♂Robert Cogan

Robert Cogan (died by November 1575) was a man of Esteley, in the parish of Axminster in Devon, England, who asked to be buried in another parish. He was the twelfth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son Barnard Cogan (1552–1597).

His will was proved on 5 November 1575 in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury^W. In it he asked to be buried not at Axminster but at Thorncombe, then also in Devon. He named five children: three sons, John, the eldest, Barnarde, and William, the youngest, who was still under 21, and two daughters, Eleanor, the elder, and Mary. His son Barnarde was probably the Barnard Cogan who was born in 1552 and died in 1597.

Notes

The will

The will of Robert Coggan of Esteley, in the parish of Axminster, Devon, proved 5 November 1575, is in the register of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (Pykeringe, 41). It is abstracted in H. Clark Dean, “Eleanor Cogan, the Wife of Walter Deane of Taunton: An Evaluation of the Evidence”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 147 (1993), p. 252 (appendix, item 2), which follows McCracken’s account in the Register 110, pp. 193–194. The abstract names no wife. His death is known only from the probate.

His son Barnard

The will names a son Barnarde but gives no ages except that William was under 21. That this Barnarde was the Barnard Cogan of the next generation rests on Dean’s printed account, not on a record that joins the two; it is a probability, not a proof.