a daughter is mentioned but not names (she was Elizabeth)). I will continue looking at the wills to ensure that I have gleaned everything from them that is helpful.

Robert (he appears to spell his name as Blayke but I do not think he wrote the will himself as the writing in English at the bottom is not quite the same but I am not an expert for sure). Robert is the father of Richard who left his will in 1521 and he did name Thomas and Richard as his sons so it does make sense that Robert is the son of Richard since Richard mentions his eldest son Robert. But the ages of the children seem to be not quite as expected so need to review that. Nicholas' sons William and Edmund appear to be younger than the children of Robert although William did leave his will in 1582 (35 years after his father passed). I guess I am a knitpicker but perhaps we all benefit in the long run from the knitpicking!

An interesting book that I spotted early on in my genealogy endeavours:

Notices relating to Thomas Smith of Campden, and to Henry Smith, sometime Alderman of London; [written] by Charles Perkins Gwilt, a descendant of the family: London: Printed by George Woodfall. 1836

Interestingly Sir William Blake (Kensington) was one of the Trustees for the will of Henry Smith and there is a lengthy chapter preceding this one that I have reproduced from the original text. The book is primarily about Thomas and Henry Smith mentioned above and have nothing to do with the Blake story other than this brief profile of Sir William Blake which appears in the book mentioned above (published in 1836).

[Chapter Title] A short account of the Trustees appointed by Henry Smith in Deeds executed by him, as well as of the Executors and Overseers of his Will.  (Page 64)

This next paragraph appears on Page 68

Sir William Blake.

Mr. Bray, upon the authority (as he alleges) of the late Sir Isaac Heard, tells us that Sir William was of the family of Blake, of Seton Delaval, in Northumberland, which however was  not the fact. He was of a family of Easton Town, or Essington, in the County of Southampton (a), and was son of John Blake, of that place, by Margaret, daughter of William Blake, of the same place; he married Mary, daughter of Henry Beverley, of London, and Borne, in Yorkshire, and purchased Hales House, in Kensington.  He was a justice of the peace for Middlesex, and was knighted at Whitehall, 13th Oct 1627; he died 30th Oct 1630, and was buried in Kensington Church, wherein a monument, with a long uninteresting epitaph, was erected to his memory. The estate at Kensington was sold at his death. William, his eldest son, born in 1602, married Anne, daughter of Thomas Hawker, of Halesbury, in Wiltshire, Gent, and amongst other children, had issue, Christopher Blake, to whom, in 1665, the trustees leased for seventy years the Smith estate at Kensington, &c., which adjoined the Hale House estate. (b)

    Sarah the sister of Sir William [Blake], married William Rolfe, a trustee. Sir William was both a trustee and executor. [There is also a paragraph in the book mentioned above immediately following this one referring to William Rolfe which I will reproduce at the appropriate time.]

a   Ped. in Vis. Lond. 1690. K. 9. 381, in Coll. Arms. [Pedigree of the Blake Family created by the College of Arms for Daniel Blake in 1690 (a descendant of the same Blake line as this Sir William Blake)].

b   The following occurs amongst the Originalia of the Exchequer, Addit. MS. 6386, p. 2, Ro. XVI: Midx. De tertia parte de anno xv Jacobi primi  Rex concessit Willmo Blake gen et hered  suis imppm libam Warrena in omnibus Maner et terr suis in Kensington Chelsey et al