Another beautiful spring day

Golden sunrise and fairly clear skies with a temperature at 7:00 am of minus nine degrees celsius. Not a return to winter even though we did have snow yesterday; just a typical spring day in Canada. Spring is coming it is just a very short season in Canada as we quickly go into summer and heat! The winter does last a long time in Canada with snow coming as early as late October or early November (not a lot just a taste mostly) and then we still have quite a bit of snow on the yards and the piles along the streets edge are melting but they too are still there. This year mid April may see us free of snow or perhaps a little earlier but no promises on that; one never knows if there will be a good snowfall in April. But today it is clear and no snow in the forecast but it may be a cool one since we are only promised zero degrees at the warmest part of the day and a little cloud. Friday mentions snow so March may go out the way it came in - like a lion.  

Yesterday I continued to work on the Ancestry matches and pulled out the Rawlings matches that we (the four of us) share. There are two nice sized ones. One known to me is a half second cousin once removed so I know she is matching me on the maternal side of my paternal grandmother. Since she has tested at several sites I also know where she is matching me. We share 1.1% which isn't bad for a half second cousin once removed. I also have another cousin, not on ancestry, known to me and he too is a half second cousin once removed and I share 1.82% of my DNA with him but significantly different sharing as he descends from one generation earlier so that there is more random selection at play. The two of them do give me a well rounded look at my great grandmother's line (mother to my paternal grandmother). But returning to Ancestry as I would like to learn a little more about this line that does give me quite good-sized matches on occasion. The other match that I have shares 2% of DNA with me and is estimated as a 2nd-3rd cousin by Ancestry. She also matches my known Rawlings cousin at Ancestry so does not give me any information on the father of my paternal grandmother. But the match does let me see that the match is stronger on the Lywood side of the Rawlings family (my paternal grandmother's grandparents were William Rawlins and Elizabeth Lywood). Using these matches I am able to look at the Rawlings matches that do not match these two individuals. That little group is slowly growing but a lot of them are Americans so I can not be sure if they are sharing DNA that is simply hardier coming down from further back - the two strongest share 1% of their DNA with me. I am now up to six individuals that all match each other and share 1% of their DNA (I am looking at half cousin relationships so (half 1C2R, half 2C, half 2C1R, half 3C, half 3C1R and it continues). Going by ages (the children from the three marriages of the possible father were all younger than my grandmother (would be her half siblings)). My father would be a half first cousin to their children and I would be a half second cousin to the children of their children). Some of these people have large trees but spotting the relationship has not yet happened. I shall have a look but probably I will just for the moment continue extracting the information for the two siblings not yet finished to 25cM and then set it aside as I have some work to do on other items. But it is interesting. I do tend to have to set aside projects on occasion but it does give me the opportunity to mull them over a bit before I actually get back to them again. Ancestry, having the largest database, does seem like the right place to look at my paternal grandmother's father. The other side of this, was it correct when both the baptismal record and the civil registration listed Cotteril as the likely surname of the father?

Blake Newsletter all organized and ready to go. I will publish it on Saturday the 1st of April. I have an article that interested me in this one. I was going to continue with James Blake at Knights Enham but I received a submitted article from one of the members of the yDNA Study at FT DNA so gave it the first spot and wrote a shorter article looking at two Latin wills from the 1520s relating to the Andover Blake family. I believe I may have resolved a descendancy issue with these two wills using the Latin Translator and the latin that I have managed to assimilate thus far. Another back-burner project which I hope to work on this summer a little. 

Nice to see King Charles III in Germany (too bad the French side of the trip had to be cancelled). The Royal Family has roots in Germany from the 1700s to the  early 1900s and roots in France from the 1000s to the 1400s. It is good to see that relationship continuing even though Brexit happened. I suspect that it will be the Prince and Princess of Wales who come to Canada one of these days. It is a lot though for them to leave their three children for an extended trip especially now that they are in school all day. I am still very much in favour of having the King as our Head of State (it is neat and tidy and non-political). I tire of the negative attitude of the present Conservative Party - we do need a refresher there and more Progressive Conservatism with an eye on being fiscally sound for all of Canada. The last time the Conservatives were in power they did not properly support Ontario preferring to put all of their support behind the oil industry only. I believe in the oil industry as it is an important commodity for Canada but the other provinces also have important commodities and the support should be equal across the country. 

On to Breakfast and the day. It is a beautiful one thus far - sun is coming up brilliantly in the east. There will be a lot more melting today. The spring flowers are lovely.