Looking at Wiltshire Wills

I discovered yesterday that Dad's Cookies sold in Canada are actually made here.  That is good news as they are my favourite cookie.

To the best of my knowledge I have collected all the Blake Wiltshire Wills although will also check to see if there are more available from earlier but I think I have them all. All of these wills have been blogged by me and I generally put in anything that I found of interest when I blogged the will.

 Martyn/Martin/Marten (9.5 miles sw of Salisbury, 32 miles from Calne)

William Blake 1545 / Agnes Blake 1563 - Lived at Marten, Wiltshire. From the two wills their children appear to be John, Elizabeth, Agnes and Alys. Since I follow only the male line John is the one of interest.

John Blake 1582 / Elizabeth Blake 1583 - Lived at Marten, Wiltshire. John is the son of William and Agnes above and he and his wife had daughters so this line daughtered out. Marten is south of Salisbury so it is difficult to say that this is a line coming down from Calne or a line coming across from Hampshire or up from Christchurch/Southampton. But no one in the male Blake line is descendant of this couple. 

South Newton (19 miles WSW of Andover, 30 miles S of Calne).

The Blake family at South Newton continues from the 1500s  to the present. A freehold in Stoford (close to South Newton) was purchased by Henry Blake (between 1693 and 1704) and in 1704 Henry passed it to John Blake and John sold it in 1720 (British History Online). Could this be the Calne Blake family? Certainly Henry was a forename in the Blake family of Calne at the time of the destruction of the family home at Pinhills in 1643. But there were Blakes at South Newton in the 1500s.

Dental appointment interrupted my day and I am getting older as I found that I needed a long rest after that appointment. 

Last night heavy snow which we definitely need but it looks like it could be 40 cm so a fair amount but we are headed towards March when we do get our heaviest snows. 

Today more work on the Wiltshire/Hampshire/Berkshire/Dorset Blake wills. It is a number of years since I transcribed all of the Wiltshire wills and likely the same for the rest. It is good to have the blogs to review though as I put quite a bit of time into each one pulling out available data at the time. 

I am still thinking that I should write an article on the Blake yDNA for the Guild Journal in hopes of attracting more testers as finding one with a proven paper trail back to the Calne Blake family could prove interesting. I still need to find the work I did on the French yDNA. I remember doing it and not that long ago and I did find some interesting details when I did it I recall. 

The new ethnicity reports that My Heritage has created - Ethnicity Estimate v2.5: The Long-Awaited Improved DNA Ethnicity Model are now available and most interesting. There was also an Ancient Report which I did find very interesting as it located my grandfather Blake as a Western Hunter Gatherer in the British Isles very early on. Intriguing really and we do have to listen to these stories by peoples who lived in places for a very long time. Their knowledge base is huge and often so detailed as it was passed down through the families (and I do realize now in my old age that that was exactly what my grandfather was doing - passing it on because we were so far from where my Blake family lived in England).  As my brother next older to me in age and I met through the last 15 years of his life from 2007 on we met regularly (three to four times a year) in London (my home town) where we talked about our family and especially he was interested in the yDNA. It all sort of came together after my mother passed away. She had reminded me of my intense interest in DNA as a child and certainly it did drive me towards Chemistry at University. But she had also talked to him about DNA and that people were testing so the combination came together not long after she passed as we started emailing each other and then I spotted the Sorenson Genomics Testing and mentioned it and he was keen. In all Edward, my brother and I tested our DNA with Sorensen Genetics and I just started to collect all the data that came forward. At that time there were a couple of matches with Doug and other Blake descendants primarily in Australia as I recall but also in the United States. They did not carry it forward into FT DNA as that offer was suggested and I did do that with all three of our tests and then so much testing since on all of the kits. I must go in and have a look at my siblings also on My Heritage and Edward for the new ethnicity reports. It is amazing how differently we all inherited from our four grandparents - me especially as I am totally different from everyone except my brother next in age to me but younger. He and I are the most similar but he still does not match me that closely. Interesting how that happens - I simply inherited a very large percentage from my paternal grandmother and none of them did. I was around 36% ?/Rawlings and they all tend to be in the neighbourhood of 12 to 18% with all of them inheriting strongly in the Blake line. The same in the maternal line with me inheriting quite strongly in the Buller line and a number of them inherited in the Taylor line (which does have Irish matches) and then in the Pincombe they inherited far more than I did with me inheriting strongly in the Routledge/Gray side. I think it is mostly Routledge for me as my Scot percentage tends to look like it is a generation closer than actual. So always very interesting. My Heritage is growing rapidly and I still have not done the work of inserting all my new matches into my database to work on the phasing of my grandparents and great-grandparents which I liked to update every year but it is now three years since I made a big update. The reality is that it was really the DNA (and my cousin wanting the Pincombe Profile for his book) that brought me into genealogy finally in 2003. I did have the experience though through the years of helping Edward at the repositories as he searched for his family's records both in Ontario and then in the New England States. It took us simply everywhere in New England and then to Utah to the Family History Library and to the Allen Country Library in Indiana as well as the Library of Congress in Washington. I have seen so many of these repositories including of course NEHGS and NYGBS where we spent many days going through their collections. Our very first trip to the United States to discover information was in 1973 I think. We had exhausted all the information at the Ontario Archives and Library and Archives Canada by then. Then there was Kew in London, England - a fantastic resource which I occasionally toy with the idea of going and spending a bit of time there. But you can buy scanned records from them which at 79.5 years of age works very well for me.

Tea finished and the day is ahead of me.

 

Cleaning accomplished and on to the work week

Today I plan to continue working on the phasing project as well as the Blake book. I want to transcribe the two documents that I bought. They both seem to be interesting but will they support my  premise about the Blake family of Calne being descendant of Richard le Blak who is found on the Pipe Rolls in Wargrave (near Windsor) Berkshire in 1301 with his daughter Alice and possibly a son John. they are all living at Wargrave. There isn't a Robert le Blak listed but estimating his age in another blog came up with a birth after 1301. The coincidence of choosing a Richard le Blake at the top of the Blake Pedigree Chart created by the Daniel Blake family of London in 1690 with additions into the 1700s is interesting. The success of this family in the 1300s not surprising for a family of Norman origin and Richard le Blak had requested a market permit in 1274 whilst living in Rouen, Normandy. Was there another Blake family that could be the Calne Blake family in this area. It does not appear so by the records. The wills of the Blake family I have transcribed from the Wiltshire Archives and they include:

 Agnes Blake 1563 (Martin, widow of William Blake d 1545, their son John Blake)

Alice Blake 1566 (widow of Thomas Blake 1550, South Newton)

Elizabeth Blake 1583 (Marten, widow of John Blake 1582)

John Blake 1538 (Deverill Longbridge (near Warminster))

John Blake 1546 (South Newton)

John Blake 1554 (South Newton,  brother to John Blake 1546, John Blake the elder and John Blake the younger mentioned in will)

John Blake 1572 (South Newton, son of John Blake 1546?)

John Blake 1574 (Erlestoke, brothers Robert and John)

John Blake 1582 (Martyn, widow Elizabeth 1583, son of William and Agnes)

Richard Blake 1572 (Playtford, brother to Thomas and Nycholas)

Roger Blake 1557 (Pinhills, Calne, married to Mary 1570, Robert

Stephan Blake 1564 (Warminster, brothers Nicholas and John)

Thomas Blake 1550 (South Newton, his widow Alice left her will in 1566)

Thomas Blake 1565 (Playtford, brother Richard and Nycholas)

Thomas Blake 1573 (West Lavington, brothers Robert Blake and John Blake)

Thomas Blake 1584 (Warminster)

William Blake 1538 (Warminster, father of Stephan)

William Blake 1545 (Martin/Marten, wife Agnes Blake d 1563)

Mary Blake 1570 (Pinhills, Calne, widow of Roger Blake)

My blogs on these wills discuss the different lines (none of these places are that far from Calne) but are they all related? This is already two hundred years after Robert le Blake is found as a juror at Hungerford in 1338 on an Inquisition Postmortem. 

So on to the two documents which are both from the 1300s. I do trust the Pedigree Chart to a certain extent when it is discussing Robert Blake and Avis (Wallop) (Malewyn) Blake grandparents of Roger Blake above at Pinhills. That locates the family back into the 1400s. Various items that look at the business dealings between Robert le Blake and the Malewyn family in the 1300s/1400s are perhaps the linkage that helps to connect but time will tell on that. 

Robert Dale (Richmond Herald (appointed in 1721)) at the College of Arms in 1693 commented on the Blake family of Quemberford (reproduced in the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, Volume 9 (Pages 223-224) published in 1866 and available on the Internet.Archive.org website:

 http://archive.org/details/wiltshirearchaeo09arch

 A Robert Dale is quoted by Clarence Hopper:

 His notes on the Blague/Blake/Blaake family

Dorsetshire, 27. Blague, alias Blaake, now [Thomas] Blake of Quemberford [Quemerford], Calne and Pynhills - 1st, arg. a chevron between 3 garbs, sab. (this is the usual arms associated with the Blake family [at Calne]). 2nd, arg. on a pile, az. 3 martlets, sil. both by this name. Crest on a chapeau, gu. turned up erm. a martlet, arg. Kent 83.

Blague of Lacock, a second branch from Quemberford. Kent 83

Blague of Hilcot, a third house from Calne. Kent 83

This fits in with the Visitation of 1565 which states that Roger Blake and Mary Baynard had three sons - Thomas at Pynnell, Robert at Lacock and John at Hilcott which matches the information found in the Wiltshire Arms and Descents article mentioned above.

Roger's father was Robert Blake married to Margaret (Englefield) and this Robert was a known son of Robert Blake and Avis (Wallop) (Malewyn) Blake. Avis Blake's Inquisition Postmorten in 1474/1475 (C 140/48/6) helps to date this family as her youngest son John was at Least 40 years of age or more. This brings the known Blake line back closer to the beginning of the 1400s. More on this as Robert Blake husband of Avis had a Fulling Mill and there is a record in 1416 that refers to that. What needs to be determined is can we relate the John Blake (Parliamentary Archives) to this Robert Blake both listed as of Quemberford in this early part of the 1400s? Time will tell and I must do Yoga and breakfast. The morning is evaporating even for this early riser. 

My only thought on the economy is diversification of our trading partners especially other Canadian provinces (eliminate the barriers). Plus we need to encourage our local industries once again as they have been lost during NAFTA/CUSMA - it is hard for a country that is so much smaller to compete against much larger companies - buy Canadian is the slogan. An American company operating here yes we buy; it needs to be made here by Canadian workers. Our unemployment at 6.7% is too high and we need to get our youth who have been trained in the trades back to work. This is good work and good money and it requires all the skills and much better talent for sure than any office job. Plus it is much healthier for our young not to be sitting in an office all day. There is money to be made in the trades. Don't create a company and then sell it to the American competition; keep it in the family and always Canadian! But that being said we have enjoyed items that came to us because of NAFTA/CUSMA but we need to protect Canadian industry as much as the Americans protect their industry. A closer economic union as Premier Ford has suggested is interesting and we can look at it.

As far as our border goes I doubt that anything can squeak across without being spotted against the white snow.  Plus it is freezing cold up here (minus 23 degrees celsius at 7:00 a.m. in the city) and not much survives out in that cold on foot. Even the animals have hibernated underground or they went south - they do not need passports!

 

 

Will of Elizabeth Blake, widow of Martin - SWRO P2/6 Reg/90D, probated 7 Apr 1583

Elizabeth Blake is widowed with three daughters, Agnes married to John Gerrett, Margaret and Katherine. They live at Marten as did Agnes Blake (blog: http://kippeeb.blogspot.ca/2012/10/will-of-agnes-blake-widow-marten-swro.html)  with her son John and daughters Elizabeth and Syblye. This is twenty one years after Agnes Blake wrote her will. It will be interesting reading all these wills to see if I can put the families together in these villages in Wiltshire. The will of Elizabeth's husband John will be transcribed in about a week.

I found it interesting that Margaret the youngest daughter is listed as an executor as I always thought it was necessary to be 21 to be an executor but this will is from 1583 and it could be that juris prudence had not moved along quite that far with regard to age of executor. Perhaps it was sort of like lease on lives where you choose very very young people to be the individuals named in a lease to give that lease its longest run.

At Martin there was Allenford Farm and Tidpit a tything in the parish of Martin.

Transcriber: Elizabeth Kipp
Recorded: 17 Oct 2012
Source:  Swindon and Wiltshire Record Office P2/6 Reg/90D
Name of testator: Elizabeth Blake, widow
Place: Marten, Wiltshire, England
Type of Record: Will
Dated: 30 Mar 1583, probated 7 Apr 1583
Read: Electronic file images
Condition: 16th century, middle English, clear copy (few smudges)
[Margin] Blake vid

1    In the name of god Amen, the xxx th day of March in the xxv th yere of
2    the reigne of o[u]r most gracious Sov[er]eigne Lady Quene Elizabeth etc
3    I Elizabeth Blake of Marten w[it]h[i]n the countie of Wiltes[hire] widde[w]
4    beinge sicke in body but of good and p[er]fecte memory, thanks be unto god
5    doe ordayne and make this my last will and testament in mann[er] and forme
6    folowinge viz [a vi]t First I bequeth and comytt my sowle into t[he ]hands
7    of Christ Jesus my only Savior and redem[er] And my body to be
8    buried in the churche yard of Marten aforsaid It[e]m I geve unto o[u]r
9    Lady Churche in Sa[lisbur]y vij d. And to o[u]r owne p[ar]ishe churche xij d
10    And to the poore people of Marten aforsaid three busshells of
    [Page 2]
11    barley It[e]m I geve and bequeth to my daughter Agnes Gerrett one brasse pott
12    and a littell barrell Item I geve and bequethe to my daughter Margarett Blake
13    fiftene sheepe one cowe and a bullocke Item unto my sonne in lawe John Garrett
14    upon condition that my execut[o]rs or their assigne or assignes shall or may
15    well quietly and peaceably w[i]thout any lawfull lett deniall  disturbance
16    contradiction eviction or evictions of him the said John Gerrett or Agnes
17    his wife or of any other p[er]son or p[er]sons whatsoev[er] by his or their assent
18    consent means knowledge surrender instigation or p[re]curement have
19    holde occupye useup possesse and enioy from the hower of my deathe unto the
20    feast of St Michaell Th[e ]archangell then next and [im]mediatly ensuinge
21    fully to be comple and ended All the corne w[hi]ch is alredy sowen and w[hi]ch hereafter
22    may be sowen unto the hower of my death aforsaid, in or upon the arrable
23    land p[er]tyninge or belonginge unto thes messuags or tent[ement]s nowe in
24    my teanure and holdinge Together w[i]th all and sing[u]ler the p[ro]ffitts
25    comodities and advantags unto the said corne so sowen and to be sowen in
26    mann[er] and forme aforsaid and to ev[er]y p[ar]te and p[ar]cell thereof  belonginge
27    or in any wise app[er]teyninge, I geve and bequethe one horse and one
28    payre of horse shwes and the dunge carte as he is and one
29    pillowe and two dishes and the blacke lynded heyse Item I geve
30    and bequeth unto my maide Isbut fower busshells of barley
31    And to Mother Bayly one peticote. Item I make and ordayne
32    my wel[l ]beloved in Christ George Weiks and John Prince to
33    be my ov[er]seers of this my last Will and Testament gevinge the[m]
34    xij s apice for their paynes All the rest of my goods moveable
35    and unmoveable unbequethed and not geven (my debts paid my body
36    buried my fun[er]all expenses discharged) and all things conteyned in
37    this my last will and testament duly p[er]formed levied and executed
38    accordinge to the trewe purporte and playne meaninge there (in
39    all things) I geve and bequeth unto Margarett Blake and
40    Katheryn Blake my daughters whom I make my full and
41    whole executrixs Also I will that George Weits and John
42    Prince shall have the governance of my daughter M[ar]gerett and of her
43    portion. Th[o]se bearinge Witnes Richard Wall Clerk George Weiks
44    and John Prince

Will of Agnes Blake, widow, Marten - SWRO P2/4 Reg/115A, probated 28 Jan 1562/63

The first will from Wiltshire and it is dated 1 Jan 1562 with probate 28 Jan 1562 (both dates old style). I usually use old style but do not always mark it thus. I generally use 62/63 if I am using new style of dating.

Testator Agnes Blake has a son John and two daughters Elizabeth and Syblye. She lives in the village of Martin which is 9.5 miles south west of Salisbury and close to the border of Hampshire and Dorsetshire. Interesting just 9 miles sse of Ellingham Hampshire where the family of William Blake and Avice Ripley lived for a time. However this is prior to that time period.

Her daughters are not yet married so are perhaps young but likely 21 as no guardian named. Her son John is her executor so likely 21 years old at least.

Transcriber: Elizabeth Kipp
Recorded: 16 Oct 2012
Source:  Swindon and Wiltshire Record Office P2/4 Reg/115A
Name of testator: Agnes Blake, Widow
Place: Martin, Wiltshire, England
Type of Record: Will
Dated: 1 Jan 1562, probated 28 Jan 1562
Read: Electronic file images
Condition: 16th century, middle English, clear copy (few smudges)
[Header] Testam[ent] Agness Blake Martin vidue

1    In the name of god amen the First day of Januarij
2    in the yere of o[u]r lord god after the compntacay [course and accounting] of the Churche of
3    Englande M C C C C C lxij I Agness Blake wydow of the parishe of Marten
4    sycke of body and p[er]fyte of mynde and remembrance thanks be un to god do
5    make and ordeyne this my p[re]sant testament concernyng my last wyll in
6    man[ner] and forme folowyng. First I bequeathe my soule to Almyghtie god, And
7    my body to be buryed in the churche yarde of West Marten aforesaid I geve to
8    my Mother churche of Sa[lisbur]y ij d It[e]m to Will[ia]m Thorne and his wyfe vj sheepe
9    a crocke, a panne, ij platers a candelstycke and my best Clooke and a petycote
10    and ev[er]y chylde of thers j shepe It[e]m to Agnes Style vj sheepe a crock
11    ij platers a panne a candelstycke and my best Focke and a violet kyrtell
12    ev[er]y one of her chylderen a sheepe It[e]m to my dowghter Elizabeth vj shepe
13    a crocke ij platers and the best candelstycke and my best kyrtell and my best
14    peticote and to ev[er]y one of her chylderen a shepe It[e]m to my dowghter
15    Syblye a pair of shepe ij platers and to ev[er]y one of her chylderen a shepe
16    It[e]m to Edythe Hyll a poteng[er] and to ev[er]y one of her chylderen a shepe
17    It[e]m to Alys Longtrees chylderen ev[er]y one a shepe It[e]m to Purnell Eurts
18    a shepe It[e]m to Jane Style a cowe and vj shepe and a Fether bedd and all
19    thyngs thereto p[er]tenyng It[e]m to ev[er]y godchylde ij d The Resydeu of my
20    goods unbequeathed my legacies p[er]formed I holy geve and bequeath unto
21    my sonne John Blake whom I ordeyne and make myne executor witness
22    hereof Thomas Lawrance clerke John Wyks and John Abbott