Completed the 1524-7 Devon Lay Subsidy

It was a very useful task to read through the entire 1524-7 Lay Devon Subsidy. The Tyncombe family was I believe larger at this time than in the later Subsidies but still centered around the same area. I still believe they are a different free standing and much older Devon family. I did not find any more individuals that I would add to the Pencombe family in this time period. I did manage to collect names that might assist me in understanding the families that married into the Pincombe family (mine) in the Bishops Nympton area where they lived from the latter part of the 1500s until the mid 1800s. 

Today I want to return to the Siderfin census and BMBs continuing the marrying up those two files which then take me from 1911 back into the 1600s. I do have the Somerset Lay Subsidy in 1641-2 and will also need to hunt out my London information as some of the Siderfin family were in the London area in the 1600s. The bulk of the records in the 1700s and 1800s belong to my Siderfin line likely coming down from Robert (Robert 3, William 2, John 1). Likely I will need to look at the 2000 plus entries for Siderfin in Find My Past but it would be easier if I could just go through that set quickly. I do not believe that all these Siderfin lines daughtered out with the other son's lines (namely William (Robert 3, William 2, John 1) and Thomas (Robert 3, William 2, John 1) but looking at James Sander's chart I could be mistaken on that as he does show most of these lines daughtering out. I do need to determine if any of these lines did come down to the 1900s still carrying the Siderfin surname. Some say that I should not use that term as it sounds derogatory; I tend to see it from the viewpoint that another line did not daughter out because in this case a Siderfin helped to carry on another line. I do not think one would call me a feminist by today's standards; I just see everybody as absolutely equal under Heaven. I believe that man and woman are equal and that life flows better when men and women work together for the betterment of the world.

Heavy snow today and as I look out the window the snow is coming down thickly; I believe it is to last most of the day at least until mid-afternoon. Will it be our last big snowfall of the year. Hard to tell. We often get our heaviest snows in March but this has been a heavy snowfall year and generally we do get snow falls into April but they tend to be lighter in April. Even in March I still love the falling snow. It has an ethereal beauty all of its own. Somehow dreary rain just does not compare. But I have spent most of my life in Canada, trips into the United States through the years (many of them) and our trips to Europe and the British Isles and Mexico. Will I travel a lot more? No ideas on that.  The desire to travel is not strong in me unless I am going to see something that I really want to see. My first air flight was in 2001 to Rome, Italy. A pilgrimage for me and it was a fantastic experience being over the Atlantic Ocean (I mostly slept but woke up in time to see the sunrise as we flew over the Alps). Rome was wonderful and my first European City to visit and we flew from there to London, England and my second European City to visit. Both were wondrous and I still relish that first flight and those two cities. I was fifty six years of age and strange that I never flew before but I just never had any place that I wanted to go to that involved flying nor did my job ever require me to fly anywhere. Had I married and gone to Africa when I was seventeen that would have been a boat trip likely as it was in the early to mid 60s when traveling by boat was commoner. Life flows and at each time in your life there are moments when the path divides but depending on our age that path is determined by parents or by yourself. It is nice to be an adult determining one's path. 

On to the day; breakfast awaits. Probably I will not be outside today unless I clear the patio at the back of snow.

Purcombe surname

 Found a rather interesting surname in Blackawton Parish, Coleridge Hundred namely Purcombe; a Richard Purcombe G 4, a William Purcombe G 4, and a Wm Purcombe W1 (1524)/ G1 (1525). A son perhaps of one of the other three although not listed close to them but it was a habit to place sons with another landowner for training although not always the case. When I went to Free BMD to look at the Purcombe surname I found only one entry in Wales in their entire database. That was really interesting in itself. Apparently the parish of Blackawton "was leased by the Abbey at Torre in Torquay from about 1250 until 1539" so lots of records available in the Abbey Cartularies. I have this quote from a website Medievalists.net. There is a Purcombe Farmhouse in Whitchurch Canonicorum, Dorset (near Bridport). Interesting that the surname should occur in Devon near Totnes. It could be a mistranslation as the surname site at nottingham.ac.uk lists the spellings Pircombe, Pyrcombe, Piricume, Piricumb, Pirecomb, Pirecombe, Pirecumbe as well. None of these possibilities has a hit on Free BMD. I did however find 279 hits on Find My Past and they are in several areas and I have apparently looked this surname up before. There are just 14 records however some in the 1600s and some in the 1800s/1900s. 

The day continues as I work my way through all of the hundreds. I have found a few surnames that interest me namely Mannyng, Vycary, Hervy, Burges, Blake, Snowe, Rowclyff, Bray, Blakemore and of course the ones already mentioned Pyncombe, Pencombe, Penceme, Thomas, Dodderigge, Tencombe, Tynkeham, Charley, Churley. The Purcombe is certainly very interesting but in the south around Totnes is a bit far from North Molton. But for the sake of completeness I blog it and have recorded it. 

At Page 203 and 46 more pages of the 1524-5 Lay Subsidy remains. There is a lot of material in this file. I will probably go through the entire file since I am finding it very interesting. 

These Hundreds along the Channel have a population moving in and out rapidly it would appear between 1524 and 1525. It would be fisheries and trading ships. There are a lot of people marked as alien. A William Blake is a Breton which fits in with Parish Register entries I found a couple of years ago which showed two Bretons in Devon and several in Cornwall with the Blake surname. Blake is in only a few areas in Devon thus far in my perusal of the file. 

 

 

Another day on Siderfin

Continuing hunting out the missing Siderfin entries in the census. I could just do a global look for Siderfin on FMP but that is over 2000 entries. Doing it piecemeal is perhaps slower in the long run but lets me sift through a whole lot of data all at once. Time will tell which would have been the best method. I still have two people on the 1841 census that I can not quite place into their family lines. Will continue with them today but gradually the lines are falling into place. 

I also continued looking at the 1524-7 subsidy for Pencombe just to ensure that I have not missed anything. I did find a John Tyncam at Stoke Damarel in Roborough Hundred which is a distance of 60 kilometres from Gidleigh which is substantial but Gidleigh to Stoke Damarel is all in the Plymouth area but I did make note of this entry. I am about half way through the entire Lay Subsidy for Devon. It is an interesting time preceding the introduction of Parish Registers (1538) and does capture many people in an area as wage earners were included. I do have the Tax Subsidy of 1544-45 and 1581 in comparison to go along with this new set of data so does give an interesting look at the 1500s which takes us from Henry VII to Henry VIII to Edward VI to Mary to Elizabeth I. It is a difficult time in genealogical research because the parish registers are just beginning so that most of the information concerns the landed peoples in England rather than the bulk of the population. But these Subsidies do capture, on occasion, a large portion of the people. The spelling is erratic and there are still a few who have resisted surnames so that you have forename and of whatever like Hill etc. The documents you most need to look at like Manor Books are all in Latin and my skills are growing very slowly in that. 

I also need to do some DNA work as I started my usual yearly task of incorporating all new matches into my phasing of grand parents and also started working on phasing great grandparents but that task has not had much input by me in the last couple of months. So my busy research time in the new couple of months will quite consume my mind but already I am contemplating setting up my indoor greenhouse to get plants started for the spring planting. Life is just very busy. I also need to get back to blogging Edward's research and the material that he bought on ebay. Perhaps I need to hire someone to help me with all this work I have taken on although not likely as I would lose all that time to getting that up to speed. 

On to my day and it will be a research one again.

Cleaning all accomplished and a new month has arrived

The first of the month is always a refreshing day; we begin the count anew for the days and each one of these days of March brings us closer to that exciting moment in the spring when the buds swell up on the trees and give forth their beauty. God continues to marvel us in so many ways; Mother Nature gives us the beauty of our days every day. The Lenten message from  Dr. Nahimana of PIH Rwanda is again one of hope and the love in our world that Jesus brought with him. God is great. But we must always follow the right path and not test the Lord your God. Testing God is not loving God. Slowly we move through Lent but unlike the early Christians we know the ending but the sadness of Lent is always there to remind us of the gift that God gave to us. Today I have chosen Ian White's Psalms CD to play. It is the only CD that I actually purchased on my own at a meeting as I recall; Edward and I generally purchased the Classical Religious and modern Religious music together. I also have about twenty Classical Religious and modern Religious music which I also enjoy very much. I tend more towards Classical Music and especially Religious music having grown up in a household where two kinds of records were played - Religious Classical and the speeches of Winston Churchill during the Second World War. Mind you I think there was some popular music but the Religious Classical and speeches of Winston Churchill stick in my mind from the first twenty years of my life. So today I shall listen to the Psalms all day. I love to experience the Psalms during Lent and then at Easter I can play the CDs of all those lovely Easter hymns and fill the house with my own singing in company. 

The Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter will be published today. It was a lot of work but I enjoyed putting together what I found. Someday others will find more and each one in his turn will bring to life those ancestors of old. But this is my time to do that and I will attempt to do the best job that I can do. It reminds me of the love that my grandmother had for her husband which showed in her eyes when I was a child. My Grandmother, Uncle and Aunt were my escape from so many people when I was a child. I enjoyed my time with all my siblings but it was also nice to just be somewhere that felt also like home.I think that is nice for children to have more than one place that is special.

Today is my first research day and back to the Siderfin Book for a couple of weeks until I start working on the Blake Newsletter. I am into Volume 12 now and this will be the second issue. I talked about continuing with Charlou Dolan's chart of the descendants of Robert Blake in this next issue. At some point I will get back to the Somerset Lay Subsidies and working on the Blake family there. I am also going through the Devon Lay Subsidies 1524-7 collecting up the Blake surname and they were there as I expected to find them. The idea that the Blake family in West Devon was descendant of the Andover Blake family (James Blake of Knights Enham) does appear to be over-ruled by these early Devon Lay Subsidies but more on that in the Newsletter. The Blake Newsletter is different from the Pincombe Newsletter. I have the Blake Newsletter as part of the Guild of one-name studies in my files and when I step down from that Study the Newsletter will likely cease. The Pincombe I will probably continue to work on as long as I am able; it is of a more personal nature as well as being my study at the Guild. 

On the Siderfin Book, I will continue with merging the data from the first census in 1841 to the BMBs that exist for the Siderfin family thus pushing those families back further and further into time. The 1600s are the difficult period and gradually I may yet be able to build a solid proof for the descent of the fifth generation. 

Breakfast is next and my exercise routine will begin again. The cleaning does interrupt that regular time of my life. I cannot do both; that is for sure.

The United Nations is our Solidarity

 Reading through the "Lent without Borders" email today and the theme this year for Lent is "Love that Heals and Empowers." Dr. Evrard Nahimana has chosen "solidarity" as his topic of value today. What came to my mind was the United Nations. Formed after the Second World War it was meant to be and is a place for everyone to talk. As one of the founding members, Canada my country, I learned as a child that this was to be the organization that would save mankind. With 51 members initially who attended the 1945 Conference in San Francisco it now has 193 members which is most of the sovereign states of the world. The United States of America gave land on Manhattan Island and declared it an international site which they have honoured to this day. It was to have world peace that we, the founders, established the United Nations. The Objectives of the United Nations include maintaining international peace and security but we always need buy-in to have that happen. And so once again we sit on the sidelines as the people of Ukraine are butchered in the name of Nazi Psychopathic Russian greed (the Ukrainians have a right to their freedom; to self determination). But Dr. Nahimana reminds us that the solidarity that is being discussed rejects blaming or judgment. Deep in my heart I do blame the Nazi Psychopathic Putin and his enablers for all the deaths in Ukraine and it will be hard to step back and once again when the war is done and peace restored to our world and the criminals prosecuted for their wrongs then God will help us to forgive. Knowing that gives hope because hate destroys. 

Although China is a supporter of Russia; China could also be a peace maker that preserves our world if they so choose. We are at a precipice as we wait and watch. Thank you Dr. Nahimana for your words of wisdom and for reminding us that this Lent the theme is "Love that Heals and Empowers."

Rudyard Kipling's poem always comes to mind in times of conflict:

The Ballad of East and West

 Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth! 

We can do this World; we can have peace but the price is so very high every time. 

One day of cleaning and the second is today. There is a calming effect in cleaning. Something that needs to be done. I take it in lengths of fourty five minutes and then a rest for thirty minutes. At 77 one can not keep up strenuous labour for long periods. In between my research which yesterday included going through the Hundreds of Devon Subsidy of 1524-7 looking at all the names and collecting the ones that interest me as well as understanding my Pencombe ancestors. Again at Gidleigh, Chagford and Tedburn St Mary in the Wonford Hundred I found the Tencombe and Tynkeham families. Also located on the Protestation Returns, this family is said to have derived its name from the River Teign and comb refers to valley in old English. So once again I will pass by this group and see them as an independent family line. It is interesting that the two spellings occur Tencombe and Tynkeham much the same as Pencombe and Pynkeham in the 1542 Devon Lay Subsidy. 

Breakfast awaits and one wonders will I ever tire of cooked oats. Probably not I am a person of habit. It is very appealing to have my oats cooked in milk with cranberries and raisins, then wheat germ, wheat bran, chocolate and blueberries added in at the end of the cooking. I look for it every day. Edward preferred just the oats cooked in mostly water to which he would add a heaping spoonful of brown sugar and perhaps some fruit. But not every day, he liked variety.

Back to Siderfin

I discovered that the website  https://westcountrybooks.com/ permits downloads of some very interesting items including the 1524-7 Devon Lay Subsidy. With that now in hand I was able to check out Bideford and no Pencombe or derivative name on that Subsidy. Good news as it does support my notion that Pencombe was up until the mid 1520s only at North Molton (and South Molton). Having arrived there likely in 1489 with Lord de la Zouch, the Pencombe individual was likely the John Pencombe found on the Subsidy at North Molton and right below him on the Subsidy is Thomas Pencombe. John has a value of Goods listed at 5 and Thomas has Wages listed at 1; it does look like a father/son relationship. I feel quite content with my assumption and leave it to those who follow me in the Pincombe/Pinkham quest to discover anything more that might clarify what I have developed as a thesis for this family in Devon. I would like to explore this Pencombe family in Hertfordshire but will leave that for the book that I would like to write on my mother's father's family. All in all a very successful happening and it is thanks to  Bernard Welchman who provides the service and years ago; way back in about 2008 or so I purchased a number of CDs from him that have been my mainstay looking into Devon and Somerset. 

With Siderfin, I completed the 1871 and 1881 census arranging the individuals into their families. I also went back to 1851 and arranged the families in numerical order commencing with Family 1 and continued that process right up to the end of 1881. It makes it easier to look back and connect the families. I tend towards alphabetical or numerical order whichever serves the purpose. It is rigorous and easy to manipulate. I will complete up to the 1911 census and then go back to the Births, Marriages and Burials that I have collected and see what state they are in as that collection too was completed in 2008-2010. If not into families than I will do that plus put them into the family groupings as defined in the census of 1841 which was my key going forward through the census and will also serve going backwards into the Parish Registers. Eventually I will likely replace the single number with a village/town and a number but that comes in the future. At the moment simply getting them into a good robust family number leads me onward to a better understanding of the Siderfin Family and will help me as I move forward from the early to mid 1600s. There can be gaps in the Parish Registers during the Commonwealth Period and I will rely on the Lay Subsidies to help me. I now have two quests for the Lay Subsidies for Somerset - both the Blake family and the Siderfin family. Perhaps I will be able to schedule myself into the Family History Library to locate that material. 

Prayers continuing for the recovery of those who survived the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Prayers also for the miners trapped in China. As we reach the one year mark in the war which Russia is waging against the Ukrainian people, prayers for the Ukranian people and that the cease-fire which China has proposed could happen and that Russia get out of Ukraine where they have no business to be as has been passed by a huge majority in the United Nations General Meeting. Glory to Ukraine. Death to the Invaders.