A timely release by Find my past of the Church Records in Westminster (London, UK) has finally provided details on the first marriage of Henry Christopher Buller (my 2x great grandfather). He married Sophia Scrooby 18 Dec 1831 at St Mary Church, St Marylebone, London (Sophia was the daughter of George Scrooby and Mary Bullock and they were married 24 Jun 1798 at Saint Luke, Chelsea, London and I have found three daughters thus far Mary Ann baptized 15 Mar 1807 at St Mary Church, St Marylebone and married to Thomas Parker Steedman 5 Apr 1829 at St Marylebone (five children: Elizabeth, Sophia, James, Thomas Cornelius and Mary Ann) , Sophia baptized 24 Feb 1811 also at St Mary Church and she was buried 30 Jun 1836 at St James Westminster having died on Lambeth Walk, and Eliza baptized 16 Aug 1812 at St Mary Church (no further details but will now check the newest records).
Henry and Sophia had two children: Mary Ann baptized 15 Oct 1832 at Saint George Bloomsbury and I now know that she was buried 30 Jun 1836 at Saint James Westminster (presumably mother and daughter succumbed to the same illness) and George Scrooby baptized 1 Jun 1834 at Saint George Bloomsbury and he was buried at Whitefield Memorial Church 9 Nov 1834. I have discovered this church was near to where Henry had his butcher shop on Lamb Conduit Way. Perhaps he moved the family to Lambeth Walk away from the main city of London after George's death in 1834 only to lose them anyway from another illness. Sad really.
Henry Christopher Buller married Anne Welch (my 2x great grandparents) and on the marriage license it was noted that he was a widower. A long time in solving but I have now put together his first marriage and all the deaths prior to his second marriage 23 Aug 1838 at Edgbaston, Warwickshire. Sophia was only 26 when she was buried. Anne was only 17 years 6 months when she married Henry and they went on to have 11 children before his death in 1862 at the age of 57 years. I am slowly discovering details on this family as they seem so like modern families - they lived in London and Birmingham having butcher shops in both. I suspect there is quite a story to tell although it is difficult to piece it together from so far away. One day I would like to visit the Birmingham Library and see what kind of interesting details I can find for this couple.
It was nice to have Find My Past help me to put together Henry's families.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Routledge letter from George Routledge to Archibald Armstrong 16 Jan 1837 (London, Ontario, Canada to Parknook, Bewcastle, Cumberland, England
I discovered after searching my labels that I have never posted the letter which George Routledge (my 3x great uncle and brother to my 2x great grandmother Mary Routledge married to Robert Gray) wrote to Archibald Armstrong who still lived in the Brampton, Cumberland, UK area in 1837. This rather interesting and name filled document added to my knowledge of the emigrant families and gave me a glimpse into the life of these early Talbot settlers in southwestern Ontario which included my 3x great grandparents and their family - Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth Routledge with their nine children, son in law and two grandsons.
I published the letter in Families several years ago and now include a copy of the article in my blog:
Archibald Armstrong, letter recipient on 5 April 1837, remains a mystery at the time of writing but he was addressed at Parknook , Bewcastle . It was sent in care of the Inn Keeper, Bush Inn, Brampton, Cumberland, England.
London [Ontario}, Jan 16th 1837
Mr. Archibald Armstrong
I take this opportunity of writing to you a few lines to let you know how we are all going on in this part of America, I wrote to you once or twice before but I never got any answer. we are all in good health at present thanks be to God for that blessing, hoping that these few lines will find you and your family all in the same state.
First I shall give an assessment of the times, our markets and the price of farming stock and all kinds of produce and the price of land also take notice. what I shall name to you in value shall all be sterling money and meashures the old Carlisle bushel [a Carlisle bushel is equal to 2.98 Imperial bushels] that was when we left the country.
land within 6 or 7 miles of the town of London can be bought for about 24 shillings per acre uncleared all the timber thereon, and a cleared up farm of 100 acres with 50 acres of that cleared off fit for cultivation can be bought for about 350 pounds so any man that can come here with a little money he can see how he may be suited.
there is not the chance now to get land that there was when we came to this country, land has got to be more valueable on account of the great advancement of the population in this part. my old companion, I am sorry to inform you how unfortunate you were in not coming to this country when you were in the notion of coming at the time when we came. you might have had today as much property as I have and perhaps more.
the general price of good horses is from 20 to 30 pounds. Last spring I sold a horse two years old for 20 pounds. about the same time my brother Tho[ma]s [fourth son of Thomas and Elizabeth Routledge] sold a horse three years old, likely for the saddle, for upwards of 30 pounds. the price of a yoke of oxen is about 17 pounds, milke cows from 5 to 7 pounds a peice, and sheep will average about 12 shillings a peice, beef 3d per pounds, Mutton about the same,, pork 4d – 6d per stone [a stone is an English unit of weight equal to 6.35 kilograms], butter 9 cents per pound, tallow 8d, wheat 16s per bushel, barly 10s, rye 13s, peas 12s, Indian corn 12s, oats 5s, potatoes 5s per bushel, apples 4s – 6s per bushel, whisky 2s, Brandy 7s, Rum 5s, [and] Wine 7s per gallon.
We live about 6 miles from the town of London which is the county town and city of London. I have 400 Acres of land 300 Acres of it lies all adjoining and about 70 acres of it well cleared and in a good state of cultivation. [O]ne hundred acres lyes within 4 miles of the town and a good clearing upon it which I have a farmer lives upon it. [A]ny man that comes here that is not of ability to buy land there are farms to be let for 7 to 10s per acre yearly for the cleared land that is fit for cultivation.
I have a pair of good draught horses and a yoke of oxen which I keep for working the place I
live on. I keep 6 milk cows and 14 head of young cattle, a flock of sheep and a good brood mare, and the taxes I pay for all I pocess land and stock is only 13s6d yearly. we can feed the best of beef and summer our milk cows in the woods clear of all costs. we have great privileges here that you have not in Bewcastle or no other part in England and we understand that times is always getting worse in England.
I now shall tell you the alterations of Families that was from Bewcastle – Deaths, weddings, etc. Roby Summers [George (b 1792)’s father in law (George was married to Jane Summers)] died three years ago last a[u]gust, my mother died two years ago last sept. My brother Allan died one year ago last October. I expect you have heard of myself being married to Jane Summers 15 years past last July and we have 6 children living and one dead, all boys but
One. my sister Margaret and Mary both married to men from Yorkshire. there [are] none of the lads [George’s brothers - Henry, William, Thomas Junior, and Joseph (Allan is noted as having died)] married but myself. they all have a great deal of land and other property, my father has a handsome Estate of land he lives on within 3 miles of the town.
Geo[rge] Kennedy [George Kennedy, husband of Grace Routledge b.1789] has 200 acres of land and is doing very well. we all got 100 acres of land a piece and what any of has more we have bought since from government.
James Nixon is doing well, he has plenty of land, stock and chickens. Roby Summers family has a good deal of land and other property. old Peggy [Margaret (Peggy) Bell wife of Robert (Robby) Summers (and mother in law to George Routledge b 1792)], John, Tho[ma]s, and Mary lives together [John Summers and Thomas Summers did not marry, Mary Summers was married to Eli Trowbridge]. Robert and Betty [are] married and live at their own homes [Robert Summers married Isabella Robson]. Mary is a widow.
and in short I can safely say that all the old neighbours from Bewcastle and other parts are doing well and has great plenty of almost everything and is all well contented in coming to this country. they can bring up their familys with great plenty and live well. much better than they
could have done in England. times has been a great deal better this last 18 months than they were some time back. Farming stock and produce ha[ve] brought good prices and money has been more plentifully.
you may judge from this, 4 years ago John Elliot and Sibby came to this part and when they came here they had nothing. they borrowed the money to buy a yoke of oxen to work the farm which they rented. now they have great plenty both German stock 6 cows, 2 yoke of oxen and 10 or 12 head of young cattle and a good mare. they have 9 children..
Henery’s [Henry Routledge, eldest son of Thomas and Elizabeth Routledge] best respects to you and your wife and so do we all. remember us to your brothers Wm. and Robt. I have often lamented that Wm. did not come to this country. he would have done well no doubt but he would have got rich. y]ou will show this with all our respects to our friends John and Richd. Routledge [Richard and John Routledge (brothers) are the sons of William Routledge who is cousin (unknown exact relationship) to George Routledge, the father of Elizabeth Routledge, the emigrant to London Township] likewise to John Dodgson [John Dodgson is married to Ann Routledge. Ann’s father is also a cousin (unknown exact relationship) to George Routledge, b.1729, the father of Elizabeth Routledge, emigrant to London Township] of Roantrees. they may expect two letters in a short time.
we will be glad to hear from you with all the news you can afford us. you shall hear more particulars in those letters that I have not mentioned here. in short, I must conclude I am and still will remain your most affectionate.
Geo. Routledge.
Ad[d]ress: George Routledge, London, county of Middlesex and District of London, Upper Canada
Note added by me to this letter:
When my Armstrong correspondent (also not related to this Armstrong family) forwarded me a copy of the 1837 letter she included a comment by Sally Ramshaw which said: “…The letter was given to me by Mr. Andrew Ewart (a 4th cousin of my father, the late William Harrison Armstrong) in case it was useful with my family research. Unfortunately the Armstrong is not one of my relations as far as I know but the letter contained a number of names that might be ancestors of other Cumbria Family History Society members as well as much fascinating social history that I thought it might be worth printing in the next newsletter.”
This letter was indeed printed in the Cumbria Family History Society newsletter at some point in the past. I do not know when.
For Routledge researchers trying to sort out their ancestry the above letter may be helpful. If you think you are tracing back to my Routledge lines I may be able to help you with that as Thomas (my 3x great grandfather) had no siblings who lived to adulthood and Elizabeth (my 3x great grandmother) had only half-siblings all of whom appeared to have remained in the Bewcastle area as well one of her half siblings was George Routledge mentioned in the Dodgson Manuscript (his ancestry coming down from Elizabeth's father George's second marriage to Elizabeth Armstrong (her mother was a Routledge)). Since I am starting with such a small base in the early to mid 1700s I can tell you if you are related to my lines.
I published the letter in Families several years ago and now include a copy of the article in my blog:
Archibald Armstrong, letter recipient on 5 April 1837, remains a mystery at the time of writing but he was addressed at Parknook , Bewcastle . It was sent in care of the Inn Keeper, Bush Inn, Brampton, Cumberland, England.
London [Ontario}, Jan 16th 1837
Mr. Archibald Armstrong
I take this opportunity of writing to you a few lines to let you know how we are all going on in this part of America, I wrote to you once or twice before but I never got any answer. we are all in good health at present thanks be to God for that blessing, hoping that these few lines will find you and your family all in the same state.
First I shall give an assessment of the times, our markets and the price of farming stock and all kinds of produce and the price of land also take notice. what I shall name to you in value shall all be sterling money and meashures the old Carlisle bushel [a Carlisle bushel is equal to 2.98 Imperial bushels] that was when we left the country.
land within 6 or 7 miles of the town of London can be bought for about 24 shillings per acre uncleared all the timber thereon, and a cleared up farm of 100 acres with 50 acres of that cleared off fit for cultivation can be bought for about 350 pounds so any man that can come here with a little money he can see how he may be suited.
there is not the chance now to get land that there was when we came to this country, land has got to be more valueable on account of the great advancement of the population in this part. my old companion, I am sorry to inform you how unfortunate you were in not coming to this country when you were in the notion of coming at the time when we came. you might have had today as much property as I have and perhaps more.
the general price of good horses is from 20 to 30 pounds. Last spring I sold a horse two years old for 20 pounds. about the same time my brother Tho[ma]s [fourth son of Thomas and Elizabeth Routledge] sold a horse three years old, likely for the saddle, for upwards of 30 pounds. the price of a yoke of oxen is about 17 pounds, milke cows from 5 to 7 pounds a peice, and sheep will average about 12 shillings a peice, beef 3d per pounds, Mutton about the same,, pork 4d – 6d per stone [a stone is an English unit of weight equal to 6.35 kilograms], butter 9 cents per pound, tallow 8d, wheat 16s per bushel, barly 10s, rye 13s, peas 12s, Indian corn 12s, oats 5s, potatoes 5s per bushel, apples 4s – 6s per bushel, whisky 2s, Brandy 7s, Rum 5s, [and] Wine 7s per gallon.
We live about 6 miles from the town of London which is the county town and city of London. I have 400 Acres of land 300 Acres of it lies all adjoining and about 70 acres of it well cleared and in a good state of cultivation. [O]ne hundred acres lyes within 4 miles of the town and a good clearing upon it which I have a farmer lives upon it. [A]ny man that comes here that is not of ability to buy land there are farms to be let for 7 to 10s per acre yearly for the cleared land that is fit for cultivation.
I have a pair of good draught horses and a yoke of oxen which I keep for working the place I
live on. I keep 6 milk cows and 14 head of young cattle, a flock of sheep and a good brood mare, and the taxes I pay for all I pocess land and stock is only 13s6d yearly. we can feed the best of beef and summer our milk cows in the woods clear of all costs. we have great privileges here that you have not in Bewcastle or no other part in England and we understand that times is always getting worse in England.
I now shall tell you the alterations of Families that was from Bewcastle – Deaths, weddings, etc. Roby Summers [George (b 1792)’s father in law (George was married to Jane Summers)] died three years ago last a[u]gust, my mother died two years ago last sept. My brother Allan died one year ago last October. I expect you have heard of myself being married to Jane Summers 15 years past last July and we have 6 children living and one dead, all boys but
One. my sister Margaret and Mary both married to men from Yorkshire. there [are] none of the lads [George’s brothers - Henry, William, Thomas Junior, and Joseph (Allan is noted as having died)] married but myself. they all have a great deal of land and other property, my father has a handsome Estate of land he lives on within 3 miles of the town.
Geo[rge] Kennedy [George Kennedy, husband of Grace Routledge b.1789] has 200 acres of land and is doing very well. we all got 100 acres of land a piece and what any of has more we have bought since from government.
James Nixon is doing well, he has plenty of land, stock and chickens. Roby Summers family has a good deal of land and other property. old Peggy [Margaret (Peggy) Bell wife of Robert (Robby) Summers (and mother in law to George Routledge b 1792)], John, Tho[ma]s, and Mary lives together [John Summers and Thomas Summers did not marry, Mary Summers was married to Eli Trowbridge]. Robert and Betty [are] married and live at their own homes [Robert Summers married Isabella Robson]. Mary is a widow.
and in short I can safely say that all the old neighbours from Bewcastle and other parts are doing well and has great plenty of almost everything and is all well contented in coming to this country. they can bring up their familys with great plenty and live well. much better than they
could have done in England. times has been a great deal better this last 18 months than they were some time back. Farming stock and produce ha[ve] brought good prices and money has been more plentifully.
you may judge from this, 4 years ago John Elliot and Sibby came to this part and when they came here they had nothing. they borrowed the money to buy a yoke of oxen to work the farm which they rented. now they have great plenty both German stock 6 cows, 2 yoke of oxen and 10 or 12 head of young cattle and a good mare. they have 9 children..
Henery’s [Henry Routledge, eldest son of Thomas and Elizabeth Routledge] best respects to you and your wife and so do we all. remember us to your brothers Wm. and Robt. I have often lamented that Wm. did not come to this country. he would have done well no doubt but he would have got rich. y]ou will show this with all our respects to our friends John and Richd. Routledge [Richard and John Routledge (brothers) are the sons of William Routledge who is cousin (unknown exact relationship) to George Routledge, the father of Elizabeth Routledge, the emigrant to London Township] likewise to John Dodgson [John Dodgson is married to Ann Routledge. Ann’s father is also a cousin (unknown exact relationship) to George Routledge, b.1729, the father of Elizabeth Routledge, emigrant to London Township] of Roantrees. they may expect two letters in a short time.
we will be glad to hear from you with all the news you can afford us. you shall hear more particulars in those letters that I have not mentioned here. in short, I must conclude I am and still will remain your most affectionate.
Geo. Routledge.
Ad[d]ress: George Routledge, London, county of Middlesex and District of London, Upper Canada
Note added by me to this letter:
When my Armstrong correspondent (also not related to this Armstrong family) forwarded me a copy of the 1837 letter she included a comment by Sally Ramshaw which said: “…The letter was given to me by Mr. Andrew Ewart (a 4th cousin of my father, the late William Harrison Armstrong) in case it was useful with my family research. Unfortunately the Armstrong is not one of my relations as far as I know but the letter contained a number of names that might be ancestors of other Cumbria Family History Society members as well as much fascinating social history that I thought it might be worth printing in the next newsletter.”
This letter was indeed printed in the Cumbria Family History Society newsletter at some point in the past. I do not know when.
For Routledge researchers trying to sort out their ancestry the above letter may be helpful. If you think you are tracing back to my Routledge lines I may be able to help you with that as Thomas (my 3x great grandfather) had no siblings who lived to adulthood and Elizabeth (my 3x great grandmother) had only half-siblings all of whom appeared to have remained in the Bewcastle area as well one of her half siblings was George Routledge mentioned in the Dodgson Manuscript (his ancestry coming down from Elizabeth's father George's second marriage to Elizabeth Armstrong (her mother was a Routledge)). Since I am starting with such a small base in the early to mid 1700s I can tell you if you are related to my lines.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Somerby's errors still reverberating in Blake family research
I strongly suspect that Horatio Gates Somerby had no idea of how far reaching his genealogical frauds would eventually be. At a bare minimum sixteen books have been published on the Blake family of Boston (can be seen at the New England Historic Genealogical Society Library in Boston) which either use his results or contradict those results. For the most part though these books accept Somerby's work as correct and simply connect their families back to the information which he created in the mid 1800s.
Usually his connections were back to royalty but in the case of the Blake family, he took them back to the Blake family of Calne, Wiltshire known to be there in the late 1200s. He did this by connecting them to the Andover Hampshire Blake family (my own line) with a fraudulent marriage between William Blake and Mary Coles giving them children Humphrey, Nicholas and Alice. In reality, Nicholas at Enham, Andover, Hampshire was the son of a Mr. Blake (forename unknown thus far) and Joan Blake (his widow). Joan Blake (widow) left a will in 1527 where she mentions her children Robert, Nicholas and Elizabeth (married to a Mr. Mylne). No mention of a Humphrey. Nicholas and Robert in their turn also left wills mentioning their children and the witness to Robert's will was Nicholas (Robert died in 1542 and Nicholas in 1547).
The interesting part of Somerby's creations is that he may have seen the Pedigree Chart which I have mentioned earlier and is located at the Swindon and Wiltshire Record Office (can be purchased from them as images at a very reasonable cost). However, the furtherest back ancestor he names as Robert de Blakeland and the chart shows Richard Blague/Blaake/Blake as being the furtherest back. The interesting question for me is were these men the same person? Robert de Blakeland is a bit of a red herring in all of this. He is supposed to have paid a subsidy in 1286 on Blakelands (now Blacklands near Calne Wiltshire). I haven't pulled up that information yet to look at it. All in Latin and my skills are at best rather weak in Latin so it has waited whilst I improve.
How to rid the world of Somerby's errors though is an interesting dilemma and one that has been discussed in The American Genealogist (TAG). Fortunately, the author Paul C Reid has written an article in 1999 exposing the fraud of Somerby with the Blake family and others. Clifford L Stott in the NEHGS Register has written an article on Humphrey Blake and his descendants also mentioning the fraud of Somerby. By constantly writing articles and blogging on these errors it may yet be possible to undo the fraudulence of Somerby's genealogical forays. That he did it solely for money, is perhaps the greatest crime of all. To have done it innocently could at least be understood by future genealogists but simply to make money is such a crime perpetrated against all of us who try to do a competent job of our family history.
I am often having to deny people who write me asking for a genealogical descent chart particularly for William Blake and Mary Coles who never existed as far as I am able to determine. Certainly William Blake is not listed as a son of Robert Blake and Avis Wallop his supposed parents. His supposed children William Blake and Robert Blake along with their widowed mother are not in the Andover Hampshire area living on supposed Wallop estate (Eastontown). There is a Robert Blake at Enham just as there is a Nicholas Blake at Enham but they are the sons of Joan Blake (widow) and forename unknown Mr. Blake. It is the son of Nicholas Blake, William who first notes himself as living at Eastontown in his will. Nicholas and his wife Margaret have only four children: William the eldest, Edmund (minor at the time of his father's death in 1547) and two daughters Alice married to Mr. Godwyn and Elizabeth married to Mr. Monday. Edmund does have a son Steven but I have not been able to trace this line down. William's line is very large at Andover; he and his wife Elizabeth (unknown) have ten children. Robert, brother to Nicholas, is married to Agnes (unknown) and they have six sons.
My initial thought was that all of the Blake lines at Andover traced back to these two men, however the pedigree chart at Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office gives another William Blake also at Eastontown but married to Avice Ripley. Since the eldest son of William (John) married a Margaret Blake daughter of William Blake I was not surprised to find that there could be another Blake family at Andover and I am pursuing this notion that there was another William Blake there at the same time as William son of Nicholas since William does name his wife as Elizabeth. Could they be the same William? It would mean that his eldest son John married his half-sister Margaret. I doubt that happened. It was frowned upon by the Catholic Church and it is unlikely that one would record it on a Pedigree Chart.
My strongest suspicion is that there is a small error in connection on the chart and that Margaret was the daughter of William Blake and Avice Ripley and able to trace her line back to the Blake family at Calne. John who is shown as connected to this marriage was actually the son of William Blake and Elizabeth also of Eastontown (there were several farms at Eastontown according to ancient maps) but the connection back for him was to William and then Nicholas and unknown Blake married to Joan (widow in 1527). The Visitation which was used to create the chart is somewhat unclear on the parentage of William and it is from these Visitations that the chart was created.
The desire to have the male Blake line go back directly to the Calne Blake family may have been just too tempting (the female Blake line through Margaret definitely did do so I believe). Hence this small error crept in and allowed the descendants to use the coat of arms of the Wiltshire Blake family which included the Blake/Baynard/Bellet/Durrant family crests. It was Richard Blake Esquire, Captain of the Trained Bands in County Middlesex in 1662 who first used this crest on his Visitation although by then the Baynard crest had been forgotten and assumed to be an unfinished Blague/Blake crest. John is correctly identified as the progenitor of the family from Essington, County of Southampton. The Visitation is also signed.
How to prove that I am correct is the mystery at the moment. I am searching out material to either support my hypothesis or eliminate it. That is all that we can do as the successors of Horatio Gates Somerby's frauds.
Usually his connections were back to royalty but in the case of the Blake family, he took them back to the Blake family of Calne, Wiltshire known to be there in the late 1200s. He did this by connecting them to the Andover Hampshire Blake family (my own line) with a fraudulent marriage between William Blake and Mary Coles giving them children Humphrey, Nicholas and Alice. In reality, Nicholas at Enham, Andover, Hampshire was the son of a Mr. Blake (forename unknown thus far) and Joan Blake (his widow). Joan Blake (widow) left a will in 1527 where she mentions her children Robert, Nicholas and Elizabeth (married to a Mr. Mylne). No mention of a Humphrey. Nicholas and Robert in their turn also left wills mentioning their children and the witness to Robert's will was Nicholas (Robert died in 1542 and Nicholas in 1547).
The interesting part of Somerby's creations is that he may have seen the Pedigree Chart which I have mentioned earlier and is located at the Swindon and Wiltshire Record Office (can be purchased from them as images at a very reasonable cost). However, the furtherest back ancestor he names as Robert de Blakeland and the chart shows Richard Blague/Blaake/Blake as being the furtherest back. The interesting question for me is were these men the same person? Robert de Blakeland is a bit of a red herring in all of this. He is supposed to have paid a subsidy in 1286 on Blakelands (now Blacklands near Calne Wiltshire). I haven't pulled up that information yet to look at it. All in Latin and my skills are at best rather weak in Latin so it has waited whilst I improve.
How to rid the world of Somerby's errors though is an interesting dilemma and one that has been discussed in The American Genealogist (TAG). Fortunately, the author Paul C Reid has written an article in 1999 exposing the fraud of Somerby with the Blake family and others. Clifford L Stott in the NEHGS Register has written an article on Humphrey Blake and his descendants also mentioning the fraud of Somerby. By constantly writing articles and blogging on these errors it may yet be possible to undo the fraudulence of Somerby's genealogical forays. That he did it solely for money, is perhaps the greatest crime of all. To have done it innocently could at least be understood by future genealogists but simply to make money is such a crime perpetrated against all of us who try to do a competent job of our family history.
I am often having to deny people who write me asking for a genealogical descent chart particularly for William Blake and Mary Coles who never existed as far as I am able to determine. Certainly William Blake is not listed as a son of Robert Blake and Avis Wallop his supposed parents. His supposed children William Blake and Robert Blake along with their widowed mother are not in the Andover Hampshire area living on supposed Wallop estate (Eastontown). There is a Robert Blake at Enham just as there is a Nicholas Blake at Enham but they are the sons of Joan Blake (widow) and forename unknown Mr. Blake. It is the son of Nicholas Blake, William who first notes himself as living at Eastontown in his will. Nicholas and his wife Margaret have only four children: William the eldest, Edmund (minor at the time of his father's death in 1547) and two daughters Alice married to Mr. Godwyn and Elizabeth married to Mr. Monday. Edmund does have a son Steven but I have not been able to trace this line down. William's line is very large at Andover; he and his wife Elizabeth (unknown) have ten children. Robert, brother to Nicholas, is married to Agnes (unknown) and they have six sons.
My initial thought was that all of the Blake lines at Andover traced back to these two men, however the pedigree chart at Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office gives another William Blake also at Eastontown but married to Avice Ripley. Since the eldest son of William (John) married a Margaret Blake daughter of William Blake I was not surprised to find that there could be another Blake family at Andover and I am pursuing this notion that there was another William Blake there at the same time as William son of Nicholas since William does name his wife as Elizabeth. Could they be the same William? It would mean that his eldest son John married his half-sister Margaret. I doubt that happened. It was frowned upon by the Catholic Church and it is unlikely that one would record it on a Pedigree Chart.
My strongest suspicion is that there is a small error in connection on the chart and that Margaret was the daughter of William Blake and Avice Ripley and able to trace her line back to the Blake family at Calne. John who is shown as connected to this marriage was actually the son of William Blake and Elizabeth also of Eastontown (there were several farms at Eastontown according to ancient maps) but the connection back for him was to William and then Nicholas and unknown Blake married to Joan (widow in 1527). The Visitation which was used to create the chart is somewhat unclear on the parentage of William and it is from these Visitations that the chart was created.
The desire to have the male Blake line go back directly to the Calne Blake family may have been just too tempting (the female Blake line through Margaret definitely did do so I believe). Hence this small error crept in and allowed the descendants to use the coat of arms of the Wiltshire Blake family which included the Blake/Baynard/Bellet/Durrant family crests. It was Richard Blake Esquire, Captain of the Trained Bands in County Middlesex in 1662 who first used this crest on his Visitation although by then the Baynard crest had been forgotten and assumed to be an unfinished Blague/Blake crest. John is correctly identified as the progenitor of the family from Essington, County of Southampton. The Visitation is also signed.
How to prove that I am correct is the mystery at the moment. I am searching out material to either support my hypothesis or eliminate it. That is all that we can do as the successors of Horatio Gates Somerby's frauds.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Routledge family and an email on Hampshire
An interesting request for information on Southampton, Hampshire and I put together a list of some of the interesting resources for this English county that I have at hand and decided to share it with my blog.
Depending on how far back the association with Southampton is, there are a number of interesting published records for Hampshire which include:
The Hampshire Hearth Tax Assessment of 1665 and in the case of Southampton it is the Hearth Tax Assessment of 1670 that is published in this particular book. This book is a good birds eye view of Hampshire in this time period.
West Hampshire Lay Subsidy Assessments, 1558-1603 (Andover, Kingsclere and New Forest Divisions), edited by Douglas F Vick (Family History Library). I copied Andover Hundred only as that was my interest but the New Forest is in the Southampton area so might be interesting. A valuable resource in this time period (my Blake line goes back to the late 1400s in the Andover area so have looked at a lot of the records in this area back to this time period).
The Parish Records are particularly good in Hampshire and can be purchased directly from the Hampshire Record Office at a very reasonable price (microfiche) and a lot of them do go back to the beginning of the Parish Registers (1538) and can be purchased right up to the present if that is helpful.
In general Hampshire is not available on any of the major providers (FindMyPast, Ancestry, Origins, etc.) as they have published a lot of their own records through the Hampshire Genealogical Society. I was a member for eight years and will be again but traveling about as we have done for the last four years I cancelled most of my subscriptions. The articles in their journal tend to be on families of the 1800s on so depending on the time period you are looking at your may find it interesting looking at their journal (available at Allen County Public Library and Family History in Salt Lake City). Federated Family History Societies holds their material for sale: http://www.genfair.co.uk/supplier.php?sid=59
Their are a number of books published on individual cities/towns in Hampshire but Southampton has been a large city for at least one hundred and fifty years. My father was born at Eastleigh (now a suburb of Southampton) in 1904 and he recalled as a child going into Southampton and that it was a large city even then with Eastleigh itself being a substantial town. The New Forest lies in Dorset but right across the Southampton Waters from Southampton. This is an area like Dutchess County (my enquirer was from the United States) with peoples from the west and north west of England moving towards the more economically viable area of Southampton/Portsmouth through the last two hundred years and the only practical way was through the New Forest which is honeycombed with roads going everywhere plus the railroad.
The Census of Hampshire is very complete (few areas are missing) from 1841 to 1911 and available on FindMyPast and Ancestry (FindMyPast has better transcriptions but Ancestry has a really powerful search engine techniques but you can search the 1911 census returns on the UK government website and do remarkable searching just there).
The Electoral Registers would also be a good source although I have not yet looked at them for Hampshire. I suspect that involves a trip to Hampshire Record Office which is in Winchester (an amazing collection of mediaeval buildings still exist in this city including ancient walls and it is not hard to find your way about). The database at the Hampshire Record Office is online and has a good search engine (http://www3.hants.gov.uk/archives/catalog.htm). They will do hard copy or images and they are most reasonable and make excellent copies.
There are Pollbooks for Southampton (the county was called Southampton and depending on how long ago a family name is associated with Southampton it could have meant the county) which can be helpful in the 1700s.
This is off the top of my head and certainly the Hampshire Genuki webpages have a lot of material that might be helpful (I used to manage these but passed them on to a local Hampshire resident fortunately!). http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/HAM/
The yDNA Hampshire Study has not been overly successful. About 1/4 of the people only have a paper trail back to Hampshire. Most of the members are American. I have been trying to get a couple of people who live in England interested in taking over the study as they could encourage more people who trace back to Hampshire to test. My line (Blake) is one of the few where the actual location of the ancestor is known.
Kew (Public Record Office in London, England) has an excellent online website: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ The holdings for Hampshire are quite extensive there as well although Winchester is the best place for Hampshire records.
I have a lot of Hampshire material but it is generally in the Andover Hundred/Registration District where my families have lived for over six hundred years. I have not yet seen the surname Grooms in this area to my knowledge but will over the coming days check some of the excel transcription files that I have produced.
Back to Routledge and Tom Routledge has sent me a couple of new documents to transcribe. I have begun and noted that Jock Routledge is mentioned in this document. It is from 1543 and not one of the common transcription documents so no help online for this one likely. I will again post it to the blog as I transcribe it and correct the document as I move along with it.
The Gathering of the Clans is now set for July 2014 and we hope to attend. That is as always dependent on my husband's health. Perhaps that will be the time when we sell our house and in between we will do a bit of traveling. Sounds very interesting actually!
Depending on how far back the association with Southampton is, there are a number of interesting published records for Hampshire which include:
The Hampshire Hearth Tax Assessment of 1665 and in the case of Southampton it is the Hearth Tax Assessment of 1670 that is published in this particular book. This book is a good birds eye view of Hampshire in this time period.
West Hampshire Lay Subsidy Assessments, 1558-1603 (Andover, Kingsclere and New Forest Divisions), edited by Douglas F Vick (Family History Library). I copied Andover Hundred only as that was my interest but the New Forest is in the Southampton area so might be interesting. A valuable resource in this time period (my Blake line goes back to the late 1400s in the Andover area so have looked at a lot of the records in this area back to this time period).
The Parish Records are particularly good in Hampshire and can be purchased directly from the Hampshire Record Office at a very reasonable price (microfiche) and a lot of them do go back to the beginning of the Parish Registers (1538) and can be purchased right up to the present if that is helpful.
In general Hampshire is not available on any of the major providers (FindMyPast, Ancestry, Origins, etc.) as they have published a lot of their own records through the Hampshire Genealogical Society. I was a member for eight years and will be again but traveling about as we have done for the last four years I cancelled most of my subscriptions. The articles in their journal tend to be on families of the 1800s on so depending on the time period you are looking at your may find it interesting looking at their journal (available at Allen County Public Library and Family History in Salt Lake City). Federated Family History Societies holds their material for sale: http://www.genfair.co.uk/supplier.php?sid=59
Their are a number of books published on individual cities/towns in Hampshire but Southampton has been a large city for at least one hundred and fifty years. My father was born at Eastleigh (now a suburb of Southampton) in 1904 and he recalled as a child going into Southampton and that it was a large city even then with Eastleigh itself being a substantial town. The New Forest lies in Dorset but right across the Southampton Waters from Southampton. This is an area like Dutchess County (my enquirer was from the United States) with peoples from the west and north west of England moving towards the more economically viable area of Southampton/Portsmouth through the last two hundred years and the only practical way was through the New Forest which is honeycombed with roads going everywhere plus the railroad.
The Census of Hampshire is very complete (few areas are missing) from 1841 to 1911 and available on FindMyPast and Ancestry (FindMyPast has better transcriptions but Ancestry has a really powerful search engine techniques but you can search the 1911 census returns on the UK government website and do remarkable searching just there).
The Electoral Registers would also be a good source although I have not yet looked at them for Hampshire. I suspect that involves a trip to Hampshire Record Office which is in Winchester (an amazing collection of mediaeval buildings still exist in this city including ancient walls and it is not hard to find your way about). The database at the Hampshire Record Office is online and has a good search engine (http://www3.hants.gov.uk/archives/catalog.htm). They will do hard copy or images and they are most reasonable and make excellent copies.
There are Pollbooks for Southampton (the county was called Southampton and depending on how long ago a family name is associated with Southampton it could have meant the county) which can be helpful in the 1700s.
This is off the top of my head and certainly the Hampshire Genuki webpages have a lot of material that might be helpful (I used to manage these but passed them on to a local Hampshire resident fortunately!). http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/HAM/
The yDNA Hampshire Study has not been overly successful. About 1/4 of the people only have a paper trail back to Hampshire. Most of the members are American. I have been trying to get a couple of people who live in England interested in taking over the study as they could encourage more people who trace back to Hampshire to test. My line (Blake) is one of the few where the actual location of the ancestor is known.
Kew (Public Record Office in London, England) has an excellent online website: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ The holdings for Hampshire are quite extensive there as well although Winchester is the best place for Hampshire records.
I have a lot of Hampshire material but it is generally in the Andover Hundred/Registration District where my families have lived for over six hundred years. I have not yet seen the surname Grooms in this area to my knowledge but will over the coming days check some of the excel transcription files that I have produced.
Back to Routledge and Tom Routledge has sent me a couple of new documents to transcribe. I have begun and noted that Jock Routledge is mentioned in this document. It is from 1543 and not one of the common transcription documents so no help online for this one likely. I will again post it to the blog as I transcribe it and correct the document as I move along with it.
The Gathering of the Clans is now set for July 2014 and we hope to attend. That is as always dependent on my husband's health. Perhaps that will be the time when we sell our house and in between we will do a bit of traveling. Sounds very interesting actually!
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Flu bugs
Thought I was on the mend but yesterday proved that flu bugs are very resistant so spent the day resting once again. I shall take a couple more days of resting up before taking on anything .
However, it is nice to be back to genealogy once again. I wanted to do more transcription than I eventually got done this winter but there is always next winter and still a couple more months before the nights are light again. The long cold dark winters in Canada are handy for reading off of microfiche that is for sure.
However, it is nice to be back to genealogy once again. I wanted to do more transcription than I eventually got done this winter but there is always next winter and still a couple more months before the nights are light again. The long cold dark winters in Canada are handy for reading off of microfiche that is for sure.
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