The march of time ever forward never back. I remember as a child when the United Nations was in its infancy, we share a common birth year of 1945 and now I am old and the United Nations is also an old organization in the world. It has stood the test of time and merits consideration in the world. We owe it to all those deaths on the World War II battlefields of Africa, Asia, Europe and yes some in the Western Hemisphere as Hawaii is part of the United States. Those deaths should never have been but they were; the youth of so many countries, the children and the old - they all died to stop Nazism - the greed for land, money and property that continues to exist even today. It is all dressed up in all sorts of thoughts and sayings mostly quoting Hitler but it is just pure greed on the part of a few psychopathic Nazis spouting such names as Putin, Medvedev, Lukashenko these days who harness the might of the many by fear. Let not fear dominate your heart; let it be love for those lost so young and so long ago now. Fight Nazism everywhere; let not greed destroy our world any more than it already has. Belarus should keep their helicopters on their side of the border - it is ignorant to do otherwise.
On to the research part of my week. Today I continue working on refining the Siderfin text as I await the next document to come from the National Archives of the UK. It is necessary in order to make sure it doesn't change the hypothesis which I created to put together the family tree of the Siderfin as it looks to be considering the available records. Not that surprising that so many lines daughtered out (I can look at my own family to see that - four brothers but the Blake line daughters out in my generation). But it is a large family coming down from Thomas Blake and Sarah Coleman with their 10 children and 34 grandchildren. They were married 10 Jun 1792 at Upper Clatford and thus began the Blake family of Upper Clatford. Thomas' father Joseph was born/baptized at Andover son of Thomas Blake and Ann Carter (the only surviving child ; a younger brother died as an infant) who married 8 Dec 1728 at Penton Mewsey. That Thomas Blake was an only child son of Thomas Blake and Mary Spring who married 6 Nov 1708 at Andover and the line continues on back but those only children in the 1700s are an interesting phenomenon in a time of much larger families. They were part of the much smaller Blake family at Andover from the late 1600s when the early 1600s had seen a much larger Blake family there. My book, once I get pen to paper so to speak, will talk about the Blake family of Andover, Hampshire, England which on paper one can find traces back to the early 1300s at Knights Enham. The yDNA of my brothers tells me that this is an ancient line to the British Isles and fits well into the stories of my grandfather of always living in the Andover area which he learned from his father. But first the Pincombe book as that too is an interesting family, my mother's family, which in her line also daughtered out as her brother did not have any children. The Pincombe yDNA of my cousins shows a Celtic line which arrived later to the British Isles than my Blake line but still thousands of years ago likely. The flow of generations is the study of surnames; because there are so many cousins surnames do not die out in many families but some surnames do actually disappear and that is the value in a surname study and why I do it actually. My interest in genealogy as a family finding venture is pretty low; my sister does that in our line and she enjoys finding all those people. I also enjoy meeting up with cousins interested in our mutual family history - everyone's talents are needed.
Edward was like that as well; he loved finding cousins and visiting them to see what they know about the family. But that was partly looking for information on his father; what he was like as a person. It was interesting in our early marriage watching his face as he met people who had actually known his father; gone to the country fairs where they showed their animals and went to Church with him. For Edward it was definitely a time of discovery as he learned more and more about him; Edward was just two years and two months of age when his father died. He had no memories of him and yet he spent his days with him in the barn in a playpen which his father had built but the two year old does not retain those memories just the feelings perhaps. No pictures of any of that and just one picture of him with his father when he was between one and two years of age. He looked like his father as we discovered as more and more pictures of him were discovered. Finding all of that information gave him a great deal of pleasure for sure.
The day advances and my tea is slowly cooling as I drink it. Exercise periods and research is my day today. I should garden and will try to fit that in but my desire to garden diminished quickly when Edward died; I only did it to help him out and the desire on my part is low although the vegetables are tasty coming from the garden. But this soil is worked out somewhat after fourty five years of gardening it. Really I should just sow some barley and then dig it under and perhaps after a couple of years it would be better soil but such hard work lies in my past. I do not intend to do that hard work and do not actually. I do keep up the front yard as Edward had that beautifully arranged and it continues to be quite beautiful as the summer passes and each plant takes its turn to bloom. But I do look forward to winter and all that research/writing time. Someone once said to me I should write the story of my life but I will not. My book writing is not particularly personal; it is relating; telling the stories of the generations coming down from the earliest ancestor. Each one in his own line can tell their own story to their children if they so choose; my books are not a venue for that particularly. James Sanders had more of that in his book; he chose the characters that most appealed to him and built their story line and I will have some of that in the appendices so that it is not lost as he spent time I am sure collecting all of it and I would not be a faithful reviser if I lost some of his book just because I am not into personal narratives.
Others ask me why I do not travel anymore. I do have a couple of trips I may yet make but they are all Canadian pretty much. But I have traveled enough for my lifetime (and not being a foodie I have eaten in so many restaurants that going to one now is a rare event (with my children)); we went to Europe so many times (our last trip Edward called our second honeymoon to encourage me to go!); we have had countless trips down into the New England/New York/Pennsylvania area where his ancestors lived from the 1620s to the 1820s/1830s although some did go to New Brunswick and Quebec as Loyalist but most came as settlers from the 1800s on. Trips to the Allen County Library and the Family History Library in Salt Lake City yielded even more information particularly for him on his Germany ancestry (his great grandparents were German coming in the mid 1850s). Eventually loyalist descendants married revolutionary descendants which is always rather interesting to be honest. I am assuming they simply forgot their ancestry as time passed! Most of Edward's colonial ancestry was lost to time as no mention was made of very much of it in his childhood. He had thought his German/Dutch/French/English ancestry to be much closer in time than it actually was. Needless to say the quest was very fruitful in his case and he put together an enormous family tree back into the earliest days of New Holland and New England.
Now on to the day, my tea is finished and breakfast awaits my cooking it. I do love my breakfast. If I had to choose one meal a day only it would be breakfast!
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