The work that I did yesterday: This next set of results for the search (which is just 96 records actually and a number of them are duplicate because of two different sources (this is always good for sure). I have now encountered Philip Pyncombe in the records at Bideford and looking at Chart 10 which is Bideford from the earlier study Philip is said to be a son of William Pincombe. There are a couple of known William Pincombe in the time period that I am reviewing. Thomas has a son William married to Emotte but they did not have a son Philip so they are eliminated from the known descendants of John Pencombe. William the actual son of John Pencombe is already deceased and his son William also deceased as an infant. Family lore has the South Molton Pincombe family moving to the Barnstaple area. According to Chart 1-2 which is North Molton/South Molton there are no William Pincombe descendants in this time frame. However, Christopher does have a son John and he is not listed on the Chart so I need to be open minded. I will review the Charts as I move through the records and if I find any changes I will blog them for people's interest.
As I have now found three distinct areas in Devon where the Pencombe/de Pencombe surname existed from the early 1300s there is a possibility of having a surname similar to others without being related. Particularly a surname that is attached to the name of a village (in this case, Pencombe, Herefordshire).
Quite a few people on Chart 10 continued to live in the Bideford/Barnstaple area up into the mid 1900s when Dr. Richard Pinkham was collecting data. However he does not list anyone particularly on Chart 10 as being an informant. Most of the chart is somewhat broken (links are not generational) except at the very top. I did provide all of these charts in the Pincombe newsletters on the FT DNA website by the way.
I did then move to Chart 14 (Chart 10 does say to go to Chart 16 although it does look overwritten so maybe 14) which repeats the William Pincombe ancestor of the emigrant Richard Pinkham to the United States. William is said to be born in 1539 and married in 1561 (but no name listed for the bride).
I pulled up the Devon Lay Subsidy for Tawstock Parish 1524-7 and listed there is Philip Pyngham. There isn't any name similar to Pincombe/Pinkham in Bideford I then moved on to the 1543-45 Devon Lay Subsidy where I located Philip Pynkeham and a Richard Pencombe is at Bideford (this is Thomas Pencombe's son). Moving back to 1332 and looking at Tawstock Parish there is no surname resembling Pincombe. A slow day for sure but what did I learn - the derivatives of the Pinkham surname existed in 1524-7. I also learned that thousands of people with the Pinkham surname are using the data prepared by the earlier researchers. For instance Ann Pyncombe married Christopher Rashleigh and I was amazed to see how many people actually had Ann in the family of William Pincombe and Emotte (Snowe) Pincombe. The will of William Pincombe in 1602 clearly states the names of the children in this family. So an interesting day spent looking at Philip Pyngham/Pynkeham and his descendants in the Tawstock etc. area.
I am in the midst of a second research week where I will look for instances of Pencombe here and there but along the way I wanted to look at the Philip Pynkeham in Tawstock/Bideford area. I am completely unable to link this individual to the Pencombe family in North Molton. Chart 10 though clearly shows the emigrant to the United States and his father as descendant of Philip. The entire chart 10 has many instances of the surname Pincombe and these were primarily word of mouth although a lot of them have BMB data attached to them. But as mentioned the top of the chart does link several generations but the lower half are individual families for the most part. But it was interesting to see the spelling of Philip Pyngham in 1524-7 at Tawstock on the Devon Lay Subsidy when Pencombe/Pyncombe was pretty much localized in North and South Molton. The presence of a surname so close to Pinkham in 1524-7 does give one pause for thought. Had these earlier de Pencombe family members at Bondleigh gradually assimilated into the area. The distance from Bondleigh to Tawstock is 19.6 miles (31.5 km).
The methodology for doing genealogy has changed in some ways but still one does the reading all the records and puts together family lines. But DNA lets us check those family lines to see if indeed as one compares with matches that the flow back is the same at the 2x great grandparent level and further back. Most people know their grandparents but not everyone knows their relatives further back. That is why testing 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins is really a great idea.
An interesting day and I completed maybe 1/3 of the 96 records and will complete today perhaps since I have the whole day. All the cleaning is accomplished.
My two week research event is to look at the areas that are of interest; determine if there is a Pencombe/Pyncombe family presence there between the 1332 Devon Lay Subsidy and the 1524-7 Devon Lay Subsidy. I did find some information and perhaps I have located the furtherest back ancestor of the Pinkham family of the United States. Myself, when I discovered that my Blake line was ancient British is was rather intriguing to know that my ancestral line went back to the Western Hunter Gatherers as they worked their way across Europe to the British Isles probably via Doggerland at that time so a dry type of voyage for the most part. Tugging away at my brain was the notion were they returning to a land their ancestors had talked about because Homo sapiens retreated to the south of Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum. Discovering that my Pincombe line came from the continent likely in the 1100s but probably before the 1330s when the Emigrant's Database collects those names as they are not there was different. They were not part of the Norman Conquest but they had been the later group coming to England looking for new places to live in so less exciting perhaps than the Hunter Gatherers. Although it does take true spirit of adventure to leave a solid European environment and go to the wilds of Herefordshire I suspect in 1100.
There is still some time left in my research period of two weeks so will spend it continuing to look at the records. But I do believe that John Pencombe arrived in 1486 in North Molton just as the Visitation states and that his three sons were born in North Molton possibly with Alice as their mother but I have nothing about Alice other than she is on the 1545 Devon Lay Subsidy at North Molton and the tax 5. It does not say that she is a widow.
I have begun my Legacy Chart in earnest now and have pulled in the information from my family tree to add to Richard son of William and Emotte Pincombe. Identifying Richard with his son William in the will of 1602 was very handy but I have still spent some time making sure that this Richard is my direct ancestor (there are several thousand or more cousins going along for this ride with me and I would like to get it right). So the book will be solely about John Pencombe at North Molton with his three sons and all their descendants. I am unable to link in the Roger de Pencombe at Bondleigh or the John de Pencomb' at Molland in 1332 to this family. I am also unable to be sure that John Pencombe is related to the de Pencombe family in Herefordshire and will leave it to those closer to Herefordshire to check out the documents in their Archives to see if such a link exists. Just the fact that the forenames are so similar in that both use John, William and Thomas through the generations is not really enough for proof since they are also typical English forenames. But 1486 isn't a bad year to have worked your way back to in a family line and there is room for others to do more in the future. The clustering of this Pencombe family at North Molton and then South Molton is an indication also of their newness perhaps although the movement out in the next generation towards the west including Bideford/Barnstaple and East Buckland and then in the next generation to the east towards Bishops Nympton and Molland is very interesting. Pioneer spirit I guess but it was a long time before my line went to America or Canada except for one individual that tested in the United States although I believe he told me that his family had arrived in the early 1800s as opposed to the middle 1800s for my direct line going to Canada along with his brother who went to America.
A personal thing this book as opposed to my gathering of information for the Pincombe-Pinkham study. Full speed ahead although I will continue to blog any differences I find with the charts as I work my way through the information.
The coat of arms for Pincombe was granted to John Pyncombe of South Molton in 1616. He was married to Amy Dodridge (Arms of Pincombe (or Pyncombe) of South Molton, Devon: Per pale gules and azure, three close helmets argent garnished or) and my understanding is that a Coat of Arms belongs to the person to whom it is granted and one must apply to use the Coat of Arms on a regular basis and there has been a change to show different ownership but I am not an expert - it is just my thought. Exceptions would be the Blake coat of arms that is old and used by a number of Blake lines in the Wiltshire/Hampshire area.
I was surprised to see how mixed up some people's trees are with the South Molton and the North Molton branches of Pincombe. I guess it just gets started and then people copy. Always better to do one's own research.
Time to do the solitaire puzzles and keep the brain active.
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