Monday once again and it is cleaning day

Yesterday's soloist was absolutely superb once again; the wonderful choristers who provide the solos and the support for the singing at Church is greatly appreciated by this on-line church goer. I also went to the service in London, England and I do love it when the older Books of Common Prayer are utilized at Mattins.  

Yesterday was a shredding day in the afternoon outside in the fresh air. We went through four large grocery bags of correspondence and shredded 99% of it. It was all scanned and the originals are not of value once scanned. I do not know if anyone will ever read any of that correspondence regarding mostly the Kipp and the Force families but Edward has recorded everything in his online Family Tree originally on World Connect but added to his website after Ancestry purchased World Connect. It is likely also on Ancestry (and certainly is in my account) as that was their purpose in purchasing World Connect.  That was about a four hour stint shredding all of that material that we got done. There is likely another couple of days of shredding to go actually. 

Hopefully the parts for the washing machine will come in today for installation tomorrow. I do hope this works and I am sure the contractor will have told me if the actual motor was worn out after just five short years of my using it! But the washer bin did agitate and rotate after the belt was temporarily restored so we will see how that goes. The intent was to install on Tuesday. Otherwise it is off to the laundromat to wash clothes likely. 

Today is the large cleaning day so the basement and main floor. I will get started at that around 9 setting the robot vacuum to work on the basement rugs.Keeping it up week after week does seem to work very well for me. It is good exercise and with all the down sizing I can manage the cleaning not too badly although it is exhausting on the large cleaning day for sure. 

Worked on the matches and found another incongruency between Gedmatch/23 and Me/FT DNA/My Heritage and Living DNA. But really it is just the areas that are tested by these companies and not truly an incongruency. The larger number of samples of cousins testing in the British Isles makes a huge difference although the databases of these other companies are very large they do tend to be a far more mixed population than the British Isles. One particular area on Chromosome 13 I have not had a Buller match there until now and it painted a slightly altered picture in terms of crossover although just minor movement but it does explain some matches that extended past the crossover. 

My mother certainly did send me on an interesting journey with all the Pincombe matches that have arisen particularly in the Living DNA although I already had a lot of matches for the five siblings in Canada, the United States and other Commonwealth countries. Perhaps one of the greatest Citizen scientists projects in this century, the useage of DNA in family genealogy but also understanding migration around the world. 

Today another smoke day although clearing up into tomorrow. Global warming is such a problem for the polar countries like Canada. I do think though that the latest news that tariffs are here to stay on Canada is probably pretty accurate as we are not going to give up our Farm Management practices - we want to maintain our family farms and are not going to flood our market with foreign produce that we already have ourselves. We allow a certain percentage of dairy into the country because it is interesting to have really good cheeses like from Wisconsin. Plus the percentage quota on dairy has not been exceeded and resulted in tariff by us on anyone. 41 million people eat a lot of cheese and there are cheeses from many dairy countries in the world in our marketplaces. But I do not believe in uncontrolled Free Trade since it just destroys the business of smaller countries by undercutting the prices here and buying the companies out and then closing them down (and these same greedy companies than did not want to pay decent wages and took it offshore and undermined their own industrial base); we have already seen that happen here in the past century.  We need to rebuild our lost industries. 

Drinking tea and solitaire puzzles are next.  

 

Sunday in God's world

 Raining today and are they God's tears on a world that has so much violence in it. Some Homo sapiens could do a lot better to rid the world of violence - Russia, Iran and its sycophants (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis). Other warring groups are signing truces and vowing to do better. The rain this year has been excessive as has the violence. God our Creator lives in the Heavens where order not chaos rule the day. 

Can a people maintain a lifestyle of quiet life in a modern world? That really is the question. One is left with the thought that only if you can protect what you have otherwise you are run over I suspect. Greed predominates and Canada is full of natural resources wanted/needed by many many countries of the world. We survive best by providing for sale such resources ready to go; the idea of the Energy Corridor running across Canada making it possible for us to sell on all of our coasts is a good plan but implementing it needs to satisfy everyone with 85% of Canadians voting for that very thing. Was the Bloc only voting against change because they think it protects Quebec? The greatest protection for Quebec is being part of Canada as the idea of knowing more than one language continues to be a strong part of the Canadian pattern. My daughter, as a young child, wanted to learn the First Nations language but I did tell her there are very many and you need to choose one or more if the opportunity presents itself. Life didn't present the opportunity for her to learn any in this time frame although now she has studied in English, French, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Chinese. I think our young people are much more flexible even then in my day and more than willing to take on more than one language in their life when opportunity presents itself.  

Sunday today and two Church Services to attend once again - one here and one from London, England. I thought I might pull more weeds from the laneway bricks today but the rain may curtail that. It is half done now and does always look lovely when completed. 

Thank you God for the beauty of the earth and would that mankind directed their efforts towards preserving that earth for the generations to come. 

Tea drank and solitaire puzzles next. 

I had an email looking for the Landkey Parish Register files that I published in the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter. However I was only interested in Landkey up to the mid 1700s so nothing beyond that and those registers as published in the newsletter contain   Baptisms 1602-1766, Marriages 1602-1755, Burials 1602-1763. I will try to get an email reply done but time does escape this nearly 80 year old!

Finally, sweeping the front porch, patio and weeding down the laneway

 I finally got to sweeping the front porch and patio, weeding between the bricks and pulling weeds here and there in the front garden. I also started to work down the bricks along the laneway. It will take a bit of time to get that all done but then it will look lovely for a few days until the weeds grow again - hardy little things! A large bag of weeds and big branches that came down in the wind went out to the street for Collection Day. I just happened to walk to the back of the yard and discovered these large branches from the maple tree on the ground so that too is all cleared away. My daughter weeded the sunflowers although left enough weed that hopefully the rabbit will eat that instead of the sunflowers which are getting tougher stems and leaves now so less appealing. Next year, if we are still here, we will fence it at the beginning so that all the seeds get to grow. It was meant to be a large block of sunflowers. 

Some weeding in the back yard but not a great deal. The one side looks much as Edward last set it up but the other side, deteriorated greatly from last year, and putting in the new fences did not particularly help that. But as I approach 80 I am satisfied that I am at least keeping the grass cut with my daughter's help. I am not a gardener at the best of times but rather I just helped Edward through the 54.5 years of our marriage. All of us would have liked to have had him survive but life doesn't always flow the way we would like. 

Completed Chromosome 1 and there are a few very minor changes in the cross over points - a couple of them were very close together and the new results from Living DNA shows that these are shared crossover points for two siblings which makes it much neater. Two cross over points are somewhat ambiguous but the rest are within a couple of numbers of the original numbers obtained using 23 and Me data along with Gedmatch. I continue with just two crossover points on this longest chromosome.  I did discover that the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center states that it is typical to have 2-3 crossover points per chromosome during meiosis. It does look like 2 to 3 is the average for Homo sapiens on individual chromosomes. DNAeXplained mentions that Chromosome 1 has three crossovers 27% of the time. So that was interesting as well. With five sibling results I found that to be between 2 and 5 crossovers on Chromosome 1. In total for five siblings 40 chromosomes out of a total of 5x2x22 chromosomes were inherited without a crossover which will be verified by this work. That is 18% of the chromosomes inherited from our parents were passed unchanged from their parents. DNAeXplained mentions that 94% of offspring will inherit between 4 and 12 chromosomes that have no crossover points (i.e. inherited from a single grandparent). The 40 is an average between these two numbers 4 and 12 but slightly on the low side so that is also very interesting. Homo sapiens is refreshed each generation by the exchange of genes and it would appear that on average most meiotic events occur in an average exchange of chromosomal material at conception. 

We have much to learn about DNA and in general the best process is the natural process. However if people are willing to pay for it correction can be made for mitochondrial disease and eliminating harmful sections of DNA in order to produce a viable offspring. Do I believe in this? coming out of science background I cannot deny that benefits are perhaps available to people but we need a generation of testing to ensure that we do not upset the natural process which is always the best. What happens naturally in nature is generally the most forward way to move. Lifestyle has far more to do with a successful life than anything else but there are diseases that can curtail life for those unfortunate babies born with mitochondrial disease or other non-life supporting disabilities. But one must remember that Einstein did not speak until he was ten years of age - he had nothing to say that he valued up to that point presumably. So one must be careful how one judges the forward movement of children in learning. That is why AI is useless as a teacher but can be utilized under the control of researchers in a systematic manner to enable a much further reach into the literature in a much shorter period of time.  But skill and craftsmanship will always be better than AI which is really only a computer that we set up to serve a purpose. 

Today will be more work on the laneway perhaps; time will tell. Definitely I have plans to work on my matches and get them into the databases (chromosome 1 was just a feeler as to what might be there in this new data). Yesterday was weight lifting as the extra exercise so today is rowing for sure and whatever else comes to mind as the day flows forward. 

Drinking my tea having put away the items in the dishwasher and the first set of yoga-stretching exercises are completed. The next set just before breakfast again primarily walking and yoga along with one set of 100 jumping jacks. The day continues and I must get on with it. Solitaire puzzles are next for a bit of a brain teaser. 

One of these new style light fixtures wore out and we have four of them that are wired in (Edward loved all the new things for sure!). That is not really practical so will replace with screw in type fixtures over the next little bit. I need to go to the store and pick something out and find someone to do the work. I could do it but will do the right thing and employ someone locally if I can find someone. The washing machine will hopefully be repaired on Tuesday and today is Saturday and looks to be a lovely day. We had a good time kayaking and walking yesterday after working in the garden.  

 

 

Canada in its quest to rebuild its economic identity

When 85% of Canadians voted to support the Conservative and Liberal platforms this year which also elected the Liberal Party and Mark Carney as Prime Minister we had a purpose and that was to rebuild our economic identity lost during the long years of Free Trade. I do not think even once that Canada complained about Free trade. We should have resisted our Canadian companies being taken over and nothing being made here anymore hardly that was totally Canadian. But life was hard after the Second World War as we recovered in mind and soul. I can remember all of that and the flood of immigrants who came to Canada (and life is making itself like that again as floods of people want to come here) but gradually we entered into hum of reality after the Second World War and people prospered and the Free Trade deals were created. Was it our fault that the companies (generally American) that bought out Canadian companies then turned to Asia and produced their products there? No not really it was just finance but the punishment is huge now for us. The recovery of Canada is on the edge and needs help to move forward. Everyone pulling together but can one hang back and say no we just want it as it was. Is that even safe? the hordes are at the gates so to speak - internally there are those who would overthrow this beautiful democracy that has been created and turn it into a dictatorship run by the ultra rich it would appear. The ultra rich does not want to pay proper wages or provide care for people. They just want the profits from their companies or investments. They are selfish because they do not have a history of caring for the peoples of their land - they have no idea how that works (not part of their upbringing I guess) as they can see lots of people straining to come here and so there will always be replacements. Individually they do not need any of those who are not ultra rich because they can see replacements all over the world. Nothing is safe unless we, the public of Canada, take a stand and do what needs to be done to re-create our industries and build that energy corridor that will make us self-sufficient to the end of time. 

What prompted my thought? It was my washing machine just five years old and it needs repairs like a new belt to drive the washing drum and a hose because it leaks! I lived in a family of nine people and one washing machine ran for most of the time that I lived in that house. Now I do not abuse my washing machine - I treat it with tender loving care. It shouldn't have broken down in just five years. Well I can leave that with faulty workmanship where the belt is concerned and poor setup where the hose is concerned likely. We bought it just at the start of the COVID shutdown and it took two months to get it. The person who came to install it (and I did pay for that) did basically nothing; I had to install the dryer vent myself because he didn't like the setup. As it turned out my daughter's husband and her father in law finished the task as I was missing one item and it was perfectly installed with no effort. I paid to have it installed and I would never buy from that company again. They were irresponsible and took no care. I did have a warranty with them but it did expire a year ago. Well that is getting managed although I was tempted to just buy a new machine as I hate having all that trouble but really would I just be in the same state in five years but by then for sure I will have moved. It is just a small price a washing machine really less than one thousand dollars but the nuisance level is huge. We need to get back to where we build things and they are well built! Once this is fixed it will be a great machine once again. 

I do understand the desire to have life remain as it is without any interference; no one wanting to build roads or interfere in the forest area in order to create this energy corridor. Wab Kinew has it right though; we need to move forward as fast as possible and having a full service port on Hudson Bay is an excellent idea and would provide a means to get oil and canned gas to British Isles/European markets as well as western on a much more immediate basis.  We are limited by winter months though when Hudson Bay is frozen over. I also think the Pipeline to the eastern areas of Canada is a must so that we do not import our own oil back refined which we sold at a discount and pay far more to bring it back. Plus we can have an Atlantic Port as well for easier access during the long winter months. 

I continued yesterday working on Chromosome 1. As the longest chromosome it is a good starting point since I have already been through the angst of creating phasing diagrams. I think my chromosome one is very unusual as I inherited the entire Blake Chromosome intact from my father which he of course received from his father and it would have been a combination of his two grandparents and indeed on this chromosome I have a mixture of Known Knight and Blake. I only have two crossover points which  give me a length of Pincombe surrounded by two lengths of Buller. As chance would have it I have two know Buller cousins to collaborate on the second Buller length, no one known to collaborate on the Pincombe or the first Buller length. The Blake though is well represented with cousins descended from Ellis Knight and his wife Eleanor (Knight) Knight (likely 2nd cousins and my 3x great grandparents) covering the lengths from nearly the beginning of the chromosome to the end with some cutouts that are matching a cousin with whom I share the MRCA of Edward Blake and Maria Jane (Knight) Blake (my great grandparents). The Buller is particularly strong and all descendant of cousins with the MRCA of Henry Christopher Buller and Anne (Welch) Buller (my 2x great grandparents). It does make my chromosome 1 a rather perfect base for the five siblings. The Living DNA is giving me slightly different points of crossover but varying by very little in actual fact (the companies choose their testing point and they can vary here and there). Since this is not an exact science that I am using for the crossover but rather just the first two/three digits of the crossover point, one could perhaps one day be more precise since the actual values are known to nine digits or less for those under 100,000,000 centimorgans. It will be an interesting week working through the 22 chromosomes provided. 

Today I shall go out and fill a bag and hopefully sweep as the debris from the tree out front is collecting. Edward has a blower but I find it a bit heavy to carry about so a broom suits me well!

Tea drank and solitaire puzzles next. Beautiful out today as I put the garbage out early this morning as it is Collection Day. Time passes onward and waits for no one; we must keep running to stay caught up because not doing so exposes us to far more hazard than just keeping going as fast as we can. God the Creator made the world for all of us and we really must learn to live together and move forward together like Tecumseh and Brock all those many years ago and bring Canada to their economic might in the world. Because we will just be over run if we do not.  

Downsizing and a couple of new tasks

 Downsizing is great but a new task emerged which I had not considered before now. In our trips to the Northern United States in particular over the last fifty years we visited a lot of graveyards deep into the woods on occasion and took pictures of the gravestones of Edward's ancestors. There are two binders of these pictures (not actually part of the 40 plus binders that are under current survey) and I have resolved to put them into a *.pdf file and publish them as ancestral photos of gravestones and I think his index tells where they are located (hopefully). A smallish project really as just two binders but it has a greater likelihood of happening. What to do with the binders when I have completed the task? I could ask the OGS Library if they want them and will probably do that but the actual images are all scanned and in the backups so do not need to keep these printed pictures at all. 

So another task to do but it could be a diversion whilst I work on the cross-over points using the Living DNA data for the five siblings. I did begin with that yesterday and have Chromosome 1 completed as coming directly from the Living DNA data. I will work with this data somewhat as it is influenced, I think, by the points that have been selected by this company as testing points for DNA matching. Where there are very small gaps in particular I can ignore those as cross-over points as they are likely just a product of the methodology used for the actual running of samples. I note that it shows up quite strongly in just one sibling. The problem areas that I found with the original phasing is showing up quite consistently in these new match results and were truly ambiguous so that was good to find as well. 

I do want to get together the journal that I still contribute to the OGS Library along with some family newsletters and get them to the library. It is hard to believe that it is a year since I last took them a box of items. What I thought was a real stack is really just a few items actually as it included a box which turns out to be a bankerbox full of back-ups that we need to review and discard if they are backed up adequately in the present. These backups go back to the last century! 

Edward was very consistent in backing up all of his material from a very early time in the life of computers but then he did work with electronic messaging systems almost from his arrival at CISTI where he worked for 30 years. When he was there, retired in 2004,  it was a busy place heavily involved in research but then Prime Minister Harper sold the library to the United States which was pretty weird at the time and remains pretty weird. Why would anyone sell or close up libraries as he did - it will be forever a black mark against him trying to destroy research and gag researchers preventing them from attending particularly foreign conferences. Life moves forward always and if you do not like the research perhaps one should examine why that is rather than suffocating research. 

The oil industry must survive the perils of research the same as all other industries have overtime. Research perfects the system to make it better, safer and more economical. It was such items that cost the Conservative Party their control of government  in Canada. A return to the Progressive Conservative fundamentals is what is needed in order for them to win again - I am after all a Conservative but a great believer in science and its value in the human sphere. Attacking the Prime Minister on a personal level continues to be a no-go for me unless he is breaking the law. I do not care what stocks he owns if they are in a blind trust. Obviously the man is not stupid and does know where his money is likely invested. I haven't seen anything yet that I do not like that he is doing. He is walking a very fine tightrope dealing with this tariff issue and I was accepting of his saying that likely there will be a tariff in the end on Canadians exports to the United States that are not covered by CUSMA but we can do a claw-back on American imports just the same to match. Farm management is never up for change because we will protect our family farms! I mean putting tariffs on us at the time was unkind (which is basically a very weak comment on my part) considering the close and honest relationship between us and stripping shelves here of American products was just a tit for tat and continues thus.  That is life and the government coffers here need money to manage projects which are huge to come in this country once acceptance is gained by all involved parties (we let our local industries go over the past fourty years but now we can re-invent them and build this country to be the great powerhouse it will be). Roll up the sleeves and lets get to work building this energy corridor that 85% of Canadians voted for. Re-invent the industries that were destroyed by free trade over the past fourty years and get our youth working at meaningful work not sitting behind a desk staring at computers. The Americans will always be our friends though and for some of us our cousins!

So today is another research day. Yesterday I completed the fifth sibling's extractions from the Living DNA site. There are 230 new files to put into my databases and I have completed the first couple of them yesterday.  I have one new folder that will include all of those files that demonstrated endogamy and have already built the file structure for that as they will primarily be part of the Knight family (my great grandmother (wife of Edward Blake) and includes a number of family lines - Knight, Arnold, Butt, Ellis, and a couple of other ones where blocks of data are composed of sticky pieces of DNA coming down from these ancestors and looking like just one grandparent but are in reality coming down from several different great great great grandparents and can be readily distinguished and separated. These particular matches will not form part of the larger system that I use looking at new matches but rather just to illustrate the areas where endogamy is occurring and lets me slot these matches into the correct family line coming down from those 3x great grandparents. 

The smoke  slowly dissipating with Air Quality now at 69 which is still above good but not too bad. It is just 23 degrees celsius but feels like 28 degrees celsius apparently and rain is coming likely as the humidity is 94%. 

Drinking tea and solitaire puzzles are next and then breakfast.