Monday, August 31, 2020

Pincombe Newsletter complete

 I completed the Pincombe Newsletter yesterday and it will be published online tomorrow but only in the project as I have decided not to publish the abbreviated anonymized version in my blog any longer. For the moment this blog is about life under COVID-19 and will continue as such until we move back into life without COVID-19 sometime in the future. IF we continue to practise safe behaviour of wearing masks, keeping 6 metres distance from anyone not in your bubble then in time when a vaccine is available life should return to normal. After all we have defeated smallpox which was another very deadly disease. 

Labour Day comes next week and traditionally that has always been a holiday in Canada. Hard to believe we will be at the first of September tomorrow. The children return to school beginning on the 8th of September. For them some normalcy in their lives would be rather nice for sure.

Sunday, August 30, 2020

And the week begins again

 Had a phone call yesterday to say Church will begin in person. I am still hoping for that email in my box with the Church Service every week. I am finding that to be very handy especially as I am unlikely to make the trek into downtown Ottawa to go to Church. I like the anonymity of a large Church so unlikely to attend the local Anglican Church which is quite small. Having Church at home is ideal for me and will continue to be ideal for quite a while. That being said, I go with the flow.

Today I would like to spend some time on the Pincombe Newsletter and hopefully complete it. I am all out of wills for the Pincombe Pinkham family but do have some documents which I photographed which I might work on gradually over the next few issues. Will see how that goes. 

Other than that a new week has arrived. The heavy rain of yesterday has passed on and the sun greets us today although it is just 12 degrees celsius so a cool one to start the day.

Saturday, August 29, 2020

The Pincombe Newsletter is almost writing itself

 Some times I start to write a newsletter and everything just falls into place. This appears to be one of those times. The latest Pincombe Chart to be published happens to have a line incorrect and the individual providing information actually belongs on a different Chart. Working my way through that and then to have a look at the assumed grandfather to see what happened to his line. I think I may actually finish this newsletter in time. 

Heavy rain last night from the latest named storm "Laura" and it is needed rain once again as our lawns were drying up once again. I am waiting for winter; I have done enough gardening. However, I will rake the leaves when they come down and clean up all the flower beds before snow does come. But actual gardening - pruning, cultivating that is now in the past. At nearly 75 years of age my summer of gardening in a routine thorough way has now finished!

I think the Black Walnut tree grew over night. All that rain must have given it a new leap in size. I soon will not be able to see much of the sky through the leaves of all the trees including our own maple at the very back of our yard. It has also grown and is quite huge. We planted that maple from an errant seedling that we found in the yard. It is likely a daughter of the maple up the street but it has grown up in this heavy clay and fairly resistant to any disease thus far. It is literally huge this year or maybe I am just more observant. It actually had bird families nesting in it this year. Usually the birds have picked the fir trees around us in other yards but this year a crow family came to stay for awhile. They have moved on now but it was fun watching them teach the four babies to fly and to feed on our bird feeder. Baby crows are very large birds surprisingly at a young age. 

Saturday, the last day of the week and my Church Service for tomorrow is in my email. I am hoping that this will go on forever although Church is due to come back this month I think. I have resisted becoming more informative on that particular item I probably could go on forever just enjoying the service every Sunday morning in my email box.

Friday, August 28, 2020

Friday has come round again

 Hard to believe it is Friday once again and the last Friday in August. This past week has been quite cool but not unusual. Summer is coming to and end; one of the strangest summers in my lifetime. We have emerged from total lockdown to a semblance of what life will be like for another year or so. One couldn't say that I am enjoying what has happening but rather I am enjoying the solitude that this happening has returned to me. When we first moved here I felt that solitude and I am feeling it once again. Spending twenty four hours a day with my one year old and my husband in a new job was an exhilarating experience for me as I adapted to a life away from everything that I knew. Gradually my path moved outward as I learned a new city. But mostly at that time I enjoyed the solitude. I did actually know two people from my university/high school days here but I found that I didn't really want to spend any time with them. I just wanted to be with my baby all day long as we learned our surroundings and worked our way down from three naps a day to one nap a day and then none. I didn't want anyone confusing my strict schedule and would often pull out of any events that I just didn't want to get involved in. My husband was busy learning the ropes of his new job. After nearly ten years in a lab working in an office was a whole new ballgame for him. 

And so the months passed and I loved that solitude. I am in that solitude once again although the reason for it is very undesirable the net result is a gain for me. My husband's health is at a level that is working better for him these days. 

I think it must be frightening to know that you will never be that well person again. You will always be restricted but he has achieved a level of acceptance that lets him move forward once again with his beloved genealogy. I am liking genealogy but I have never had that deep commitment to it that he has had and is having once again. It is over fifty years now since he met with his uncle and acquired the knowledge that his uncle had of the Kipp family. Over the next couple of years we met with many older members of his family as he learned what was known about his past. The unraveling of his myriad family lines was an amazing task that he took upon himself as time was available. He continues that task but is now sending files to family members to keep that work alive on into the future. I commend him for his devotion to the task. 

September is an unwritten book in our life. I find that very exciting in itself. We just never know what lies around the corner from us (a surprise visit or an outing that I want to go on). For a couple of weeks there was a handwritten set of notes dumped in our mailbox of someone wanting to buy our house. There were weird comments like all you have to do is have me come and it is sold without anyone else visiting. I suspect that someone is trying to acquire the set of seven houses to build an apartment building. We happen to have these huge lots (ours is 180 feet from the back of our house to the street at the back). The new light rail is just 7/10ths of a kilometre walk easily done in ten minutes. 

The garden is starting to show the signs of late summer. The tomatoes are slower to ripen. The sunflowers are now out in full bloom and soon we will have the birds coming to feed on that treat.

Thursday, August 27, 2020

Rain is always welcomed

Raining today and we spent some of our morning out shopping. Ed is managing with his walker very well and we had nearly an hour and a half out. He is tired after such an adventure but enjoyed the change. 

I can feel the 1st of September approaching and my wanting to get my Pincombe Newsletter done. Hopefully I will get that started tomorrow. 


Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Finally got to the cleaning of the basement

Cool here today but a pleasant day anyway. I finally vacuumed the basement and will work on the dusting over the next couple of days. Ed managed a slightly longer walk today and he appears stronger once again. That is good to see for sure. 

Day passed pretty quickly and usually I post first thing in the morning but life was just too busy today!

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Another new cousin

 I had figured out that this one match was in my Pincombe line but suddenly a second match made me look at this earlier one and I realized that both matches were in my Gray line. Quite exciting actually and I wrote and discovered I was right on with my thoughts. Solved Chromosome 22 for sure instead of tentative. Nice when things fall into place. Plus a new fourth cousin that I am sure George would have loved to have known as well. He went back to Etton to see if he could pick up traces of our mutual Gray family but had been unsuccessful back in the 1970s. The arrival of DNA and linking with people around the world has become possible. 

Lawn cutting yesterday instead of cleaning. Perhaps cleaning today or tomorrow. The week is always flexible!

Thinking about the Pincombe Newsletter for the first of September which is fast approaching.

Monday, August 24, 2020

Cleaning Day again

 Alexa has proven to be a good addition to our assists. She reminded me that today is the day to vacuum the basement so will get to that this morning. I need to use this system more but it is a gradual process. However, it is exceedingly handy to just ask Alexa to store information or find something on the web. If Alexa was in the kitchen I could keep my grocery list there but that is still handwritten. I have three grocery lists generally plus a drug store list. 

Another interesting match that looks like the Gray family. My great grandmother Grace (Gray) Pincombe died in 1886 after a long illness. She was much beloved by her children with just one actually surviving to adulthood (my maternal grandfather). My grandmother said he mourned his mother all of his life that she knew him. Sadly two of her sisters died in childbirth and the third sister in her early 30s of dropsy. Her brother survived to adulthood married Elizabeth Noble and they had seven children. I have not yet traced down all of his children's children.

Downsizing once again, an old table of my grandmothers, a small wooden smoking table of my grandfathers and a bookcase from fifty years ago all going to Habitat for Humanity thus far if they will accept them. Gradual process of decreasing our footprint so that one day that footprint might fit into a much smaller place.

Sunday, August 23, 2020

The second last Sunday in August

 It is fun to wake up on a Sunday again and know that part of my day is planned already with a Church Service at hand. I miss being at a Sunday Service; I attended Church every Sunday my entire life as a child and quite a bit as an adult. I do miss the regular routine of my life that centered around the Church.

My transcription of Parish Registers and Wills dominated my Church life and that is still the case to a certain extent but none the less it is good to be back at Service once again. 

H11 Newsletter now published and it became Issues 2-3. I had not published an issue on the 1st of May after all. So I was correct initially that I was two issues behind for H11 Newsletter. It is pretty short and once again only available on the FT DNA H11 project site. 

The next newsletter is Pincombe-Pinkham and I have already begun to think about it and what will be in it. The Pincombe Wills are nearly all published and I have not looked for Pinkham Wills yet. I will do that. There is just one chart left to publish from the original work of the two researchers who started the Pincombe-Pinkham one-name study. I think then that I will start to publish some of the family charts that I have produced through the years and link them to various wills and other documents. I will continue to publish the North Molton Parish Registers until I have completed all my transcriptions there. Then I will move to some of the other parish registers that I have transcribed. 

A rainy day here today and the grass continues to green up and the new grass seed looks like it will sprout very soon. The Fall should have a beautiful green lawn to enjoy until the snow comes and covers it all up! 

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Life is a training field

Looking after my husband recalled to me my time as a volunteer at a local nursing hospital. My grandmother was a volunteer visitor there and I started to go with her and continued after she stopped going. Mostly she was visiting people that she knew but the staff would ask her sometimes to visit other people that had lived in the area where she had farmed with her husband. I did hear about my grandfather at that time (he had died when my mother was eight so I never met him). A lot of the people were in their 70s, 80s, and 90s that we visited together at first and then later I visited. I was thinking the other day that life is a training field for the future. One never knows how one will spend ones days especially once you retire from work. In my case I intended to spend it watching all the movies that I had purchased during my work time (we had over 1000 original VCRs but did give about half to my brother). But then my cousin got me going on the family genealogy (he wanted me to write a profile of my Pincombe family for the Westminster-Delaware History Books which I did) and I ended up doing 42 courses at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies (great way to learn about all the record sets and planning and carrying out your research) and about half way through wrote the Pincome Profile (published in 2005). As a result my retirement instead was doing genealogy. As DNA entered into the scene I became much more excited about doing genealogy to be honest. 

But back to spending time with the elderly. I am really glad that I did do that back in my teen years (for about four years actually while I was in High School, one day a week). It revealed to me the trials and tribulations of being old and having difficulties. I have been lucky thus far recovering from any problems that I have had and being quite active and capable. I feel that Ed will recover and get back a lot of his strength respecting that he is 77 years of age and we should be slowing down anyway. He is looking and sounding stronger every day now. We keep pretty much to ourselves and work away at our projects. Then we have time with our daughters and grandchildren although both are pretty busy and we do not see our grandchildren very often now that Ed has been ill plus COVID-19 makes that pretty difficult as well. 


H11 Newsletter

Working away on the H11 Newsletter and there have been 23 new members since the last newsletter. H11 isn't rare there are millions of people out there with this haplogroup but it is but a fraction of H haplogroup (1-2%). It is primarily a European haplogroup (with migration to the Americas) but can also be found in Asia but less frequently except in Eastern Russia and some of the countries of the old Soviet Union that are part of Asia. The number of Russian members has grown substantially in the last five years. 

Sunday's Service has arrived in my Inbox ready for Sunday morning. Saturday is my look back day to see if I actually accomplished anything with regard to my thoughts about accomplishing items. A bit of a tongue twister but in reality I have published both the Blake and the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletters and H11 will soon go to press so to speak. Then back into my regular routine with the next newsletter on the 1st of September being the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter. My mind seems clearer these days as autumn approaches. I love the dog days of August; they tell me that fall is coming and then winter. Summer is too busy; too much heavy labour for this nearly 75 year old. I have diminished a lot of that labour this year and will continue doing that. Mind you the exercise is good for me but too tired by the end of the day is unappealing; a pleasant tiredness is fine!

This year we will have the lane way cleared by a snow removal company. We do have a snow blower but Ed can not run it and I am not even going to try. There will still be a little shoveling but not too much.

I have been driving pretty much full time now since May. Ed is getting used to my driving again; that is a really good thing! 

My mind is starting to think of the items I can start to prepare to work on this winter. My new patient partner project is underway as well. It will get top priority because in essence my real interest lies in the medical world and how I might be able to assist. 

COVID-19 still with us and worldwide there are 22,954,220 cases (increase of 365,203 over yesterday), 799,350 deaths (increase of 6,875 over yesterday) and 14,715,412 recovered (increase of 258,103 over yesterday). New cases still exceed recoveries. In Canada we are at 124,372 cases (increase of 499 over yesterday), 9,064 deaths (increase of 10 over yesterday), and recovered 110,648 (increase of 360 over yesterday). New cases are exceeding recoveries once again. Hopefully the areas that are increasing will soon get that under control.

Our neighbours to the south are still fighting COVID-19 with over a thousand deaths again yesterday. It is with sorrow that we watch the numbers increase in the United States. They have been our dear friend and neighbour through the years and to see them suffer like this is difficult.


Friday, August 21, 2020

Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter Vol 5, Issue 3, 2020 published

Another Newsletter published although I am no longer posting them to my blog; they are on the FT DNA website in the Pincombe-Pinkham project. The next Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter is due the 1st of September. In between I may be able to complete the H11 Newsletter which was due the 1st of August but could also do it in September. Will see how the time goes. 

Lots of rain yesterday and the grass is a beautiful green field. It is a very pleasant sight. Another busy day planned as I want to give the kitchen a "spring cleaning." All the outside work leaves me not doing all the inside work so it will be nice to have a catchup day. There is not a lot to do outside these days. Plants just have to do their growing and producing and then the frost will inevitably come and end all of that. It will be a relief to me to have the frost come this year for sure. I love winter. The mounds and mounds of crisp white snow surrounding the house and in the yard. It is like a picture postcard all winter long. 

Today I also hope to continue on with the H11 Newsletter that I started in May. Always good to have a started Newsletter to begin work. It will not be a very long one. There simply has not been a lot happening with H11 since the last Newsletter in February. 

 

 

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Eleven days to the end of August

What an unusual summer this has been. Just eleven days and August ends. Usually summer is such a relaxed time but we came into it very tense with worries about COVID-19 and those worries have not eased particularly but we have perhaps learned caution as we go about our daily lives. It is sad to see the children live through that fear. Summer should be a carefree wonderful time for them just to soak up the sun, the fresh food from our own soil and play the games that we played as children. Just all good fun for them. Life has really been the meanest to them even though they do not appear to suffer as much from COVID-19 although time will tell on that. 

Today I have a busy time ahead of me as I need to do the cleaning that has somehow slipped by me the past two days. Then onto the Pincombe Newsletter which I want to accomplish this week as well. That just leaves the H11 Newsletter. 

Yesterday Ed and I sowed grass seed in the back year here and there where it had become somewhat bare. Our grass is usually quite lovely and we enjoy the green expanse of it. Not yet ready to give up our private living that is for sure. But we have modified it so that Ed can also still enjoy his green spaces. 

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Solitaire - love the game

Another interesting round of solitaire to start the day. I do really like playing solitaire online. Microsoft has a great product and for a couple of dollars a month I play it every day; all year long. I have been doing that for many years now ever since I discovered it online. 

 The quietness of the early morning is something that I have grown to appreciate once again after the busyness of my life. For 10 years I was up at 6 every morning and out the door by quarter to 7 to catch the bus to get to work at the Medical School/Ottawa Hospital. Two years at the Medical School and then eight years at the Hospital. Before that I worked for various printers proofreading and copyediting for fifteen years. Then a few years of child rearing and volunteerism. And before that we lived in southwestern Ontario. As a child I loved the early morning; my father got up at 6 and made oatmeal porridge. Before he headed off to work I would go to the kitchen and he would fill a bowl with that wonderful hot cereal and then he was off and I was left with my bowl of porridge and my own thoughts as I slowly ate the hot cereal. I never put anything on it just the lovely hot cereal. Now I add in raisins, wheat germ, wheat bran and frozen blueberries. But basically my day begins like it did when I was a child except I cook the cereal for myself. 

Yesterday was a monumental day as I took Ed to visit our new doctor for the first time. I could feel some of the heavy responsibility for his care lifting from me and that is a good thing. I was overwhelmed with his care; I did need someone to help me with all of that. My daughters are wonderful but the one is busy with her teaching and the other with all of her own patients. We could move there for sure but we enjoy the city. 

Moving forward once again and Ed is feeling stronger which is great. He would like to live to be 90. It would be nice; so nice for his grandchildren and his children. They are all devoted to him. I am a day to day person so do not think in terms of living to 90 or any age particularly. I used to be different in my teen years and think that way but life changes your perspective as it did mine. I can see a benefit to the way he thinks but it is not possible for me to do that.

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Tornado Watch

We occasionally have tornado watches and yesterday was one of those days. However, the storm veered off to the south of us and towards the east from there. 

Not too much accomplished on the Pincombe Newsletter yesterday but hopefully some time today on it. 

An update on FitBit was interesting, it now provides a screen showing the time, date and day of the week plus the battery level. An interesting addition as I do like to check the battery level and having that at a glance is handy.   

Today I continue with my cleaning as I got distracted from that yesterday by other issues.

Monday, August 17, 2020

Pincombe Newsletter started

Moving right along and the Pincombe Newsletter has commenced and this was the June 1st 2020 issue. I especially want to complete it soon as the next issue is due the 1st of September 2020! This particular issue will have the chart produced by the original researchers Dr Richard Pinkham and Galen Pinkham for the United States of America. I have not done any research on the American Pinkham/Pincombe/Pincomb family other than my 2x great grandfather's brother Robert Pincomb who went to the United States in 1835 and I do know his descendants even down to the present as I have DNA matches with my fourth cousins since we share our 3x great grandparents Robert Pincomb and Elizabeth Rowcliffe. I did find that this earliest ancestor in the Pinkham family is mentioned in The Great Migration Directory: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1640 and New Englanders in the 1600s: A Guide to Genealogical Research Published Between 1980 and 2005. As with the Blake Newsletter I will no longer be putting the Newsletter into my Blog but it can be seen within the FT DNA project associated with the surname(s). 

This week is the cleaning of the main and top floors of the house. A heavier week for cleaning for sure but alternating weeks between the basement and the upper floors does save me a lot of energy I found this past two weeks and spreads out the work load. It will work well in the winter time for me also. 

Yesterday's Church Service has proven to be a wonderful addition to my week. I always was reading my Daily Bible Readings but did not always get to reading the Office. Having a prescribed Church Service works better for me as a layperson. I am glad that I started tithing to my Church years and years ago and that this being automatic I do not have to do anything further to ensure that I am able to continue doing so.

A couple of new interesting matches at 23 and Me, Ancestry, FT DNA and Living DNA keeps leading my phasing of my grandparents forward. One of these days I may start to look at phasing my great grandparents.

 


Sunday, August 16, 2020

Blake Newsletter, Volume 9, Issue 3, 2020 has been published

I did complete the Blake Newsletter about one and a half months late and it has been published to the FT DNA website. I will no longer be posting even an abbreviated copy of the newsletter to my blog. My blog will return to my daily thoughts which I find useful to search through when I realize I have already thought through a project and just need to refresh myself on what I thought about then. At 74 an absolute necessity and even when I created this blog in 2008 after a visit to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City it was very handy to have all of that material typed out that had resulted from our week and a bit there. 

I believe I will do the missing Pincombe Newsletter next. I have thought about it for a bit and will produce the missing June Newsletter. I am actually only missing one and not two as I had begun to think. Checking, always a wise idea, showed that I had produced one for the 1st of March. If I can complete it this next week then I may yet be able to catch up on H11 Newsletter which is missing for the 1st of August.  Then, hopefully, back to my regular schedule with a Pincombe Newsletter due the 1st of September, Blake Newsletter due the 1st of October and H11 Newsletter due the 1st of November. 

I will have my online Church Service later this morning and again it is a wonderful beginning to my week that refreshes my soul. Am I ready to go back to the Church Building? No but I haven't been for a few years; COVID-19 was not the cause of my missing Church but rather my husband's deteriorating health the last few years and my own reluctance. 

Rain today is forecast.

Saturday, August 15, 2020

Saturday Summary

 I did not accomplish as much as I would have liked to this week but on the other hand I did start the Blake Newsletter and that is a step in the right direction. I will try to work at the Newsletter again today. 

Another bright sunny day and promise of a warm one once again. We are now half way through August and this month like the last couple has flown by. Mother Earth has yielded forth her bounty and continues to do so. The green trees and green grass that surround us are testament to that. We have decided to let the racoon or which ever animal likes our cucumbers to have them. They are way at the back of the yard. Which reminded me that I was going to water the tomato plants this morning. Back from that adventure and discovered that one of our giant sunflower plants had succumbed to some animal chewing through the large stem possibly to get at the sunflower on top not sure of the process but it is lying on the ground now with just three feet of stem standing. 

I am amazed now that we have collected as much as we have out of our garden. We do have an army of squirrels though who work on the Black Walnut tree next door. They do love those nuts that is for sure. They are a busy crew. 

As the week ends I am thinking about next week which will begin with my Sunday Service which has arrived in my inbox. Then Monday is cleaning day and I will vacuum the main floor and upstairs. This alternating the basement and then the upper floors is working very well. It just means that one week is light and one week somewhat heavier but doable. Trying to do everything in one week was proving to be too much for this nearly 75 year old although my daughter helps me quite a bit but she is busy teaching right now. My husband has done a little vacuuming once again. He is getting stronger; so nice to see that.

I hope that we can get back to my husband's story this week as well. I do not have anything scheduled meeting wise for my patient partner projects but might have a little work there to do. Time will tell. It is something that I am really enjoying.

COVID-19 still with us. This is a dreadful period for the people in the United States, our neighbours. The states right along the border with us are suffering because the border is still closed. Many many Canadians usually go south shopping and attending various venues but none of that is happening and they are feeling the pain of that loss of income south of the border. Hopefully all of that will resolve one of these days but with the pandemic running so high there we can not risk it. It can take just one super spreader to bring a city to its knees once again. Our testing is in high gear these days and the percentage positive very low. We need to keep it that way because winter is coming and our flu season combined with COVID-19 could overwhelm our hospitals. We must be very very cautious. 

We have always looked out for each other Canadians and Americans helping each other during fire season, winter and summer storms that bring down hydro and heavy floods that submerge roads and homes. That friendly back and forth has been a great asset to our friendship. Having to develop a "me first" attitude is unusual for Canadians as we tended to think North American in our outlook. Time will tell what happens there. Prayers are with the Americans fighting COVID-19 and prayers for those who have lost loved ones with now over 168,000 Americans dead from COVID-19. It is absolutely unbelievable in a country that has been so forward in their medical care with the CDC so prominent in fighting anything that happened within the US borders.


Friday, August 14, 2020

Blake Newsletter is in the process

A good start on the Blake Newsletter yesterday and will work away at that today as time permits. Another busy day with trips to the drug store and grocery store. It is amazing how much of a day one can spend doing errands. 

COVID-19 dominating headlines once again as CDC warns about a possible 200,000 American deaths by Labour Day. It is unbelievable really. Normally our neighbours to the south are in complete control of their country and everything in it. 

 COVID-19 worldwide there are 20,936,041 confirmed cases (increase of 311,725 over yesterday), 759,844 deaths (increase of 10,423 over yesterday) and 13,006,841 recovered (increase of 175,041 over yesterday). Here in Canada we have 121,234 confirmed cases (increase of 390 over yesterday), 9,015 deaths (increase of 9 over yesterday) and 107,553 recovered (increase of 405 over yesterday). 

We are in the easy time for us here in Canada. Our crops are producing and food is very plentiful. Our workers who come in to work the harvest are less and less infected with COVID-19 as the outbreaks there diminish rapidly. But soon our Fall season will come with its killing frosts and we must then import food from our southern neighbour or live on cabbages, carrots and onions although our hydroponic industry is growing rapidly but still we are a nation of 38 million people. We need to be importers of food for at least six to eight months of the year. The future has a certain scare level to it for sure in terms of food. We must become more self-sufficient; that will be our gain from COVID-19. No more will we permit larger companies in the United States to buy up our smaller companies; we must support local companies and not think that we are a unified economy across North America. There may be other Presidents like the present one who think only of the United States and not of the North American economy; we must protect ourselves.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

From Romans 11, Daily Bible Reading

Some days as I read the daily Bible Reading I am in wonder at how the words flow into today, bathe our minds with goodness and let us appreciate what God has given us. 

From Romans 11: Who can measure the wealth and wisdom and knowledge of God? Who can understand his decisions or explain what he does?

The entire passage includes verses 19 to 36 but these two lines kept me coming back to look again at one of the great truths that has traveled down through the generations. From my ancestors as they wrote their wills and made their confession to Almighty God and then my ancestors who did not write a will that I have found. Who did not leave a testament of their faith for me to view these many years later. They could have left a will; I just have not gone through all the wills in the Hampshire Record Office. I have just skimmed the surface of records that exist on my ancestors and yet I seem to have so much material. Others will follow me likely in the centuries that follow God willing and read through these early writings of those who preceded us in this life. 

Another bright sunny day and I have completed the outdoor work for a week or so but then there is the indoor work. We need to maintain the house that we live in as well as the yard that surrounds us. It is an endless chore but modern inventions have made that chore easier for sure even in my lifetime. Perhaps especially in my lifetime. Wringer washers were the modern invention of my childhood which gradually worked their way to modern washing machines that do it all. I just load it in!

I did think a little about the Blake Newsletter. Not sure where to go with it; do I return to where I left off with the Blake Pedigree Chart held by the Blake Museum at Bridgwater? I think it is important to look at that chart and make sure that the records that have now been found match the content. Word of mouth was a very important tool in genealogy but sometimes mistakes arose and they do need to be corrected so that they do not persist. 

Almost the middle of August; this month has flown by. COVID-19 still controlling our lives totally. It is a mantle that we will bear for a while I suspect. I can not understand why the political parties in Canada want to bring the government down. A mistake was made for sure but nothing came of it. Should we overlook it? Perhaps someone needs to pay the price for not keeping on top of the game; for politics is surely a game that we all play. But I think in this instance that the Prime Minister is clear; after all the Public Service has declared that he has not lied in his testimony with regard to wanting to have a different organization look after the Student Program. The entire program was spoiled and the students have been the loser. This is a time of crisis and it is necessary that the political parties pull together and see us through to the end of it not bicker over a triviality that didn't come to pass anyway. A unified government would have been so much better through this crisis but the Conservatives were not up to it; they are just concerned with getting back into power so that they can destroy more of our libraries. As a Conservative, I find that the changes in my party are unacceptable although voting for the Liberals is a pretty hard decision that I have made twice now. I have no interest in discussion on abortion or gay rights or any of that with regard to rolling back to a time when teenage girls died from botched abortions and people like me get attacked with a knife because I knew about a lesbian relationship so no thank you. Forward we go with or without the Conservatives. After all they used the WE to manage projects during their tenure thus giving the Public Service reason to look at them again as a method to manage a program.

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Beautiful sunny days of summer

The beautiful sunny days of summer always compare in my mind to the beautiful sunny days of winter. The difference of course is about 40 degrees celsius or more. Some of our brightest bluest winter days are really really cold. Canada does have an unusual climate ranging from highs in the late 30s celsius to lows in the early 30s degrees celsius in my area. The contrast is enormous as we look out on the fresh green lawn today (lots of rain yesterday) and the stacks of snow that we have in mid-winter when the coldest weather can come. 

Yet I always prefer winter to the summer. There is just so much to do outside in the summer that I do not have time for my "work." My mother used to call it a break time when I should be outside in the sun without my glasses. She always felt that my glasses weakened my eyes. I liked to put my glasses on first thing and take them off last thing before going to bed. I simply liked the world better through my glasses. It wasn't wobbly which was how I described my world without glasses. Now as an adult I can actually leave my glasses off on occasion but I do need them to read anything smaller than about three inches. I have worn glasses since I was eighteen months. Up until that point I would not walk without holding on but my mother put the glasses on me and I got up and walked without holding on. That must have been a relief to my parents I expect! It was such a novelty to see a child that young in glasses that once when I lost them playing a neighbour on their way home from the bus spotted the reflection from the sun on my glasses and brought them directly to my house. He didn't even know they were missing. That always rather surprised me when I was told the story as I was only two years of age at that time. 

Yesterday I managed to cultivate most of the flower beds and the garden before the downpour. You could watch Mother Nature swallowing up all that rain as it fell on the garden. Everything is just a little larger today. I just need to finish the cultivating and perhaps that will be the last big cultivation before fall cleanup. There is a steady beat to cultivating as you work your way down a row between plants and then in the open the free wheeling strike of the cultivator on the earth again and again as you work on the soil that has already yielded its goodness into the vegetables already consumed and now part of this summer's history. 

Today maybe I can start to look at the Blake Newsletter missing for the first of July. Most of my readers of that newsletter are American. There are a lot of Blake families in the United States and for the most part any that might be actually related to me are totally unknown by me in terms of the surname Blake. I do know that there are a number of my Knight cousins in the United States although only known by their strong match to me on the Knight areas in our chromosomes. I have endogamy in that family line with Knight marrying Knight and Knight marrying Butt and many of those lines coming together. My Blake line from Hampshire is a small line going back but made up for that in the 19th and 20th centuries. I trace back to a singleton Blake born in 1709 (Thomas Blake son of Thomas Blake and Mary Spring). His father was from a larger family (11 siblings) although some died as children. Their parents John Blake and Elizabeth (unknown) lived at Andover and that John was the son of William Blake and Ann Hellier as far as I am able to ascertain. It fits the rules of establishing a link but I remain ready always for new evidence. I do have very small DNA matches with descendants of the siblings of that William. The helpful part is that William's grandparents were possibly cousins (Richard Blake and Jone Blake). That cousin relationship helps to intensify the Blake line somewhat making it visible far back into time in the DNA matches. 

The sun continues with its beckoning wanting the garden cultivation to continue so that at the next rainstorm missing areas will also be refreshed deep into the soil.

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Twenty million cases and rising

COVID-19 is front and center again today as the number of cases worldwide is  now in excess of twenty million with one quarter of the cases in the United States. That is really unbelievable as the United States in all my living memory has been at the forefront of protecting its citizens through all my nearly seventy five years. It does make one weep for one's neighbours. 

 Yesterday I accomplished the vacuuming of the basement and its rearrangement so that it is always ready for our exercise routines. Now that we watch TV upstairs in the living room we no longer use that area on a regular daily basis for TV watching but do use it for several hours of different exercise routines. The first is a set of daily exercises with varied exercises and varying lengths plus you can build your own exercise routine from the individual items. The second is the WII - Walk it out except we eliminate the slow songs and just run the entire 8000 steps. That along with all the walking that I do through the day generally brings me to 20,000 to 26,000 steps per day. I like to be on my feet and do miss my long walks that I used to take. When we first moved here there was really just the one big block from Jeanne D'Arc to Fortune and then over to Orleans Boulevard and back to Jeanne d'Arc and we walked it daily from the time we arrived in April of 1978 until I went back to work in the mid 1990s. I worked at home for about fifteen years copyediting and proofreading throughout that time period sometimes free lance with emphasis on the free as I built up my little business and then working on the National Research Council Journals for most of that time. If you sit and proofread or copyedit for hours then an hour walk is a necessity just to clear the cobwebs from the brain and the feet!

 Today I want to do some outside work, cultivating and trimming. The garden is moving into the last phase these days in terms of growth and picking. Never sorry to see that happen as I am not a gardener; I can do the work but there isn't that real joy that some people get from gardening. I can remember both of my grandparents who lived for their garden in the summer months. They had a thrill of gardening. I do like the feet of the earth running through my fingers but I think that is just all part of my devotion to Mother Earth. I love to see the products of Mother Earth even that Black Walnut is such a beautiful tree specimen. In the woods they are considerably less beautiful as they crowd together with their huge straight trunks reaching up into the sky and depriving everything around them of sunlight and water. But in a garden setting they are a beautiful tree although they do rob everything of water and sun even there. The squirrels love that tree and spend most of the day harvesting the walnuts although now that the tree is so big it is starting to drop its nuts on the ground. 

I see New Zealand has an outbreak of COVID-19 after 102 days without any cases. There is no immunity from this disease except having it. It is like John Donne's work Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII:

Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. 

 John Donne lived from 1572 to 1631 and he was exploring the interconnectivity of humanity.

Monday, August 10, 2020

What to accomplish

 Into my new organizational mood and deciding on priorities, looks like outside needs some work today and perhaps vacuum the basement which I did accomplish. 

Ed is writing his story and we are working on that together. Perhaps we can complete the set of pictures that he wants to use today. My husband has an interesting life story. He was born on his grandmother's farm which his father managed. Unfortunately when Ed was two his father had a farming accident and died which meant that the farm was sold and he moved into a small village with his mother where she raised him. She worked as a clerk at the local grocery/mercantile store and he was looked after by his grandmother who had a house nearby. Then off to school at a country schoolhouse with just four classrooms. He went to the high school in a nearby town and discovered how much he enjoyed chemistry. He studied Chemistry as an undergraduate and then went on to do his PhD. We married when he completed his undergraduate degree (I was one year behind him also in chemistry). He did a two year PostDoc in Chemical Engineering but this was the time of the draft dodgers coming to Canada and the universities snapped them up and there were no jobs for the young PhD graduates in Chemistry (and other fields). So he did a masters degree in Library Science and got a job at the Canadian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) at the National Research Council. He worked there for about thirty years and then retired. Personally I still think there was such a waste of all that young Canadian scientific talent in the early 70s when he and his fellow students were graduating. My husband's research is still quoted in papers as it was some of the initial work done on Cobalt. Although I am a great believer in diversity I do think that our universities should hire Canadian graduates and then when really interesting candidates from around the world come along then hire a few of them! 

The house that my husband grew up in did not have running water when he was young so his story is really a story of endurance, working hard and doing the right thing. His involvement in volunteerism has been stunning and he did receive the Queen Elizabeth Medal which has quite pleased me. He and his mother attended the local United Church and when he was just twelve they wanted him to teach Sunday School but if you knew my husband you would know that at 12 teaching Sunday School was not something that he could have readily done. Instead he just stayed home from Church for a while but gradually as he moved through High School his confidence increased and by the time he finished University he did take on teaching for a while but with a young family he needed a steadier occupation and so the Masters in Library Science which lead to a thirty year career. I am also proud of his ten years as Treasurer at his local United Church and fifteen years singing on the Choir at Church. He has so many other volunteer commitments that it would take me ages to write it all down!

I need to prioritize my newsletters to see what I might be able to look at today and make a plan for getting caught up once again. I believe I will do them in the order, Blake, Pincombe and H11.

Somehow the dog days of summer always turn my mind towards the fall and all the work that I can accomplish once the snow starts to fall.

Sunday, August 9, 2020

Sunday and my week begins to fall into place

 Sunday again and I am gradually thinking that my days are falling into a schedule that can be maintained. The last couple of months have felt very unorganized but gradually there is some organization coming back into my life. Today I have my online Church Service and I am very much enjoying my worship time once again. 

Ed is progressing; he is walking more and God willing he will continue to improve to a level that he can be happy about. For him, this pandemic is more of a force keeping him home and quiet rather than his illness. We are concentrating on managing through this pandemic as the days pass by. The garden was a good idea although a lot of work the produce has been an interesting addition that we haven't experienced in a few years as our "food" gardening has been quite light for the past seven years. Just a few items but this year we have had a more basic approach to our garden. 

I am hoping that more organization will enter into my life once again and I will pick up the traces that got dropped during the pandemic and Ed's sudden illness and hospitalization. He is home nearly three months now.

Saturday, August 8, 2020

Lawn Cutting, weeding, and spreading earth for planting grass

 Another busy day outside as I think fondly of winter to come. The tomatoes though are really tasty this year, the peppers very good as well and the beets and carrots to come. There is always something to weigh in on this heavy work that makes it all seem like an interesting sojourn. 

Still nothing done on the newsletters although I am starting to think about them and what I could write. 


Friday, August 7, 2020

Slow day today

Today I felt 74 years of age. I seldom have migraines but today one took hold and really only released me mid afternoon. Interesting phenomenon migraines. I have had them most of my life but the next day I am just fine. Hope that continues for a while yet!

Thursday, August 6, 2020

Downsizing once again

I have two tables one of which belonged to my grandmother and one which belonged to my grandfather. The one table is quite small, more of a stool type thing except was probably used for plants which my grandmother Blake loved judging by the pictures that I have seen. The other table is one that my grandmother Pincombe used for her violets when I was a child along with several other tables. She had quite an assortment of violets when I first started going to her house on my own regularly (I was eight years old and until I married at 20 I went to her house every week pretty much). I still went to see her but not quite as often as life just became busy with me working and I decided to take some courses that year. However I did talk to her on the telephone a couple of times a week.

I need to ask my siblings, nieces and nephews whether they want these two particular tables before I take them to RESTORE (if they want them). Otherwise I will have to find another way to downsize them over the next little while. I need to keep downsizing and I have not kept very many things that  belonged to my family. Size was very important in my thinking. With these two items I just have a rocking chair that was my grandmothers left in terms of size. My workroom now holds everything that I want to keep but there is a large proportion of items in there that are not going to be kept as I continue to downsize. COVID-19 has made our passing books on to users stop. We have passed on to various repositories/libraries nearly three-quarters of our books. But there is still a lot to donate. 

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

My Pincombe line - DNA

Another interesting match on 23 and Me on the X chromosome. I finally have a semi-verification for my phasing of the X chromosome. One of my known Pincombe side cousins matched me on the X chromosome but the length was too short to be sure. Because her test was not on 23 and Me I do not have actual verification but the overlap with four other matches is now interesting given that one of the matches has ancestry back into the area near Bewcastle, Cumberland where my great grandmother's mother's lines were located prior to coming to Canada as my first Canadian immigrants - Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge and their nine children, son-in-law and two grandsons. They arrived likely in the summer of 1818 and known to be here by the late Fall of 1818. But as always with DNA one must do the family trees which I may just have time for in another six months! The phasing of the X chromosome with five siblings is fairly straightforward and you just really need a good match on the two sides to cement that phasing. But I do not have any first cousins and my mother's father was the only descendant of his mother (granddaughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Routledge) so finding that definitive X chromosome match with a really good length (the four that I have on 23 and Me are all around 20 cM or greater) is still a challenge.

One of my maternal grandmother's two sister's descendants testing would be helpful but I prefer to wait on them wanting to test and share their results. As the results pour into my set of accounts, it is gradually verifying the phasing of my grandparents. I also have some good information on my great grandparents phasing and may try to start painting that information this winter if time ever comes my way!

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Continuing on in the vein of what to save

I have written my mother's story and it was surprisingly 285 pages long. I did insert portions of her letters into that story but the beginning was just what I remembered from my grandmother, mother and uncle Ed (brother to my mother). Towards the end of the 1980s my uncle Ed insisted that we drop by their home in Toronto whenever we went through Toronto on our way home. My uncle had been good to me as a child so found that really hard to refuse and we did endeavour to stop at least one of the ways through Toronto. After my uncle\s wife died we made an effort to go and see him monthly until he was taken ill and that was at the time of SARS in Toronto. I worked at the hospital here in Ottawa and would have had to be away from work for two weeks if I went to Toronto so did not go the last couple of months before he passed away. However I phoned him quite often and we wrote back and forth. He had put together an envelope full of pictures and other material that he wanted to go into his story. He was of a mind that my husband would write his story because Ed had written a story book for my parent's 50th wedding anniversary in 1988 (I helped a little). I have now written that story and I think he would be pleased. His story was 78 pages long. I knew some of his story and the records that he provided supplied quite a bit more. Since he did not have any children it was basically a story of his life in London.

What to do with all this material is a mystery. I have a box with the material that my uncle gave to me which is all scanned but I am finding it impossible to destroy the originals. He was a busy person in London; had his own store for years that I may ask if the London Public Library would create a Fonds for his records. It would not be that large but in years to come researchers may find it handy to understand the independent grocers who early on in London formed an association creating many many grocery stores that initially supplied the city until the larger companies took over.

It is something that I had planned to handle when we were to go to London last year but my fall resulted in our heading home much earlier than planned. Now it must be done by mail and I have not yet sat down and written those letters to see what I can put together along with the material that my sister has from my uncle's home as she completed the task of collecting material there.

Monday, August 3, 2020

What should we save of the past from a genealogical standpoint

A good heavy rainstorm yesterday (although the wind was not so nice!) and the garden has really perked up as had the grass. We could use another rain like that soon.

I am really finding the online Church Service very much to my liking. Yesterday we sang two old favourites of mine and having the musical accompaniment with the tablet is really great. Perhaps I was always meant to be an online person but the technology had to catch up to my inner nature!

Today is a cleaning day so inside for a change. It still looks like rain here so that works well anyways.

I think the walnut tree grew in the rain as well At the start of the spring after the leaves had come out the tree stretched across half of the first pane of the window in my workroom. It has now stretched across that entire pane and is into the next pane. I wonder if I will be able to see the sky next year!

We are into the dog days of Summer. This is a beautiful start with the heavy rain to help hasten the crops along to fruition. Not being a gardener in nature, all of this gardening has been an interesting interlude in my life. It is now nine years since I started doing the heavy work in the yard. But I have lightened it quite a bit the last couple of years. There are some things that I just do not do. They are too heavy for me and in another five years it will be all grass except for the beds along the edges, the raspberry bushes and the elderberry bushes. I can not do all of that for sure and so cut back every year.

Inside we are still downsizing but COVID-19 has interrupted that process as we can not get rid of some of the things at the moment. Once that starts up again the number of things to dust and clean will diminish steadily. That is perhaps the secret to growing old. When the end of our days come we should have no more than what we came into the world with perhaps although that isn't possible but we can certainly minimize what we have for our inheritors to take care of or eliminate as necessary.

I have a box full of letters that my mother sent to me over twenty five years. I have scanned them but still have not destroyed the originals. Somehow it seems like something that should be able to survive. She always used good notepaper so there isn't any yellowing of the paper. I have placed all the letters into an acid free box and separated each letter with a piece of acid free paper. Perhaps in the future with all of her grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc there will be one that becomes interested in her as a person and would enjoy having those letters in their hands. It seems wrong to deprive my mother of having such a descendant and wrong to deprive the descendant of feeling the handwriting on the paper of those original letters. I am not really a "keeper" of things but genealogy pursuit has taught me to have more respect for what our ancestors have passed to us whether in ancient records over which they had no control or in the stories that passed down or in the items that I now hold as custodian of their personal effects given to me at various times throughout my life.

I have the engagement ring of my great grandmother Grace (Gray) Pincombe which my mother wore as something old at her wedding, I wore as something old at my wedding, my daughter did the same and one of her cousins. I was given the ring at my Confirmation in the Anglican Church. The little opal that was in the ring was a tiny bit loose so after I was married I decided to have the ring repaired and I purchased a new opal and the small opal that had been in the ring was cemented to the new opal and the claws slightly built up to accommodate the new stone. So the same but refurbished. When my mother was given the ring the stone was replaced at that time as well but I think (and the jeweler examining the stone said the same) that part of that stone had cracked and broken away (opals are very sensitive) and that was why it was loose. Eventually that ring will belong to my grandsons to do with as they please but I will tell them the story of the ring so that it might mean a lot to them as well. Grace Gray was born in 1839 and she died in 1886. She had five children as far as I can determine with my grandfather being the only child to survive to adulthood. His sister died at 13, his brother was an infant and two died at birth.

One of the items not yet mentioned about Grace (Gray) Pincombe was that she was first cousin to Sir John Carling. Her mother Mary Routledge was a sister to the mother of Sir John, Margaret (Routledge) Carling. It is amazing perhaps that in my single tiny Canadian line of three people that they were all related to Sir John Carling (Grace, her son John Routledge Pincombe and of course my mother (and myself)). All the rest of my ancestors were born in England and all the ancestors of my Canadian ancestral line were also born in England (except for my mother, her father and his mother).


Sunday, August 2, 2020

Looks like rain today

Sunday again and another week has flown by. Whatever did I accomplish this week? I cleaned the house at least the basement. I cultivated the garden. We are now taking a one kilometre walk every day which I can see is helping my husband quite a bit. We seemed to have cooked up a gourmet meal every day which took some time. My sleep apnea acted up a few times and that diminishes any accomplishments for the day following. I did some shopping several days. Amazing how quickly a week can pass. If it rains today I will cut the grass tomorrow. Hard to believe it is August 2nd.

I will do my online church service today. I am enjoying being part of the online service. Not at all ready to go back to my Church in person but then I have not been in several years.

COVID-19 is raging in the United States; it is still here in Canada. North America is severely impacted even yet although in Canada we appear to have it basically under control but it takes just a few to throw a wrench into that for sure. Still seeing people without masks where they should have them on. A mask covering just the mouth is inadequate. Very disrespectful to people to not wear a mask properly.

Another day and it does look like rain. We could use a long soaking rain to really wet the ground to any depth.

Saturday, August 1, 2020

Demise of the sunflower

I have been babying a sunflower that I moved out of a hosta plant where it was growing nicely. It was struggling but then started to look quite good. It even produced a flower head which was gradually becoming sunflower seeds. Yesterday when I was cleaning up after dinner I glanced out the window and there it was proudly standing with its small sunflower head. Then thirty seconds later it was gone. I missed the event but something grabbed the flower ripped it off and then ate the maturing sunflower seeds leaving behind the petals about thirty feet away from the now collapsed plant. It has struggled so long to survive and produce that flower but now it gave up and was lying on the ground. I pulled it up and the roots were firmly entrenched as I had thought. It has been a rather interesting saga this past month. A large bird or some animal enjoyed that tasty treat. Fortunately we still have quite a few more sunflowers not quite so close to the ground.

Last night we decided to set up the telescope and look at the comet Neowise. With the naked eye I had seen it a couple of nights ago and the tail was still somewhat visible. The telescope picked it up very nicely and we have a few pictures to remind us. Whilst waiting for the comet to appear, we managed a couple of good pictures of Saturn showing its rings and several moons just above the horizon. Not too bad considering all of the city lights. Amazingly we were back inside just after 9:30 pm. We do not generally do much astronomy these days as the telescope and mount are pretty heavy but all this gardening has built up my muscles for sure and between my daughter and myself we easily set it all up.

COVID-19 still ravaging the world with 17,594,541 confirmed cases world wide (an increase of 273,147 over yesterday), 679,439 deaths (increase of 5,617 over yesterday) and 10,333,166 recovered (increase of 178,140 over yesterday). Here in Canada we have 116,312 confirmed cases, 8,935 deaths and 101,227 recovered. We still weep for our neighbours as they are being dreadfully savaged by this disease. The United States is usually in such control of such items and it is hard to believe that they are so deeply entwined by COVID-19.