Elizabeth Pearce (1737 - 1823)

52 Ancestor Challenge - Challenge 22

Blake, King, Coleman, Pearce, Farmer, Mary (unknown), Lambden, Sarah (unknown), Knight, Ellis, Knight, Vincent, Butt, Durnford, Arnold, Molton, Cotterel, Bartlett, Alderman, Shepherd, Sherwood, Elizabeth (unknown), Happerfield, Collins, Rawlings, Tanner, Dove, Morgan, Lywood, Lanham, unknown, Peck, Pincombe, Charley, Rowcliffe, Pearse, Rew, Moggridge, Siderfin, Kent, Gray, Hilton, Cobb, Sproxton, Routledge, Tweddle, Routledge, Routledge, (unknown) Buller, unknown, Beard, Hemsley, Welch, Brockhouse, Cheatle, Woodcock, unknown Taylor, unknown, Harborne, Lewis, Roberts, Croxall, Lawley, unknown

Elizabeth Pearce is my 4x great grandmother and she married John Coleman 7 Oct 1771 at Abbots Ann. John and Elizabeth baptized one child at Abbots Ann namely Sarah baptized 15 Jun 1773 and one at Upper Clatford William baptized 12 Mar 1775. John died and was buried 2 Jul 1780 at Upper Clatford. Elizabeth was married a second time 10 Oct 1781 at Upper Clatford to John Head. They had one daughter Elizabeth baptized 2 Feb 1783 at Upper Clatford. John Head was buried 13 Aug 1809 at Upper Clatford and Elizabeth Head was buried 8 Apr 1823 at Upper Clatford.

Finding the parents of Elizabeth Pearce proved to be a very difficult ask. She was not baptized at Abbots Ann where she married. The Hampshire Baptisms are online at Find My Past and a review of the 251 results searching for an Elizabeth Pearce/Pierce, etc did not reveal any possible hits. So I hunted around the Abbots Ann area to see why she might be there and discovered Simon Pearce who was a malster there (a Peter Pearce had been a victualler dying around 24 Nov 1744). There were three members of a Pearce family in the early records of Abbots Ann. Simon, Mary and Elizabeth. Mary Pearce had married Joseph Welch 7 Oct 1769 at Abbots Ann. Simon married Sarah Cooke 6 Sep 1775 at Abbots Ann. The three Pearce marriages in 1769, 1771 and 1775 all at Abbots Ann. Were they siblings? That set me off on a hunt in Family Search and later Find My Past to see if I could link these three people together and find their parents. It proved to be fairly difficult and another researcher living in Wiltshire looked this family up in the Collingbourne Kingston and Collingbourne Ducis registers and found the following:

William Pearce married Elizabeth Hopgood 25 Apr 1736 at Collingbourne Kingston (Elizabeth was baptized 6 Apr 1712 at Collingbourne Kingston daughter of Thomas Hopgood).

Elizabeth daughter of William and Elizabeth Pearce was baptized 1 Sep 1737 at Collingbourne Ducis
Mary daughter of William and Elizabeth Pearce was baptized 22 Jun 1742 at Collingbourne Ducis
Simon son of William and Elizabeth Pearce was baptized 9 Apr 1746 at Collingbourne Ducis

Finding this particular set made me look harder at the Farmer family at Collingbourne Kingston. It was Isaac Farmer's daughter Ann that married Sarah Coleman's son John Blake. If Isaac had relatives in Collingbourne Kingston and also born there as I thought and mentioned in last week's blog and Elizabeth Pearce's daughter Sarah Coleman married to Thomas Blake also had relatives in Collingbourne Kingston then these two families would have a common ancestral village that could just be the reason that they get to know each other considering that Ann (daughter of Isaac Farmer) lived in Andover and John (son of Sarah Coleman, grandson of Elizabeth Pearce) lived at Upper Clatford where the Coleman family were buried. Abbots Ann is 9 miles from Collingbourne Ducis and 10 miles from Collingbourne Kingston. Abbots Ann to Upper Clatford is just 1.5 miles.

Have I solved the parents of Elizabeth? I have done a fairly exhaustive search of the Pearce families in this area and the three individuals baptized by William and Elizabeth at Collingbourne Ducis appear to be the three later married at Abbots Ann. What attracted them to Abbots Ann? Perhaps the Inn that had been owned by Peter Pearce who had died around 1744. No ideas there actually.

I did find a baptism for a William Peirce 30 May 1699 at Bishops Cannings son of Simon Peirce, labourer.  Bishops Cannings is 15 miles from Collingbourne Ducis. I did not find any further details for Simon Peirce.

Ancestry of Elizabeth Pearce:

1. Elizabeth BLAKE
2. Ernest Edward George BLAKE (b 20 Aug 1904) - Eastleigh Hampshire England
3. Samuel George Blake (b 10 Feb 1875) - Upper Clatford Hampshire England
4. Edward Blake (b 2 Jan 1845) - Upper Clatford Hampshire England
5. John BLAKE (b 25 Feb 1799) - Upper Clatford Hampshire England
6. Sarah COLEMAN (b 15 Jun 1773) - Abbotts Ann Hampshire England
7. Elizabeth PEARCE (b 1 Sep 1737) - Collingbourne Ducis Wiltshire England
8. William PEARCE

Blogging with the intent of preserving one's memories

Never more than today perhaps have I seen the value of my blogging. This living memory of my own thoughts has once again brought me back to earlier posts on the subject of Robert Blake of Enham.

Paul C Reed published in The American Genealogist (TAG)  Volume 74 in 1999 an article labeled:

Two Somerby Frauds or "Placing the Flesh on the Wrong Bones." Since my husband is a subscriber to TAG I shall check and see if he has access to the original article which I found online a couple of years ago. He did indeed through NEHGS of which he is a member and I have downloaded the article.

Paul Reed is bringing to the forefront once again the fraudulent genealogies produced by Horatio Gates Somerby in particular that of William Blake of Dorchester, Massachusetts. I have mentioned before that Horatio Gates Somerby had taken the Andover line of Blake and mixed it in with the Plainfield/Overstowey/Bridgport Blake line and then had them both descended from Robert de Blakeland of Calne, Wiltshire. Still not sure about the link between the Calne and the Overstowey Blake families but definitely the Blake family at Andover did not have a Humphrey Blake who moved to Overstowey in the time frame that he stated.

Paul Reed has within this article in TAG  his reference to an earlier article published in the New England Historical Genalogical Register (NEHGR) 1996, 150, 141-156 which I shall also download and read (Dorothy ____, The key in our search for Shadrack Hapgood) . At the time that I was looking at this material I was not far enough back to really examine this material in detail. The time has come most certainly to have a longer look at this paper by Paul Reed in NEHGR and his later paper in TAG which deals with Blake at Andover in this time period. 

Paul Reed states within the TAG article "The Robert Blake of Enham (there is no West Enham) who was Nicholas Blake's uncle is ancestor of Mary Blake, grandmother of the immigrant Shadrack Hapgood. The will of this Robert Blayke was dated 16 Dec 1522 [sic] [the footnote [41] points out the discrepancy which I noted that his son Richard's will was dated and probated before the will of his father and his conclusion is the same as mine that this will is indeed dated 1521 as the tiny j which denotes the number 1 does not have a complete i in front of it]." He mentions that the will includes reference to the son of Robert named Thomas Blake, other son Richard who is also executor, Andrew Blake (there is a footnote attached to Andrew stating no relationship stated and that Andrew was recorded in the 1523/4 subsidy of Knights Enham (PRO Subsidy Rolls, E179/174/291, 17 Hen VIII), William Blake (no specific relationship) and a Robert Blake with no specific relationship.

The Nicholas Blake to whom Paul Reed is referring  is presumably the NIcholas Blake who left his will in 1547 but he is not the ancestor of Mary Blake. The ancestor of Mary Blake is Nicholas Blake one of the sons of Robert Blake and a nephew to Nicholas Blake his brother. I believe that Nicholas and Robert are grandsons to the Robert Blake who left his will in 1522. If I have misunderstood the intent of Paul Reed apologies for that but it is not overly clear to which Nicholas he is referring at this point. Nicholas Blake (grandson of Robert who left his will in 1542) married his first cousin Dorothy Blake and they had three children Mary, John and Edward. Nicholas left his will in 1587 and Dorothy remarried to Thomas Noyes which Paul Reed recounts in the article in NEHGR in 1996. This I have in part from Charlou Dolan as I am still in the process of transcribing all of these wills but it is a good time to discuss this information prior to my looking at the wills to determine if indeed these thoughts are correct.

Richard's will (Robert (who left his will in 1521)'s son) was dated 12 Apr 1522 and probated 23 May 1522. Reed states that Richard mentioned his wife, his brother Thomas Blake and Robert Blake his father and his mother (the will of a Matilda or Mawde Blake was entered into the calendar in 1525 according to Paul Reed but is no longer available). Then he mentions that Richard Blake died as a married adult with children in 1522 (I transcribed this will and found that his eldest son was Robert, another child Nichi and an unnamed daughter). My latin skills are very very weak so I must work my way through all of his writings and see if I can discover any holes in my arguments created by documents that he has found. I do find in line 12 of Richard's will that he mentions his mother and gives her 40 pence and a place for her to live as long as she requires the same.I did not find mention of his father but do see now that the one line referring to the indenture has Robert Blake of the first part and himself and his wife must be of the second part inlcuding Nichi. Who is this Robert Blake, is it his son Robert or is it his father? If his father then his father has given his property to Richard and perhaps that is what is being said. That he is entitled to the property because of the indenture but he did give his brother some money for something.

Paul Reed suggests that Richard is younger (born in the late 1490s) which is possible but by 1527 when Jone dies their daughter (if I am correct that Richard is husband to Jone) is already married giving a likely date of birth for Richard in the 1480s. Nicholas and Robert both have children although I suspect Nicholas is rather younger than Robert.

Although Paul Reed's transcription of Richard Blake's will of 1522 has caused me to relook at my transcription and make a couple of changes and accept that he has not referred to a son Robert, I still will toy in my mind with the idea that he is the husband of Jone Blake who left her will in 1527 and the father of Robert, Nicholas and Elizabeth (Mylne). Allowing this will keep it to the forefront of my thoughts as I work through the wills to come for the Blake members in the 1500s at Knights Enham and Andover. 

I have also ordered on Open Library a book that may help to understand all of this. It was published as Part 1, Kempton Ancestry. Charlou Dolan has referred to this book in her writeup. 

Pearce Research Day and Abbots Ann Parish Register

Today is the Pearce family research day and as mentioned yesterday John Coleman married Elizabeth Pearce 7 Oct 1771 at Abbots Ann and they are one set of my 4x great grandparents. Elizabeth was buried 8 Apr 1823 at Upper Clatford as Elizabeth Head having married her second husband John Head 10 Oct 1781 at Upper Clatford . They had one daughter Elizabeth baptized 2 Feb 1783 at Upper Clatford who married William Hunter 19 Feb 1805 at Upper Clatford.They had four children Eizabeth (baptized 27 Mar 1814 at Upper Clatford and married to Thomas Williams 28 Apr 1832 at Upper Clatford), Ann Hunter (baptized 8 Jun 1817 at Upper Clatford), Thomas Hunter (baptized 12 Mar 1820 at Upper Clatford) and Richard Hunter baptized 20 Jun 1824 at Upper Clatford). These four children would be half first cousins to my 3x great grandfather John Blake (son of Thomas Blake and Sarah Coleman).  More details on these families will be available when I complete the Upper Clatford Parish Registers past 1812.

In order to more fully understand the Pearce family at Abbots Ann I need to continue working on the Parish Registers for Abbots Ann.There hasn't been a Pearce Research Day as I did not reach that point in the Calendar the last time. I had moved to the 4x great grandparents from the third in my research endeavours but Coleman was the last one worked on. Because of the Pearce records that I do hold for Abbots Ann I suspect that Elizabeth is a sibling to Mary Pearce who married Joseph Welch 7 Oct 1769 at Abbots Ann and Simon Pearce who married Sarah Cooke 6 Sep 1775 at Abbots Ann. These children were baptized at Collingbourne Ducis and the children of William Pearce and Elizabeth Hopgood who married at Collingbourne Kingston 25 Apr 1736.The Pearce family were Innkeepers/malsters at Abbots Ann which would make them a similar background to the Coleman family with their Inn at Goodworth Clatford.

Once again in order to more fully understand the Pearce family I will spend their Research Day on the Abbots Ann Parish Registers. Yesterday I managed to enter five years of baptisms bringing the numbers for the Abbots Ann Parish Registers to 506 baptisms by 1625, 99 marriages by 1598 and 177 burials by 1597.

The first Blake entry at Abbots Ann is the baptism of Thomas Blake son of Robert Blake and baptized 1 Sep 1568. The latest entry in the Blake family is William Blake son of John Blake baptized 27 Dec 1627.  No ideas yet on which Blake family in the Andover area this might be. The one known Blake family at Abbots Ann was Peter Blake of Andover who left his heavily mortgaged property to his son Peter Blake and thence to his sister Sarah Lambert. This was the Manor and advowson of Abbots Ann.

 At the end of the day I now have 607 baptisms at Abbots Ann and the same number of marriages and burials. The next set of transcriptions is marriages and I will begin them tomorrow.

Andover Poor Law Rate

Images from Salt Lake City are of interest as well in this time frame for the Parish Registers (1620, 1669, 1673) and are rather interesting with regard to the Blake family.

1620 Andover Blake Mr. Peter Blake for Perwel
late Mr. William Blake 0 6 0
1620 Andover Blake Mr. Richard Blake 0 2 0
1620 Andover Blake Mr. Peter Blake 1 2 3
1669 Andover Blake Mr. Peter Blake 2 8 9
1669 Andover Blake Mr. Rob[er]te Blake 0 3 2
1669 Woodhouse Richard Clarke for Widd Blake 0 4 6
1669 Enham Regis Blake Mrs. Eliz: Blake 0 8 4
1669 Enham Regis Blake Mrs. Joane Blake Widd 0 19 6
1669 Hatherden Blake Mr. Edward Blake 0 ? 2
1673 Andover Blake Mr. Peter Blake 0 3 9
1673 Andover Blake Mr. Robert Blake 0 0 4

William Blake is suspiciously absent (Clerk, son of William and Dorothy Blake who gradually through the 1600s sold off any property that he had). William dies at Foxcott (owned by the Hinxman family and William's uncle Joseph was Lord of the Manor). His son John is not mentioned although he does appear on the Poll book in 1710. He does not have the title Mr. nor does his father when he is buried. The Manor books would probably answer some questions on this family. Was he ill? I do not find a death yet for his wife Ann Hellier Blake (father Hugh Helyer). His older son William appears to have died young. The only daughter Bridget I need to check the records to see if I actually found anything for her. When I transcribe I do not always check each individual entry as I record it because I will be going back to them!

Continuing with the Parish Register I have now completed to May 1703 in the baptisms with a total of 7504 from the beginning of the Registers. The number has silently crept up to this level as I now realize I have an enormous number of entries for some family lines - Blake of course, Hopgood, Hinxman, Allen, Watters, Hawkince (Hawkins), Long and I must make a list of the families that have been in the registers for more than one hundred years as that would be quite interesting. This is still a rather small town judging from the number of baptisms. The growth spurt is to come for Andover.

10K

Yesterday my day was somewhat dominated by babysitting the "grand" dogs and doing the 10K in the Ottawa Race Weekend. Both were successful. The boys were especially good yesterday and we all enjoyed a barbeque at the end of the day - the dogs especially enjoying their portion of beef!

I also worked on the marriage register for Andover and completed up to the end of 1608. This part of the register is quite eaten away unfortunately but none the less I was able to extract information that will be handy. There were several Blake marriages that are in my line including William Blake marrying Dorothy Magick (Madgewick), his sister Dorothy marrying Peter Burmingham, his sister Elizabeth marrying John Hopgood and his sister Joane Blake marrying Richard Bailie. It is amazing really finding all four of these marriages intact! The remainder of his siblings who married were between 1610 and 1620.

Today I shall continue with the marriages and I am starting into the very nicely written part of the register although parts continue to be chewed away. I can see at a quick glance the marriage of William's sister Elenor to Joseph Hinxman.