Blake Newsletter, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2017

 Blake Newsletter

Table of Contents

1.   Blake Surname Study - What to expect in 2017

2.   Decision on publishing Family Trees

3.   yDNA study

4.   Family Finder study



1.   Blake Surname Study – What to expect in 2017

The newsletters of 2016 mostly talked about what I was not accomplishing having put in a lot of time in the five years since I took on the Blake family study at the Guild of One Name Studies. Hopefully, 2017 will see me return to my Wills transcription. I have already worked on a couple of wills and they are ready to publish on the 1st and the 2nd. Working on the wills again has been interesting as I am really entering into a blank script once again. My mind had been full of all sorts of details – for sure tainted by prior notions – and this space of time has eliminated all of those apparently logical thoughts with regard to various Blake families. But I do believe as the time has passed that Blake has arisen spontaneously in a number of areas and that is clearly seen in the yDNA study.

2.   Decision on publishing Family Trees

I had chatted a good deal about reconstructing family trees in distinct Blake areas in the British Isles and in the case of some Blake lines I will continue doing that. But I will refrain from publishing in areas for which there isn’t a yDNA sample submitted. I will also refrain if I do not have an individual who has been researching their particular line in an area – Cornwall was very much an example to me. The flow of the data was pointing out a rather interesting possible family story for that area but an email from a Blake member descendant of the family there questioning my thoughts reminded me that I am a collector of data not a provider. All of my thoughts will be archived with the Blake Study once I step down.

3.   yDNA Study (https://www.familytreedna.com/public/blake?iframe=yresults)

I must thank all of the members of the study for submitting their samples to the Blake yDNA Study. The growth of the study has been slow. It probably needs a more aggressive active person than myself to grow. The variety of the results is amazing covering haplogroups that have been in the British Isles from 8000 to 10,000 years ago to a much more modern era. The value of a yDNA study is huge to anyone trying to link back to a particular area but it does need, especially for a surname study on Blake, a lot of testers. We have not yet reached a point where the study is large enough to assist other than individuals who match the present group of researchers. The yDNA study of Ireland Project will be helpful if they are able to pinpoint the Galway Blake family and the other Blake families present there.

4.   Family Finder Study

Women are unable to participate in the yDNA study unless they have a brother/father/paternal uncle (or male descendants of this group) to test for their paternal line. Hence the suggestion that submitting results of Family Finder studies to this Blake DNA study. Unfortunately publishing results is somewhat difficult but I do plan to begin some reporting on Family Finder shortly. A couple of groups do have information linking them and known relationships.

Elizabeth Kipp, kippeeb@rogers.com

Member #4600: Guild of one name studies -
Blog: http://kippeeb.blogspot.ca/

Will of William Blake, gentleman, Saint MIchael, Bristol, Gloucestershire - The National Archives PROB 11/2175/217, probated 9 Jul 1853

William Blake, gentleman, Saint Michaels Hill, Bristol is the testator. He does not name any family in this will.

His executrix Hester Manfield Rogers is possibly Hester Rogers, house keeper to William Jones who kept a lodging house on Park Lane. She was born at Nailsea Somerset and was 45 years of age.

His witness Stephen Shallard is living at 66 Upper Church Lane St Michaels Parish and he was 55 years of age and a pattern maker on the 1851 census born at Bitten Gloucestershire.

On the 1841 Census there is one Blake family living in Saint Michael Parish, Salmon Street near Little Paul Street.


John Blake, 35, M S, not born in Gloucestershire
Anne Blake, 35, , born in Gloucestershire
John Blake, 11, , born in Gloucestershire
Alfred Blake, 10, , born in Gloucestershire
William Blake, 7, , born in Gloucestershire

Probably not this family but interesting to find a Blake family nearby.


The Family Bible given away to Mary Jane Rogers would certainly be an interesting find!

Transcriber: Elizabeth Kipp
Recorded: 15 May 2014
Source: The National Archives, PROB 11/2175/217
Testator:  William Blake, gentleman
Place: Parish of Saint Michael, Bristol, Gloucestershire, England
Type of Record: Will
Date of document: 2 Mar 1853, probated 9 Jul 1853
Condition: 19th century English, legible copy

[Margin]: William
[Margin]: Blake
[Margin]: 5

1    This is the Last Will and Testament
2    of me William Blake of Saint Michaels Hill in the Parish of Saint Michael
3    in the City of Bristol Gentleman I give and bequeath unto Elanor the wife of Wil-
4    liam Coram of Paul Street Kingsdown in the City of Bristol the sum of Ten pounds
5    and I do hereby declare that the said sum shall be paid to her for her absolute use
6    notwithstanding her coverture and that her receipt alone shall be the only effectual
7    discharge to my Executrix hereinafter mentioned for the same I give unto Joseph
8    Coram of Paul Street aforesaid Accountant the sum of Five pounds I give unto
9    Mary Ann Hodges of Saint Michaels Hill aforesaid Spinster the sum of Nineteen
10    pounds ten shillings I give unto William Green of the City of Bristol Cutler the sum
11    of Five pounds I give unto Joseph Willis of Baldwin Street in the said City of
12    Bristol the sum of Five pounds I give unto Henry Lake of the Parish of Clifton in
13    the City of Bristol the sum of Five pounds I give unto Robert Gibbs of the said
14    City Accountant the sum of Five pounds I give and bequeath my large Imperial
15    Family Bible unto Mary Jane Rogers of Saint Michaels Hill aforesaid And I do
16    hereby direct the said pecuniary Legacies to be paid to the Legatees respectively within
17    three months next after my decease And as to all the rest residue and
18    remainder of my real and personal estate and effects whatsoever and wheresoever
19    after payment of my just debts funeral and testamentary expences I give devise and
20    bequeath the same unto Hester Manfield Rogers of the Parish of Saint Michael
21    aforesaid Spinster her heirs executors administrators and assigns And I do hereby ap-
22    point the said Hester Manfield Rogers sole Executrix of this my Will In witness
23    whereof I the said William Blake have to this my Will subscribed my hand this
24    Second day of March one thousand eight hundred and fifty three William
25    Blake Signed by the said Testator William Blake and acknowledged by him
26    to be his last Will and Testament in the presence of us present at the same time who
27    in his presence at his request and in the presence of each other have hereunto
28    subscribed our names as witnesses John Young Tailor St Thomas Bridge
29    Bristol Stephen Shallard Pattern Maker Upper Church Lane H__________
30    Bristol
31    Proved at London 9th July 1853 before the Judge by the oath of Hester
32    Manfield Rogers Spinster the sole Executrix to whom Admon was granted having
33    been first sworn by Comon duly to administer

Wills still to be transcribed

Just before I return to the wills for transcribing, I decided to create an ongoing list of what I still have to complete that I have copies for transcription. I may for the moment go alphabetical until I find that I need to follow another flow. Blake will continue to be my high priority. 

Blake Wills 394

Hertfordshire 4
Huntingdonshire 2
Lancashire4
Lincolnshire 3
London 41
Middlesex 145
Miscellaneous 81
Norfolk 16
Northamptonshire 6
Northumberland 4
Nottinghamshire 1
Oxfordshire 12
Rutland 4
Shropshire 1
Suffolk 11
Surrey 45
Sussex 6
Warwickshire 6
Worcestershire 1

Other surnames 132

Abbs 1
King 17
Kingdon 1
Kip 3
Locke 7
Burges 1
Butt 1
Carter 3
Chorley-Churley-Charley 15
Coffin 3
Knight 2
Lambden 5
Moggeridge-Modridg-Moggridge 6
Question 3
Quirke 1
Rawlings-Rawlins 12
Robson 2
Rolles 3
Siderfin 3
Snowe 5
Tapp 1
Thomas 3
Upcott 3
Vicary 6

I have also acquired a number of wills which includes primarily Blake at Record Offices (not PCC which all the above Blake are)

namely from Dorset, Hampshire, London, Westminster, Gloucestershire Record Offices

446 wills

Family Search I still have 42 wills to transcribe

Total number of wills is an amazing number:   900+ wills

I continue to write up my own family history and I am now working on my 2x great grandparents and all of their children. I have almost finished my paternal side. I am bringing everyone as close to the present as possible in order to make use of my matches at the various DNA sites where I have tested myself and my siblings.   I am also working on recreating my parents and grandparents DNA. A fascinating trip through time that has quite captured my interest as well.

Wills for the Blake family

I will once again return to blogging the will of the Blake family completing the last two that I have from the Gloucestershire Record Office:

William Blake 1804 Dursley
William Blake 1820 Prestbury

It is nearly two years since I left my wills project and a year and a half since I looked at my census project. I intend to return to both and will be blogging the wills on my blog commencing the beginning of January. Whether or not I will publish the legacy charts that I produce from the census and parish records remains ambivalent in my mind.

To date no one in the Cornwall Blake family which traces back to the 1500s in the parish registers has tested their yDNA and has joined the Blake yDNA project. The presence of a Blake from Breton in Cornwall prior to the beginning of the parish registers is very interesting but it is not my family so I hesitate to make statments with regard to the ancestry of the Blake family there without DNA evidence. I will however produce the charts for the study and when I retire they will be archived with the Guild of one name studies.

I will be publishing the Blake Newsletter, Volume 6 Issue 1 in early January (possibly the first as usual).

Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter

I had not downloaded the image of the family charts produced by the earlier researchers so did not realize their quality. I have now done so and will work at improving the quality of the images in the newsletters. The pages are half of a bulletin board size so can not be scanned on my home scanner readily. A different type of photography might work. They are quite legible for me and I have put a couple of them into Legacy. Gradually I will add that to the relevant newsletter as I am able to enter the material into Legacy. I am using Find My Past to verify all the material (and Ancestry) so that dates may not always agree with the original charts.