Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Good news - Inquisition Postmortem is available for John de Pencombe

Today in my inbox a note to say that I can order the Inquisition Postmortem for John de Pencombe from the 1300s as a scan; the record attached to the code is the correct one (nice that they do that record check actually). It will be in Latin and I have started once again to work on my Latin skills. I am using duolingo this time and I am on the third lesson now. I do have some background work in Latin from before COVID - everything is either before or after COVID it would appear - and I am progressing along. What I am looking forward to is something about family and perhaps the reason for the loss in circumstances for the Pencombe family of Herefordshire. I suspect it is the War of the Roses now but it is amazing really to learn so much about one's ancestry. My Blake and Pincombe one-name studies have been quite fascinating. My parents would both be pleased to see the work done as both were curious about their ancestry from an interest point of view - who am I type of thing. They both had quite a bit of knowledge of their lines back several generations which was handy since it was repeated enough times when I was a child that I do remember all of that. Actually I thought I knew all of my ancestry in my younger days and when Edward prepared the 50th Wedding Anniversary book for my parents (I did help find baptisms and things at the Family Research Library) it looked quite nice although researching Taylor was difficult but then I did not know that her father was not William Taylor - that knowledge would come when I did my coursework and discovered that she was only a half-sibling to her siblings and that does show in the DNA matches with her half-siblings descendants. Since they should be my second cousins and a few of them are a nice size but definitely given how much Rawlings we share and nothing else a sure sign that her father was not William Taylor.

Yesterday was a cleaning day and the two floors accomplished in good time. I did not actually do any work other than a bit of researching here and there - nothing particularly meaningful. Mostly I thought about what would be in the next Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter. Today will be the basement and working outside. Whilst the robot cleans the downstairs rug I will pull any leftover weeds behind the raspberry canes and prepare the land for a topping of garden soil and then the carrots will be planted. We will also plant the sunflower seeds behind the house. The two bleeding hearts have transplanted and will flower nicely next year in the spring. It is a good spot for them. The last hosta is coming up nicely now and I can do a little more clearing of weeds there if time presents itself. There is so much work to gardening - I do not mind work but gardening isn't high on my agenda for sure. But my daughter likes to garden (certainly got that from her father) and will do the heavy work in that regard. I will help plant and weed. The next thing is to prepare the ground for the tomato and pepper plants and the upper part of the garden in front of the raspberry canes for lettuces, green onions, spinach and herbs. The lawn gets cut today as the bees have certainly had their fill of dandelions and other spring flowers and it is time now to enjoy the mowed lawns. Gradually I will get the flower beds weeded and we will add fresh garden soil to most of them but they have shrunk somewhat and will continue to shrink. The fruit bushes are coming along nicely as I trimmed them back quite well in the early spring. We have saved the Loyalist rose which was being strangled by the bleeding hearts and they are also coming along. I didn't really notice until my daughter came home. She quickly moved the bleeding hearts. Some work on the lawn where it is thin to seed grass seed and some fresh top soil there as well just to help it along. 

My Heritage let me know that I had some new Relativity Theories but I have rejected two and accepted one. My paternal grandmother does bring up most of the rejected ones. The records show a distinct line if I am correct that her father was George Cotterill son of William Cotterill and Jane Sherwood - any strange derivatives of those names are incorrect since they do not live in the area. The ones that do have a clear line I have neither accepted or rejected. I would like a substantial match to really prove that line. It is highly unlikely that Elizabeth Rawlins moved very far from where she worked in Kimpton or lived with her parents in Collingbourne Ducis or her siblings in Ludgershall. My grandmother was baptized in Kimpton and the priest has given her the name of Ada Bessie Cotteril Rawlings which was also the registered name. Although she was always known as Edith Bessie Taylor by her family (her mother married William Taylor when she was six years of age (she lived with her grandparents (and mother except when she was working elsewhere than Collingborne Ducis) William Cotterill and Elizabeth Lywood until then)). Do I need to know? She was very happy with her family and probably had no interest in her actual father (nor did my father, he had two sets of grandparents). But from a viewpoint of family medical history it is good to actually know the four grandparents of my father (three of them are known to me). The Lywood family is interesting and a one name study done by Warwick Lywood is available. Elizabeth Lywood definitely ran away to marry William Rawlins and they had baptized their first child a month before that. Definitely I do not think she was coerced particularly and my grandmother was very much loved by her grandparents to have had them raise her for six years before her mother married William Taylor (they still had a couple of children at home at that time as well). Their youngest child Sydney Herbert Rawlins was just six years older than my paternal grandmother. They had seven children and I have a picture of the family on an outing in the early 1900s (a very large group as William and Elizabeth had twenty-seven grandchildren).

On to the day and it is another beautiful sunny day but only 4 degrees celsius - typical May for sure as the frost warnings generally last into early June here.  The predicted high 22 degrees celsius; lovely gardening weather for sure if one must garden! I was a very enthusiastic gardener as Edward loved his garden and when he couldn't do it then I did it but it was long hours in the sun doing all of that work but it looked good. I still think it looks good but I am not bothered by dandelions or wild flowers in the grass and gardens. When they dominate the cultivated plants then I remove them. It is wonderful to wander about the yard and hear the bees humming about here and there. The raspberry canes are looking great so maybe a nice lot of raspberries this year - time will tell but the bees will have lots of little flowers to pollinate there when the time comes. The trees are especially looking good this year with the good load of snow this past winter. Rain tomorrow to keep them growing and filling out with their leaves. 

Breakfast next.

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