Around the end of the 17th/beginning of the 18th centuries a number of Blackett families begin to appear in Stockton-on-Tees parish records.
Roger Blackett and his wife Elinor had two children baptized there on 31 Aug 1688.
Ralph Blackett married Elizabeth Martin in nearby Billingham in 1701 and had at least three children born there before moving to Stockton, where their son Ralph was baptized in 1710. (NB. Their daughter Ann is now believed to have been the Ann Blackett who married Thomas Parcival/Percival in Stockton in 1730 from whom descend a large number of the Percivals and Moules previously thought to be descendants of Ann Blackett of Hamsterley.)
John Blackett and his wife Sarah had at least three children born in Stockton between 1715 and 1720.
And William Blackett died in Stockton in 1710, having had a daughter Margaret baptized there in 1707. (There is also a burial of a Jane Blackett in Stockton in 1720 who may have been William’s wife.)
If these four families moved into the Stockton area around the same time it is quite possible that they are connected. Roger was a very unusual name for a Blackett, and the only other Roger Blackett around this time we have discovered was Roger, the son of Ralph Blackett and a descendant of Isaac Blackett (see article above). This Roger was baptized in Tynemouth in 1656 and died in Edlingham, much further north in Northumberland, in 1696. Other members of this extended family moved south into County Durham, however, and it is possible that a branch moved down to Stockton, though we have found no proof of this.
NB. We are indebted to Steve Keown for his research into Stockton parish records.