Chromosome 15 completed as well as Chromosome 14

It was a good research day yesterday as I completed Chromosome 15 and with a surprise ending as I came across a match that locks in the beginning of the Chromosome for me as Buller and not Taylor so not an Irish length of DNA for me. The match that does this is two lengths at each end of the chromosome totaling 54 centimorgans with the beginning length 48.3 centimorgans and a shorter one at the end. This is an early American Colonial match in a pile-up area (most of the matches tend to be early Colonial American) and certainly the Buller family was a very large one in Cornwall which traveled about the world in those early years of exploration although my knowledge of the Buller family in this time frame is limited (eventually I may investigate this line as well for a book). Interesting really how that transpired. Chromosome 14 has my Jewish matches which show up as 4th or even 3rd cousin but are actually likely twice that (i.e. 8th or 6th cousin) because of endogamy in the lines. Chromosome 14 has very long lengths of Rawlings/Cotterill with known Rawlings which is helpful. The same with the Pincombe/Gray where a number of Pincombe cousins (3rd) are matching all of us on this chromosome. Some Knight matches and again Buller/Taylor not yet separated by any of the matches on Chromosome 14. I even started Chromosome 13 so an extremely good research day. 

Mid morning I cleared away the couple of centimetres snow fall and noted that everyone had their paper recycling out so put mine out as well - I forgot the night before.  The collection was late, after dark actually, but I put out two big cardboard boxes full of paper so did not have to go out again to bring the bin in. That was handy for sure. 

Sunday today and the last service of the year. I will attend on YouTube as usual. The week flew by quickly and I did not check for the sermon online since the service cut off just at that time last week. We will see how that goes this week. Having the service bulletin already at hand I can read it on my own but it is nice to attend online when it works. 

I heard from my Buller cousin off in New Zealand and I hope to collaborate with her on this family as we trace it back in England. I have been able to trace back to Christopher Buller born circa 1763 according to his death registration in 1832 and he attended St Olave Bermondsey Parish Church which was demolished to make way for the ramping up to London Bridge. His Slop Shop was on Tooley Street in Bermondsey just as you cross over the London Bridge into Bermondsey on the south side of the Thames. Christopher married Mary Beard 30 Dec 1794 at All Hallows Barking by the Tower and I think it was an elopement although Mary was 27 years old and Christopher would have been  around 31 years of age. The couple had seven children with their eldest Elizabeth Jane dying as an infant in 1797 and a second infant death Henry Christy Buller in 1803 but Martha Sarah was born in 1797, Elizabeth Jane in 1799, Emma Hemsley in 1800, Henry Christopher (our ancestor) in 1805 and Robert Hucksley in 1806 although he too died as an infant in 1807. Mary was buried 14 Dec 1806 at St Olave Bermondsey Parish Church and the graves for all of this Buller family were moved to Bunhills when the Church was demolished later in the 1800s for the Bridge approaches.  It is possible that Christopher remarried by 1813 although the actual registration I have not located as there are two more possible sons namely Thomas Christopher in 1813 and John Christopher in 1819 who died as an infant in 1819. Interesting family really and the parentage of Christopher remains a mystery but I must admit I have hundreds of Buller matches in England that I have barely glanced at so the answer may well be there. There was a Buller family in Bermondsey and they had moved from Somerset to Bermondsey at some point in the 1700s. 

Skiing today if it works out and hopefully the freezing rain predicted is not as bad as mentioned. Time will tell. 

Must make my tea the day  moves onward and the solitaire puzzles are already completed.  

Discovery under Antarctica - robots come into their own

I found this interesting experiment on line headed up by Sweden investigating the "vital statistics" of the areas under the glaciers in Antarctica.  The robot managed immersible traveled under the glaciers in two areas and discovered the one area was still as anticipated but the second area has a warming trend underneath it. The loss of glaciers is huge and in this case the possibility of a melting glacier in the near future (hard to predict in actual years) is 1.7 metre rise in ocean levels which floods many low lying areas in the entire world. The impact far from the melting is huge. A rise of 1.7 metres is just slightly above my height before I shrunk 1.5 centimetres since I was at my full  height in my 60s years of age (not too bad I guess) but I digress. It is this height that I am standing at that would be the amount of rise in the ocean level around all the lands of the world. One can go and stand at the edge of any land mass that faces the ocean (if they are my height) and see the impact in real time although the ocean will rise somewhat slowly over a period of time (unknown to me) but the impact on my thought process was large actually. We need to control the outflow of heat from the continents one is left to surmise perhaps. It is good to see that oceanographers are into this sort of thinking well in advance of the rise for sure. I wonder if my keeping my house at 20 degrees celsius in the winter helps with that. I actually do not like it warmer than that and did consider going to 19 but haven't done it yet. Perhaps if the whole world kept their house just a little cooler we can fend off the increase in the ocean warming. No ideas on that; there are people much more knowledgeable than I who are into it for sure. 

Yesterday a little work on Chromosome 15 and I continue to view all of these matches to me at the beginning of the chromosome in this common or pile-up area and I only collected perhaps as little as ten percent of them (generally if they had a second match I would collect it or if there was something about the surname that was interesting or the location). Will I ever find that elusive line of my grandmother's mother as I become more and more suspicious that this is Ellen (Taylor) Buller's impact on our DNA and in particular mine since I am the only one matching all these people. But bearing in mind that this is a pile-up area  and I finally looked at the updating in 23 and Me which lists the remainder of Chromsome 15 (away from the pile up area) as English (not a surprise) and in total I am listed as 94.9% English with 0.6% Irish, 0.4% Scot and 0.2% Welsh. The remaining 4.5 % includes 2.8% North Western European, 1.7% Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. The easy answer would have been for that area to be Irish but my Irish is not separated out from the English so interesting. Looking at Ancestry a deeper look with 67% Southeastern England and Northwestern Europe, 12% Northeast England, 5% Devon and Somerset. Now that is amazing really as I have these known area that my different lines came from which include north east England, Devon and Somerset, and southeastern England. I apparently have 2% Western Europe (Germans in Russia) and 1% Central and Eastern Europe (Estonia and Latvia) and another interesting section listing me as Celtic and Gaelic with 8% Central Scotland and Northern Ireland (planters perhaps which matches the mitochondrial matches to our line that went to the Carolinas from Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1772 (having been sent to Northern Ireland by Cromwell in the mid 1600s from Ayrshire/Argyllshire), 3% North East Scotland (Routledge were Highlanders as per my cousin's very intense research of this past twenty years) and 2% from Leinster, Ireland which is fascinating (this is the area around Dublin and the closest match to our yDNA comes from the Dublin area). Celtic and Gaelic being particularly ancient to the British Isles. When you get so many parts of a related family looking at their lines and knowing we do have common ancestry in the last thousand years these ethnicity predictions become more and more interesting. I still have Living DNA, My Heritage and FT DNA to look at and might do that another day. This update at Ancestry was October 2025 and once again I have not looked at it until now.  At Ancestry I did find it possible to tentatively separate my parents and name the half circles as Maternal and Paternal. Interestingly enough the Leinster, Ireland is in my mother's half circle (Buller/Taylor belongs on this side) as does North East Scotland (Routledge also my mother's side). An interesting review to add to my thinking of Chromosome 15 and my singleton matches at the beginning of the Chromosome. 

Plans for today include working on Chromosome 15 and perhaps skiing depending on just how cold it is out there - I might stick to the back yard. My new exercise is improving my balance and will keep that up for sure. We are making Thai larb for dinner which is a really interesting meat salad using ground pork and cooking it with lots and lots of grated carrot, peppers, onions, and ginger. It is quite delicious and served over rice if you so choose (which we do tend to do). It is a favourite dinner actually.  It is also excellent in a wrap with lettuce. Just a nice easy meal that cooks up quickly and is very tasty. We add a set of herbs and spices to it as well. I like to add molasses and red wine vinegar to give it just that very generous taste and sweetness. 

New Year is approaching quickly and one hopes for peace in our world sooner rather than later. God did not mean for us to be doing battle around the world but rather to have peace and we know that because Jesus told us that the two commandments which His father wanted us to have were: we would love God His Father and Creator of this world with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. Two simple commandments to lead to a peaceful and productive life instead of this constant murder of people in order to steal their land and riches from them.  

Solitaire puzzles done and tea drank so on to the day, setting up to begin my matches work on Chromosome 15 and exercise sprinkled in through the day. God bless the world and all who live in it and make us the best people that is Your desire and commandment.  

Boxing Day and the year is slowly coming to a New Year 2026

 I found the Editorial by Kelly Geraldine Malone on The Canadian Press to be a nice sum-up of where we are at as this year comes to a close. We started out the year somewhat in trepidation of what was perhaps in store for us as the change in government was about to begin in the United States. Canada has not in the past three radical changes in how business is done here made the necessary steps to become the great producing nation it can be - in the mid 1960s we allowed ourselves to be tied closer to the United States with the Auto Pact - everyone profited on both sides of the border but we were sinking from a much stronger position to a big brother little brother relationship. That continued and again in the early 1990s the pullback of American companies particularly in southern Ontario following NAFTA was a wakeup call which we answered with non-purchase of items that had been produced here under the Auto-Pact and other associated companies and the American Branch Plants returned to maintain that cohesive effect created in the mid1960s (realizing that their profits would dwindle very quickly if we did not purchase their products) but we were definitely on that track of much bigger brother and weaker little brother instead of creating our own industries which we could have done but did not. Now it is the mid 2020s and we are finally doing it, creating industries that have not happened because of government red tape; Ontario still dragging its feet somewhat as the leadership still dreams of this perfect relationship as they see it with our great friend and neighbour to the south. They remain our great friend and neighbour but the terms of friendship will change as we become much more capable of managing internally all of our ability to harness the land in the best way possible always looking for better ways to protect the environment but none the less creating a much stronger economic position for our industries. Quebec has been more independent creating new industry that is much more export intended around the world and we do need to get with that here in Ontario. I can not offer an opinion on other provinces because I do not live there but the need for our exports to increase around the world is huge. That and getting rid of the trade barriers between provinces that we created in order to make trade with the United States much smoother and easier to fit into our Management Systems. Although there was a slight contraction 0.3% of GDP in October it too is a wake up call to be cautious that we are buying Canadian or taking advantage of Free Trade deals that we have around the world in order to protect our much smaller Canadian industries and attract new capital because we are increasing our purchase of Canadian made products and industry likes to make money! However we continue, whilst the tariff rate is zero on CUSMA approved goods, to buy from our American friends and neighbours and in my case hundreds of cousins many of whom work in these industries. The New Year will bring a lot of attention to this Trade Deal reworked in 2019 and our increasing exports around the world to offset the current tariffs leveled against us and they are 35% or higher and one notes that our dollar still sits at 0.73 cents in American dollars which continues to benefit us around the world but not with tariffs where they are on some of our products - these tariffs are some of the largest against any country in the world but we will not buckle as we rework our exports to protect ourselves from these tariffs - the big aim of 2026 is to continue making ourself Tariff Proof.  

A wonderful Christmas day with family and skiing was on the agenda - I had thought to skate although I have not skated in 20 years but the skates would have required us to unload the storage shed and that wasn't going to happen considering the first thing was digging our way through the snow that is piled in front of it. So skiing was what happened and it was great. I am trying a new balance exercise to help me to stay up on my feet at all times and I did yesterday. One stands on one foot and make circular motions with the other foot forward and back and you actually get the feel of skiing as you do that and I am close to the pillar that I can hang onto if I need to but I am up to 25 sets of back and forth (so 50 times) and will continue with that exercise which my daughter recommended. I was just standing on one foot for the count of one minute on each leg and I continue doing that as well. I also added in another exercise where I rise up on my toes and toss my arms straight up above me for a count of 40. I was already doing the toss up of my arms when I touch my toes 30 ties each morning but this is another new exercise and I am now up to 28 items on my early morning AM exercise (before breakfast) which includes 8x of walking for 200 steps between a number of the exercises. That registers as good exercise on my FitBit and I got a new one for Christmas so moving on from Charge 5 to Charge 6. I may actually activate the 6 month free premium membership to try it out. I will decide on that the next couple of days. I have eliminated NetFlix simply because I was never watching it and no one else was either so time to move on as that was something my husband really enjoyed and we would sit together and watch various programs that he enjoyed. 

Today I may get some work done on Chromosome 15 and I spent a little time yesterday morning reviewing the matches between siblings to really look at these matches that I have at the beginning of Chromosome 15 in the common area. I believe that the small length that is calculated by most of the companies for one of my brothers matching me is likely too short to show up on the matches except occasionally. So that solves that particular item. Why I have so many early American colonial ancestors there is a mystery as this is a Buller/Taylor match. But I am perhaps concentrating in my mind too much on Buller and not enough on the Taylor which continues to likely be Irish and from Eire (the Irish Free State) as there was heavy immigration from Ireland to the American Colonies. I do have one significant Buller/Taylor match with a known Irish family that I may just start using in my mind to look at these matches. That match happens to be on Chromosome 1 but it gives me a picture of this match which is known to me on this First Chromosome. So not a lot accomplished with respect to that yesterday; but a good deal of thinking and reviewing the various databases crossover points. 

Probably not shopping today because it will be incredibly busy although we might ski; time will tell. 

Tea drank and solitaire puzzles completed. I noticed that my Word is an unlicensed product on this new computer although I purchased Microsoft Word/Excel/Powerpoint 2016 and when I set up this new computer it appeared to accept that I had that particular item so not actually sure what that refers to although I am considering moving to their product which has a yearly price tag. As I get more and more into using AI in my data work I think moving to Microsoft 365 sounds like a good plan as I move forward with my publishing. The New Year should see me back at doing some writing.  

 

Merry Christmas

Another beautiful Christmas and the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child once again enters into our life. At 80 one tends to reflect backwards to a certain extent on the 80 Christmases already celebrated in one's life. Coming from a large family Christmas was a busy time and a room full of children opening presents is an amazing sight for anyone who has never seen seven children doing that. Now my Christmases are small but equally wonderful. But my strongest memories of Christmas remain going to Church on Christmas Day as a family and sometimes we had not yet opened presents as we awaited the arrival of grandparent and aunt and uncle to celebrate with us. But the Christmas Service always was most beautiful and some years I was singing in the Choir (from about nine years to thirteen years as I vaguely recall). Merry Christmas to all and to all a wonderful day of memories. 

I have particularly found the Advent Reflections to be extremely meaningful to me. During this time of Reconciliation between the First Peoples and the Colonials we, the Colonials, are receiving from the First Peoples their thoughts and they are most welcome to my mind. Like the Reflector, I came from a large family (four boys and three girls) but with a difference in that I am first generation Canadian on my Father's side (he was born in England coming to Canada with his parents as a child of nine and his father was a blacksmith on the Railway) and I am fourth generation Canadian on my mother's side with herself, her father and his mother being my only Canadian born ancestors. My little line back into history in Canada is not that similar to other colonials and yet there are likely many who have a somewhat similar background in that all of my known ancestors were born in different parts of England (six in total - Devon, Somerset, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Surrey, London, East Riding of Yorkshire, Cumberland, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Leicestershire and probably other areas - my first Canadian emigrants were the Routledges coming from Cumberland to London Township in 1818 followed by Robert Gray arriving in the early 1830s to London Township from the Eastern Riding of Yorkshire as well. Then my Pincombe family arriving in March 1851 in Westminster Township, Middlesex, Ontario from Devon followed by my maternal grandmother Ellen Buller in 1908 from Warwickshire to London, Ontario and the last my Blake family in 1913 from Hampshire to London, Ontario. Each one of these individuals married someone from England (or eventually someone born here who had only English ancestry) giving me 100% ancestry from England. Amazing really. 

Canada continues on its path of making itself Tariff Proof for the future. There is a lot of work and it will be a struggle to get there but the endpoint is worth having and we must continue to strive towards that for the future of Canada as an independent country. One of the many reasons for doing so is to thank the First Nations for their aid and support during difficult times in our history over the past hundreds of years. This is their country for thousands of years and accepting us and helping us has been wondrous through the years. There was a lack of understanding between us created by differences but we do see Turtle Island/Canada as worth all of the work that we can put into it - the land of our birth and that of the generations that follow us and we must pass it on to them as prosperous as we can.  

Not much done on the matches yesterday but the cleaning completely accomplished and now the research time has its place in my life. Chromosome 15 will be a challenge and I hope to separate out more of the great grandparent lines as I go through the matches. Some of these matches I have not regarded since I collected them so is a first look at them in a number of years in some cases. There have been surprises as I recognized the individuals and can readily fit them into family lines now. There are puzzles; why so many singleton Buller matches to me (should include one brother partially) at the beginning of Chromosome 15. Today though is a busy day already planned and just have to take those plans to fruition. That will happen eventually. 

In the meantime I shall go to Church online if not my Church here there is one in England that is online as well. Breakfast too will have its moments and I need to make my tea, finish my early morning exercises and do my solitaire puzzles.  

Last Cleaning day and on to Research

 Today the top floor and then a return to Research well once the Christmas festivities are past that is. Lots of snow yesterday and our White Christmas is for sure. Even the trees are coated with lovely white snow all along the branches. quite beautiful looking out the window and it is just minus 5 degrees celsius but feels like minus 13 degrees celsius. 

Contraction of GDP by 0.3% in October will be offset by all the Christmas spending in November and December hopefully. Winter is upon us and we are importing a lot these days because there is not much growing in Canada although our green house business has grown a lot in the last decade. 

Continued working on Chromosome 15 which I started yesterday. The beginning of this Chromosome is interesting as I have a lot of matches in this area (which should also include one of my brothers but they tend not to do so and they are large matches in the 30 to 40 centimorgan range. They look like Buller rather than Rawlings which are my choices. Most of them are American colonials dating back into the at least 1700s some with lengthy trees and the traceback is generally to the south eastern colonies. This is a pile up area or common area so I do tend to ignore it as I do have a couple of known matches in this area. Interesting though to have so many and they number in the 100s. I am still in the beginning stages of looking at this chromosome from a great grandparent basis. The suspicion that it could be Irish or  Scot Planters to Northern Ireland (mid 1600s) in ethnicity remains (particularly because the pile-up area does trace back into the Carolinas, Georgia and the states that many of these individuals moved to as they fanned out across into the Appalachians in the late 1700s and early 1800s).  There are 84 matches now and six in the "too small" file which also includes matches that I do not feel will be useful in my quest. There are still 73 to do. 

 Chromosome 15 has always been somewhat of an enigma - every grandparent fairly well represented although Rawlings does predominate in the paternal descent with Pincombe doing the same in the maternal descent. Just the way that DNA was passed with that chromosome. Mostly 2 or 3 crossovers for every sibling on this chromosome. Known cousins number eight in total and the Rawlings in the common area is a 3rd cousin so quite helpful. The end of the Chromosome very well known with two fourth cousins and it is Buller. No known Pincombe on this chromosome although that may change as I work my way through. Blake also well known at the end of the chromosome and it is the Knight family. So all in all I may learn a lot as the Buller is that and not Taylor. Taylor has proven to be the hardest one to locate and that line remains Taylor going back several generations with Ellen (Taylor) Buller's father likely being Thomas Taylor back to Samuel Taylor and then another Samuel Taylor - if the family is Irish they have been in England since the 1700s. The mother of Ellen (Taylor) Buller likely Ellen (Roberts) Taylor also in England back into the mid 1700s. It is one of my weakest lines actually. 

I still have to check for new matches and must put that on my agenda to do. 

Time to make tea, I am late today for sure.