Dress

The last couple of days have been dedicated to dressmaking and French Canadian ancestry researching. The dress is growing quickly and I shall hand stitch the zipper this evening. Just waiting for the children for Halloween - I think I will be glad that I only bought one box of candy since it is now 6:49 p.m. and not one child yet. We didn't decorate our house though and perhaps they are passing us by thinking we might not have candy. I can remember being a child and not going to houses with older people in them! Hopefully I will find someone to eat all the candy!

The dress is looking like a velvet dress and will be warm - that was my criteria actually. It is flowing nicely and will be quite suitable for the wedding and I probably could wear it again in the evenings sometimes. We are really enjoying dancing and are thinking of taking the next nine sets of courses over the next few years. Both being loners it is nice to have an activity like dancing that we can do together and even go out dancing if we want to do that. We tend to get very busy though and going out is something that we seldom do do.

I have been looking at tartan material as I would like to make a kilt (full length) and I will smock a top to represent my first ancestors to Canada - Routledge. The Sutherland tartan is used by the Routledge family now unless you are so lucky to find the Routledge tartan. The Routledge family were Highlanders but came down to Cumberland in the 1300s - 1400s. A very very long time ago - I suspect they were probably a very small clan and as the clans merged together they didn't fit in and they moved south. My own section of the Routledge family is mainly the socalled Oakshaw Routledge family. They tended to marry Routledge and usually a first, second, third, etc. cousin. Hence I have seven Routledge lines that have not yet come back together but I suspect they eventually will do so just from family lore. My 2x great grandmother had five of her eight grandparents (and likely six actually) known to have the Routledge surname at birth. One wonders if I will discover a Routledge in the two lines that are not - Tweddle and Robson!

Tomorrow I need to finish the dress - I still need to hang the skirt lining in and will do that after I have hand stitched the invisible zipper. Then just hemming the dress with my new shoes on and I will have completed it. However, I have enough velvet material to make a matching shawl so will do that (line it with the lining and trim it with fur - my daughter's suggestion and I rather think it is a good idea. It will certainly be different.

French Canadian

I have been researching French Canadian ancestors for our son in law to be's family. It has been a fascinating search through time as I am able to readily go back many many generations in his family lines. Many of the lines stretch back into the early days of Colonial New France and because so many are researching their lines a number of them have been brought back to their starting location in France. The Drouin Registers online at Ancestry are a must for French Canadian research. Again the indexing may now have the exact spelling that you would like but in general you can get the gist or even better you can sit and search the entire register which is my usual modus operandii anyway. For the most part we are now able to make up an eight generation chart which we wanted for the wedding but it will also be a nice gift for the newest baby of the family due next year. It is only half of their ancestry but a good start on the genealogy.

I also spent some time basting up my new dress. I shall begin to sew it today and so my time at the computer will be somewhat limited.

Our dancing lessons are going very well. Last night we learned the Cha-Cha. Our waltz is developing nicely and we are now dancing the Rhumba, Fox-Trot and Triple Swing with confidence. At the wedding we want to be able to dance a little and my husband wants to do his dance with his daughter.

A cloudy day today and it begins to look like winter is coming. Soon the snow will cover the ground and we will lose it once again buried under several metres of snow! It is nice if the snow does come early as it protects the rose bushes in this bitter climate. Winter can be cold in eastern Canada. It is also long. We really have a lot of winter, a very very short spring, a short summer and then into Fall and soon to be Winter once again. Winter lasts about six months here although some years closer to five months but once the snow comes we know it is with us for at least that length of time. On the other hand, it is long long dark evenings to work on microfiche. Reading microfiche is a challenge in the summer when our days are very long (light well past 2100 hours) and they begin early in the morning by 0400 hours.

Blake and Routledge

These two family lines have the most emails from others including 7x and 8x cousins. I worked through all the information on the Blake family that I have received and added a couple of documents to my excel file. The Routledge family has many many emails chocked full of information on the many different family lines at Bewcastle.

There is so much information on the Routledge family that I am still sorting through all of it. I am now aware that there were 56 Routledge families in 1604 all living on different parcels of land and primarily in the Bewcastle area. By 1641-42 there were 23 males at Bewcastle over the age of 18 who signed the Protestation Returns. In less than 40 years the number of potential families at Bewcastle had been reduced by more than 50%! The family lore that passed down was that following the ascension of James VI Scotland to the throne of England as James I the Border Reivers (of which the Routledge were numbered) were harassed from their lands in the Bewcastle area - many did not survive, some fled to Ireland and others stayed under very punitive conditions. Eventually I need to read the Manor Books to learn more about my Oakshaw branch of the Routledge family (which was, by the 19th century, slowly dying out). The Routledge family suddenly branches out through the late 18th century into the 19th century which was probably the reason for their survival to the present. Many Routledge/Rutledge (name in Ireland) families emigrated to the United States with my own emigrating to Canada in 1818.

Today I shall continue reading through the emails on the Routledge family and building up my file of my material so that I can extract all the Routledge, Robson and Tweddle information plus with a side look at the Armstrong, Bushby, Goodfellow and a couple of other lines that are related. Already I have found new material for my various lines. My 2x great grandmother Elizabeth Mary Ann Routledge's parents were Thomas Routledge (son of Henry Routledge and Margaret Tweddle) and Elizabeth Routledge (daughter of George Routledge and Grace/Grizzel Routledge). Mary Routledge's great grandparents were William Routledge and Grizzel Routledge, Thomas Tweddle and Margaret Robson, George Routledge (and unknown), Thomas Routledge and Mary Routledge. Mary has five Routledge great grandparents (and possibly six as the Oakshaw Routledge generally married another Routledge). Moving back one more generation will possibly see my lines start to "deflate" in that I may have shared great great grandparents but I am likely only going to be able to determine that by reading the manor records.

My Routledge family has always been very interesting to me because my mother had stories of her great great grandparents passed down through the family (her father was named John Routledge Pincombe for his maternal grandmother's side of the family and he and his mother were very close). His mother would have most of her aunts and uncles as a child growing up in London Township.

I started a new excel file for the CMBs of the Routledge family that I have collected in my trawling through Parish Registers, from other researchers and from the published works that I have. It is already over 1500 entries but not yet finished. I will continue to work away at that.

As well I have carried on with our daughter and son-in-law to be's family tree (our section is now penciled into the eight generation chart) and we have the maternal line now complete and need to pencil those entries in. Just the paternal line to do and it will be quite interesting more so perhaps for our daughter's future first niece or nephew due to arrive in 2010. I think I will make up a chart especially for them to go with the knitted sweater/leggings set that I need to start sooner rather than later. But first I need to sew my dress and today I shall do my tailor tacking.

Library Thing

I completed the entry of all of my parish register and other fiche into Library Thing. The next items to enter are the records and the rest of the music tapes. Then we can start on the books and other records upstairs. Our house is small but we have bookcases simply everywhere.

I want to get back to playing the piano once again. Probably I will begin in mid November. I am starting to see a better plan for working. My tendency to sit at the computer for eight hours and more a day is too much. I need to do some other type of work as well. I also want to get back to knitting and sewing. Injuring my shoulder is part of the reason for my spending so much time on the computer as it was something that I could still do. I would talk into the microphone and use the speak program to enter long sections of text which worked really very well once I had trained the system. I did play the piano a little but it did strain my shoulder and I couldn't knit or sew.

However, my shoulder is much improved and I can now get back to doing some of the things that I loved doing before I went back to work over twenty years ago now. Once I started to proofread eight hours a day I didn't really have the time to knit and sew and that was the beginning of it all. I love to smock and would like to do some of that again as well. My daughter's brother and sister in law are expecting a baby and I want to knit a little outfit for the baby for her to give to them. she is really very very busy with her third year of medicine. They are in the hospital full time now. I am so very proud of her for taking it on but I would really wish for her to be in research and do her Ph.D. but she is following the career she has always wanted and more power to her in that regard. I have no regrets on not doing it myself I must admit! It was my career path of many many years ago. I enjoy what I have done in terms of family and working.

Tomorrow is another busy day so I will probably not get too much done on transcription but hope to get back to it early next week.

Wills and other purchased electronic/paper documents

I have been thinking for a while that I should have an excel file of the location of wills and other purchased electronic/paper documents that includes the transcription file name and eventually an abstract of the document. I decided to do that yesterday and discovered that I have purchased 65 wills from The National Archives (£3.50 each) plus a number of documents that I have purchased the the Hampshire Record Office. I decided to add in other documents that I have acquired (wills from the Wiltshire Wills site before they started charging (and I will be buying some of there as well that have since come online)) which are useful in my research and I have found them online. Eventually I will purchase the original documents. I discovered that I have transcribed only 1/3rd of the wills that I have purchased from The National Archives - generally I read them and transcribe them when I am working on the family line.

I spent several months last year proving (in Legacy) my lines back to my 3x great grandparents. I am now working on the proofs of my 4x great grandparents - a number of them are done but there is a lot of work to do on others. I do enter information for individuals further back as acquired but my thrust at the moment is the proof of my 4x great grandparents and I am concentrating on that. Yesterdays endeavour was quite fruitful as I moved wills about that I had forgotten about and as my family folder has increased to allow for subfolders for family lines the wills didn't travel to the new folders - they are now there. What still remains to be entered are all the Routledge and Blake documents that I have purchased from Cumbria Record Office and Hampshire Record Office.

I also spent some time entering my fiche for parish registers into Library Thing. I am up to the "L" tab now and the second box. I will try to finish that today. We still have to enter the rest of the music tapes and records and then the living room is completely recorded. Then upstairs to work on Ed's study (5 large bookcases, 1 smaller bookcase and many many boxes), our bedroom with its 4 large bookcases of genealogical material. There are another couple of bookcases and several boxes in the other smaller rooms and then the basement with two large bookcases and we want to enter in the DVDs and Videos that we have. Once that is complete we can then sort the *.xls file and produce subfiles of everything. I want to be able to produce lists of material and name the repository that could be asked if they want the material in the future. All of the parish records will be offered to Christ Church Cathedral Archives first, then Library and Archives Canada, BIFHSGO and if not any of these I want them sent back to the Record Office that I purchased them from. The same for all of the books that I have purchased as I am building up a substantial library of items. All of this material is only useful to people who are researching my family lines :). I keep my family up to date on my progress and include transcriptions.

Yesterday was dancing day and we learned the waltz. I was fumbly at first as I haven't danced the waltz in a long long time. But finally we were whizzing around the floor. Ed dances very well. We need to practice turns in the Fox Trot and in the West Coast Swing. We will work away at that this next week. Cha Cha is the new dance next week. In some ways I wish we would just practice now to perfect our steps but it will be interesting to dance the Cha Cha - I do not think I ever have. I love the Polka but it is usually taught in the more advanced dancing lessons. Perhaps we will join a dancing club (ballroom dancing).

I updated my footnotes on my DNA article and sent it off along with another Member's Interest for BIFHSGO. It is my only volunteerism with BIFHSGO. I want to eventually construct an interesting way to look at the Member's Interests. I would like to do it by county where available and make it more user-friendly. Perhaps this winter will present time that I can use for that. This is my catch-up winter in that I will try not to purchase any new material until I have transcribed everything that I have - I do get led astray on occasion!

I discovered an interesting database on the Devon Genuki site and extracted all the Bishops Nympton wills which included a number of my ancestors. I do have the wills but did not know the source before. It is the Inland Revenue copy of the will. Excellent source.

Library Thing

I have been trying to get all my fiche into Library Thing and started back at that last evening and will continue with that today. It will make it easier to sort through what I have and mark it as completed once I have transcribed it and then I can attach a file number to it.

I am also going to work on an Index of Wills that I own - three excel worksheets - one for The National Archives, one for Other electronic and one for paper wills. It is a project that I have had in mind for quite a while. Eventually I could attach an abstract to each one to make the file very handy.

Mailbox

Today was clean up the mailbox day - reducing over 300 emails down to the 70 emails for which I need to do material things - due date for BIFHSGO journal is now; updates to the Genuki church locations (about 25 have collected over the past month with people visiting churches which is great); emails to new members of the Hampshire DNA group (my numbers have climbed this month); marriage challenges to check and see if there are any Pincombe or Siderfin marriages to find, and a few other items.

Still waiting for my death certificate for Mary Blake - I am hoping it is my great grandmother's registration as I still am missing her death date. I purchased an earlier one but it was incorrect although right time frame (1930). This one is 1928 and I think it may be right as the death was in Bridport where her son and his family lived. Referring to her as Mary seems strange as she was always Maria Jane or Maria on the census through the years including the 1911 census. Her husband Edward died in 1916 and I rather think that she and Great Aunt Annie lived together in the Yew Cottage at Goodworth Clatford until Annie married again in 1923. After that I know that she lived with each of her children for six months at a time because my father mentioned that about his grandmother whom he remembered. Since she wouldn't come to Canada they used to send money for her to have on a regular basis while she lived with her other children. Also Harry in Toronto did the same thing (my father's uncle).

Tomorrow another busy day with dancing in the evening. I want to scrub down the walls in the hallway and kitchen. That will almost finish the main floor. I need to enter the fiche into Library Thing and there is quite a bit to do there. I am in a "housecleaning mood" it would appear plus we want to get all of our books, music, and genealogical material into Library Thing as an inventory.

Publication - DNA

I woke up with ideas for my writeup of my presentation at the BIFHSGO so decided to type it while it was fresh in my brain. I have seven pages now that need footnoting and some revision here and there but mostly together. I should be able to submit it by the end of October. It will be good to have that done and not hanging over my head into the winter. As it turned out I completed it today and sent it off. I ended up with eight pages single space and 42 footnotes. I assume they will either ask me to shorten it or shorten it themselves. I am basically fine with that. It was a 1 hour and 15 minute talk and I left out a number of items that I discussed but rather kept to the gist of what I had planned to say in my outline.

Other than that I did not actually accomplish anything else today. I have my pattern all cut out for my dress now and just need to cut out the material. I may start on that tomorrow as I would like to have it completed before the end of October. We also practised dancing - we are quite accomplished at Rhumba and our Fox Trot is looking good. But the West Coast Swing is still coming along.

Tomorrow I want to do some sewing.

Church

We went to Church this morning and it was Stewardship Sunday. The sermon was quite interesting and a somewhat novel way to encourage people to increase their givings to the Church. Our Church has an annual budget of nearly $800,000 but it is the Church that is used for State affairs in Ottawa. I continue to tithe my small pension and will do so as long as I live. The last thirty years I have contemplated how I can serve God best and have endeavoured to do so. For nearly twenty years I helped at my husband's United Church but I must admit I am happy to be "home" again in my Anglican Church. I tend towards the idea that Church is between God and I and I do what I can do help His mission on earth. My work now involves transcribing the Parish Records of my families Churches so that others may also be able to search them readily. I need to discover how to share them more readily and I will soon start to work at that. I have done some publishing which is one means at my disposal. But not all of my records lend themselves to publishing in county journals simply because they are much too long - the Parish Registers of Bishops Nympton are over 900 pages long.

I decided to search the Buller wills once again on The National Archives site and I decided to download John Buller in Westminster. He mentions all of his children (will probated in 1780) which included John (his eldest son), Henry, Edward (from his first marriage to Mary St Aubyn) and then his second wife Caroline Elizabeth and their children: Frederick, George and Augustus. No Christopher so now I know that the family at St Marylebone is not closely related. John also mentioned his brother (Reverend Doctor William Buller) who is an Anglican priest. His brother was to be one of his overseers so that was the reason for mentioning him. He could still have other siblings that could be the father of Christopher. Sometimes eliminating people works just as well as finding them. I notice though that his last child Augustus was baptized at Saint Martin in the Fields where Clara Buller (older sister to my great grandfather Edwin Denner Buller) was baptized in 1846. George Buller second youngest son was baptized in 1775 at Saint Martin in the Fields. Frederick William Buller was baptized in 1773 at Saint Martin in the Fields. His first family were all born at Morvall Cornwall - his first wife was Mary St Aubyn and they married 31 Mar 1760. John was born circa 1761, Henry circa 1763 and Edward circa 1765 (Sir Edward Buller). If my Buller line is related to this one, I have not yet found a link. I always find Henry Christopher (my 2x great grandfather) in Birmingham if he isn't in London so would be (and I have investigated this as well) more interested in the Watwickshire Buller family. None of this family has provided me with any leads either thus far!

We went for an 11K bicycle ride (probably one of our last ones for this year although if the weather holds we may still get to ride into November). I am just past Edmonton in my virtual walking/biking tour across Canada (starting from Victoria in British Columbia).

Tomorrow I need to start working on my dress and I shall transcribe more of the Andover register.

Lecture at BIFHSGO and images for Andover

Today we attended a lecture at BIFHSGO which is unusual for us but mostly just because we haven't had a chance to attend many meetings - time has escaped us. The lecture today was by a noted English researcher touring North America. Lady Mary Teviot speaking on "I never thought of that: a second look at problems." Lady Mary is President of the Federation of Family History Societies. Her lecture was quite good and she managed to give a taste of pretty well all of the records one would find in a Parish Chest plus other items of interest. Although I didn't learn anything new at all it was interesting to hear how she solved some interesting dilemmas. I had had my own dilemma with my paternal grandmother and discovering her birth/baptism records and the pattern for finding these records is basically quite similar. Find them on the census every ten years. If you cannot find them then start looking at their siblings (in this case half-siblings) and find the mother's maiden name. Once found then buy the marriage registration and you will then have her mother's father's name. Then look at the census again and in my case I found my grandmother with her grandparents as a child of five. Then I could order the birth registration and I also found her baptism. In this case it was exactly where my father had said she was baptized - it was the name not being the same through the census.

For some of my ancestral lines I can just move back easily through the parish records, land records, wills of a particular village and there is my line but for others it is a lot of deep searching through adjoining parishes (wondering how my families moved about so often in the 16th and 17th centuries!) looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. I only have one line that extends back into London (my 2x great grandfather Henry Christopher Buller's family) and the new release on Ancestry of the LMA parish registers has been a wondrous happening which will involve long hours of working my way through adjoining parishes to see if I can find the marriage of my 3x great grandparents Christopher Buller and Mary Beard (which fortunately Henry Beard my 4x great grandparent mentions in his will). Working my way back through the Beard family will also be a challenge although the marriage of my 4x great grandparents Henry Beard and Elizabeth Hemsley is known. A lot of her talk was looking at London records so again I found that interesting as she was verifying my thought on just how I am going to find some items. Parishes are very close together and people moved from one parish to another. I will need to do the hard slogging through the registers to find the details I am presently missing.

I spent the first part of the morning before going off to the lecture looking at the Routledge material once again. I know that I am descended from the Oakshaw Routledge family which means a lot of close Routledge marriages and already Mary (my 2x great grandmother) has six of her eight great grandparents with the surname Routledge, the other two surnames are Tweddle and Robson. I think it is highly likely that many of the 16 2x great grandparents are also Routledge and with others being Nixon, Tweddle, Robson, and Bushby. As more and more Oakshaw wills come to light that will assist me in putting together my Routledge family but I suspect that eventually I will come back to one or two Routledge lines with my ancestry collapsing as I move back rather than expanding! But then that is how it has to be as there were not millions and millions of people so at some point I have to have many many ?x great grandparents in common. I have three instances now - the Routledge family, the Blake family (two lines thus far) and the Knight family (two lines - two of my 3x great grandparents were first cousins - Eleanor Knight and Ellis Knight). This does have an impact on my family tree reducing the number of ancestors that I have.

I will start in on Parish Register 3 for Andover. I was debating where to start my transcriptions but I am really keen to have a close up look at this time period in Andover. I also need to work on Timberscombe as my one use usage of the Bishops Transcripts runs out in the spring and I need to have completed the transcription and sent it back to the co-ordinators so that it can be submitted to FreeREG and to the LDS. This winter will be a lot of transcription of the various registers that I have purchased in the last six years of doing genealogy. I want to complete everything before I begin purchasing of items once again. I still have a stack of printed documents for Andover (Foxcott in particular) to look at to discover more about my Blake family there.

I also have a number of Routledge wills that I need to transcribe. When I purchased them I did not have any real idea of which particular abode was theirs so I have a mixture of wills that seemed interesting. As it turns out I do know that some of my Routledge ancestors were from Oakshaw but other lines were from different areas so my purchases will all probably be quite interesting.

We purchased some material which I will make up into the pattern. My husband likes this material although I am partial to the velvet. We will see how it looks! My sewing begins on Monday. It actually shouldn't take very long. The longest part is sometimes the pressing.

Dresses and trancription

My life has been so incredibly busy this past year but none the less I have found time for some really good transcription. Today though we helped at the OGS Library sorting through the reference books. After that we decided to go out for lunch and on the way we went to the fabric shop so that I could look at dress patterns. I found the exact pattern that I liked and debated between satin and velvet for the dress. I believe that velvet has won out because it is a winter wedding. I think that I will have a burgundy velvet and I would be able to wear the dress again because velvet is so versatile. Satin would always have the problem of not being overly friendly as a material although it looks fantastic. Now that the really tough part is done - deciding on the pattern I can purchase the material and get the dress sewn up. Then I will let my daughter decide if it suits her to have me wear that for her wedding and if not I will go and buy one of those beaded dresses that I really loathe but they do look like wedding fare.

I am not sure if I will have any trimming on it as I really do not care for trimming and I do not think I will make the puffed sleeve in chiffon although that would look very nice. I think I will stick with all velvet and it will be floor length. If we really take to dancing then we can occasionally perhaps go and dance and the dress will be suitable for that. I have low heeled pumps to wear with the dress already (black) and I will use makeup and my hair will be done in some sort of a style that will suit. I will not colour my hair as I like it the way that it is - salt and pepper it is called for the moment although becoming more salt than pepper these days.

I need to decide on the lining material and I rather think I will use a fine cotton rather than a nylon lining. The fine cotton will be quite nice and they have lots of colour. I will shrink the cotton first though I think just to be on the safe side. These days velvet is quite washable but some times the preshrunk cotton are best shrunk at home as well. I will have to get my steamer going to do the best job on the seams. I will be nice and warm in velvet as well and can wear one of my shawls to keep me quite warm.

This morning I had an interesting email from one of the Routledge researchers:

Carlisle Record Office Will of Archibald FORRESTER of Cleughside, Bewcastle [Bc] 1767, pg 63.

Grace Forrester, deceased poss. The mother of John Routledge

John Forrester, Wit

Adam Routledge s o Mary, Wid

George Routledge, of Oakshaw , Bc , father of 2 children

Grace Routledge, daughter of [d o ] Mary Routledge, Wid

Henry Routledge, s o Mary R*

Henry Routledge of Borderrigg, dec., father of 3 children

John Routledge s o Mary R*, Wid

John Routledge, my “sister’s son, s o Grace Forrester (sister of testator?)

Leondard Routledge of Oakshaw

Mary Routledge of Crossgreens or Strandsheads, Wid, mother of Grace, Mary, Adam, John & Henry

Mary Routledge, d o Mary, Wid

William Routledge of Oakshaw, deceased, father of William R*

William Routledge of Oakshaw s o late William Routledge

Francis Armstrong, Wit

Catherine Dowglass of Ash w o Thomas Douglas

Thomas Dowglass [sic Douglas ] of Ash husband of Catherine

Catherine Henderson d o Robert & Helenor Henderson

Helenor Henderson wife of Robert and mother of Catherine

Robert Henderson husband of Helenor & father of Catherine

Alexander Kennedie of Cleughside, Friend husband of Sibella

Catherine Kennedie of Cleughside, d o Alexander

Elizabeth Kennedie of Cleughside

John Kennedie of Cleughside s o Alexander

Sibella Kennedie of Cleughside w o Alexander

William Kennedie of Cleughside s o Alexander

The bolded items make this will abstract especially interesting as George and Grace, and Henry (of Broderrigg) are my 4x great grandparents. Finding that Mary Routledge (widow, husband was Thomas Routledge of Hill) of Kirkbeckstown was Grace's mother was a real surprise as I tentatively had her as the daughter of Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth Storye (this Thomas being of Oakshaw and brother to Henry of Broderrigg). The Kennedy family included may also prove to be interesting as Grace Routledge (daughter of my 3x great grandparents Thomas Routledge (son of Henry above) and Elizabeth Routledge (daughter of George and Grace above)) married George Arthur Kennedy in 1810 at Bewcastle. I was a little led astray as my mother remembered there were a number of close cousin marriages in her Routledge ancestry. Mind you Thomas Routledge of Hill could be related; I still need to work on that. I also do not know the relationship between the Routledge family of Oakshaw and the Routledge family of Kirkbeckstown. Henry at Broderrigg was born at Oakshaw.

Tomorrow I want to look at material - my daughter suggested an embossed velvet so will have a look at that. I want to purchase the material right away and get the dress finished so no rush at the end.

H11 haplogroup

An inquiry from one of the members of my H11 haplogroup study resulted in my discovering that I have four new members. I updated the spreadsheets to reflect the new members and they continue to fit into the patterns of H11a, H11b, H11c, and H11d. Although these ultimately may not be the subgroupings that are chosen for the phylogenetic chart (mine is now H11a2) they do reflect that there are now four distinctly different lines in H11. Since the study is ongoing though I will not comment further in my blog. Geographically mtDNA FGS results appear to be localized to particular areas and in my case my results point to Argyllshire Scotland. Thus far I have two close matches (when personal mutations are removed they are perfect matches) with individuals who can personally trace back to Argyll. Since I have absolutely no idea of my ancestry prior to the Midlands of England I have found this very interesting. Family lore has always given me a few hints - auburn hair (red tints) and freckles which tend to make one think of Scotland and Ireland. My grandmother sang a Celtic Lullaby which is reminiscent of Ireland/Scotland when I was a child which was one she remembered her mother singing. My grandmother was the eldest of seven children so would have remembered her mother singing very well.

Today, I need to start looking at my Genuki webpages to bring them up to date. The past summer has wrecked havoc on my pages in terms of updating them and correcting the excel files that I uploaded with BMBs. I need to create the files myself in order to have them read correctly and this will be an enormous task. I need to decide how to do that in the simplest manner possible.

As well I want to continue with my will/land documents transcriptions of items that I have purchased in the last five years. I want to refrain from making any more purchases (unless something really exciting is sent to me) until I have completed all of these transcriptions. I expect it will be a full winter's work to do that.

I started my transcriptions of standing material with the will of Robert Chettle of the borough of Leicester, Leicestershire. He isn't my direct ancestor (mine spell their name Cheatle as well and they are at Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire) but I was curious about him and his will was on the National Archives so I purchased it along with a second one on the NA. It is an interesting will.

Tomorrow I continue with reading all the material that I have.

Buller and Beard families

I sent an update to the members of the Emma Hemsley Buller Debnam family that are researching their family tree. Thus far they are the only other descendants of Christopher Buller (my 3x great grandfather) that I have found researching this family line. I know that the Carswell line died out as did most of my Buller line. I do not know about the Churchyard line yet.

I have one Beard correspondent and I contacted him yesterday to see if he had discovered anything interesting yet in the new London records. He is working away at that. We do not know yet if our Beard family lines are in common. I shall have another look at the Beard family though as he too found the John Beard (widower) and Mary Wood marriage at St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey and they were from Deptford Kent. The Wood surname is interesting as a Benjamin Buller married a Susannah Woods at Halesworth Suffolk in 1792. But I suspect that the surname Wood/Woods is a fairly common one unfortunately.

Back from the Dentist with a new cap and I forgot they do not freeze for that. I just have two molar left to cap if they ever need it.

I spent the last couple of hours reading the parish registers on Ancestry for London and environs. I found a number of Buller families at St Marylebone and a couple at St Olave Bermondsey. Still no baptism for Christopher though. I was also checking for Beard and did not find any yet. Henry was born/baptized around 1740.

I also updated the Debnam (Buller) research group with my finds and also my own family. I need to update Legacy with all the new images. Lots of work to do.

My "cousin" Thomas Routledge has managed to trace his Routledge family back to Kirkbeckmouth near Bewcastle Cumberland. I am still more or less stuck in the late 1600s although I know that my line is Oakshaw Routledge and in a general way I know where they are back into the 1400s but my specific line I am still ambivalent about. More work to do there as well.

Tomorrow I will continue typing up loose ends.

Thanksgiving

My weekend since coming home from Cape Cod disappeared rapidly. We had Thanksgiving here and there were the four of us plus the two dogs. We had a grand time and the bird looked very Thanksgiving like. I made a bean salad of which I am very fond, plus jellies (orange and cranberry), carrots and onions, salad tray and dip, cheese puff pastries, jam tarts, baked potatoes and yam, and then a pumpkin pie. The bird was stuffed with a bread stuffing and a sausage stuffing. The dogs enjoyed their share of thanksgiving meat as well.

I worked away on Henry Beard's will (four full pages) and completed the 191 lines of transcription. I have meant to do it for awhile and it was interesting. I had skimmed through it finding that he was the father of Mary Beard married to Christopher Buller when I first purchased it. However, it answers a number of questions about Henry Christopher Buller the only living son of Christopher and Mary Buller. When I find him in the early 1830s married to Sophia Scroope they are living on Lamb Conduit Way and he has a pork butcher shop there (purchased now I am sure by the trust in his grandfather Henry Beard's will). I wasn't sure before whether he had married into the Welch family and acquired his Butcher Shop in that way but this has clarified that completely. I am hoping that I might learn more about the Buller family through the Scrooby family that he married into. Neither child appears to have survived from the Henry and Sophia marriage and Sophia had died by 1838 when Henry remarried as a widower at Edgbaston (Anne Welch daughter of William Welch). That has certainly answered all the questions about Henry that I had hanging about with regard to his being a widower. I notice this surname (Scrooby) is quite rare when I check it out on the surname profiler.

Today I have completed the will of Henry Beard and then worked on the will of Jane Buller (Henry's widow) which continues with interesting information on Christopher Buller. I also now have the married names (including husband's name) of the two sisters of Mary Beard - Sarah and Elizabeth. Sarah married Michael Jacob Denner (also a slopcutter) listed as a Gentleman of the Isle of Dogs. Elizabeth (now widow) had married William Millin. Again the setting up of a Trust for the children of Mary Beard is paramount in her will which is not probated until 5 Jan 1822 although written in 1817. The burial that I found in the non parochial registers in 1821 is quite likely her burial. I must purchase the record in the near future. In her will she asked to be buried at Burnhill Fields in London.

I have a third will for the Beard family - Richard Beard who died in 1823. I had purchased it hoping to discover if he would mention any brothers as the individual who originally sent me the excerpt from Henry Beard's will that mentioned Christy Buller has Henry with two brothers (Richard and Edward) and one sister Sarah. I have not yet been able to verify this information as Henry does not mention any brothers. Richard's will mentions his children (and wife but not by name) Joseph George, John William, Ann Elizabeth and James Charles. Interesting to find them all with second names. Richard would appear to be a baker by trade.

Tomorrow I have to have my permanent cap put on but I will probably work on some transcriptions as I get used to the new tooth!

Cape Cod Trip and Whale Watching

The week flew by on us whilst we were visiting Cape Cod and I didn't post even once. Unfortunately I took ill on the second day and was out of action until the end of the third day so missed out on a big portion of the trip. The whale watching did not happen as there were gale force winds blowing and the others had a dune buggy trip instead which I expect was quite nice. I would have found it interesting but was quite content to just lie quietly and let the illness leave me.

It is an eleven hour bus trip from here to Cape Cod with stops for lunch and several breaks so about 8.5 hours of driving time. I finished off my book on the Templars and read most of my book on the Little Ice Age: How climate made History 1300 - 1850, by Brian Fagan, which I will elaborate on later. Excellent book and I shall do a book report on it for Ed as it has strong genealogical indications for those searching their family lines particularly in Europe (northern), Scandinavian Peninsula and the British Isles. I shall have to look at some of the interesting entries I have found in the parish registers as they refer to severe storms and highly elevated death rates and compare them with the text of the book.

I did work on one of my large documents and transcribed some of it but for the most part I simply relaxed and got better. I was improved enough to have my lobster dinner - I ate sparingly and concentrated on my baked potato but did eat the tail of my lobster which was very lovely (without any added butter!). I ate it slowly and munched it a long time so as to enjoy every morsel that I allowed myself.

Back to work tomorrow although I have more or less decided to sew my dress for our daughter's wedding. I simply didn't find what I was looking for and I really do not want to buy a dress with beadwork as it just isn't me. I shall find a nice brocade and make a style that I like.

Maria Jane Blake nee Knight

I have been looking for the Death Registration for my great grandmother Maria Jane married to Edward Blake 29 Oct 1870 at Upper Clatford about as long as I have been doing research (6 years). I have searched the GRO Index a number of times in the early days and came up with one possibility and ordered the certificate. It was incorrect as I was misinterpreting the family lore about her youngest son. Going back to England and meeting with his direct line I refocused my thoughts with regard to where Maria Jane was after Edward died 18 July 1916 at Yew Cottage Goodworth Clatford. With the arrival of the 1911 census I have discovered that Edward, Maria Jane and Henry were at Yew Cottage in 1911. I have also discovered that the marriages of Mary Elizabeth and Edith Kathryn were also at Goodworth Clatford in 1907 and 1911 respectively. I have also just found that Sarah Ann's second marriage (she was widowed during the first world war) was also at Goodworth Clatford in 1923. The death of Edward in 1916 and the death of George Mattocks (Sarah Ann's first husband) would have meant the mother and daughter were both widowed within a couple of weeks of each other and Sarah had a son who was six years old. I know that Sarah taught school at Upper Clatford on into the 1950s. Having now visited the area Sarah could easily have lived at Goodworth Clatford and taught school at Upper Clatford. I also know that Maria started living with all her children sometime in the 1920s and spending six months with each of her children before she died. With this information at hand I again searched the Death Registrations from 1923 on and I found five individuals who could conceivably be my great grandmother but the last one in the third quarter of 1928 caught my eye as she had died at Bridport. Bridport is where my grandfather's youngest brother lived and so I think I have now found Maria Jane but her name was listed as Mary and her age as 90. It is quite easy to make a mistake between 90 and 80 and Maria is found less commonly these days. There wasn't a Mary Blake on the 1911 census at Bridport born in 1850 plus or minus 5 years. I have now ordered the certificate and we shall see if my much longer think through has been more effective than my rambunctious thinking of my early days in Genealogy! Genealogy is always a surprise.

Still reading The Knights Templar and feel a real affinity with the book. They espouse my thoughts on the Celtic Church of England and its influence in those early years of Christianity. Although many say that Henry VIII was the root cause of the Church of England no longer being in communion with the Roman Church I tend to think that it was a process that had been at work for centuries as the Celtic wing of the Church gained supremacy with regard to their discussions with the monarchy. Henry had something he wanted and the Celtic Church knew a way for him to do it that allowed their wing to become the main wing of the Church of England.

I have to decide which wills and other documents to transcribe this week. I have done some of the easier ones and now it is probably time to try a few of the really hard to read ones! I have several really good ones that will be a test of the eyesight and patience. Initially one jumps at the BMBs and BMDs to find one's relative but gradually I have come to realize that I need so much more in terms of information in order to firmly tie down the particular line without a trace of doubt.

Carter Family at Andover

I have been curious about the Carter Family at Andover and a couple of years ago I bought the will of Gyles Carter (written 10 Sep 1675 and probated 29 July 1681). He was married to Mary Pinchin 30 May 1654 at Andover Hampshire and they had a total of eight children (one baptism is missing from the IGI - Thomas (third eldest son))six sons and one daughter. Gyles carefully annotates each piece of land (even to the half acre) that he is devising to his sons. The land as he described it runs/abuts land that the Blake family was also living on and indeed he mentions Robert Blake once as being one of the abutted land adjoiners.

My interest stems from two items - a marriage between Thomas Blake and Ann Carter on the IGI at Penton Mewsey 8 September 1728 but all of the entries are patron submitted. The marriage of Thomas Blake does not appear at Andover that I have discovered thus far. I have the fiche for Penton Mewsey and indeed the marriage of Thomas Blake and Ann Carter is listed: Thomas Blake and Ann Carter both of this parish were married their Banns being first published according to the Order of the Church of England 1728. The question is - is this my Thomas Blake? It could be because Penton Mewsey is only 3 miles northwest of Andover and Foxcott is 2 miles to the northwest of Andover where it is believed that Thomas grew up. The two villages were only 1 mile apart and the manor of Foxcott abutts the manor of Penton Mewsey.

Interestingly Anne the wife of Thomas Blake was buried 20 September 1734 at Penton Mewsey. Their second son Thomas was buryed 22 September 1734 at Penton Mewsey but the two sons of Thomas and Ann Blake were baptized at Andover - Joseph (my 4x great grandfather) 21 Oct 1730 and Thomas - 19 Sept 1734. It would seem possible that the Thomas and Ann baptizing children at Andover are the Thomas and Ann married at Penton Mewsey. Once I have transcribed the registers up to 1740 for Andover I will be surer that there wasn't a marriage of a Thomas Blake and Ann unknown there. Finding more information on Thomas living at Foxcott would be handy. I do know that a Thomas Blake was buried at Andover 13 Jan 1767. Deciding that this is the correct Ann is a challenge and I shall wait before I commit to this particular marriage. Ann Carter is a descendant of Gyles Carter.

The priest may have seen Thomas as a member of his parish. The second Carter marriage was Thomas King and Mary Carter who married 10 Jan 1728 at Upper Clatford and they were my 5x great grandparents - their daughter Joanna King married the son of Thomas Blake - Joseph Blake. These are my two Carter interests.

Tomorrow I shall continue to check out the parish registers looking for the baptism of Thomas the two day old baby that was buried at Penton Mewsey. I do have the baptism of Thomas (son of Joseph and Ann) at Andover 19 Sep 1734 and a marriage for a Thomas Blake and Hester Stephens 9 Feb 1752 at Andover. My suspicion is that the Ann marrying Thomas Blake and the mother of Joseph and Thomas is not the Ann Carter who married a Thomas Blake at Penton Mewsey and was buried there 20 Sep 1734.

Carter - Hinxman

An interesting document that I ordered from the Hampshire Record Office several years ago is my next transcription endeavour. I ordered it because it is looking at Foxcott where William Blake died in 1696. The Carter family is most interesting because Thomas King my 5x great grandfather married Mary Carter of Andover. The name isn't uncommon but there is a thread of relatedness running between the King family and the Carter family and the Blake family of Abbotts Ann. The tentative wife for Thomas Blake my 5x great grandfather was/is Ann Carter. I am still proving/disproving this marriage. I do know that Thomas Blake my 6x great grandfather died at 29 leaving behind a young son who was (by family lore) raised by his widowed mother in a cottage at Foxcott. Putting the pieces together in this thirty year space can perhaps be best accomplished by these land records - at least that was my intent in buying them. There are still a lot more records that I could look at once I figure out which are the best records to look at - that means an indepth search of the database at the Hampshire Record Office and once I have the documents that I already purchased transcribed then I can fill in the missing areas.

Eventually Joseph Blake my 4x great grandfather moves from Andover to Upper Clatford and marries Joanna King (daughter of above mentioned Thomas King and Mary Carter). Thomas mentions the daughter of John Blake Malster at Abbotts Ann in his will and his son in law Joseph in his will (I was somewhat shocked that Joanna didn't even get one line!) and that he is to inherit everything that he has. Joseph died just five years later leaving behind one daughter and one son and a posthumously born son Thomas (my 3x great grandfather). This Thomas is then mentioned in the will of John Blake Malster at Abbotts Ann and John also gives money to the Church at Abbotts Ann and Upper Clatford. Sorting through this maze will likely be quite fascinating especially if the end result is orderly.

I completed the document and will just have a look through it before I send it off to my correspondent on the Blake-Hinxman family. It was an interesting document. I can not really see a relationship between Carter and Hinxman except he is helping her out by ultimately buying back the property. In the 1600s the Hinxman family held Foxcott Manor.

Tomorrow I shall continue transcribing but haven't decided what to work on yet.

Blake, Hinxman, Question and others

It was a very busy day today as I wanted to send off the transcription I did yesterday of an Indenture between Christian Hinxman and William Barber in the 1680s. It was interesting because it mentioned a place called Woolrer's Deane. My other correspondent is interested in the Hinxman family that was at Deane in the 1700s. The similarity of the day struck me as interesting and I transcribed the document - a huge document in four pieces (one can only imagine the size of the original with all of its seals!). Peter Blake was also mentioned at Clatford and this is the brother of my 8x great grandfather William Blake. Thus far I have not find any references to this William other than his death in 1696 at Foxcott and his marriage in 1644 to Ann Hellier (plus the baptisms of their children). I need to transcribe the next parish register at Andover and see if there is anything helpful in there.

That completed I then decided to support my niece running in the 5K Breast Cancer race and that done we then watched a couple of issues of MASH. Always an interesting series to watch. We then went off to find a lamp shade for our ancient floor lamp. It was already old when we acquired it shortly after we were married. It was rewired so really an old outside and a new inside! However we were not able to find a lampshade that fits it yet. We also went to Marks Work Warehouse to buy my woolen work socks for winter. We keep our house fairly cool (about 20 and cooler at night) so one needs warm wool socks in the winter here.

We then entered more Music CDs into Library Thing and we are slowly getting everything entered that is on the main floor. We hope to complete that task in another couple of weeks. We still have records and tapes plus my fiche to do.

Then off to look at flowers for the wedding and we have booked Flowermania. It is a simple display as the dress itself is aboslutely lovely but quite unadorned itself. It will make beautiful pictures and having the simple uncluttered lines will be quite lovely I think. Just the Rehearsal Party left to plan once we know the dates that our daughter isn't on call at the hospital. The hospital is a well oiled machine with all sorts of schedules that keep it running smoothly and although only a third year medical student she fits into that master plan and we need to work everything around that.

Now I have finally gotten back to the project that I planned first thing this morning for today and that is an Indenture between Thomas Grace Yeoman of Highcleere and Joseph Hinxman of North Hinton. Although I purchased this thinking it might be helpful to me - the Hinxman documents have been interesting but do not clarify anything about my Blake line other than times which is helpful actually.

The Indenture is very interesting actually and the original owner of the tract with Mary Carter Spinster which is really interesting. The Carter family was married into the King family at Upper Clatford (my line) and I am still sorting them out. I have Gyles Carter will to transcribe in my stack. It was his grandaughter that married Thomas King my 5x great grandfather.

Tomorrow I want to finish the Indenture and perhaps start on yet another document that deals with Foxcott. I think that my 4x great grandfather Joseph Blake grew up in a cottage at Foxcott which his father had grown up in with his widowed mother. However proving it will be a challenge but each time I find details that mention family names that marry into the Blake line I transcribe the document to see if I can find clues to point the way.