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A National Geographic Society DNA test reveals that the Blake Family is not Celtic Irish or Anglo Saxon, but "ultra-Norse," descended from Danish Vikings. Blaecs (Old English) were "huscarls," their feudal lords' field officers and long-ship chieftains, "men of renown" who settled in the vicinity of Rouen, France, in the AD 850s. Attached to the court of the dukes of Normandy, a Blaec accompanied William the Conqueror to England for the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
After the English Civil War of the 1640s, Admiral Sir Robert Blake, 1599-1657, commanded the nation's entire war fleet for Oliver Cromwell's Puritan Commonwealth. Fighting the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal and the Barbary Pirates in the 1650s, Blake's administrative reforms and his tactical battle instructions, in use through the Napoleonic Wars, earned him the title, "Father of the Royal Navy." By "making England terrible at sea," Adm. Blake laid the foundation for the British Empire.
In the mid-1600s, branches of the English Blake family immigrated to Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina. Lt. Col. John Blake, c.1626-1705, Adm. Blake's first cousin once removed, owned a 3,200-acre corn and tobacco plantation in Virgina, sat in the House of Burgesses, and was sheriff of Nansemond County.
John Young Fillmore "Beau" Blake, 1856-1907, was a West Point officer with the 6th U.S. Cavalry in the final Apache Wars in Arizona and New Mexico in the 1880s. In March 1884 Apache Chief Geronimo adopted the tall, handsome lieutenant as "my brother," the only white man to be so honored. Having resigned from the army in 1889, Blake went to South Africa, where he explored the Zambezi River and Lake Kariba, and commanded the Transvaal Republic's Irish Brigade for President Paul Kruger in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. "Under Brilliant Stars," a biography of Col. Blake with the 1,160-year history of his family, is in progress.
After the English Civil War of the 1640s, Admiral Sir Robert Blake, 1599-1657, commanded the nation's entire war fleet for Oliver Cromwell's Puritan Commonwealth. Fighting the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal and the Barbary Pirates in the 1650s, Blake's administrative reforms and his tactical battle instructions, in use through the Napoleonic Wars, earned him the title, "Father of the Royal Navy." By "making England terrible at sea," Adm. Blake laid the foundation for the British Empire.
In the mid-1600s, branches of the English Blake family immigrated to Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina. Lt. Col. John Blake, c.1626-1705, Adm. Blake's first cousin once removed, owned a 3,200-acre corn and tobacco plantation in Virgina, sat in the House of Burgesses, and was sheriff of Nansemond County.
John Young Fillmore "Beau" Blake, 1856-1907, was a West Point officer with the 6th U.S. Cavalry in the final Apache Wars in Arizona and New Mexico in the 1880s. In March 1884 Apache Chief Geronimo adopted the tall, handsome lieutenant as "my brother," the only white man to be so honored. Having resigned from the army in 1889, Blake went to South Africa, where he explored the Zambezi River and Lake Kariba, and commanded the Transvaal Republic's Irish Brigade for President Paul Kruger in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. "Under Brilliant Stars," a biography of Col. Blake with the 1,160-year history of his family, is in progress.
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Col. John Y.F. Blake was also a cousin of William Early "Tulsa Jack" Blake, 1870-1894, an historic outlaw who rode with Bill Doolin's gang of bank and train robbers in Oklahoma in the 1890s. Michael L. Blake, who won the Motion Picture Academy Award for his screen play of Kevin Kostners' Western epic, "Dances With Wolves," is the Colonel's great-grandson. Lt. Dunbar, the film's protagonist, is modeled on John Y.F. Blake, who grew up in frontier Texas fighting Comanche Indians and driving long-horn steers up the Old Chisholm Trail.
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