The British: A Genetic Journey by Alistair Moffat

Over the past month I have managed to read a rather fascinating book by Alistair Moffat titled The British A Genetic Journey. With all my English ancestry I have meant to read this book for awhile. Although he does not use footnotes choosing to write in a less academic style, his text is quite interesting and one can readily look into the literature and discover the science that has been published to which he refers. He paints an interesting story of the peopling of the British Isles. Some of the latest results of Big Y testing are perhaps updating his thoughts but this is an evolving study.

In my family lines, both the yDNA and the mtDNA are ancient to the British Isles according to testing done with BritainsDNA, FT DNA, and Genographic Project 2.0. The I2a2b haplogroup assignment for our yDNA results (FT DNA and I2a1b2 (ISOGG)) has been further broken down in the I2a study at FT DNA and designated as B4 along with two other results. These three results do not match but are said to belong to the same distinct group B4. This is the work of Ken Nordvedt with the three members -  Abijah Sussex being traced back to Devon in the 1600s and Roger Hoyte to circa 1650s at Creed Cornwall and my paternal line traces back to Robert Blayke circa mid 1400s in the Andover Hampshire area (namely Knights Enham). Alistair Moffat refers to this group as the deer hunters as does BritainsDNA. BritainsDNA lists this group as being S-185 but further delineated as S-2640 subtype but no further information on this subgroup. S-185 is just 0.9% of I haplogroup in their study and I haplogroup is just 18.1% of their entire set of results for y haplogroup. If you have 100,000 people tested at BritainsDNA then 18,100 would be I haplogroup and 1,629 of them would belong to I2a2b. Extrapolating that to the total population of the British Isles about 68 million one would have if the percentages actually do match actuality 12 million I haplogroup and 110,000 I2a2b. This subgroup is 3x more frequent in The Irish Republic yielding approximately 84,000 for this area and 26,000 in the rest of the British Isles although the concentration would likely be in the southern to south western part of England according to charts published by BritainsDNA in my brother's results and this does appear to hold true to the results in the FT DNA group where the three members are from Cornwall, Devon and Hampshire for B4 and there are several other groups.

I found a rather interesting article about I2a2b online discussing why this group is so small in the published results (I also think that part of this is because it is a very ancient group to the British Isles and the numbers are still not really large for people testing their deep ancestry in the British Isles). For instance, not one of my 3rd and greater Blake cousins in England has tested. I do not have any 2nd cousins in the Blake line in England (my father was an only child and the only Blake grandson of Edward Blake of Upper Clatford but Edward did have brothers with sons (their father was John Blake of Upper Clatford) and he had uncles with sons (their father was Thomas Blake of Upper Clatford and he was the son of Joseph Blake of Andover)).

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/26211-The-founding-and-migration-of-I2a2b

Lately, with all these discoveries of ancient burials I wonder if one day my own line will be found - an exciting prospect. But having said all of this I still do not have a match at FT DNA, the matches at BritainsDNA are for SNPs only. No Blake, other than my brother, has tested in my known line as far as I am aware. There are several matches using the limited markers of the Blood of the Isles database. Should I actively pursue my 3rd and 4th cousins living still in England in the Andover area? What would they think if I wrote to them? telephoned them? I am still considering that idea. We are going to be in that area next April following Who Do You Think You Are in Birmingham - at least that is the plan. To spend a couple of days in the Andover area including Upper Clatford. Would any of my grandfather's cousins' children be interested in seeing what I have collected? I am basically a rather shy person and the idea of cold-calling people is foreign to me. I keep thinking about my grandfather and what he would have thought if he received a call out of the blue. A few more months to think about that.

The mtDNA of my most ancient ancestress and mine as well (verified with my brother's testing) is H11a2a1. We tested back in 2007 and have watched as H11 has unfolded with the published literature giving a deeper look into H11. This is a small part of the much greater H haplogroup. H11 is about 1% of all H and my own group a much smaller part of that greater group of H11. My best matches are in Ireland and Scotland but also there are some individual matches in Russia of the coding region but they lack the extra mutations that my line has in the British Isles. Tracking the members of my H11 study at FT DNA the further you are away from Ukraina where this group likely wintered during the last Ice Age then the more mutations you have acquired. My own line has three of the four distinct ones found in the British Isles (perhaps my line has reverted on one of these mutations making it somewhat easier to spot matches!).The added mutations perhaps helped them to survive as they are named Pioneers by BritainsDNA. BritainsDNA does not look at H11 individually in their writeup. It is a very very small group in the British Isles. The Blood of the Isles database has 18 with the full four mutations and two matching myself with just three mutations in HVRI (HVRII matches in both groups). There are 16 exact matches with the larger group at FT DNA. I have one match with my brother. This is my one line that I have only family lore to go on back from my great grandmother Ellen Taylor. There is some hint that she may have been Irish so perhaps from the Planters in County Antrim where there are a couple of matches on Oxford Ancestors database or from Scotland where Sorenson has a single match.

I will write a book report in my other blog on this book. 

Calendar of Patent Rolls and Blake entries between 1216 and 1452

Source: Calendar of Patent Rolls  (http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/patentrolls/search.html)

I decided to extract most of the Blake entries from the Calendar of Patent Rolls as I found the printed copy online at the above website. Initially I extracted just because it was quite interesting beginning in 1230 with the reign of Henry III (the rolls begin in 1216). Places are often associated with the Blake surname. The entries are from many many different areas of England (but seldom Wiltshire as it turns out more likely along the coast or in East Anglia or in Lincoln, Hertford, Norfolk). I am beginning to look at Blake differently. It is a gradual change in perspective. The choosing of the name "Blake" has always fascinated me. Just why would you choose that name? The surname Blake appears in many of the earliest documents held at the National Archives of the United Kingdom but not before 1230 it would appear. I have searched on Blak, Blacke, Blague and Blake. In 1230 I am finding that the surname is prefixed with a "le" hence "le Blake."

This afternoon I chanced to be at the City of Ottawa Archives and decided to look through the BIFHSGO Library (shelf reading). An interesting couple of books caught my eye and I spent a couple of hours reading from various books. One in particular may be interesting to this Blake discussion. It is a surname book that I have not encountered before: The Origin of English Surnames by P.H. Reaney published by Routledge and Kegal Paul, London: 1967. Blake is included under Nicknames from physical characteristics. Now this has been the thought about Blake for a considerable time but a slightly different thought where he attributed colour-names as referring in particular to complexion or hair colour. "Blache and Blach are palatal forms of OE blac which in ME occurs both as blacke and blake (now Black, Blake) the latter name being indistinguishable from ME blake from OE blac and meaning bright, shining, pale, wan" and this is similar to the meaning of the French word Blanck, Blank or blanc which means white or fair as opposed to the use of neir as black in Ancient French or in modern French noir. Interesting especially given the thoughts that I2a2b crossed the channel from the Normandy area and some believe at the time of the 1066 invasion. Since they did not receive estates at that time one can assume that they were liege men to the powerful lords and barons that accompanied William. As you read through the Calendar of Patent Rolls you continue to see them listed as liege men to some of these Norman Lords until John Blake is appointed as as Excise agent 6 Nov 1286 at Clarendon (not his location but the location of the Court) where he is collecting custom on wools, wool fells and hides in the port of Shorham. I will extract all the entries and locations and produce a blog on this information. Up until this point in time I have been accepting the idea that Blake moved outward from Wiltshire down towards the Channel but Shorham is on the Channel near Brighton! Presumably he lived near there but possibly not.

With respect to the I2a2b haplogroup and there are now three testers in the Blake surname study at FT DNA:

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/blake/default.aspx?section=yresults

two people whose ancestry does not converge earlier than more than 500 years ago and likely longer are an exact match (one Irish and one English). My paternal line belongs to a similar grouping with these two but the common ancestor of my line with the other two is likely thousands of years ago. Amazing that they would pick the same surname except for the thought that being a colour name  which refers to complexion or hair colour a group of young men coming from a similar location could have been called le Blac/le Blake just because they looked somewhat alike and to give them a surname at a time when surnames were being taken in France. Of course this family could have crossed over at any time after 1066 or before; there is absolutely no way thus far to determine that particular fact.

I have tended to fall back on the published theories with respect to the Blake surname but gradually I am realizing that I am forming an opinion and perhaps I will one day write a Blake surname article which I can submit to one of the journals. That is in the future though. I am still extracting as much data as I can on the Blake family. I must admit that I tend to do most of my abstraction prior to 1921 although the marriage file goes as far as Free BMD has extracted information. But my greatest interest is prior to 1800 and the Parish Registers/Wills. But conversations on the DNA list and ISOGG list have set me thinking about the ancient history of the Blake family and I shall devote a part of each day to looking at that history. 

The earliest entry in this Calendar is to Willelmum le Blake 30 January 1230 (membrane 7d) at Estwell. The English Archaeologist's Handbook by Henry Godwin (published 1867: Oxford and London: James Parker and Co.) names this as Henwood (formerly Estwell) Nunnery, Kettleberne, Lord of Langdon, about 1154 in Warwickshire. Estwell was the location of an English Nunnery founded by Kettleberne, Lord of Langdon. By 1230 it would appear that one group of individuals were claiming the right of tilage against another group of individuals. The decision was made at Hertford. Not being able to read latin very efficiently that decision is not obvious to me at this moment in time. Few people in the list have surnames; most are associated with their father (i.e. Adam son of Willemi, etc). The Calendar of Patent Rolls run from Henry III beginning in 1216 and ending with Henry VI in 1452 (250 years of Blake history in England dealing with the monarch in one way or another). The Kings included Henry III, Edward I, II, and III, Richard II, Henry IV, V and VI.