Purcombe surname

 Found a rather interesting surname in Blackawton Parish, Coleridge Hundred namely Purcombe; a Richard Purcombe G 4, a William Purcombe G 4, and a Wm Purcombe W1 (1524)/ G1 (1525). A son perhaps of one of the other three although not listed close to them but it was a habit to place sons with another landowner for training although not always the case. When I went to Free BMD to look at the Purcombe surname I found only one entry in Wales in their entire database. That was really interesting in itself. Apparently the parish of Blackawton "was leased by the Abbey at Torre in Torquay from about 1250 until 1539" so lots of records available in the Abbey Cartularies. I have this quote from a website Medievalists.net. There is a Purcombe Farmhouse in Whitchurch Canonicorum, Dorset (near Bridport). Interesting that the surname should occur in Devon near Totnes. It could be a mistranslation as the surname site at nottingham.ac.uk lists the spellings Pircombe, Pyrcombe, Piricume, Piricumb, Pirecomb, Pirecombe, Pirecumbe as well. None of these possibilities has a hit on Free BMD. I did however find 279 hits on Find My Past and they are in several areas and I have apparently looked this surname up before. There are just 14 records however some in the 1600s and some in the 1800s/1900s. 

The day continues as I work my way through all of the hundreds. I have found a few surnames that interest me namely Mannyng, Vycary, Hervy, Burges, Blake, Snowe, Rowclyff, Bray, Blakemore and of course the ones already mentioned Pyncombe, Pencombe, Penceme, Thomas, Dodderigge, Tencombe, Tynkeham, Charley, Churley. The Purcombe is certainly very interesting but in the south around Totnes is a bit far from North Molton. But for the sake of completeness I blog it and have recorded it. 

At Page 203 and 46 more pages of the 1524-5 Lay Subsidy remains. There is a lot of material in this file. I will probably go through the entire file since I am finding it very interesting. 

These Hundreds along the Channel have a population moving in and out rapidly it would appear between 1524 and 1525. It would be fisheries and trading ships. There are a lot of people marked as alien. A William Blake is a Breton which fits in with Parish Register entries I found a couple of years ago which showed two Bretons in Devon and several in Cornwall with the Blake surname. Blake is in only a few areas in Devon thus far in my perusal of the file. 

 

 

Pincombe-Pinkham family on the 1543-1545 Lay Subsidy for Devon

Amazingly I could not find my second tax CD when I was writing up the newsletter and then suddenly after I had sent it off and set about cleaning there it was! I decided to extract the relevant information from this CD for the Bideford area. Since I am doing that I will extract all Pincombe records from the CD too for the next newsletter just to add an addendum to that article on the Bideford Chart (see my blog post of 7th Mar 2019). St Giles in the Wood is missing from this particular CD which is a pity as it might have shed some light on the Pincombe family there.


South Molton Hundred

South Molton Parish (1544)

John Pyncome 13
Christopher Pyncombe 10

North Molton Parish (1545)

Alice Pencombe 5
William Pencombe 6
John Pencombe 4

North Molton Parish (1544)

William Pyncum 13

Witheridge Hundred

Kings Nympton Parish (1544)

Richard Pencombe 1

Braunton Hundred

East Buckland Parish (1544)

Thomas Pencomb 9

Fremington Hundred

Tawstock Parish (1544)

Philip Pynkeham 8

Shebbear Hundred

Bideford Parish (1544)

Richard Pencombe 5

Coleridge Hundred

Blackawton Parish (1544)

Joan Purcombe 1

John Purcombe 1

William Purcombe 2

Thomas Purcombe 1

Elizabeth Purcome 1

John Purcombe 1

Sherford Parish (1544)

Thomas Purcombe 8


I added in the Purcombe spelling for the first time. The Coleridge Hundred is in the south part of Devon. On Family Search I find just five instances of this surname and none on FreeBMD.
Looking at the Devon Taxes (Stoate) 1541 to 1660 I found the spelling Purkham and the one instance was in Blackauton Parish - Thomas Purkham L 2. A rather interesting find as there are wills for members of the Pincombe family in the Exeter area, one for Radigunde Purcombe dating back to 1605 at Sherford Parish. But I could never find the connection between this family to the south of Devon and the family in the northwest part of Devon. I think this will make a good article for the next newsletter! I shall make a note so that it doesn't pass from my mind between now and three months from now. I am so busy these days; my email is collecting once again and must respond. I used to respond right away and say that I would get back to people but there are too many emails in my inbox these days. I just get to them as I can.

Find My Past has 278 items but only 14 actually have the surname in the last name column with the remainder being Electoral Registers and it is the name of an area in Dorset. One interesting one from Sherford, Devon for the will of Thomas Purcombe being contested by ? Lake in 1577. Another for an Anne Purcombe and Arthur Browne's licence of 8 Sep 1622 to marry (Exeter Consistory Court). A marriage between Johan Purcombe and John Tuckerman at Halwell, Devon 30 Jan 1574.  John Purcombe was buried 12 Apr 1573 at Halwell. A couple of records from the 1700s-1900s. One record is incorrectly transcribed as Kate Purcombe. I am fairly sure this is Kate Pincombe and will check that one out. So is this a Pincombe family that was spelled incorrectly at Tax time back in the 1500s? A mystery for sure and will keep them in the group now.