Monday, July 24, 2023

Amazing email in inbox today

The Somerset Archives was able to work on the will and inventory of Robert Siderfin 1688 at East Linch, Timberscombe and provide me with five pages from those two items that were attached to the property documents. In that will Robert Siderfin of East Linch mentions his son William and an addendum to the Inventory mentions Robert Siderfin and William Siderfin and was dated 1692. The document from the National Archives will now assist me in understanding this will/probate/inventory with regard to Robert Siderfin and his wife Ursula and the John Siderfin mentioned with him and was an answer to a claim made by Alexander Franke. Together the two documents may provide solid proof on the line which I have postulated to be at East Linch and Timberscombe. Amazing I had not thought to have this information at hand before another little while so am most appreciative of their efforts. 

Yesterday I continued to work on the seventh generation placing text where it was most meaningful for each of the generations. I continue to go back between the sixth, seventh and eighth generations. When I wrote my rather lengthy theory concerning the Siderfin lines at Minehead, Selworthy, Timberscombe and East Linch it was a two page document. But now, with the information gleaned from the parish records - baptisms, marriages and burials I can now break down that proposal into likely scenarios and bring the relevant data to the individual concerned. 

Today is cleaning day so will probably not get a lot done but will continue through this week to complete the seventh generation so that next week I begin the eighth generation which leads the Siderfin family into the 1700s although the sixth generation does take me nearly to the half way point of that century already. Definitely by the ninth generation I am well into parish registers that are very complete and the census of the 1800s. I feel as if I have given myself lots of time with still another five months to go in the year when I have proposed to complete the revision and additions to James Sanders: History of the Siderfin Family of West Somerset. 

I hope to send off some material to my "cousins" descendant of individual Siderfin lines just to have them take a look and see if I have missed/mixed up anything in their line/lines. Possibly I will be able to do that by September. I am feeling hopeful in that regard. I have the page run out already for these generations but would like to have it in a more complete form before sending it off for their perusal. 

We had a lovely walk at the beach last evening. I read and sang the Church Service in the morning. The Bible Readings was something that rather heartened me in that it was the story that Jesus told about sowing wheat and evil sowing weeds and the disciples asked Jesus what should they do - should they weed the wheat field. He said no; let them all grow up together and when the wheat was ripe to separate the weeds from the wheat and burn them and store up the wheat for their use in the future. I have so many weeds in my gardens this year. The weather has been very hot and I have not tried to weed very thoroughly. Yet when I pulled green onions the other day they are filling out very nicely and fewer are needed to make a meal. Last night we had scallops in a tomato sauce with some of those lovely fresh onions. It was quite lovely with grated parmesan cheese on top. A very simple meal that took perhaps fifteen minutes to prepare and served with pumpernickel bread. Then off for our walk on the beach. It was busy but very pleasant and the sun was just coasting in for sunset when we completed our walk. 

We also spent the afternoon working on all the correspondence that Edward had with many of his "cousins" on different family lines. We checked to make sure that all of it was scanned and now we will shred it. The correspondence is very old for the most part and very dusty. That is a great advantage to computers now. There were no original documents just copies of copies so an electronic serves just as well as the paper copies which he scanned over the past ten years and the paper is decaying somewhat and yellowing. There was a bankers box worth of shredding from yesterday's efforts. We are trying to collect up all the Schultz material for Edward's cousins when they come and working through the research boxes that remain - more than 25 remain. 

On to the day, breakfast greatly desired as I always wake up hungry not being a very big eater at the evening meal. 


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