Will of Nicholas Blake - 1547

I was so excited with my find yesterday on the National Archives (UK) site that I missed writing up my blog. The Will of Nicholas Blake of Ellingham appeared on the Documents on Line and I decided to download it because it was dated 1547. After receiving the document (2 pages) I discovered that it was actually Nicholas Blake of Enham. The Enham was quite sprawled and could easily be thought to be Ell[ing]ham. However, I recognized the Church of Saint Michael and all Angels at Andover and quite a few references to Andover and then the prize was his wife Margaret and his eldest son William, second son Edmund and daughters Elizabeth and Alice. What a gem! Now I just need to acquire the wills of Robert d 1522 and Richard d 1522 at Knights Enham. I also want to order the will of Jone Blake d 1527, of Joan Blake d 1631 and I want to sort through and see what else might be useful as I will order six items from the Hampshire Record Office.

Other than that we took the dogs for a walk around noon and they had such fun. They were so excited that they literally ran us to the park (about four blocks) and then we ran most of the way around the pond in the park (about 2 kilometres). Good exercise for us!

Today I shall continue working on Nicholas' will and I want to read Tribes of Britain. I also have set aside a couple of hours for Latin study. I will use the Postmortem of Francis Baildon to practice the skills!

Blake family of Andover Hampshire

I ended up not doing any transcription today. We had a meeting that occupied most of the day but in the evening I decided to look once again at the wills of William Blake and Dorothy (Madgwicke) Blake the parents of William Blake (b 1615). I have finally sorted out the children and I rather think that Margaret (their daughter) was likely born around 1607 rather than the 1622 date suggested in the IGI. Her father refers to his son in law Josias Terry in his 1641 will (Josias is the husband of Margaret). The tendency is to address the children in birth order and Margaret is always mentioned before Joanne and Ann her two younger married sisters (and Dorothy is likely the eldest). There isn't a baptism for Margaret or Dorothy and the baptism of 1622 belongs to the youngest daughter Martha.

Once I get into the burial registers I will discover when Sara died perhaps - the other daughter of William and Dorothy. Also I may find William's burial (his will was dated 8 Nov 1641 with probate in 1642.

Tomorrow I shall work on the parish register transcriptions and have a look at my latin as I really need to get up to scratch with my latin.

Andover Parish Registers - 10

I continued with the Andover Parish Registers for another day along with a whole lot of shopping that took me away from looking at any other material. I have now completed up to July of 1628 and that is a total of 2100 baptisms. I continue to find interesting comments that are helpful - the priest is naming the location for some of the baptisms and often enough they are for the Blake family. Separating these lines is the way forward for me looking at this family. I still have a lot of transcription to do which includes Upper Clatford where my direct line Blake ancestors are found after 1757. I know that the Blake family of Andover was also there before 1700 and that Peter Blake younger brother to William (b 1615) was at Upper Clatford. It will be interesting sorting it all out. The Manor papers for Upper clatford list a John Blake in the 1500s.

Our shopping list was long today and we spent nearly four hours shopping in total. We are finding the JAG series (television) to be most interesting and we are trying to find Season 6 for sale (we have Seasons 1 - 5). It is very well done and tends to have absolutely fabulous scenery.

Tomorrow I shall continue to work on the Andover Registers. I would like to complete the baptisms in the next couple of days and then I shall set it aside for a couple of weeks before I work on the marriages and burials. I have a number of other items that I need to work on. That includes my latin lessons. I am behind in them and really need to improve my latin skills so that I can read some of these old documents that I brought back from Salt Lake City. That will be my next pursuit.