Blake Newsletter

Continued to work on the Blake Newsletter yesterday and the yDNA section completed. I generally leave the individual yDNA groups to themselves simply because I do not have enough time to do more than add in the statistics for the past quarter from the FT DNA site. I did write about having leaders for each individual Blake grouping in the British Isles and this could also include other areas of the world but for the most part Blake traces back these days to the British Isles and principally Ireland and England. I look after my little section which was named "Deer Hunters" by Ethnoancestry and perhaps represents the earliest hunter-gatherers to the British Isles after the Last Glacial Maximum of 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. These nomadic peoples arrive very early to the British Isles as the ice sheets retreated leaving a fertile plain known as Doggerland which linked the now British Isles with mainland Europe. Long ago buried beneath the North Sea and the Channel Doggerland may prove to be rich in artifacts of that earlier time or they have simply been dissolved in time. Quite fascinating though to belong to this group of nomadic hunter-gatherers who preceded the farmers into the far corners of the European-Asian continent. Did the nomadic peoples that arrived (mine own included) already carry the Denisovan DNA that has passed down through my line? It is a fascinating query and says a great deal about the peoples of the world with their common links and history. 

Cleaning day today and it is the basement which I shall begin very soon. I am watering as the promised rain just doesn't materialize in sufficient quantity to wet the land. This will be another dry summer and that does not auger well for the world. It was the dryness of the 1930s which brought on the extreme drought and heralded the years of Depression of our ancestors. But we are more equipped now to deal with the dryness. Went kayaking yesterday and the water level continues to fall in the wetlands but the fauna and flora are prospering quite well - rich green hues back in the wetlands and the animal/bird life is busy bringing up their young and already looking ahead to the Fall I suspect - they are managers those small furry creatures and birds. 

Dull today although sun is promised later. The air quality is in the good range although still smoke in the air because it is 34 not the usual between 2 and 10. Ever mindful that the forest regenerates during burns but the cost is huge to fight those fires to protect the human life around them. A burn this year means less chance of a burn in the next couple of years but we have a lot of forest in Canada. 

Back to the Siderfin book soon and looking at William and just whose son is he? Names his son Robert and is that a clue on the father of William? I need to take a longer look at the transcriptions of the wills on my CD of the wills. Who is Mary sealing her will with three cups in 1747 - not William's widow for sure. The Thomas-line still to look at and they are perhaps the most difficult because they lived in London and Somerset leaving paper trails in both and I need to ensure that I have found all the London area paper trails. 

The Inquisition Postmortem for John de Pencombe of Herefordshire has arrived and I will work on that intermittently over the next couple of months. My Latin lessons are progressing and it is surprising how much I retain from day to day with just that short period of time working on Latin. Duolingo is quite excellent. My daughter wants to give me the paid package for my birthday so will likely do that and then in the fall I can work on my French as well. I read French quite well but my spoken is pretty diminished these days although I did work in French at the hospital as patients did call using the French language. I took French classes for about four years whilst I was working there and did study French in high school/University years ago so written is quite good but spoken not so good.There are documents I would like to look at in the French records working on my son-in-law's Quebec ancestry. Eventually I will get back to that but a refresher in French whilst I work away at my own books would be handy. 

The day progresses and I am hungry as usual - breakfast awaits. First set of jumping jacks completed; next to do and then breakfast.