There is a free public workshop sponsored by Archives of Ontario which I am watching at the moment - just on lunch break. The name of the workshop: Genealogy and Genetics.
I must admit my initial concern when we tested in 2006 was what would these results be used to look at. It was about six months before we actually did the National Genographic Test and submitted it. I have nothing to hide but taking the test implies on my part that I think this is a good idea to do DNA testing. As it has turned out the advent of DNA testing did a great deal towards teaching us that we are all a subset of African diversity; our footprint in Africa still shows up 60,000 years after our ancestors are said to have left Africa.
The database that is used by National Genographic has samples from indigenous groups from many many parts of the world. They particularly took DNA samples from groups of people who were static; i.e. had been in their location for thousands of years by their known history. It was such testing that let National Genographic create the haplogroup charts for yDNA and mtDNA showing the changes from the oldest samples to the modern samples found around the world although primarily in 2006 the purchased samples were from North America and Europe (including the British Isles). It was a gift to be able to see one's trek out of Africa and now, twelve years later, that trek is for the most part unchanged from the original map which we received with our results.
The introduction of autosomal testing though has brought to the forefront a dilemma with regard to who we are by our ethnicity. Having testing at all of the testing companies I can say quite assuredly that none of them are the same. They all use different comparison databases. Our personal ethnicity doesn't change but the way that they are calculated based on different reference points results in a variable ethnicity between companies. The reference points can and will become more or less precise. That is the amazing part of genetics and DNA studies. As you accumulate a greater number of samples than the chances of introducing another ethnicity from these new sample takers increases rather than decreases the number of ethnic origins because we are a migrant people. We keep moving; perhaps not in each generation but over time our people have moved.
When I started to work on genealogy, I had no idea on the birth places of my ancestors past grandparents except in the case of my Blake direct line and my Pincombe direct line. The other two lines were mired in stories partly to conceal and partly speculation generated by discussion of my parents with their parents in their childhood. It wasn't that that sent me to genealogy; rather it was my cousin who needed me to write a bio for the Westminster and Delaware History Books (published in 2005). He tried to get my sister to write it and she redirected him to me because Ed (my husband) does genealogy. As resistant as I was to becoming involved in genealogy a trip to Europe had stirred just a little of that interest. The suggestion that my grandfather had owned a grocery store on Wharncliffe Road (it was my uncle, his son) was enough to spur me onward to write the bio. I took 43 courses at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies (best couple of thousand I have spent in a while!) and while taking the courses I did the needed research and produced the bio in time for publication (with the help of my siblings and Pincombe cousins that my cousin brought together for a research day). The information still stands as being correct even after 13 years of publication which I think might be amazing given the possibility of making a mistake in moving backwards in time.
Once into genealogy though I could not leave it alone. It has occupied my waking hours now for fifteen years and the fascination increases rather than diminishing. Have I solved all the problems? Absolutely not; nor will I in my lifetime. DNA has pointed out more possibilities than family lore ever did. The Ethnicity results have given credence to that family lore.
The misuse of ethnicity though is always in my thoughts. Living next door to the United States I am very conscious of what can happen in a society when one group decides it is better than another based on colour. It is a scary thought actually; one we must avoid at all costs. We are all equal under the sun.
Showing posts with label yDNA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yDNA. Show all posts
Friday, September 21, 2018
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Pincombe-Pinkham - a singleton family?
As a child growing up my mother learned that there were several different Pincombe family lines. She did not think that they were related. During the 1840s and 1850s several distinct Pincombe families emigrated to Canada and lived in the London, Ontario area. They did not know if they were related and actually assumed that they were not. Now with the possibility of linking families with DNA I have been curious as to whether or not we can find that we do have a common ancestor.
The yDNA Pincombe study at FT DNA has found that there are a couple of distinct lines for Pincombe-Pinkham. The earlier researchers for the Pincombe-one-name-study had produced sixteen charts showing that the two names were used by similar family groups. For instance a Pincombe family at Barnstaple, Devon used the Pinkham spelling after they moved to London, UK. In another case a Pinkham family that emigrated to New Hampshire colony also showed the earlier Pincombe spelling and then later Pinkham.
The tester for my Pincombe line is a descendant of our mutual 3x great grandfather Robert Pincombe (married to Elizabeth Rowcliffe 7 Jun 1803 at Bishops Nympton, Devon). He is my third cousin once removed and my siblings and I match him as anticipated for a third cousin once removed (and better for some of my siblings). That gives us a baseline for the Pincombe family at Bishops Nympton from the latter part of the 1500s to the present. Going back one generation, the parents of Robert Pincombe were John Pincombe and Mary Charlie/Charley who married 8 Nov 1767 at Bishops Nympton. They had four sons and two daughters. A descendant of their son William has also tested his yDNA (fifth cousin to us) and he is a perfect match to my third cousin once removed thus moving back another generation the yDNA match.
My fourth cousin (daughter of the yDNA tester) also tested at Ancestry where there was a match with a descendant of Aaron Pincombe and Elizabeth Withicombe who married 24 May 1802 at St Giles in the Wood. I have not been able to find parents for this Aaron Pincombe but it is interesting that a descendant of this line matched my fourth cousin (but not myself). Unfortunately this kit has now disappeared at Ancestry.
Of interest, following back on my ancestral line takes me to William Pincombe who married Emotte Snow. This William died in 1602 and was living at East Buckland when he wrote his will which named his seven sons and two daughters. I have only been able to trace down a couple of these sons - Richard (fourth son) is my likely line. I do not know the names of the husbands for the two daughters thus far. Given the number of sons, the possibilities for descendants is quite large in the Pincombe line. I am slowly extracting all the early Pincombe entries.
Lately I have been in correspondence with a possible descendant of Aaron Pincombe and his wife Elizabeth Withicombe although he himself has only officially traced his line back to John Pincombe and Mary Thomas. I suspect this John Pincombe is a son of Aaron Pincombe and Elizabeth Withicombe.
I often wonder how much interest there is within the Pincombe family to pursue a DNA study. It is a large enough family to have a good sized yDNA study but this study grows very slowly.
The yDNA Pincombe study at FT DNA has found that there are a couple of distinct lines for Pincombe-Pinkham. The earlier researchers for the Pincombe-one-name-study had produced sixteen charts showing that the two names were used by similar family groups. For instance a Pincombe family at Barnstaple, Devon used the Pinkham spelling after they moved to London, UK. In another case a Pinkham family that emigrated to New Hampshire colony also showed the earlier Pincombe spelling and then later Pinkham.
The tester for my Pincombe line is a descendant of our mutual 3x great grandfather Robert Pincombe (married to Elizabeth Rowcliffe 7 Jun 1803 at Bishops Nympton, Devon). He is my third cousin once removed and my siblings and I match him as anticipated for a third cousin once removed (and better for some of my siblings). That gives us a baseline for the Pincombe family at Bishops Nympton from the latter part of the 1500s to the present. Going back one generation, the parents of Robert Pincombe were John Pincombe and Mary Charlie/Charley who married 8 Nov 1767 at Bishops Nympton. They had four sons and two daughters. A descendant of their son William has also tested his yDNA (fifth cousin to us) and he is a perfect match to my third cousin once removed thus moving back another generation the yDNA match.
My fourth cousin (daughter of the yDNA tester) also tested at Ancestry where there was a match with a descendant of Aaron Pincombe and Elizabeth Withicombe who married 24 May 1802 at St Giles in the Wood. I have not been able to find parents for this Aaron Pincombe but it is interesting that a descendant of this line matched my fourth cousin (but not myself). Unfortunately this kit has now disappeared at Ancestry.
Of interest, following back on my ancestral line takes me to William Pincombe who married Emotte Snow. This William died in 1602 and was living at East Buckland when he wrote his will which named his seven sons and two daughters. I have only been able to trace down a couple of these sons - Richard (fourth son) is my likely line. I do not know the names of the husbands for the two daughters thus far. Given the number of sons, the possibilities for descendants is quite large in the Pincombe line. I am slowly extracting all the early Pincombe entries.
Lately I have been in correspondence with a possible descendant of Aaron Pincombe and his wife Elizabeth Withicombe although he himself has only officially traced his line back to John Pincombe and Mary Thomas. I suspect this John Pincombe is a son of Aaron Pincombe and Elizabeth Withicombe.
I often wonder how much interest there is within the Pincombe family to pursue a DNA study. It is a large enough family to have a good sized yDNA study but this study grows very slowly.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Traffic on blog, Will Transcriptions and DNA for Blake family
I am noticing that the traffic on my website has increased tenfold this past six months. Not sure why and must admit that I do not mind at all. The whole purpose in transcribing these wills was to make them available to everyone and assist in understanding the Blake families in the British Isles.
It is a learning curve for me to come back after a two year absence and maintaining one will a day will not always be possible (George Blake's will of 1847 took me three days to transcribe as my life has changed a great deal this past two years - my time has become much more chopped up through the days than it was a few years back).
Today I am working on a will from 1556 and it is two pages long so a rapid transcription is not very likely! It is fun to be back though and I have no regrets on the time that I have spent on the Cornwall Blake family. The work that I have done will be archived with the Guild of One Name Studies at some point in the future. Not publishing it on my blog is a good decision I think. I do not live there; I am not descendant of this family so will not publicly reveal the trees that appear to follow logically from the parish records, census and wills.
The yDNA study for the Blake family continues to grow albeit slowly. As more and more people test a clearer picture will emerge of particular founding families in the British Isles. For sure new lines have formed over time due to acquisition of the name for various reasons and not the expected parent better known as non paternal events. Being able to isolate those founding families that can be traced back into the 1100s and 1200s though is most intriguing and I hope that as the yDNA study grows more can be learned about these lines.
The Family Finder results are becoming quite intriguing as small groups of related peoples have now joined the study. The potential of autosomal testing to link one to a family is somewhat limited but does appear to be helpful back to fifth cousins in a meaningful way. Not everyone knows all of their fifth cousins so the value of Family Finder can surely be seen. Writing up results is more difficult as one must protect the anonymity of the individuals in the study. Gradually though there are a couple of studies that I hope to write up (with the help of other administrators of the project) in the Blake Newsletter.
It is a learning curve for me to come back after a two year absence and maintaining one will a day will not always be possible (George Blake's will of 1847 took me three days to transcribe as my life has changed a great deal this past two years - my time has become much more chopped up through the days than it was a few years back).
Today I am working on a will from 1556 and it is two pages long so a rapid transcription is not very likely! It is fun to be back though and I have no regrets on the time that I have spent on the Cornwall Blake family. The work that I have done will be archived with the Guild of One Name Studies at some point in the future. Not publishing it on my blog is a good decision I think. I do not live there; I am not descendant of this family so will not publicly reveal the trees that appear to follow logically from the parish records, census and wills.
The yDNA study for the Blake family continues to grow albeit slowly. As more and more people test a clearer picture will emerge of particular founding families in the British Isles. For sure new lines have formed over time due to acquisition of the name for various reasons and not the expected parent better known as non paternal events. Being able to isolate those founding families that can be traced back into the 1100s and 1200s though is most intriguing and I hope that as the yDNA study grows more can be learned about these lines.
The Family Finder results are becoming quite intriguing as small groups of related peoples have now joined the study. The potential of autosomal testing to link one to a family is somewhat limited but does appear to be helpful back to fifth cousins in a meaningful way. Not everyone knows all of their fifth cousins so the value of Family Finder can surely be seen. Writing up results is more difficult as one must protect the anonymity of the individuals in the study. Gradually though there are a couple of studies that I hope to write up (with the help of other administrators of the project) in the Blake Newsletter.
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Cornwall Census and Blake
Working away on the Cornwall Census and it is a slow process. Managed to have two colds in the last month which have rather slowed me down. Until I tested myself at 23 and Me I thought it was just flukey that I acquire colds and flus even though I do take the flu shot but it does turn out that I have no resistance to some diseases but then no one is resistant to the common cold. Without the flu shot I would be returning to the person who used to be sick much more often even.
As this year works its way towards the end both my husband and I are feeling that we should do something different with our days. We still will do genealogy but less of it. We would like to take on something else. I thought about doing English as a Second Language teaching if there is a need with all the refugees about to arrive. My husband has his Ph.D. in Chemistry and his Masters in Library Science so has quite a wide variety of language skills to bring to such teaching. Myself I have worked in a number of places and lots of different vocabulary as well although perhaps mostly slanted towards science. We could team teach and perhaps be helpful to people coming here whose English skills are not as strong as they could be. I think that is what often holds new Canadians from non-English speaking countries back.
Many of the refugee families are quite large and coming from a large family I am comfortable with working with an entire family and I believe Ed would find that interesting as well. We will see what transpires in the New Year.
The Blake yDNA study is slowly growing but needs to be at least four times the size it is now for yDNA before I would even really say much beyond what is on the page now. I am working on a way to display Family Finder Results that retains people's anonymity. Thus far other than my own and my families results no one matches anyone else to any great degree. Although I am keen on the projects it can not just be driven by this small group. A lot of people have to become interested in Blake for it to move forward. I know that what I have published on the Blake family in the 1200s and 1300s has disappointed many people who saw this as a singleton family but I think it is rather simplistic to think that many families will be singleton to be honest.
Cornwall I would like to finish towards the end of the month. I am still considering how I will display this information and I think I will do a descendant chart for each unique line and publish them down to the 1871 census. No idea yet on how many lines that will be in terms of founders since the records do not go back far enough to determine if all the Blake family members are Bodmin are related. Working out from Bodmin though has been quite interesting. I could not do the same working out from Landrake. I suppose I am convinced that the founder of this line is from Breton arriving in Cornwall in the Bodmin area prior to 1525. I know that is a disappointment to at least one person and that has resulted in my rethinking my entire project. I will work on the lines to publish the information that I have found but I will restrict it to prior to 1872 in all cases except for my own personal family line which I have brought further down to the present.
As this year works its way towards the end both my husband and I are feeling that we should do something different with our days. We still will do genealogy but less of it. We would like to take on something else. I thought about doing English as a Second Language teaching if there is a need with all the refugees about to arrive. My husband has his Ph.D. in Chemistry and his Masters in Library Science so has quite a wide variety of language skills to bring to such teaching. Myself I have worked in a number of places and lots of different vocabulary as well although perhaps mostly slanted towards science. We could team teach and perhaps be helpful to people coming here whose English skills are not as strong as they could be. I think that is what often holds new Canadians from non-English speaking countries back.
Many of the refugee families are quite large and coming from a large family I am comfortable with working with an entire family and I believe Ed would find that interesting as well. We will see what transpires in the New Year.
The Blake yDNA study is slowly growing but needs to be at least four times the size it is now for yDNA before I would even really say much beyond what is on the page now. I am working on a way to display Family Finder Results that retains people's anonymity. Thus far other than my own and my families results no one matches anyone else to any great degree. Although I am keen on the projects it can not just be driven by this small group. A lot of people have to become interested in Blake for it to move forward. I know that what I have published on the Blake family in the 1200s and 1300s has disappointed many people who saw this as a singleton family but I think it is rather simplistic to think that many families will be singleton to be honest.
Cornwall I would like to finish towards the end of the month. I am still considering how I will display this information and I think I will do a descendant chart for each unique line and publish them down to the 1871 census. No idea yet on how many lines that will be in terms of founders since the records do not go back far enough to determine if all the Blake family members are Bodmin are related. Working out from Bodmin though has been quite interesting. I could not do the same working out from Landrake. I suppose I am convinced that the founder of this line is from Breton arriving in Cornwall in the Bodmin area prior to 1525. I know that is a disappointment to at least one person and that has resulted in my rethinking my entire project. I will work on the lines to publish the information that I have found but I will restrict it to prior to 1872 in all cases except for my own personal family line which I have brought further down to the present.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Newsletter for Pincombe-Pinkham one name study
A long time in the thinking process and an equally long time actually being written, the first issue of the Pincombe-Pinkham newsletter will be published 1 Dec 2015 on this blog and available also on the Pincombe-Pinkham DNA study website at FT DNA.
The first issue is a look at the Pincombe family from a general point of view in terms of them having been armigerous at one point in the past, the Pincombe-Pinkham yDNA study, the autosomal DNA study, the Visitation of 1620 of Devon, my own line of Pincombe and a request for submissions. It is eight pages in length and it may be longer or shorter the next time. I suspect it will always be somewhat around the ten pages as I have a lot of material that I want to place online for this family so that it is accessible instead of being locked up in my computer and bookshelf.
My choosing Pincombe as a one name study (and the earlier study included Pinkham so I did that as well) stems directly from my mother being a Pincombe prior to marriage. She talked a lot about her family as she knew it when I was a child and as I discovered once the genealogy bug had bitten me that indeed she had a very accurate knowledge of her ancestors and where they had lived. She knew many many of their names (female ancestors) with good accuracy.
I also discovered a lot about my mother's character that I did not know as a child growing up in her household (a household I left at the age of 20 years when I married). I probably would have known more about her had I stayed longer as an adult but the mother that I knew remained pretty much the same up until I married. Then we moved away so that our visits back were short and we really never talked a lot until the time came for my parent's 50th anniversary and she really did want someone to do some family research. My husband agreed to take on the task and dragged me off to the Family History Library to see what could be found. Almost nothing on my father's parents/grandparents in the mid 1980s as it turned out and not a great deal on my mother's parents/grandparents as they did not hold the films that I needed to look at in house. My husband though had the foresight to actually sit and talk to my mother and take down all the information that she knew (which proved to be quite accurate) and the same with my father although I did have some memories of my grandfather talking about his Blake line that was also helpful.
We did manage to put together all the great great grandparents as we knew them but that was pretty much the limit of it. My mother also gave my husband a stack of old letters, old pictures and other memorabilia which we perhaps supposed to return but I guess that got forgotten on both of our parts and nearly twenty years later my husband was going through an old trunk and found the box that she had given him. A treasure trove for me as by that time around 2004 I was into family history. One of the letters had an address from 10 years prior and we did write to that address at the time of the 50th anniversary history search and the letter was forwarded to a cousin by the present homeowner there and we did acquire some photos and a little information to put into the family history.
But as mentioned I learned a lot more about my mother's character working on family history of which I was unaware. She was very gregarious and extremely thoughtful as a person. These traits are not overly noticed by children I suspect as she was also a very strict mother and permitted no deviations from her assigned protocol on how a day would unfold! Interesting that my grandmother (her mother) I found to be a very sweet kindly overly flexible person but my mother certainly painted her mother as being much the same as I saw my mother! My own children adored my mother and took her death at 85 years very hard. The last time they had seen her she was well and healthy so her sudden death was an enormous shock to them. They saw her as this wonderful thoughtful kind grandmother who fitted her day around them to suit whatever they wanted to do. Perhaps it is that tendency of grandmothers/mothers that makes us the kind of people we are today.
The first issue is a look at the Pincombe family from a general point of view in terms of them having been armigerous at one point in the past, the Pincombe-Pinkham yDNA study, the autosomal DNA study, the Visitation of 1620 of Devon, my own line of Pincombe and a request for submissions. It is eight pages in length and it may be longer or shorter the next time. I suspect it will always be somewhat around the ten pages as I have a lot of material that I want to place online for this family so that it is accessible instead of being locked up in my computer and bookshelf.
My choosing Pincombe as a one name study (and the earlier study included Pinkham so I did that as well) stems directly from my mother being a Pincombe prior to marriage. She talked a lot about her family as she knew it when I was a child and as I discovered once the genealogy bug had bitten me that indeed she had a very accurate knowledge of her ancestors and where they had lived. She knew many many of their names (female ancestors) with good accuracy.
I also discovered a lot about my mother's character that I did not know as a child growing up in her household (a household I left at the age of 20 years when I married). I probably would have known more about her had I stayed longer as an adult but the mother that I knew remained pretty much the same up until I married. Then we moved away so that our visits back were short and we really never talked a lot until the time came for my parent's 50th anniversary and she really did want someone to do some family research. My husband agreed to take on the task and dragged me off to the Family History Library to see what could be found. Almost nothing on my father's parents/grandparents in the mid 1980s as it turned out and not a great deal on my mother's parents/grandparents as they did not hold the films that I needed to look at in house. My husband though had the foresight to actually sit and talk to my mother and take down all the information that she knew (which proved to be quite accurate) and the same with my father although I did have some memories of my grandfather talking about his Blake line that was also helpful.
We did manage to put together all the great great grandparents as we knew them but that was pretty much the limit of it. My mother also gave my husband a stack of old letters, old pictures and other memorabilia which we perhaps supposed to return but I guess that got forgotten on both of our parts and nearly twenty years later my husband was going through an old trunk and found the box that she had given him. A treasure trove for me as by that time around 2004 I was into family history. One of the letters had an address from 10 years prior and we did write to that address at the time of the 50th anniversary history search and the letter was forwarded to a cousin by the present homeowner there and we did acquire some photos and a little information to put into the family history.
But as mentioned I learned a lot more about my mother's character working on family history of which I was unaware. She was very gregarious and extremely thoughtful as a person. These traits are not overly noticed by children I suspect as she was also a very strict mother and permitted no deviations from her assigned protocol on how a day would unfold! Interesting that my grandmother (her mother) I found to be a very sweet kindly overly flexible person but my mother certainly painted her mother as being much the same as I saw my mother! My own children adored my mother and took her death at 85 years very hard. The last time they had seen her she was well and healthy so her sudden death was an enormous shock to them. They saw her as this wonderful thoughtful kind grandmother who fitted her day around them to suit whatever they wanted to do. Perhaps it is that tendency of grandmothers/mothers that makes us the kind of people we are today.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Cornwall Blake family in the 1841 census
Working away on the 1841 census and have complete the first 40 families on Find My Past. I was not able to place nine of these entries into my family tree file. But the 1841 is the most difficult as place of birth is not given nor is any relationship stated. Find My Past has 409 results with 20 to a page. Fortunately entire families can be discovered with just one entry which lets me skip by them later.
Still mulling around how I will display the results of bringing together all of this information. The Blake family is large in Cornwall and already I can see that there is a distinct Blake family in Cornwall and that the Devon Blake family has crossed into Cornwall through the years. Likely the Cornwall Blake family has moved the other way into other parts of England and the census will show that. This may still work moving across the counties towards Hampshire picking up Gloucestershire as I move because there was a lot of movement between Wiltshire/Somerset/Gloucestershire as well.
I also want to continue working on the Irish Blake family to get the census done for the Blake family there as well. But gradually I can see that there are some things that I will accomplish in the next five years that I will continue with the Blake one name study and some things that I will not touch. Interesting emails from people though on the Blake family.
I think that the only way to really understand the Blake family is with yDNA testing and family finder. With 106 people in the Blake project it is interesting to see how some of the areas are coming together. As more work is done on the Deep Ancestry of the various haplogroups that too will let us better understand Blake I rather think.
Still mulling around how I will display the results of bringing together all of this information. The Blake family is large in Cornwall and already I can see that there is a distinct Blake family in Cornwall and that the Devon Blake family has crossed into Cornwall through the years. Likely the Cornwall Blake family has moved the other way into other parts of England and the census will show that. This may still work moving across the counties towards Hampshire picking up Gloucestershire as I move because there was a lot of movement between Wiltshire/Somerset/Gloucestershire as well.
I also want to continue working on the Irish Blake family to get the census done for the Blake family there as well. But gradually I can see that there are some things that I will accomplish in the next five years that I will continue with the Blake one name study and some things that I will not touch. Interesting emails from people though on the Blake family.
I think that the only way to really understand the Blake family is with yDNA testing and family finder. With 106 people in the Blake project it is interesting to see how some of the areas are coming together. As more work is done on the Deep Ancestry of the various haplogroups that too will let us better understand Blake I rather think.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
How interested are people in DNA testing?
We spent the past week visiting my husband's relatives in southwestern Ontario and that included the Schultz family reunion as well as smaller visits with individual/groups of cousins. At every group we talked about testing in particular Family Finder but also mentioned 23 and Me as well as AncestryDNA. They all have particular displays that are exceedingly useful and I have tested at all of them. My husband has only tested at National Genographic 1.0 and FT DNA but he could extend his testing if that appealed to particular groups of his family.
We tend to really push autosomal testing as I rather think that that will eventually become the leading test for people to do in order to learn about all of their ancestry. But yDNA is also useful and we do mention that as well. Less so mitochondrial DNA but its value is great especially in the case of minimal information on your direct female line.
Our groups were variable in age so we tried to include reasons to test at any particular age. Testing siblings we really emphasized as I have learned so much from having results for three of my siblings and another is in the process which leaves me only one living sibling that has not yet tested. The other sibling that passed away in 1997 (my eldest brother) has a daughter and at some point I would like to test her (and her mother) to see if I can phase him out of their results.
I am still in the process of phasing our parents' DNA and waiting now for this next set of results. Testing siblings has become the new norm for DNA testing. There is so much to learn from your closest relatives especially when your parents have passed on. AncestryDNA is doing us a real favour by presenting our data as phased and I hope that eventually the other companies will provide that ability as well.
So how much interest did we stir up in DNA testing? Well I would say that three different groups are certainly considering doing testing for my husband. The benefits are enormous to his studies. He is the last of his direct family except for his children/grandchildren and his brother's children/grandchildren/great grandchildren. As we save up our nickles it would be nice to test his brother's descendants if they are willing as well. He also has first cousins and half first cousins although no success with testing them to date. These other groups are second and third cousins.
Once I have done all the testing on my siblings then I can start saving my nickles to test my cousins. I only have second cousins and half second cousins as my nearest cousins and have approached them on occasion to see if I could persuade them to test for particular lines. On my mother's side I have had good luck testing Pincombe and have three cousins now who have tested and the lastest tester matches my sister at 101 Centimorgans so is a really good match for a third cousin once removed. I suspect that we may have another matching line but have not yet found it. Another tester has a Pincombe/Pincombe marriage and so is also a really good result although strongest thus far with my brother although I have another brother testing that I think will be an even stronger match.
The matches that we do have can not always be rationalized into particular lines but I think that will improve as more and more of my closer known cousins test.
We tend to really push autosomal testing as I rather think that that will eventually become the leading test for people to do in order to learn about all of their ancestry. But yDNA is also useful and we do mention that as well. Less so mitochondrial DNA but its value is great especially in the case of minimal information on your direct female line.
Our groups were variable in age so we tried to include reasons to test at any particular age. Testing siblings we really emphasized as I have learned so much from having results for three of my siblings and another is in the process which leaves me only one living sibling that has not yet tested. The other sibling that passed away in 1997 (my eldest brother) has a daughter and at some point I would like to test her (and her mother) to see if I can phase him out of their results.
I am still in the process of phasing our parents' DNA and waiting now for this next set of results. Testing siblings has become the new norm for DNA testing. There is so much to learn from your closest relatives especially when your parents have passed on. AncestryDNA is doing us a real favour by presenting our data as phased and I hope that eventually the other companies will provide that ability as well.
So how much interest did we stir up in DNA testing? Well I would say that three different groups are certainly considering doing testing for my husband. The benefits are enormous to his studies. He is the last of his direct family except for his children/grandchildren and his brother's children/grandchildren/great grandchildren. As we save up our nickles it would be nice to test his brother's descendants if they are willing as well. He also has first cousins and half first cousins although no success with testing them to date. These other groups are second and third cousins.
Once I have done all the testing on my siblings then I can start saving my nickles to test my cousins. I only have second cousins and half second cousins as my nearest cousins and have approached them on occasion to see if I could persuade them to test for particular lines. On my mother's side I have had good luck testing Pincombe and have three cousins now who have tested and the lastest tester matches my sister at 101 Centimorgans so is a really good match for a third cousin once removed. I suspect that we may have another matching line but have not yet found it. Another tester has a Pincombe/Pincombe marriage and so is also a really good result although strongest thus far with my brother although I have another brother testing that I think will be an even stronger match.
The matches that we do have can not always be rationalized into particular lines but I think that will improve as more and more of my closer known cousins test.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Pincombe and ydna - a match
The ydna results for my 3rd cousin once removed are now available and there is a 24 on 25 match with our known 5th cousin in Australia. That is 5th cousin to me and fourth cousin once removed to the current testor. The difference of one is actually rather handy as the new testor traces back to Robert and the match from Australia traces back to William both of whom are sons of John Pincombe and Mary Charley.
More to come and I believe that I will start a newsletter for the Pincombe/Pinkham family.
More to come and I believe that I will start a newsletter for the Pincombe/Pinkham family.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Blake Newsletter, Volume 4, Issue 2
Blake Newsletter
Table of Contents
1. Family of Theophilus Blake (Susan Osborne)
2. Blake family in Cornwall
3. England’s Immigrant Database 1330-1550
4. Blake Family of Galway
5. Blake yDNA
1. Family of Theophilus Blake submitted by Susan Osborne
Theophilus Blake (Bleak) is likely at least 20 years old when we find him and his wife, Margaret (thought to be Margaret Kennet) on indenture records in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Efforts to go beyond this point in his life to an earlier time and place have so far eluded all who have been researching this line.
Before we proceed with his story we first need to clear up a problem that exists with the research on his family line connections that began with our research and the research of several others in the early 1980’s when researchers incorrectly linked the line of Theophilus Blake of the Virginia’s to the parents of a family in Hampton, New Hampshire.
It begins with page 210 of a book that was written by Carleton E. Blake titled "Descendants of Jasper Blake, Emigrant from England, to Hampton, New Hampshire, ca. 1643, 1649-1979". The research on this family is printed in its entirety in this book in a section titled "The Descendants of Jasper Blake of Hampton, N.H." by Perley Derby, A Handwritten Manuscript dated 1879 on file at the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts.
On page 210 of this book is documented the family of Samuel and Ann (Ceilly) Blake and their children who were living in Hampton, New Hampshire. In 1722, this couple gave birth to a son they named Theophilus Blake after Theophilus Cotton, the first minister of the First Congregational Church (Unitarian) of Hampton Falls (NH) that was organized in 1711. Theophilus' parents, Samuel and Ann (Cealy) Blake, were among the first petitioners and signers of the church covenant.
Samuel and Ann (Seally) Blake gave birth to 8 children. Only 2 of those children are known to have survived childhood, Samuel Blake, Jr and Thomas Blake and it is thought that their son named Theophilus did not live beyond childhood because nothing more is known of him.
On paper this APPEARS to be a perfect match for the family of our Theophilus Blake, but as recent yDNA tests have shown, the Theophilus Blake of Hampton, New Hampshire is from an entirely different family that shares the same surname of Blake and is not evenly closely related to the Theophilus Blake (Bleak) found on records in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
At the time of this writing, seven people representing the lines of descent of 4 of the children of Theophilus Blake (Bleak) of Bath County, Virginia have submitted yDNA tests at Family Tree DNA. The results of these tests are printed on a chart showing the results of others sharing the surname of Blake, including those who are descended from the family of the Blake’s of Hampton, New Hampshire.
These results are found at the following web link: https://www.familytreedna.com/public/blake/default.aspx?section=yresults . The results for the group of descendants of Theophilus Blake of Bath County, Virginia are listed in category C1, English Ancestry (2). The results are documented as having English ancestry although it is not currently known for sure if Theophilus immigrated from Northern Ireland, Scotland or England. The results of descent of those of the family lines of Hampton, New Hampshire are documented on this chart under F1 ENGLISH EAST ANGLIA (Norfolk) - INCLUDES BLAKES POSSIBLY DESCENDED FROM PETER BLAKE ..
2. Blake Family in Cornwall
Late July of 2014 I decided to work on the family trees of the Blake families in Cornwall. Unfortunately an accident to my back somewhat cancelled this work until I began again early in 2015. I extracted material for the Blake family around Landrake but was not seeing a set of trees that I could work with readily. I decided to move to Bodmin Cornwall and work around that area and I am still involved with that extraction. I hope to start displaying the information that I have found on the Cornwall Blake families. The mode of the display is still in my thought process. I do have subscriptions to Ancestry, Find My Past and My Heritage plus there is the ability to put trees up on Family Search. I will likely put them up on all sites.
3. England’s Immigrant Database 1330-1550 (http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/)
I see this particular set of documents from which the above database was constructed as perhaps the most meaningful for Blake research since I came across the Calendar of Patent Rolls a while ago. This new set of documents (blogged: http://kippeeb.blogspot.ca/2015/02/englands-immigrants-database-1330-1550.html) revealed a set of immigrants to England with the surname Blake in the time period mentioned. There appears to be 31 unique individuals but I still need to work on that material. They have come from Continental Europe and Ireland. They are found in various places in England (see blog). It was a John Blake who settled at Bodmin Cornwall before 16 Feb 1525. The parish registers begin early in Bodmin (marriages 1559, baptisms 1558, and burials 1558). An interesting time ahead with this database.
4. Blake Family of Galway
Finding in the Immigrants Database (above) a Richard Blake coming from Ireland to Salisbury, Wiltshire by 10 Jul 1440 was stunning to say the least. I felt compelled to finally begin a task I have thought about for a number of years. The extraction of the information that Marin J Blake published in his books on the Galway Blake family. At this time of writing I have now entered into Legacy Software the entire set of genealogical charts from Blake Family Records 1300 to 1600 A Chronological Catalogue with Copious Notes and Genealogies of many branches of the Blake Family which was published in London in 1902 by Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C. I now must begin the long task of seeing if I can enhance this information (and find any possible errors) and eventually put this information up on websites. I do not know if this Richard is related to the Galway Blake family but I do need to understand Galway Blake family in Ireland. Plus I always planned to work on the Blake families of Ireland who are known to descend from other Blake families as well as the Galway Blake.
5. Blake yDNA Study
Susan has mentioned the Blake yDNA study in her article on Theophilus Blake and I will mention a few more items.
Project Statistics
Combined Gedcoms uploaded 13
Distinct mtDNA haplogroups 25
Distinct yDNA haplogroups 11
Family Finder 21
Paternal Ancestor Information 61
Total Members 92
Unreturned Kits 5
This is an extraction of some of the Project Statistics. With only 13 Gedcoms it is not really possible to look at everyone’s lines in the study. The mtDNA results are not overly helpful in yDNA surname studies but do give one an opportunity to look at the deep ancestry of your mother’s mother’s …. line which could be helpful. There are 11 distinct yDNA haplogroups which is expected given the stated assumption on my part that Blake is a surname that has a number of founders. The Family Finder is, to my way of thinking, the way forward for any female Blake looking at her Blake line and is also helpful for males looking at cousin relationships on the Blake line. Lacking paternal ancestor (Blake) information for 31 members is problematic for a yDNA study.
Thank you to Susan Osborne for her article on Theophilus Blake. Any other submissions greatly welcomed. Please submit to kippeeb@rogers.com.
Table of Contents
1. Family of Theophilus Blake (Susan Osborne)
2. Blake family in Cornwall
3. England’s Immigrant Database 1330-1550
4. Blake Family of Galway
5. Blake yDNA
1. Family of Theophilus Blake submitted by Susan Osborne
Theophilus Blake (Bleak) is likely at least 20 years old when we find him and his wife, Margaret (thought to be Margaret Kennet) on indenture records in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Efforts to go beyond this point in his life to an earlier time and place have so far eluded all who have been researching this line.
Before we proceed with his story we first need to clear up a problem that exists with the research on his family line connections that began with our research and the research of several others in the early 1980’s when researchers incorrectly linked the line of Theophilus Blake of the Virginia’s to the parents of a family in Hampton, New Hampshire.
It begins with page 210 of a book that was written by Carleton E. Blake titled "Descendants of Jasper Blake, Emigrant from England, to Hampton, New Hampshire, ca. 1643, 1649-1979". The research on this family is printed in its entirety in this book in a section titled "The Descendants of Jasper Blake of Hampton, N.H." by Perley Derby, A Handwritten Manuscript dated 1879 on file at the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts.
On page 210 of this book is documented the family of Samuel and Ann (Ceilly) Blake and their children who were living in Hampton, New Hampshire. In 1722, this couple gave birth to a son they named Theophilus Blake after Theophilus Cotton, the first minister of the First Congregational Church (Unitarian) of Hampton Falls (NH) that was organized in 1711. Theophilus' parents, Samuel and Ann (Cealy) Blake, were among the first petitioners and signers of the church covenant.
Samuel and Ann (Seally) Blake gave birth to 8 children. Only 2 of those children are known to have survived childhood, Samuel Blake, Jr and Thomas Blake and it is thought that their son named Theophilus did not live beyond childhood because nothing more is known of him.
On paper this APPEARS to be a perfect match for the family of our Theophilus Blake, but as recent yDNA tests have shown, the Theophilus Blake of Hampton, New Hampshire is from an entirely different family that shares the same surname of Blake and is not evenly closely related to the Theophilus Blake (Bleak) found on records in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
At the time of this writing, seven people representing the lines of descent of 4 of the children of Theophilus Blake (Bleak) of Bath County, Virginia have submitted yDNA tests at Family Tree DNA. The results of these tests are printed on a chart showing the results of others sharing the surname of Blake, including those who are descended from the family of the Blake’s of Hampton, New Hampshire.
These results are found at the following web link: https://www.familytreedna.com/public/blake/default.aspx?section=yresults . The results for the group of descendants of Theophilus Blake of Bath County, Virginia are listed in category C1, English Ancestry (2). The results are documented as having English ancestry although it is not currently known for sure if Theophilus immigrated from Northern Ireland, Scotland or England. The results of descent of those of the family lines of Hampton, New Hampshire are documented on this chart under F1 ENGLISH EAST ANGLIA (Norfolk) - INCLUDES BLAKES POSSIBLY DESCENDED FROM PETER BLAKE ..
2. Blake Family in Cornwall
Late July of 2014 I decided to work on the family trees of the Blake families in Cornwall. Unfortunately an accident to my back somewhat cancelled this work until I began again early in 2015. I extracted material for the Blake family around Landrake but was not seeing a set of trees that I could work with readily. I decided to move to Bodmin Cornwall and work around that area and I am still involved with that extraction. I hope to start displaying the information that I have found on the Cornwall Blake families. The mode of the display is still in my thought process. I do have subscriptions to Ancestry, Find My Past and My Heritage plus there is the ability to put trees up on Family Search. I will likely put them up on all sites.
3. England’s Immigrant Database 1330-1550 (http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/)
I see this particular set of documents from which the above database was constructed as perhaps the most meaningful for Blake research since I came across the Calendar of Patent Rolls a while ago. This new set of documents (blogged: http://kippeeb.blogspot.ca/2015/02/englands-immigrants-database-1330-1550.html) revealed a set of immigrants to England with the surname Blake in the time period mentioned. There appears to be 31 unique individuals but I still need to work on that material. They have come from Continental Europe and Ireland. They are found in various places in England (see blog). It was a John Blake who settled at Bodmin Cornwall before 16 Feb 1525. The parish registers begin early in Bodmin (marriages 1559, baptisms 1558, and burials 1558). An interesting time ahead with this database.
4. Blake Family of Galway
Finding in the Immigrants Database (above) a Richard Blake coming from Ireland to Salisbury, Wiltshire by 10 Jul 1440 was stunning to say the least. I felt compelled to finally begin a task I have thought about for a number of years. The extraction of the information that Marin J Blake published in his books on the Galway Blake family. At this time of writing I have now entered into Legacy Software the entire set of genealogical charts from Blake Family Records 1300 to 1600 A Chronological Catalogue with Copious Notes and Genealogies of many branches of the Blake Family which was published in London in 1902 by Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C. I now must begin the long task of seeing if I can enhance this information (and find any possible errors) and eventually put this information up on websites. I do not know if this Richard is related to the Galway Blake family but I do need to understand Galway Blake family in Ireland. Plus I always planned to work on the Blake families of Ireland who are known to descend from other Blake families as well as the Galway Blake.
5. Blake yDNA Study
Susan has mentioned the Blake yDNA study in her article on Theophilus Blake and I will mention a few more items.
Project Statistics
Combined Gedcoms uploaded 13
Distinct mtDNA haplogroups 25
Distinct yDNA haplogroups 11
Family Finder 21
Paternal Ancestor Information 61
Total Members 92
Unreturned Kits 5
This is an extraction of some of the Project Statistics. With only 13 Gedcoms it is not really possible to look at everyone’s lines in the study. The mtDNA results are not overly helpful in yDNA surname studies but do give one an opportunity to look at the deep ancestry of your mother’s mother’s …. line which could be helpful. There are 11 distinct yDNA haplogroups which is expected given the stated assumption on my part that Blake is a surname that has a number of founders. The Family Finder is, to my way of thinking, the way forward for any female Blake looking at her Blake line and is also helpful for males looking at cousin relationships on the Blake line. Lacking paternal ancestor (Blake) information for 31 members is problematic for a yDNA study.
Thank you to Susan Osborne for her article on Theophilus Blake. Any other submissions greatly welcomed. Please submit to kippeeb@rogers.com.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Newsletter to come
Commencing on the Blake Newsletter today and should publish by the end of March or early April. I will talk about the Blake family in Cornwall and my progress there with charting the families. I will also talk about the new England's Immigrant Database 1330-1550 - a fascinating new tool to work on the Blake Family. A third topic will be the family of Theophilus Blake with the work submitted by Susan Osbourne and thank you very much to her for that material. A fourth topic will be the extraction of information from Martin Blake's books on the Blake family of Galway. Likely I will also mention the Blake yDNA study which continues, in my mind and that of the other administrators, another fascinating way to look at the Blake families of the British Isles. The Blake family is an ancient family in the British Isles and their surname can be found in early records dating back into the 1200s. It was an illusion to think that all of the Blakes were descended from one Blake and the records are proving that this thought was quite incorrect and that Blake has a number of origins both within the British Isles and from Continental Europe. The more people who test their yDNA the greater the opportunity to take these lines back to these early founder lines.
Since my my paternal line (Blake) belongs to an ancient haplogroup of the British Isles named Deer Hunters by BritainsDNA and I2a-IslesB4 by Ken Nordvedt, the surname Blake is likely an acquired one at some point distant in the past thus far prior to the mid 1400s. This haplogroup to which my paternal line belongs is designated as I-L161/L1498 at the FT DNA I2a project. Other members of this small subset do not have the surname Blake but do trace back to ancient lines in southern England (Devon and Cornwall) with my line being in the Andover, Hampshire area back to the mid 1400s thus far in my tracing. BritainsDNA has provided further information naming this particular haplogroup subclade as being commonest in the South to Southwest of Ireland at around 2-3% of their database and around 2% in Southwest England (including Hampshire). This particular haplogroup is also found in the Balkans giving one the thought that my ancient ancestor left the Ice Refuge in the Balkans after the last Ice Age and headed for the extremes of the land area as the ice fields retreated north and hence found themselves in Ireland and a path back towards England (although none in Wales) and Doggerland where they possibly made their way into the now British Isles. For myself, the ancient history of my peoples most fascinates me as both my maternal and paternal DNA lines are ancient to the British Isles. My autosomal results also predict a large British Isles ancestry but also some Northern European and Scandinavian (those two being the smaller components of the ethnic heritage that is shown at AncestryDNA, BritainsDNA, FT DNA and the Genographic Project). I am considering doing the entire genome of one of my brothers and will save up my pennies but now nickles for that endeavour as our penny has now gone extinct!
Since my my paternal line (Blake) belongs to an ancient haplogroup of the British Isles named Deer Hunters by BritainsDNA and I2a-IslesB4 by Ken Nordvedt, the surname Blake is likely an acquired one at some point distant in the past thus far prior to the mid 1400s. This haplogroup to which my paternal line belongs is designated as I-L161/L1498 at the FT DNA I2a project. Other members of this small subset do not have the surname Blake but do trace back to ancient lines in southern England (Devon and Cornwall) with my line being in the Andover, Hampshire area back to the mid 1400s thus far in my tracing. BritainsDNA has provided further information naming this particular haplogroup subclade as being commonest in the South to Southwest of Ireland at around 2-3% of their database and around 2% in Southwest England (including Hampshire). This particular haplogroup is also found in the Balkans giving one the thought that my ancient ancestor left the Ice Refuge in the Balkans after the last Ice Age and headed for the extremes of the land area as the ice fields retreated north and hence found themselves in Ireland and a path back towards England (although none in Wales) and Doggerland where they possibly made their way into the now British Isles. For myself, the ancient history of my peoples most fascinates me as both my maternal and paternal DNA lines are ancient to the British Isles. My autosomal results also predict a large British Isles ancestry but also some Northern European and Scandinavian (those two being the smaller components of the ethnic heritage that is shown at AncestryDNA, BritainsDNA, FT DNA and the Genographic Project). I am considering doing the entire genome of one of my brothers and will save up my pennies but now nickles for that endeavour as our penny has now gone extinct!
Sunday, March 22, 2015
The Blake family of Galway
I did begin my extraction of the Blake family material in Martin Blake's excellent set of records on the Blake family of Galway. I am entering the information into Legacy and have added 197 individuals which includes 98 families. This is an extensive work on his part and will also include the Blake family that came to the London, Ontario area in the 1800s. As children people would ask if we were related to this family as I grew up in London, Ontario. The recent release of the Immigrants Database to England with a Richard Blake coming from Ireland to the Salisbury area is rather interesting. Richard Caddell alias Blake who is the head of the Galway Blake family had two sons that are not traced down thus far - Nicholas and Valentine. My ancestor who left his will in 1547 was named Nicholas with his father being Richard and his father Robert and they lived in the Andover area but I have not yet had a look at the Manor Books to see if they can be traced back further on paper.
Our yDNA says that our haplogroup occurs around 2% in Connacht Ireland and 3% in Munster (just to the south of Connacht). Connacht is the larger area in which Galway is a unit. Could our Blake line be Irish after all? That would be a surprise. I must admit that I am becoming very very interested in the Irish Blake family at Galway. Why did Richard Blake come to Salisbury in 1440? Who is this Richard Blake? Of note though our haplogroup also can be found at the rate of 2% in South West England which includes the area from Hampshire to Cornwall. 2% in East Anglia and 2% in Leinster, and 1% in Ulster. These figures coming from our testing at BritainsDNA. But this is for I-S185 known as the Deer Hunters so we are talking about a group of hunter-gatherers who probably arrived in the British Isles when it was still attached to the Continent via Doggerland and the British Isles was one landmass.The time period as much as 8000 years ago.
In my entering I have now come across an unlinked Blake line in the Galway family (perhaps it will be linked in later or it could be a separate Blake line). In 1745 Margaret Blake daughter of John Blake and Eveline Lynch married Mark Blake of Knockmore, Co Mayo in 1745. When I extracted the Blake records from the Calendar of Patent Rolls I found a number of references to Blake members going to Ireland. Would a descendant of one of these Blake members then become an Immigrant when he returned to England? All very interesting and I feel compelled to begin this work at this time along with my Cornwall extraction of information.
I must get back to doing a few wills a week as well though! And gardening will soon be part of my life again! At least one hopes so but yesterday's snow certainly put that timetable somewhat in the future.
Our yDNA says that our haplogroup occurs around 2% in Connacht Ireland and 3% in Munster (just to the south of Connacht). Connacht is the larger area in which Galway is a unit. Could our Blake line be Irish after all? That would be a surprise. I must admit that I am becoming very very interested in the Irish Blake family at Galway. Why did Richard Blake come to Salisbury in 1440? Who is this Richard Blake? Of note though our haplogroup also can be found at the rate of 2% in South West England which includes the area from Hampshire to Cornwall. 2% in East Anglia and 2% in Leinster, and 1% in Ulster. These figures coming from our testing at BritainsDNA. But this is for I-S185 known as the Deer Hunters so we are talking about a group of hunter-gatherers who probably arrived in the British Isles when it was still attached to the Continent via Doggerland and the British Isles was one landmass.The time period as much as 8000 years ago.
In my entering I have now come across an unlinked Blake line in the Galway family (perhaps it will be linked in later or it could be a separate Blake line). In 1745 Margaret Blake daughter of John Blake and Eveline Lynch married Mark Blake of Knockmore, Co Mayo in 1745. When I extracted the Blake records from the Calendar of Patent Rolls I found a number of references to Blake members going to Ireland. Would a descendant of one of these Blake members then become an Immigrant when he returned to England? All very interesting and I feel compelled to begin this work at this time along with my Cornwall extraction of information.
I must get back to doing a few wills a week as well though! And gardening will soon be part of my life again! At least one hopes so but yesterday's snow certainly put that timetable somewhat in the future.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
A followup to my earlier post on Blake or Black
The Calendar of Patent Rolls (http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/patentrolls/search.html) is a project of the University of Iowa Libraries and made available on line by them under the leadership of Dr G.R. Boynton.
Checking for Black in that particular set of documents I found that Black occurred 278 times but I was unable to eliminate the colour black from this search overall but could use the find function and then search only for Black. That still gave me 74 matches on the first page. Checking through by eye all of the instances of Black refer to the colour black (alone or as a place name) and not an individual except for references like Mr J G Black, BA of the Public Record Office who was involved in the preparation of the material and the Black Prince. The second page of search results yielded 69 instances but again they were either the colour black (alone or as a place name) or Mr J G Black mentioned above or a new item the Black order (referring to a Roman Catholic order). The last page of the search results yielded 45 instances of the word Black. In one instance Alexander Ratonner is referred to as Black Saundre. There is one reference to the surname Niger with Black in brackets following (1338-1340 (during the reign of Edward III)). I am left to think that Black did not occur as a surname in this earlier time period 1216 to 1452 or they did not do anything that brought them to the attention of the Crown (as that possibility always exists).
Is it possible that it arose as a derivative of Blake - no ideas on that actually and again if anyone wants to take the surname Black on it would certainly be interesting to compare (a later post corrects this thought and I do believe that Black is a surname that arose in England prior to the surname Blake coming from the Continent). There is a yDNA study and I decided to check that out at this time as well. They have 225 members. Now I was almost hopeful as I searched out this data but nothing in my line. However I decided to grab the data and will do a comparison with the Blake yDNA study.
The Blake yDNA project
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/blake?iframe=yresults
includes haplogroups: I, R, T and G.
The Black yDNA project
http://www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/black/results?raw=1
includes haplogroups E, G, I, J, L, Q, and R.
We can eliminate E, J, and Q from the discussion as they only occur in Black and we can eliminate T from the discussion as it only occurs in Blake.
The discussion then will look at haplogroups I, R, and G. G is the smallest so will examine it first and there is no similarity in thousands of years between the Haplogroup G entry in Blake and the Black entries so no common ancestry since surnames have been adopted.
Haplogroup I is the next largest and my own Blake line is part of haplogroup I. Looking at I-M223 which is the group to which descendants of Theophilus Blake belong there is one entry that is similar but only 11/12, 19/25 and 27/37 and this is not considered to be related. Looking at I-M253 there are a number of entries in both Blake and Black. In the Blake study two begin with 13, 23 and I matched them up with the one in the Black study thus beginning and they matched 31/37 which is considered as not matching. Another one beginning 13,24 in the Black study I also compared with this group and the match was 7/12 again not matching is the interpretation. At this time I will make note that the Black study includes Schwartz/Swartz (or Black in German). The group that is left begins 13,22 and there are four samples in Black and 4 samples in Blake. One of the comparisons yields 21/25 and again this is not considered to be a match. Another sample in Black has only 12 markers and the match is 10/12 and generally this is not considered a match as there are just too few markers to analyze. More markers should be looked at before entirely eliminating since we are looking at surnames and the possibility that they are related. The last two Blacks that I am comparing with Blake are interesting but they do not match any member of the Blake group exactly but their differences are within the possibility of being related but I note that the name of one individual is Swartz and of the second Jensson so both continental surnames.
Haplogroup I-M170/253 is a third I haplogroup in the Blake study and there are seven samples in the Black study. I eliminated the testers who differed between 7 and 11 markers on 37 as not being related in a genealogical time frame. That left two who were 31/37 and had further markers to look at. Checking further the differences are such as to exclude both of these samples although interestingly enough one of the Blake samples does resemble these two and is a new addition to the study. Within the grouping to which he is assigned he does not match anyone for instance he differs from my brother's sample by 8 on 12 but because of his haplogroup he does belong to this rather ancient sub clade of the British Isles showing how much variety there can be within a subclade.
Haplogroup R1a will be the next group examined. The group in the Blake study are rather a good match for each other and known to be descendant of Jasper Blake the emigrant to New Hampshire Colony. There are 8 Black samples and 5 Blake samples. Four of the eight Black samples differ between 3 and 5 on 12 so are not a match. Two of the Black samples differ by 6 and 8 respectively on 37 markers and would not be considered a match with this Blake group. The remaining two differ by 4 on 37 or 33/37 and are within the realm of possibility. But they do not match each other and one traces back to Alexander Black 1820-1860 and the second to a Philip Black b c 1750 in Cumberland County PA.
Haplogroup R1b has been broken down into a number of study groups in the Black study and there are matches within a number of these groups. I will comment further on this group tomorrow. My day at the computer has finished!
Thus far though I would have to conclude that comparing the yDNA studies of Blake and Black does not lead anyone to the conclusion that they are related in the haplogroups thus examined.
Checking for Black in that particular set of documents I found that Black occurred 278 times but I was unable to eliminate the colour black from this search overall but could use the find function and then search only for Black. That still gave me 74 matches on the first page. Checking through by eye all of the instances of Black refer to the colour black (alone or as a place name) and not an individual except for references like Mr J G Black, BA of the Public Record Office who was involved in the preparation of the material and the Black Prince. The second page of search results yielded 69 instances but again they were either the colour black (alone or as a place name) or Mr J G Black mentioned above or a new item the Black order (referring to a Roman Catholic order). The last page of the search results yielded 45 instances of the word Black. In one instance Alexander Ratonner is referred to as Black Saundre. There is one reference to the surname Niger with Black in brackets following (1338-1340 (during the reign of Edward III)). I am left to think that Black did not occur as a surname in this earlier time period 1216 to 1452 or they did not do anything that brought them to the attention of the Crown (as that possibility always exists).
Is it possible that it arose as a derivative of Blake - no ideas on that actually and again if anyone wants to take the surname Black on it would certainly be interesting to compare (a later post corrects this thought and I do believe that Black is a surname that arose in England prior to the surname Blake coming from the Continent). There is a yDNA study and I decided to check that out at this time as well. They have 225 members. Now I was almost hopeful as I searched out this data but nothing in my line. However I decided to grab the data and will do a comparison with the Blake yDNA study.
The Blake yDNA project
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/blake?iframe=yresults
includes haplogroups: I, R, T and G.
The Black yDNA project
http://www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/black/results?raw=1
includes haplogroups E, G, I, J, L, Q, and R.
We can eliminate E, J, and Q from the discussion as they only occur in Black and we can eliminate T from the discussion as it only occurs in Blake.
The discussion then will look at haplogroups I, R, and G. G is the smallest so will examine it first and there is no similarity in thousands of years between the Haplogroup G entry in Blake and the Black entries so no common ancestry since surnames have been adopted.
Haplogroup I is the next largest and my own Blake line is part of haplogroup I. Looking at I-M223 which is the group to which descendants of Theophilus Blake belong there is one entry that is similar but only 11/12, 19/25 and 27/37 and this is not considered to be related. Looking at I-M253 there are a number of entries in both Blake and Black. In the Blake study two begin with 13, 23 and I matched them up with the one in the Black study thus beginning and they matched 31/37 which is considered as not matching. Another one beginning 13,24 in the Black study I also compared with this group and the match was 7/12 again not matching is the interpretation. At this time I will make note that the Black study includes Schwartz/Swartz (or Black in German). The group that is left begins 13,22 and there are four samples in Black and 4 samples in Blake. One of the comparisons yields 21/25 and again this is not considered to be a match. Another sample in Black has only 12 markers and the match is 10/12 and generally this is not considered a match as there are just too few markers to analyze. More markers should be looked at before entirely eliminating since we are looking at surnames and the possibility that they are related. The last two Blacks that I am comparing with Blake are interesting but they do not match any member of the Blake group exactly but their differences are within the possibility of being related but I note that the name of one individual is Swartz and of the second Jensson so both continental surnames.
Haplogroup I-M170/253 is a third I haplogroup in the Blake study and there are seven samples in the Black study. I eliminated the testers who differed between 7 and 11 markers on 37 as not being related in a genealogical time frame. That left two who were 31/37 and had further markers to look at. Checking further the differences are such as to exclude both of these samples although interestingly enough one of the Blake samples does resemble these two and is a new addition to the study. Within the grouping to which he is assigned he does not match anyone for instance he differs from my brother's sample by 8 on 12 but because of his haplogroup he does belong to this rather ancient sub clade of the British Isles showing how much variety there can be within a subclade.
Haplogroup R1a will be the next group examined. The group in the Blake study are rather a good match for each other and known to be descendant of Jasper Blake the emigrant to New Hampshire Colony. There are 8 Black samples and 5 Blake samples. Four of the eight Black samples differ between 3 and 5 on 12 so are not a match. Two of the Black samples differ by 6 and 8 respectively on 37 markers and would not be considered a match with this Blake group. The remaining two differ by 4 on 37 or 33/37 and are within the realm of possibility. But they do not match each other and one traces back to Alexander Black 1820-1860 and the second to a Philip Black b c 1750 in Cumberland County PA.
Haplogroup R1b has been broken down into a number of study groups in the Black study and there are matches within a number of these groups. I will comment further on this group tomorrow. My day at the computer has finished!
Thus far though I would have to conclude that comparing the yDNA studies of Blake and Black does not lead anyone to the conclusion that they are related in the haplogroups thus examined.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
600 plus emails
In case anyone has been writing to me the last six months whilst I have been somewhat out of action, I will get to your email but I have over 600 emails in my inbox. It is a slow process working my way through all of them and apologies for the delay.
I should say though that I do not have material on the Blake family in Ireland other than the books of Martin Blake published in the early part of the 1900s. These books are an excellent source looking at the Galway Blake family which is really quite huge in Ireland (the best way to determine if you are descendant of the Galway Blake family (at least two particular lines) is to do your yDNA. That at least gets you into the ballpark and from there, as the project grows, we hope to be able to come up with interesting results for the many Blake founder lines. I hope to get into the Irish Blake records but I am still beavering away in the counties of England and at the moment looking solely at the Blake family of Cornwall. It is an isolated county and hence much easier for me to look at. I would love to do Hampshire/Wiltshire/Somerset but it is an enormous task and will have to be done in sections as I now believe that there are a number of founder lines (including my own) and some of them are ancient to the British Isles like my I2a1b1a3 and have acquired the surname perhaps through marriage or as a characteristic surname which it is. However, Blake seems to be well established as a surname by the late 1200s/early 1300s so I suspect that adoption of it as a characteristic surname may not have occurred after this time period.
Although I have returned to research once again catching up on six months worth of emails is going to be a rather long task and do write me again as I am tending to respond to my daily emails on a regular basis picking up on the older ones as time permits. It is amazing to think I am retired as I am a rather busy retired person.
This hobby of genealogy has rather taken over my life which is surprising in itself as I was never into genealogy prior to my sudden entry into it. My cousin George DeKay can probably take most of that credit as he wanted me to write a profile of my Pincombe family for the Westminster/Delaware History Book and requested that of me in 2003. That along with the trip to London, UK in 2001 which kindled my interest in the whole idea of actually doing genalogy (although it did take a couple of years and I did fight the thought initially!). I belonged to the camp that said I already know everything about my family and in truth I did know quite a bit as what I had been told as a child matched what I found. What was missing were the details before my great grandparents in many cases completely lost to my parents and grandparents although my grandfather certainly knew his family history very well and what he remembered proved to be absolutely correct and substantiated by records. The same was true of my mother's memories of her families although she did not know all of them but what she did know was quite accurate.
I should say though that I do not have material on the Blake family in Ireland other than the books of Martin Blake published in the early part of the 1900s. These books are an excellent source looking at the Galway Blake family which is really quite huge in Ireland (the best way to determine if you are descendant of the Galway Blake family (at least two particular lines) is to do your yDNA. That at least gets you into the ballpark and from there, as the project grows, we hope to be able to come up with interesting results for the many Blake founder lines. I hope to get into the Irish Blake records but I am still beavering away in the counties of England and at the moment looking solely at the Blake family of Cornwall. It is an isolated county and hence much easier for me to look at. I would love to do Hampshire/Wiltshire/Somerset but it is an enormous task and will have to be done in sections as I now believe that there are a number of founder lines (including my own) and some of them are ancient to the British Isles like my I2a1b1a3 and have acquired the surname perhaps through marriage or as a characteristic surname which it is. However, Blake seems to be well established as a surname by the late 1200s/early 1300s so I suspect that adoption of it as a characteristic surname may not have occurred after this time period.
Although I have returned to research once again catching up on six months worth of emails is going to be a rather long task and do write me again as I am tending to respond to my daily emails on a regular basis picking up on the older ones as time permits. It is amazing to think I am retired as I am a rather busy retired person.
This hobby of genealogy has rather taken over my life which is surprising in itself as I was never into genealogy prior to my sudden entry into it. My cousin George DeKay can probably take most of that credit as he wanted me to write a profile of my Pincombe family for the Westminster/Delaware History Book and requested that of me in 2003. That along with the trip to London, UK in 2001 which kindled my interest in the whole idea of actually doing genalogy (although it did take a couple of years and I did fight the thought initially!). I belonged to the camp that said I already know everything about my family and in truth I did know quite a bit as what I had been told as a child matched what I found. What was missing were the details before my great grandparents in many cases completely lost to my parents and grandparents although my grandfather certainly knew his family history very well and what he remembered proved to be absolutely correct and substantiated by records. The same was true of my mother's memories of her families although she did not know all of them but what she did know was quite accurate.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
St Breock baptisms
St Breock baptisms prior to the mid 1800s are on Find My Past and I extracted about 100 of them. Now that I have so much information for the Bodmin/St Breock area I think my next step should be to do the rest of the parishes in the area of these two parishes and then merge families. Carrying on in too logical a fashion could create a lot of work for me later sorting items and finding duplicates. Whenever I get a large centre now in Cornwall I shall do that.
There are a number of distinct families in these areas through more than one hundred years of parish registers and they are using similar forenames so need to have a good look at them to see if I can find a founding family for them. That is the intent of all this effort after all. Now just need to get someone to test their yDNA for the Blake line in this area!
I still think yDNA hasn't sold itself yet in the British Isles. I suspect people are more interested in the autosomal DNA as it helps to relate collateral lines coming down from a common ancestor. The yDNA though is still I think the best test to do. I have to agree with the speaker at Roots Tech 2015 on that one for sure. She put yDNA as first, atDNA as second and mtDNA comes in a weak third. Do mtDNA if it interests you in finding out your deep ancestry was her comment. Since that was my original purpose in doing DNA in the beginning I certainly belong in that category - wanting to know the route out of Africa for my mtDNA and of course our yDNA through my brother's testing.
There are a number of distinct families in these areas through more than one hundred years of parish registers and they are using similar forenames so need to have a good look at them to see if I can find a founding family for them. That is the intent of all this effort after all. Now just need to get someone to test their yDNA for the Blake line in this area!
I still think yDNA hasn't sold itself yet in the British Isles. I suspect people are more interested in the autosomal DNA as it helps to relate collateral lines coming down from a common ancestor. The yDNA though is still I think the best test to do. I have to agree with the speaker at Roots Tech 2015 on that one for sure. She put yDNA as first, atDNA as second and mtDNA comes in a weak third. Do mtDNA if it interests you in finding out your deep ancestry was her comment. Since that was my original purpose in doing DNA in the beginning I certainly belong in that category - wanting to know the route out of Africa for my mtDNA and of course our yDNA through my brother's testing.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
England's Immigrants Database 1330-1550
A rather tantalizing new set of documents (England's Immigrants Database 1330-1550) is available for searching:
http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/search/results?keyword=blake&startDate=1300&endDate=1600&col1=name&col2=nationality&col3=date&col4=origin&col5=residence&page=1
I, of course, searched on Blake and Pincombe. Pincombe does not appear as that spelling or as Pencomb/Pencombe/Pincomb.
http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/search/results?keyword=blake&startDate=1300&endDate=1600&col1=name&col2=nationality&col3=date&col4=origin&col5=residence&page=1
I, of course, searched on Blake and Pincombe. Pincombe does not appear as that spelling or as Pencomb/Pencombe/Pincomb.
This is the citation for this particular set of documents. England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550 (www.englandsimmigrants.com, version 1.0, 15 February 2015), http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/contact
The project is a collaboration between the University of York, The National Archives and the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield.
The project is a collaboration between the University of York, The National Archives and the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield.
Finding Richard le Blake coming from Normandy in 1274 had started my thinking outside of the box with respect to Blake in the British Isles. This set of documents further intensifies this thinking process as I found 54 entries in the database. In all likehood a number of the entries are for the same person but it does appear that there are 31 distinctive individuals (I excluded the four wives as I could not tell if they were actually English or immigrants with their husbands plus there are four female names mentioned so could be duplicating) coming to England from The Netherlands (6 one noted as Fleming), Normandy, France, Breton (2), Scotland (2) and Ireland (1). Only 13 have their place of origin noted. The male forenames include: Adam, Hayn, Henry, Herman, Hugh, John, Lodewicus, Patrick, Peter, Philip, Richard, Robert, Stephen, Thomas, Walter, and William. There are four female names: Agnes, Alice, Gunna (wife of Herbert) and Katherine. Four females are listed but only as the wife of and in this case wife of Henry Blake (2 entries), of Peter Blake and of John Blake.
It is possible to download all of the results into a spreadsheet so I have put only basic details into this blog:
Surname Forename Nationality Day Month Year Residence
Blake Adam 8 Aug 1456 London
Blake Agnes aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake Alice 21 Apr 1440 Gloucestershire, St Nicholas
Blake Gunna Dutch 12 Jul 1440 Huntingdonshire, Huntingdon
Blake Hayn 27 Sep 1456 Kent, Ospringe
Blake Henry Oct 1441 London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake Henry 18 Jan 1443 London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake Henry aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake Henry 5 Sep 1449 London, Farringdon without ward
Blake Henry aft 3 Dec 1450 Kent
Blake Herman Dutch 12 Jul 1440 Huntingdonshire, Huntingdon
Blake Hugh 5 Sep 1449 London
Blake John 9 Oct 1441 London, Cripplegate ward
Blake John 11 Oct 1441 London, Queenhithe ward
Blake John 18 Jan 1443 London, Cripplegate ward
Blake John aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake John 18 Jan 1443 London, Queenhithe ward
Blake John aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake John aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake John aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake John Scot 26 Sep 1465 Lincolnshire, Rathby
Blake John Dutch 11 Jul 1440 Hampshire, King's Somborne hundred
Blake John 10 Aug 1441 Gloucestershire, All Saints
Blake John Fleming 24 Jul 1484 Devon, Exeter
Blake John Norman 18 Apr 1524 Dorset, Eastbury
Blake John Breton bef 16 Feb 1525 Cornwall, Bodmin
Blake John Dutch c 1524 Essex, Aveley
Blake Katherine 14 Jul 1467 London
Blake Lodewicus Dutch 18 Aug 1441 Northamptonshire, Yarwell
Blake Lodwico Dutch 24 May 1440 Northamptonshire, Yarwell
Blake Patrick 7 Apr 1440 Essex, High Roding
Blake Patrick aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake Peter 6 Sep 1463 Bedfordshire
Blake Peter 20 Sep 1455 Bedfordshire, Dunstable
Blake Peter 10 Jul 1406
Blake Philip 5 Jul 1440 Shropshire, Shrewsbury
Blake Richard Scot 15 Sep 1451 Northumberland, Newcastle upon Tyne
Blake Richard Irish 10 Jul 1440 Wiltshire, Salisbury
Blake Richard Irish 10 Aug 1441 Gloucestershire, St Leonard
Blake Richard Irish 7 Sep 1441 Wiltshire, Salisbury
Blake Robert 28 Aug 1441 Warwickshire, Coventry
Blake Robert 21 Apr 1440 Gloucestershire, Holy Trinity
Blake Robert 10 Aug 1441 Gloucestershire, Holy Trinity
Blake Robert French 19 Sep 1441 Wiltshire, Great Somerford
Blake Stephen 11 Jul 1440 Hampshire, Millbrook
Blake Thomas aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake Walter 18 Jan 1443 London, Billingsgate ward
Blake Walter aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake William 18 Jan 1443 London, Tower ward
Blake William Breton 4 Apr 1524 Devon, Morchard Bishop
Blake wife of Henry Blake Oct 1441 London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake wife of Henry Blake 18 Jan 1443 London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake wife of Walter Blake 18 Jan 1443 London, Billingsgate ward
Blake wife of John Blake 18 Jan 1443 London
Blake Adam 8 Aug 1456 London
Blake Agnes aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake Alice 21 Apr 1440 Gloucestershire, St Nicholas
Blake Gunna Dutch 12 Jul 1440 Huntingdonshire, Huntingdon
Blake Hayn 27 Sep 1456 Kent, Ospringe
Blake Henry Oct 1441 London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake Henry 18 Jan 1443 London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake Henry aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake Henry 5 Sep 1449 London, Farringdon without ward
Blake Henry aft 3 Dec 1450 Kent
Blake Herman Dutch 12 Jul 1440 Huntingdonshire, Huntingdon
Blake Hugh 5 Sep 1449 London
Blake John 9 Oct 1441 London, Cripplegate ward
Blake John 11 Oct 1441 London, Queenhithe ward
Blake John 18 Jan 1443 London, Cripplegate ward
Blake John aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake John 18 Jan 1443 London, Queenhithe ward
Blake John aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake John aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake John aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake John Scot 26 Sep 1465 Lincolnshire, Rathby
Blake John Dutch 11 Jul 1440 Hampshire, King's Somborne hundred
Blake John 10 Aug 1441 Gloucestershire, All Saints
Blake John Fleming 24 Jul 1484 Devon, Exeter
Blake John Norman 18 Apr 1524 Dorset, Eastbury
Blake John Breton bef 16 Feb 1525 Cornwall, Bodmin
Blake John Dutch c 1524 Essex, Aveley
Blake Katherine 14 Jul 1467 London
Blake Lodewicus Dutch 18 Aug 1441 Northamptonshire, Yarwell
Blake Lodwico Dutch 24 May 1440 Northamptonshire, Yarwell
Blake Patrick 7 Apr 1440 Essex, High Roding
Blake Patrick aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake Peter 6 Sep 1463 Bedfordshire
Blake Peter 20 Sep 1455 Bedfordshire, Dunstable
Blake Peter 10 Jul 1406
Blake Philip 5 Jul 1440 Shropshire, Shrewsbury
Blake Richard Scot 15 Sep 1451 Northumberland, Newcastle upon Tyne
Blake Richard Irish 10 Jul 1440 Wiltshire, Salisbury
Blake Richard Irish 10 Aug 1441 Gloucestershire, St Leonard
Blake Richard Irish 7 Sep 1441 Wiltshire, Salisbury
Blake Robert 28 Aug 1441 Warwickshire, Coventry
Blake Robert 21 Apr 1440 Gloucestershire, Holy Trinity
Blake Robert 10 Aug 1441 Gloucestershire, Holy Trinity
Blake Robert French 19 Sep 1441 Wiltshire, Great Somerford
Blake Stephen 11 Jul 1440 Hampshire, Millbrook
Blake Thomas aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake Walter 18 Jan 1443 London, Billingsgate ward
Blake Walter aft 29 Sep 1441 London
Blake William 18 Jan 1443 London, Tower ward
Blake William Breton 4 Apr 1524 Devon, Morchard Bishop
Blake wife of Henry Blake Oct 1441 London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake wife of Henry Blake 18 Jan 1443 London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake wife of Walter Blake 18 Jan 1443 London, Billingsgate ward
Blake wife of John Blake 18 Jan 1443 London
Comparing this information to the map which I prepared from the occurrence of Blake in the Calendar of Patent Rolls is rather interesting as well.
The entries in the Calendar of Patent Rolls range between 30 Jan 1230 and 16 Jun 1452. There is some overlap with this new database in terms of time. The Immigrants' database entries range between 10 Jul 1406 (one entry only) and then from 7 Apr 1440 to 16 Feb 1525 with the bulk of the entries between 1440 and 1443. Some of these people could be related especially where no nationality is given. For instance two Bretons William Blake and John Blake settled in Morchard Bishop, Devon and Bodmin Cornwall 1 Apr 1524 and before 16 Feb 1525 respectively. But tantilizingly is this the Cornwall/Devon Blake family that I am busy attempting to put together? There was also a John Blake, noted as Fleming, in Exeter Devon 24 Jul 1484 so a further Blake line to distract me.
Of special interest to me are the entires for Hampshire and Wiltshire where we can see that Richard Blake, noted as Irish, can be located at Salisbury Wiltshire 10 Jul 1440. There is a Stephen Blake, no nationality noted, 11 Jul 1440 at Millbrook Hampshire. John Blake, Dutch, 11 Jul 1440 at King's Somborne hundred, Hampshire. Robert Blake, French, 19 Sep 1441 at Great Somerford, Wiltshire. But as is often the case for immigrants to England, London has the largest number of Blake immigrants with about half of them being listed as living in London.
Another interesting immigrant is John Blake, Norman, 18 Apr 1524 at Eastbury, Dorset. Is he related to Richard le Blake who arrived in 1274? I can not find Blake as a surname in the modern French population but the possibility that it is an earlier form of the present day surname of Blanch[er] (both meaning fair blanc and blak) still remains.
The England's Immigrants Database being available has occurred at a rather interesting time. The Y haplogroup table has now been updated to show the effect of the YFull, Big Y, Gen 2.0, Britains DNA testing and other projects as noted on the website below. Within the haplogroup to which my Blake line belongs one can find (https://sites.google.com/site/compositeytree/home):
I2a1b M423 (19096091 G->A)
• • • • •I2a1b1 L161.1/S185.1 (22513718 C->T)
• • • • • •I2a1b1a L1498/Y4008 (18668472 C->T)
• • • • • • •I2a1b1a1 FGC7218/Y5280 (21354226 G->A) YFull subgroup Irish
• • • • • • •I2a1b1a2 FGC14448/Y5450 (7158983 A->G) YFull subgroup Irish
• • • • • • •I2a1b1a3 FGC7108/S2640 (14107847 G->A)
• • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a FGC7197/S7703 (17494645 G->C)
• • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a1 S7714 (21345894 T->A)
• • • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a1a S8889 (4310132 A->G)
• • • • •I2a1b1 L161.1/S185.1 (22513718 C->T)
• • • • • •I2a1b1a L1498/Y4008 (18668472 C->T)
• • • • • • •I2a1b1a1 FGC7218/Y5280 (21354226 G->A) YFull subgroup Irish
• • • • • • •I2a1b1a2 FGC14448/Y5450 (7158983 A->G) YFull subgroup Irish
• • • • • • •I2a1b1a3 FGC7108/S2640 (14107847 G->A)
• • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a FGC7197/S7703 (17494645 G->C)
• • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a1 S7714 (21345894 T->A)
• • • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a1a S8889 (4310132 A->G)
At this moment in time the S2640 has been assigned by BritainsDNA as the subtype but there are a number of other markers within this testing that further define our haplogroup. But the three markers mentioned above are ancestral in my paternal line (namely S7703, S7714 and S8889). This is a very very small haplogroup (0.9% of the I haplogroup which is only 18.1% of the entire database for Y DNA so a very small number) but is most commonly found in Ireland (however this chart does show that only I2a1b1a1 and I2a1b1a2 are said to be Irish) with my group I2a1b1a3 not being assigned to a particular ethnic group. Looking at the anonymized chart which BritainsDNA provided of the 15 testers in S185 looking at S2640 4 were ancestral and 11 derived; those derived belonging to I2a1b1a3. For S7703 5 were ancestral, with the other 10 derived; those derived belonging to I2a1b1a3a. For S7714 11 were ancestral with 4 only being derived; those derived belonging to I2a1b1a3a1. For S8889 13 were ancestral with 2 only being derived; those derived belonging to I2a1b1a3a1a. Of the 15 testers, my line does not have any matches since the four that have S2640 with my line also show new mutations beyond S2640. Although it could be that no one has tested yet to show that some of the other mutations in our signature do constitute a further subgrouping within I2a1b1a3 namely I2a1b1a3b. Still more to come in this field of yDNA testing!
Interesting that on this day I should find that a Richard Blake has come from Ireland to Salisbury Wiltshire 10 Jul 1440 (17 miles from Andover). However, I also find a John Blake, Dutch, even closer 11 Jul 1440 at King's Somborne hundred, Hampshire (about 9 miles from Andover).
Interesting that on this day I should find that a Richard Blake has come from Ireland to Salisbury Wiltshire 10 Jul 1440 (17 miles from Andover). However, I also find a John Blake, Dutch, even closer 11 Jul 1440 at King's Somborne hundred, Hampshire (about 9 miles from Andover).
On the one hand it might have been quite interesting to be descendant of Richard le Blake whose pedigree chart at 12 feet by 4 feet is an amazing piece of Blake family memoribilia but on the other hand finding a reason for my Blake line to be most commonly found in Ireland and an individual with the Blake surname bringing it to Salisbury Wiltshire is positively intriguing!
Knowing that Robert Blayke left his will in 1521 at Knights Enham (likely born circa mid 1400s as he was quite elderly) further intensifies this thought as he named his son Richard. So finding a Richard in 1440 at Salisbury from Ireland is certainly an interesting happening. Why would he go to Andover when he is in Salisbury? Good question but having driven in that part of the country certainly the green fields around Andover must have been very inviting. The route between Salisbury and Andover is all agricultural and the land looks particularly benevolent in terms of crops and flocks of sheep!
As more and more documents come on line from this early time period perhaps it will be possible to piece together the lives of our ancestors backwards into the past. It still continues to amaze me that this Blake line of mine was so long in the Andover area but the land was rich, they were farmers and it was a fairly quiet valley in terms of wars throughout England's history.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Blake Newsletter, Volume 4, Issue 1, 2015
Blake Newsletter
Volume 4, Issue 1, 2015
Table
of Contents
1.
Returning to Genealogy
2.
Family Tree Reconstruction
3.
The Surname Society
4.
Blake yDNA Study
5.
Lecture
1.
Returning to Genealogy
When I first absented myself from genealogy in August
I did not contemplate that my return would be so long coming. I intend to begin
blogging once again by the end of January although perhaps earlier but I must
now get back into a schedule which provides for the time to do my blogging. My
back problems are much improved but I acquired a different insight whilst I was
recovering. Although I enjoy genealogy, I do not want to return to doing that
on the somewhat full time basis that I was involved in before my fall. I do
want to get all the wills transcribed and published but my desire to do so in a
rapid fashion is diminishing. I do want to get into family tree reconstruction
and this desire has increased during the time spent away from the computer. I
hope that everyone had a most pleasant holiday season, ours was a very Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.
2.
Family Tree Reconstruction
I continue very interested in Family Tree
Reconstruction and I am also continuing to look at Cornwall and the Blake
families there. I have not done any work on this since August so will begin
fresh in the New Year. I am assisted in that regard with the incredibly
valuable work of the On Line Parish Clerks scheme for Cornwall and their online
database. http://www.cornwall-opc.org/
3.
The Surname Society
I continue involved in The Surname Society as the
Newsletter Editor and the next issue will be 1st February 2015.
Included in this issue will be an article on Palaeography and Wills with the
Blake wills being used as an example by me. We have 204 members from around the
world and grow a little more each day/week. There are 678 names registered with
us and I have registered Blake but only those with roots in Hampshire, England.
Anyone is welcomed to join and register their particular surname interest and
in a limited fashion if you so desire. We did consider having it free but would
then have had to ask for donations to support the website and needed software.
At £5 per year it is fairly inexpensive and provides another place to advertise one's research.
4.
Blake yDNA study
No particular news on the Blake yDNA study and I
continue to be quite interested in Family Finder as a way to include people who
have joined our study who have either a female Blake line or are descendant of
a female Blake line having thus a yDNA in another line. I do think that
autosomal (Family Finder) DNA is probably more of the future of DNA studies
although yDNA continues to be the best means of matching your Blake line back
in time.
5.
Lecture
I will be giving a lecture (my last!) to the local
Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society here in Ottawa, Canada 24 January
2015. The topic will be one name studies and one place studies and how to use
these sites to aid you in your genealogical studies.
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