BLAKE - Origin of the BLAKE families along the Cornwall/Devon border

This week's blog will look at the initially small number of BLAKE  marriages in the localities along the Cornwall side of the Cornwall/Devon border. I mentioned last week that up to 1600 there were seven marriages in total in this area along the border with five marriages having BLAKE as the groom and two marriages having BLAKE as the bride.

In the second blog of ten blogs on my BLAKE one-name study I mentioned the England's Immigrants Database 1330-1550 and the individuals who emigrated to the south-west of England from Breton.

This is the citation for this particular set of documents.  England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550 (www.englandsimmigrants.com, version 1.0, 15 February 2015).

In my search of this database I found two individuals mentioned as emigrating to Devon:

 Surname    Forename    Nationality    Day    Month    Year    Residence

BLAKE   John                   Fleming            24   Jul    1484               Devon, Exeter

BLAKE   William             Breton                 4    Apr    1524            Devon, Morchard Bishop

I have blogged a number of times on the BLAKE family in the North Molton area of Devon. The earliest BLAKE records in the parish registers of North Molton are for a Thomas BLAKE buried 8 May 1542 and a John BLAKE buried 5 Dec 1546. There is through the years an extensive BLAKE family at North Molton and the next BLAKE family noted at North Molton:

BLAKE    Mighell    married Agnes Squire    1558    Dec    2  
BLAKE    Johane    daughter   BLAKE    Mychell    baptized    1560    Sep    1  
BLAKE    John    son    BLAKE    Mighell        baptized    1564    Dec    10 (buried  1565    Dec    6)
BLAKE    John    son    BLAKE   Mighell        baptized    1565    Dec    6  
BLAKE    Mote    daughter    BLAKE    Mighell    baptized    1565    Dec    6 (buried   1565    Dec  7)
BLAKE   Anne    daughter    BLAKE    Mighell    baptized    1568  May  16 (buried  1568    Jun  17)
BLAKE Michael, husbandman, will probated PCC 13 Nov 1619

Of interest,  it is 36 kilometres from Morchard Bishop to North Molton and 73 kilometres from Exeter to North Molton. I have transcribed all of the BLAKE wills at the National Archives (UK) known to me for Devon and links to them can be found on the Devon Genuki pages (https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DEV/Probate).

The entries of interest along the Cornwall/Devon border include (Sheviock, Botus Fleming, Landulph, Marhamchurch, Launceston St Mary Magdalene):

Thomas BLAKE married Elizabeth (unknown) Sep 1551 (Landulph)
Patrik BLAKE married Sedwell Truskot 15 Oct 1570 (Botus Fleming)
Francis BLAKE married Jone Wills 15 May 1586 (Marhamchurch)
William BLAKE married Elizbeth Gyngar  5 May 1588 (Marhamchurch)
John BLAKE married Sybblye Holman 21 Oct 1591 (Sheviock)

There were two marriages with a BLAKE bride in this time period (Botus Fleming and Launceston St Mary Magdalene) but I do  not trace down any further than marriage so did not add these two in. The five marriages listed above do not trace down in the area in which they married.

Are there other Blake families in Devon in the border area with Cornwall?

Plymouth, Devon is the closest large city to Sheviock, Landulph and Botus Fleming.  Holsworthy and Okehampton are across the border from Landulph. In my studies of the BLAKE family in Devon thus far I have not located any families that would coincide with these marriages.

One of the oldest BLAKE lines (to the present) in this area of Cornwall was at Landrake which is about 14 kilometres from Plymouth.

Henry BLAKE married Margery Bake 22 Jun 1605 at Landrake with St Erney. Henry was buried 21 Jan 1664 (Landrake) and Margery was buried 29 Mar 1665 (Landrake). They appear to have had eight children and a number of them had descendants. This line is continuous in this general area to the present. But I could not discover any BLAKE members in this particular area prior to their marriage in 1605. I then moved to the Bodmin area working on the BLAKE family in that area.

Although it is tempting to conclude that the BLAKE family in Cornwall is composed of two distinct lines of BLAKE only yDNA testing could really verify the earlier ancestry of this family.

This concludes my look at the BLAKE family in Cornwall. I have extracted all the records and built all the reasonable trees from these records if anyone is particularly interested and I am most willing to share any of this information.

My next blog in this series of ten blogs will examine the oldest BLAKE will that I transcribed from the set of over 700 at the National Archives under PROB/11.That is the Will of John BLAKE probated 24 April 1504, PROB 11/14/117. There are two earlier wills both from 1487 that I have not yet completed (they are in Latin).

BLAKE - BLAKE families in the 1500s in central Cornwall

Last week this blog looked at the BLAKE families in the Bodmin area and in the St Just in Roseland area. These areas were chosen because of the England's Immigrant Database which included a John BLAKE, a Breton, who arrived at Bodmin before 16 Feb 1525. No direct descendants have been established for this John BLAKE as far as I am able to determine. Is it possible to say that the descendants carrying the surname BLAKE in this area just two generations later are his descendants? Probably not with a paper trail as I have thus far discovered but from the viewpoint of the evidence presented it would appear that they are his descendants.

Working with the number of BLAKE entries in the Online Parish Clerks (OPC) database created by volunteers (worldwide the website states -  https://cornwall-opc-database.org/) I extracted into the maps below all BLAKE entries in the Cornwall OPC database for baptism, then marriage, then burial. I have already put the maps for baptism and burial into last weeks blog but will add the marriages as well to this blog. There were 30 marriages for males with the BLAKE surname and 19 marriages for females with the BLAKE surname up to 1600 recorded by the transcribers of the Parish Registers in Cornwall. Some of the registers in Cornwall do not begin in 1538 so some marriages would be missing but the transcribers supplemented this data with other resources and that can be seen on their website. But even with all of that, marriages were likely missed I suspect but this study initially was just an overall look at BLAKE in Cornwall and the availability of records from the 1500s on.

Along the Cornwall-Devon border there are seven marriages in total with five marriages having BLAKE as the groom and two marriages having BLAKE as the bride. At a later time I will attempt to see if these marriages were members of the Devon BLAKE family marrying in Cornwall.

Again the clustering can be seen around Bodmin with four marriages at Bodmin, 19 at St Breock, and another 15 closeby to this particular area (a number of transcribers provided this information and their names can be located on the website). I do not follow the female BLAKE lines (including my own) for the BLAKE study. I record only the marriage itself.

Interestingly, the website Domesday Book Online (http://domesdaybook.co.uk/cornwall.html) does not list the BLAKE family but there were no surnames in England prior to the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the Domesday Book was initiated following the Conquest by William the Conqueror. I note that this is a for profit website and would note that I have no connection to this website other than accessing it with regard to the list of names which it includes. However, it is an interesting website.

I do happen to have Thomas Hinde's Edition of "The Domesday Book: England's Heritage, Then and Now, " 1995, Godalming, Surrey, England: ISBN 1-85833-440-3. The section on Cornwall is seven pages. The Exchequer version of the Domesday Book listed 248 manors and the Exon version listed 288 manors in Cornwall (an interesting item that appears to have been produced for or by The John Rylands Library: R. Welldon Finn, MA, "The immediate sources of the Exchequer Domesday" was quite handy to give me a better understanding of this difference, https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:1m1937&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS-DOCUMENT.PDF). The county was mentioned as being poor and sparsely populated in The Domesday Book as mentioned above (edited by Thomas Hinde). Ten of the manors listed were less than one acre. Bodmin is mentioned and it was noted by the Editor that this was a wealthier area and originally a religious settlement. The Domesday Book mentioned there were 68 houses there amongst other details. The OPC database for Cornwall, notably, lists 2,812 baptisms for Bodmin up to 1600, 3,474 burials for Bodmin up to 1600 and 1,488 marriages. At the time of the 2011 census Bodmin is said to have a population of 14,736 persons. From the Genuki website for Cornwall the population in Bodmin in 1811 was 2,050 persons, in 1821 population was 2,902 persons, in 1831 population was 3,375 persons and in 1841 population was 4,205 persons. We did travel through Bodmin when we were in England and it is a built-up area but I saw so many villages that I can not really mention anything in particular that I noted. We did not stop there unfortunately.

The four marriages at Bodmin for BLAKE from the OPC Cornwall database:

Thomas Skele married Elizabeth BLAKE 18 Oct 1562

Robert BLAKE married Kathren Cocke  28 May 1581

John Chapell married Maude BLAKE 2 Nov 1581


John BLAKE married Margett Maye 18 Nov 1588

None of the seven baptisms at Bodmin up to 1600 coincide with the names of the groom above except one baptism for a Roger BLAKE son of Robart baptized 21 Oct 1582 (as mentioned in last week's blog).

There are eight burials at Bodmin commencing in 1582 and they do not include any of the adult BLAKEs mentioned above with three being mentioned as the children of Thomas BLAKE.

Moving on into the next century at Bodmin, the baptisms commenced in 1626 and the priest has, in a number of cases, recorded the mother's first name. Thomas and Mary[e] BLAKE baptized the first five children noted and then another child in 1638 (they may have baptized one more child in 1643 but the name of the mother was not mentioned). A child, perhaps their child, was buried in 1643. At this point, it seemed reasonable as I worked my way through the records to try and discover where Thomas and Mary[e] could have been married.

A Thomas BLAKE married Mary Burne at Bodmin 25 Oct 1624.Thomas BLAKE (possibly the Thomas BLAKE baptized at Whitstone 12 Oct 1599 son of George BLAKE) and was buried 29 Dec 1676 at Bodmin. Thomas BLAKE and his wife Mary Burne baptized the following children at Bodmin:

Elizabeth BLAKE baptized 11 Jun 1626
Eustes BLAKE baptized 8 Jun 1628 and married Christopher Hawke 15 Apr 1661 (Bodmin)
Thomas BLAKE baptized 7 Feb 1629 and married Elizabeth Bond 29 May 1676 (Bodmin) and they appear to have had three known children. Thomas and Elizabeth were buried at Bodmin 10 Jan 1708 and 26 Oct 1708 respectively
William BLAKE baptized 22 Jun 1631 and buried 27 Nov 1632 (Bodmin)
Mary BLAKE baptized 27 Jan 1632
Nathaniel BLAKE baptized 5 Nov 1638
William BLAKE baptized 19 Mar 1643
Jane BLAKE buried 22 Oct 1643 (Bodmin)

The children of Thomas BLAKE and Elizabeth Bond were baptized at Bodmin:

Eustis BLAKE baptized 28 Oct 1677 and buried 8 Oct 1678 (Bodmin)
William BLAKE baptized 18 Feb 1679
Ezekiell BLAKE baptized 10 Nov 1685

I did not find marriages for Eustis or Ezekiell but did find a possibility for William.There was a marriage William BLAKE and Katharine Bennet 8 Jun 1700 (Bodmin) and three children baptized at Bodmin Nicholas 22 Apr 1701, Benjamyn 15 May 1704 and William 25 Feb 1707 but only the father was named.

The BLAKE family has been at Bodmin pretty much continuously through the centuries and Free BMD lists 212 births between 1838 and 1967, 136 marriages between 1837 and 1986 and 191 deaths between 1838 and 1983.

Curiosity led me to continue looking at the early records in the area around Bodmin. The next largest count on the map for marriages was St Breock. St Breock is about 11 kilometres from Bodmin as the crow flies and 15.3 km by road. The parish church at St Breoch was dedicated to St Briocus in 1259. Baptisms exist from 1563 on, Burials from 1561 on and Marriages (Boyd's Marriage Index) from 1561 on. The earliest records at St Breoch for Baptisms commence in 1700 and there was only 1 in 1700 for BLAKE, Burials commence in 1561 and there are 39 up to 1600, Marriages commenced in 1571 and there were ten where the groom was a Blake and eight where the bride was a Blake, Interesting that there were no baptisms at St Breock.

I did build family trees for these marriages where I could find all of the information.

Christopher BLAKE married Johan Cowche 21 Jun 1579 at St Breock.
Elizabeth BLAKE, daughter of Christopher living at Penhall, was buried 18 Apr 1581 (St Breock) (the transcriber Karen Duvall reports this as an other transcript, source unknown).
John BLAKE, son of Christopher, was buried in 1587 (St Breock) (a similar notation for this transcription as well).
John BLAKE, son of Christopher, was buried 1 Sep 1588 (St Breock) (again a similar notation for this transcription). No baptisms at St Breock, no further children for this couple mentioned at St Breock.
The wife of Christopher, Johan, was buried 18 Sep 1588 (St Breock) (similar notation for transcription).
A Christopher BLAKE was buried 8 May 1598, residence Tregonow (St Breock) (similar notation for transcription).

But again the BLAKE family at St Breock has 62 baptisms between 1700 and 1880,  137 marriages between 1574 and 1904 and 120 burials between 1561 and 1935.

I could see at this point in time that I really needed to examine the Manor Books for these areas in Cornwall to see what I could learn there about the BLAKE family. I did not like to jump to the conclusion that all of these BLAKE records belonged to individuals descendant of the one immigrant from Breton, John BLAKE arriving in Bodmin before 16 Feb 1525.

It is most interesting that the BLAKE records do appear most abundant in this area of Cornwall with a centre being locally in the area which includes Bodmin and St Breock. The Domesday Book does not have a BLAKE entry in Cornwall but that doesn't necessarily prove that all the BLAKE lines in the Bodmin/St Breock area descend from John BLAKE arriving in Bodmin before 16 Feb 1525.

The next blog will look at the BLAKE families that appear before 1600 along the border between Devon and Cornwall. I started first looking at these families but could not find a centre to this data which would help me to look at the BLAKE family overall in Cornwall particularly the large clusters in the Bodmin/St Breock area. I will investigate the possibility that these BLAKE families had migrated over the Devon border into Cornwall.

BLAKE - Breton Emigrants to England 1330-1550

This second blog of ten blogs on my BLAKE one-name study will look once again at England's Immigrants Database 1330-1550 and the individuals who emigrated to the south-west of England from Breton.

This is the citation for this particular set of documents.  England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550 (www.englandsimmigrants.com, version 1.0, 15 February 2015).

In my search last Thursday I found:

 Surname    Forename    Nationality    Day    Month    Year    Residence

 Blake    John                  Breton         bef 16    Feb    1525    Cornwall, Bodmin

 Blake    William             Breton                 4    Apr    1524    Devon, Morchard Bishop

Fortunately the arrival of these two individuals from Breton is just 13 and 12 years before the commencement of Parish Registers in England. The records for Bodmin, Cornwall commenced in 1558 and are available at the Church of the Latter Day Saints (as well as the Cornwall Record Office) in their original form as fiche (the Online Parish Clerk (OPC) system is very active in Cornwall (https://cornwall-opc-database.org/home/) and these records are available online). The records for Morchard Bishop, Devon commenced in  1660 so are not quite as handy for looking at this ancient line in Morchard Bishop, Devon.

Initially (once I completed the transcription of the PCC wills for the BLAKE families in Cornwall) I had looked at the BLAKE families in western Cornwall hoping to find a centre that led me back in time.  Shortly thereafter and finding that centering on a particular area was not working, I became aware of the England Immigrants Database. After adding up all of the entries for baptism, marriage and burial in the various parishes, I then moved to the Bodmin area and located the earliest records and then constructed trees for the families through the generations as far down as was possible using the Parish Registers and the Census from 1841 on. I tend to not work much beyond the time period when my grandparents were born (1872 to 1886) and in this case I brought records down to 1881 where I was able to do so in the different family lines that emerged from the records (thus maintaining a goodly period of privacy for living descendants of the BLAKE family in Cornwall).


My Legacy BLAKE families file for Cornwall now stands at 4,848 individuals and 1540 marriages between the earliest records and the 1881 census. Because John BLAKE, a Breton, came to Bodmin as noted in the England's Immigrant Database, I selected Bodmin as my starting point. I also included St Just in Roseland because that was the earliest record in the OPC records.

 

Interestingly enough St Just in Roseland is on the south coast of Cornwall opposite the French coastline. The large isthmus on which the town is located juts into beautiful Falmouth Bay to the north-east of the city of Falmouth.   The tidal inlet which faces the small village of St Just in Roseland is called Carrick Roads. 

I produced this map on a standard search looking for the distance between Breton, France and Falmouth, Cornwall but there does not appear to be an ability to cite the creator. 

Knowing that fishermen made it all the way to the North American continent before 1500 it is not hard to visualize an inhabitant of Breton traveling north to Cornwall in the early 1500s. 

The history of Breton is also rather revealing. During the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain, Brittonic speakers in Devon and Cornwall fled to north western France (3rd to the 9th century) ("Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, John Koch, 2005, p. 275). The rise of the Huguenots in Breton and the subsequent severe persecution (first French martyr, Jean Valliere burned at the stake in Paris in August 1523) may have influenced the trek northward in the 1520s. Indeed John BLAKE may well have been returning to Cornwall after many centuries absence! As more is discovered about the Bretons, it may yet be possible to determine if this individual was from an earlier Cornish line. However, he did come with a rather interesting surname "BLAKE." 

The surname BLAKE is not prominent in France in that spelling. I mentioned Richard Le BLAK, a merchant at Rouen, Normandy, who received a market licence in 1274 and it would appear from early records that he did indeed come to England, resided in Berkshire for a period of time but that is another story and not related, as far as I am able to ascertain, to the story of John BLAKE who was in Bodmin, Cornwall before the 16 Feb 1525. 

The earliest record for BLAKE found in the OPC registers for Cornwall was the baptism of Joachim BLAKE 13 Jul 1546 at St Just in Roseland son of a James BLAKE. The next records for St Just in Roseland commence in 1629 and continue to 1856 for the BLAKE family there. 1546 is 21 years after the Immigrants Database notes that a John BLAKE arrived in Bodmin, Cornwall before 16 Feb 1525. Searching the OPC registers for Cornwall I located 144 records for BLAKE commencing in 1565 until 1897. I began my study looking at the BLAKE family in Bodmin. The first baptism was for a William BLAKE baptized 29 Jul 1565 son of John BLAKE. I did not find any further children baptized at Bodmin by a John BLAKE in this time frame. 

The next BLAKE records of interest at Bodmin were a set of baptisms between 1582 and 1587 (the next set of baptisms commenced 1626). In total six children were baptized:

Katherin BLAKE daughter of Thomas BLAKE baptized 4 May 1582

Roger BLAKE son of Robart BLAKE baptized 21 Oct 1582

William BLAKE son of Thomas BLAKE baptized 7 Jun 1583

William BLAKE son of Thomas BLAKE baptized 3 Jul 1584

Margerye BLAKE daughter of Thomas BLAKE baptized 14 Dec 1585

Ptolomeus BLAKE son of William BLAKE baptized 30 Nov 1587

Marriages at Bodmin in this time period:

Robert BLAKE married Kathren Cocke 28 May 1581

John BLAKE married Margrett Maye 18 Nov 1588

Burials at Bodmin in this time period:

William BLAKE 27 Jun 1582, son of Thomas BLAKE

William BLAKE 16 Nov 1583, son of Thomas BLAKE

Agnes BLAKE 4 Dec 1590 daughter of Digorie BLAKE

Jane BLAKE 27 Dec 1591

Agnes BLAKE 30 Jul 1592 wife of Richard

Richard BLAKE 18 Mar 1592

Thomas BLAKE 6 May 1595, residence Bodenett

Jane BLAKE alias Capper 16 May 1596

This second map of Cornwall looks at the burials pre-1600 for the BLAKE family:

The name Digorie BLAKE then sent me off on a tangent looking at this interesting forename and I discovered a Digory BLAKE buried 19 Nov 1676 at Bodmin son of William BLAKE. The next record was for a Deggory BLAKE who married Joane Mata alias Tregere 18 Jul 1629 at St Just in Roseland and they were buried there 2 Aug 1662 and 14 Apr 1670 respectively. They baptized six children at St Just in Roseland:

Thomas BLAKE baptized 8 Nov 1629

Eleanour BLAKE baptized 24 Jun 1632, married Alexander Parrat 7 Apr 1658 (St Just in Roseland)

Blanch BLAKE baptized 7 May 1635 

Henry BLAKE baptized 4 Feb 1637, married Peternell Jennings 2 Oct 1666 (St Just in Roseland), buried 23 Nov 1712 (Peternell buried 26 Nov 1702), both at St Just in Roseland. They baptized six children at St Just in Roseland (below)

Matthyas BLAKE baptized 28 Feb 1640

Elizabeth BLAKE baptized 1 Dec 1644, married Henry Wilton 6 Sep 1664 St Just in Roseland

Henry BLAKE and Peternell Jennings baptized the following children at St Just in Roseland:

Henry BLAKE (baptism not located), married Jane Sharrocke 11 Feb 1699 (St Just in Roseland) and they baptized five children at St Just in Roseland (below)

Robart BLAKE baptized 14 Sep 1667 

Digory BLAKE baptized 14 Sep 1667, buried 28 Sep 1678 (St Just in Roseland)

Julian BLAKE baptized 16 Oct 1669, buried 15 Feb 1676 (St Just in Roseland)

Edward BLAKE baptized 29 Mar 1673

Joel BLAKE baptized 13 Jan 1675, buried 23 Jul 1696 (St Just in Roseland)

Henry BLAKE and Jane Sharrocks baptized the following children at St Just in Roseland:

Edward BLAKE baptized 11 Jan 1700, married Mary Blamy 18 May 1718 (St Just in Roseland) and they baptized nine children at St Just in Roseland, Edward was buried 15 Feb 1762, Mary was buried 18 Feb 1778 both at St Just in Roseland

John BLAKE baptized 22 Nov 1702, buried 6 Dec 1719 (St Just in Roseland)

Henry BLAKE baptized 14 Nov 1705, buried 21 Nov 1705 (St Just in Roseland)

Henry BLAKE baptized 2 Jan 1707

Jane BLAKE baptized 16 Apr 1710, buried 22 Dec 1730 (St Just in Roseland)

Interesting to find that the name Digory/Deggory helped to link the Bodmin BLAKE family to the St Just in Roseland BLAKE family.

One might ask at this point why indeed was I so interested in the Cornwall BLAKE family? Of interest, the BLAKE family in Cornwall is there from the beginning of the parish registers. I am querying are they a unique founder in the British Isles? That is really the rationale for this exercise to prove that there were a number of ancient founding lines of BLAKE in the British Isles that are unconnected. Continuing in that vein of thought, I would also like to prove that these lines are descendant of both immigrant BLAKE lines as exposed in the Britain's Immigrant Database (mentioned above) and of ancient lines in the British Isles that took on the BLAKE surname. Why they took on the BLAKE surname is an interesting query that especially catches my notice as my own line at Upper Clatford/Andover/PentonMewsey/Knights Enham is, as a result of yDNA testing, ancient to the British Isles dating back thousands of years so they have, in the late 1200s/early1300s taken on the surname BLAKE and why did they do that? Can I find that answer for my own line and also discover the descendants of the BLAKE immigrants (at least 31 distinct lines) who came to England in the 1330s to 1550s as listed in the Immigrants Database. Along with that can I stimulate more interest in the BLAKE yDNA study (FT DNA) which has become somewhat stagnated at around 200 members and really needs thousands to learn more about the BLAKE family and its origins. 

Returning to Edward BLAKE and his wife Mary Blamy and their nine children baptized at St Just in Roseland:

Mary BLAKE baptized 9 Mar 1720, married Robert Jenkin 9 Oct 1742 (St Just in Roseland)

Edward BLAKE baptized 10 Oct 1723, buried 27 Aug 1761 (St Just in Roseland)

John BLAKE baptized 28 Aug 1726

Jane BLAKE baptized 11 Aug 1728

Edward BLAKE baptized 9 Jan 1731, buried 20 Apr 1759 (St Just in Roseland)

Joel BLAKE baptized 5 May 1734

Jane BLAKE baptized 4 Apr 1737, married George Condy 2 Nov 1759 (St Just in Roseland)

Priscilla BLAKE baptized 25 Feb 1738, married 13 Oct 1763 William Morton (St Just in Roseland)

Elizabeth BLAKE baptized 25 Oct 1741, married Edward Kitchen Harris 18 Feb 1762 (St Just in Roseland)

This BLAKE line appears to have daughtered out and I do not follow the daughter's lines (true of my own case). Two of my four brothers have tested our line but they do not have sons (indeed both of my parent's are the last of their yDNA line and mtDNA line as no BLAKE grandsons and none of the granddaughters carrying my mother's mtDNA have daughters). In 2011 this was what inspired me to take on the BLAKE one-name study in order that this ancient line of the British Isles would be recorded. My Pincombe study (my mother's surname) was my first study in 2007 and it was more curiosity about this unusual (to me) surname. 

In my next post I will continue looking at the BLAKE lines around Bodmin as one can see from the two inserted maps that there were a substantial number of records in this area back through the 1500s.

Cornwall Census and Blake

Working away on the Cornwall Census and it is a slow process. Managed to have two colds in the last month which have rather slowed me down. Until I tested myself at 23 and Me I thought it was just flukey that I acquire colds and flus even though I do take the flu shot but it does turn out that I have no resistance to some diseases but then no one is resistant to the common cold. Without the flu shot I would be returning to the person who used to be sick much more often even.

As this year works its way towards the end both my husband and I are feeling that we should do something different with our days. We still will do genealogy but less of it. We would like to take on something else. I thought about doing English as a Second Language teaching if there is a need with all the refugees about to arrive. My husband has his Ph.D. in Chemistry and his Masters in Library Science so has quite a wide variety of language skills to bring to such teaching. Myself I have worked in a number of places and lots of different vocabulary as well although perhaps mostly slanted towards science. We could team teach and perhaps be helpful to people coming here whose English skills are not as strong as they could be. I think that is what often holds new Canadians from non-English speaking countries back.

Many of the refugee families are quite large and coming from a large family I am comfortable with working with an entire family and I believe Ed would find that interesting as well. We will see what transpires in the New Year.

The Blake yDNA study is slowly growing but needs to be at least four times the size it is now for yDNA before I would even really say much beyond what is on the page now. I am working on a way to display Family Finder Results that retains people's anonymity. Thus far other than my own and my families results no one matches anyone else to any great degree. Although I am keen on the projects it can not just be driven by this small group. A lot of people have to become interested in Blake for it to move forward. I know that what I have published on the Blake family in the 1200s and 1300s has disappointed many people who saw this as a singleton family but I think it is rather simplistic to think that many families will be singleton to be honest.

Cornwall I would like to finish towards the end of the month. I am still considering how I will display this information and I think I will do a descendant chart for each unique line and publish them down to the 1871 census. No idea yet on how many lines that will be in terms of founders since the records do not go back far enough to determine if all the Blake family members are Bodmin are related. Working out from Bodmin though has been quite interesting. I could not do the same working out from Landrake. I suppose I am convinced that the founder of this line is from Breton arriving in Cornwall in the Bodmin area prior to 1525. I know that is a disappointment to at least one person and that has resulted in my rethinking my entire project. I will work on the lines to publish the information that I have found but I will restrict it to prior to 1872 in all cases except for my own personal family line which I have brought further down to the present.

Cornwall Blake family in the 1841 census

Working away on the 1841 census and have complete the first 40 families on Find My Past. I was not able to place nine of these entries into my family tree file. But the 1841 is the most difficult as place of birth is not given nor is any relationship stated. Find My Past has 409 results with 20 to a page. Fortunately entire families can be discovered with just one entry which lets me skip by them later.

Still mulling around how I will display the results of bringing together all of this information. The Blake family is large in Cornwall and already I can see that there is a distinct Blake family in Cornwall and that the Devon Blake family has crossed into Cornwall through the years. Likely the Cornwall Blake family has moved the other way into other parts of England and the census will show that. This may still work moving across the counties towards Hampshire picking up Gloucestershire as I move because there was a lot of movement between Wiltshire/Somerset/Gloucestershire as well.

I also want to continue working on the Irish Blake family to get the census done for the Blake family there as well. But gradually I can see that there are some things that I will accomplish in the next five years that I will continue with the Blake one name study and some things that I will not touch. Interesting emails from people though on the Blake family.

I think that the only way to really understand the Blake family is with yDNA testing and family finder. With 106 people in the Blake project it is interesting to see how some of the areas are coming together. As more work is done on the Deep Ancestry of the various haplogroups that too will let us better understand Blake I rather think.

Back to the Cornwall Blake family

Working on the 1841 census for Cornwall and extracting Blake entries and entering them into Legacy. This does appear to be working as I am finding most of the people on the 1841 census thus far. I worked my way backwards looking at everyone born at Landrake but it did not seem to be coming together in logical family lines as I worked back. Using Bodmin as a center does appear to be working much better.

Will use this post to add anything in that I need to remember and that I haven't been able to place into the Legacy File. 

Blake yDNA study at FT DNA

A new member of the team looking after the Blake yDNA study. Patti Blake Goff has family lore that her Blake line (father was a Blake) descends from the Blake family at Galway. She joins the team to look at the Blake family in Ireland gradually working her way into that post. In the meantime enquiries on the Irish Blake family should continue to come to me and I continue to be the main person working on the assigning of Blake members to groups. There is one new member that I need to assign and will get to that process.

Where am I at with my Blake one name study? I have had a really busy summer and gradually getting back into genealogy once again. I have a few new projects which will take up a little of my time at the moment. They are long term projects and of great interest to me personally. They will tend to predominate in five years time when I step away from my Blake one name study.

I want to get back into the Cornwall Blake line. I have had one email from an individual descendant of this line questioning my thought that Blake in Cornwall was an emigrant in the early 1500s. Certainly my grandfather when he spoke of his Blake line believed that they had been in the Andover area for ever and I think that most people think that way. I think they may well have been in that general area for the last eight thousand years and one day proof might arise to substantiate that thought. But the testing by BritainsDNA certainly points to a very ancient line for this haplogroup. The I2a study at FT DNA does the same placing this group in the British Isles well before 4000 years before the present. How to handle such emails? Should one abandon a project because it goes against the thinking of an individual writing to you? I really do not know the answer to that question. I am an outsider looking in; I live in a country which was populated probably twelve thousand years ago or more by emigrants from Asia who also feel the same way that their people have been here for ever. What is forever anyway? Is it more than four generations because by four generations back a lot of people have forgotten where their families live unless a consistent effort was made to pass that information down. I was lucky that way in that my parents constantly mentioned where their families had lived in England (my father came to Canada as a child) and my mother is my only Canadian line with myself, my mother, her father and his mother being my only ancestors born in Canada and to date I only have known ancestors born in various counties of England.

So who does genealogy serve? It should serve everyone as it is the story of our ancestral lines all of which eventually converge way back in time. There was a time when the first Homo species arose on the earth probably spontaneously and successively as each one fought to survive in the environment into which it entered. We now know that many did not survive and that eventually only Homo Sapiens (our species) survived to multiply and occupy this planet. Genealogy serves that group of people because we are all one big family and eventually we will lay down our weapons and live together as God intended. Not one of us is superior to the other; our DNA tells us that.

Off my soapbox and I will return to Cornwall Blake once again extracting all the Blake entries from the census beginning in 1841 and moving forward this time. I tried the reverse and it was meaningful but this time I have the parish records for the earlier Blake lines there so should be able to do some linkages and discover where various family members ended up as the census moves towards 1911. The 1939 Register is soon to be released to help bridge that gap and the 1921 census not so far away now. I hope to have a picture of the Cornwall Blake family available to look at by the end of the year. To the best of my knowledge no one has tested their yDNA with a proven line back to the Blake families in Cornwall; certainly the present day descendants could be from those early Blake lines in both Cornwall and Devon and perhaps further afield.

Blake Newsletter Volume 4, Issue 4

Blake Newsletter

Table of Contents

       1.  100^th member Blake DNA study FT DNA

       2. Galway Blake family

       3. Blake one name study

       4. Cornwall Blake family  
  5. Family Finder Results

1 100^th member Blake DNA study FT DNA

We have reached a milestone in the Blake DNA study with our 100^th member joining. The last couple of years I have encouraged people to do Family Finder if they find that DNA test to be interesting for their research. Plus it gives Blake women an opportunity to take an active part in the Blake DNA study. Blake is a multi-location surname and I would describe it as very large but in actuality it is a large surname study compared to studies like Smith and Jones. I continue to encourage Family Finder as a means to locate up to fourth cousins which may help to break down brick walls. You must have a fairly comprehensive family tree to really take advantage of this testing which includes all (or as many as you can find) of the descendants of your 4x great grandparents.

2 Galway Blake Family

One of the members of the Galway Blake family has sent me a copy of his published book on the Blake family descending from the Blake family at Kiltulla through Nicholas Blake (son of James Blake of Quarrymount) born circa 1744 and emigrated to Pennsylvania, United States of America circa 1772. I shall begin shortly adding this material to the Legacy Family Tree file that I created from Martin Blake’s two books mentioned in an earlier newsletter. 

3 Blake one name study

I reached a milestone myself and that is of 70 years of age. I decided that I would carry on for just five more years with my Blake one name study. I will continue to maintain it as long as I am able but will lodge all of the accumulated work with the Guild of One Name Studies (of which I intend to remain a member) and with the Society of Genealogists as well as The Surname Society. I will also give a copy to the Record Office of the Republic of Ireland in Dublin if they are willing to receive it of all the Irish material that I have slowly accumulated. I have enjoyed working on the Blake family these past four years and look forward to the next five years and hope to have a good deal accumulated by then.

4 Cornwall Blake family

I have now completed the extraction of all the Blake entries in the OPC Database for Cornwall and am now into collecting all the census material. I think that by the next newsletter I should have some interesting material to put in it for the Cornwall Blake family and will blog the trees that I have managed to pull together. Picking Bodmin as a centre was much more productive as the Blake families appear to move outward from this point. There is also movement into Cornwall by the Blake family(ies) in Devon.

5 Family Finder Results

I would like to come up with some sort of a tabular representation of the Family Finder Results as I am able to do comparisons within the project but thus far there are not too many matches with each other. As this develops I will add this information to the Newsletter although many of you would already be aware of such matches through your own portal at FT DNA. 

Any suggestions or information to add to the next newsletter please submit to: kippeeb@rogers.com

Early Blake records in Cornwall from the OPC Cornwall website

Working on the St Just in Roseland parish records and the earliest baptism there is in 1546, twenty years earlier than Bodmin. The baptismal parish registers begin in 1558 at Bodmin and in 1538 at St Just in Roseland.

A rather interesting find that the Blake family is at St Just in Roseland and it is a large Blake family there. The Emigrants database showed that:

John Blake, a Breton, lived at Bodmin before 16 February 1525

Baptisms in Cornwall (OPC Cornwall website) up to 1599 total 33

Bodmin 7
St Mabyn 6
Whitstone 4
St Teath 4
 Illogan 3
St Minver 2
St Just in Roseland 1
Menheniot 1
St Breward 1
Botus Fleming 1
Kilhampton 1
St Germans 1
Padstow 1

You can see clustering in the area of Bodmin and above to the coast and then two clusters on the Devon border and two unclustered in western Cornwall. Can one surmise that the John Blake from Britanny (Breton) and coming to Bodmin prior to 16 Feb 1525 was the ancestor of the Blake family at Bodmin and area? Did he enter Cornwall at St Just in Roseland? That would help to account for the record at St Just in Roseland. The two clusters at the Devon border are perhaps the known Blake family in Devon.


Marriages up to 1599 (OPC Cornwall website) total  34 Males and 24 Females

Parishes for Blake male marriages
St Breock 10
Bodmin 4
Sheviock 2
Marhamchurch 2
Camborne 2
St Minver 2
St Columb Minor 2
Lanteglos by Camelford 2
St Breward 2
St Mabyn 2
Botus Fleming 1
Landulph 1
Gwinear 1
St Kew 1


Parishes for Blake female marriages
St Breock 9
St Minver 6
Bodmin 4
Enoder 2
Botus Fleming 1
Launceston, St Mary Magdalene 1
St Kew 1

Burials up to 1599 (OPC Cornwall website) total 86

St Breock 38
Bodmin 8
St Breward 5
Camborne 5
St Germans 4
St Minver 4
Sheviock 3
St Teath 3
Whitstone 3
St Columb Major 3
Illogan 2
St Just in Roseland 2
St Mabyn 2
Marhamchurch 2
St Austel 1
St Ewe 1

The same clustering is seen with the burials and I wonder why so many were buried at St Breock?

Fascinating what the old records bring to the light of day. Without the Emigrant's Database 1330 to 1550 I would not have been aware of the arrival of so many Blake emigrants to England. Can one find Blake in Cornwall prior to 1500?

Last parishes in Cornwall to be extracted from the online database

I am now down to the last set of parishes to be extracted from the online database of the Cornwall OPC.

St Just in Roseland
Rame
Chacewater
Stratton
Kilhampton
Poughill

Bridgerule
Budock
St Buryan
Camborne
St Ervan
St Erth
Falmouth
St Gluvias
St Giles in the Heath
Godolphin
Gwennap
Gwinear
Gwithian
Hayle, St Elwyn
Illogan
St Hilary
Launcells
Lanner
Ludgvan
Madron
Marazion
Mawnan
Millbrook
Mylor
St Mewan
Redruth
Penzance
Phillack
Pelynt
Tideford
Wendron

I have started to extract the census around Bodmin beginning with 1911. Hopefully I will have something to publish on all of this by the end of the year.

Blake Newsletter - Volume 4, Issue 3

Blake Newsletter
Table of Contents
1.    Blake family at Bacton, Suffolk
2.    Galway Blake family
3.    Cornwall Blake Family
4.    Blake yDNA study

Blake family at Bacton, Suffolk
I was sent a rather interesting five page document on the Blake family at Bacton, Suffolk, England which had been prepared by a researcher for another member of a society to which I belong. She decided to pass it on to me for my use. I entered all the material into Legacy checking against Family Search records, Find My Past and Ancestry since I do not live in Suffolk and could not check the Record Office. I did check the information online at the Record Office. Once completed I extracted a text file of the descendants of the furtherest back Blake member and put that into my blog noting that an earlier research had done the work but unable to name the earlier researcher:
http://kippeeb.blogspot.ca/2015/07/a-suffolk-blake-family-at-bacton.html

Galway Blake Family
I completed the project of extracting all the information from Michael Joseph Blake’s two volume set on the Blake Family of Ireland from 1300 to 1600 and 1600 to 1900. His genealogical tabulated information was extensive and he also included many many early documents that he held the originals plus he also went into the Court House in Dublin and extracted information as needed. What a most fortunate publication for the Blake family in Ireland as the Dublin Fire of 1922 destroyed many of the early records of Ireland. I have now extracted the census information for the Blake families in Ireland and will also begin to extract the CMB information that has now come online. Eventually I plan to produce a gedcom which I will put up on WorldConnect.

Cornwall Blake Family
The work on the Cornwall Blake family continues and I am working on the parishes that are 25 miles from Bodmin. When these are complete there will just be a couple of dozen parishes left in Cornwall with Blake records. I am about one third of the way through those parishes. I am able to see Blake families for a number of generations emerging as I extract the material. I want to do the census for all Blakes in Cornwall and work that into the parish registers before I actually publish any of the information so suspect it will be the end of the year or into next year before that happens.
 
Blake yDNA Study
There are 94 members although only 52 members have yDNA results for the Blake yDNA study at FT DNA. Other members have joined with their Family Finder results and some of these members do have matches in Family Finder. This is a way in which women with the Blake surname can participate in the study if they are unable to find a Blake in their line to test. Most members of the study trace their Blake ancestry back to the British Isles but there are three members who trace their lines back to Germany. More members in the study are most welcome and absolutely essential to learn more about the founding lines of the Blake family

Elizabeth Kipp, kippeeb@rogers.com
Please send any submissions for the Blake Newsletter to this address.