Shopping Day and some research

 Yesterday was a shopping day and four bags of groceries for $103 which was not too bad as it included my chicken purchase which is every three weeks. But yes I agree groceries are more expensive than a year ago. This week I also changed back to summer tires and had to replace all the brakes so $2600 plus for that. My car sits too much in the garage all winter and it is hard on the brakes. It  is running like a new car now although I did not particularly notice anything but then I am only driving it a couple of blocks to the grocery store and back always mid morning when there is pretty much no one about and the store uncluttered. When I have to go out twice in one week like that though I think about my one room idea and just not have to do all these things but I am very lucky to be in the state I am in although would have preferred to be doing all of this with my husband still alive that is for sure. But he was ill for a long time really and  now  he is at peace with God I am sure. He would have been so sad about the world as it is today especially as he wanted to travel a whole lot more in Europe but just because he found war to be very sad. He used to say to me why does God let war happen? But I said that humankind was making its own way through life I felt since the Second World War. I think that was Armageddon but we survived, all of us, by our ingenuity and so we continue but we need to follow God's commandments - love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. When we do that we will have peace. During the sad days of COVID my husband did find peace and contentment as his life slowly ebbed away. The saddest moment in my children's life (and mine with Edward) was that last night together all of us as we had been for so many years as he slipped away gone to us physically but forever with us in our minds and hearts. He was smiling at his daughters as they fussed over him taking care of him that last day. A sad but also a good memory that he loved them so much. I can remember as he held each one of them as an infant in the hospital and at home so tenderly so calmly and so happily. Fatherhood suited him. Although he could be impatient with them they knew it and got out of his way quickly!

Finished off the FT DNA matches and started entering them into my various databases including the newest one which is for phasing the great grandparents (not true phasing but rather dividing up that portion that belonged to the grandparent pair into their parents (a never ending task really). I have recorded relatives in common, matches in common on a lot of them and will let AI use that information to help direct me towards the appropriate great grandparent when I get started doing that.  

It is Saturday and meant to be mostly cloudy here. I looked yesterday and thought I should clear away some of that dead foliage in the gardens. But I never got out the door to do that. It will need to be done as the plants are now coming out and it just neatens it up. In the woods it would just rot away and replenish the soil but it takes a while. I want to move one hosta but other than that we go with what's there although I might buy some bulbs in the fall and bury them deep!

Drinking my tea and solitaire puzzles are next (one of my luxury items as it is an American company that sells it although they do it from a Canadian address). In essence we liked CUSMA well enough but our need to be tariff proof for the future is our first concern and so we are diversifying our trade as rapidly as we are able. Like Mexico we saw ourselves as part of the North American market being an active contributor to the product lines of so many companies. That has changed as car companies retreat to the United States to avoid tariff  and the push to draw Canadian companies across the border. We are proceeding forward on many items that have sat waiting this last decade and most certainly the mine in Northern Ontario has been a desire for the First Nations to get it going for more than two decades. Time to move forward and get these new industries up and running and our youth employed. As it is always the case, the youth must follow the jobs that are available to them. No one can control the type of work that will be needed in any generation; we just have to put our backs into the work that needs doing and get it done. The trades have sat on this sideline which saddened me because I do know the value of the trades in our lives - everything we do that is related to our life needs the trades at many points in that need. As AI enters the workforce to do the mundane sitting at a desk type job this is the time to save the health of our youth and their brains for that matter doing the skilled work of a tradesmen. The tools are fantastic; the results stunningly beautiful. We are on our way. 

I liked Conrad Black's post for sure and do tend to agree with a lot of what he says; the road will be difficult but like him I believe in Canada and that the power of success is ours. We are running but we just have to double the pace and get it done. There is a lot of work ahead. The advantage of going into the military in one's youth is the discipline that is acquired and no longer obtainable in our schooling system. I will always remember those long straight lines going into my elementary school as a child in the morning, recess, lunch and recess once again. We lined up straight and quietly with our principal front and center always. He was an ex-British office and a brilliant organizer. That was the rule and we knew how to follow it. Five years/ten years in the military and you come out with a trade/skill and ready to go but we need to get going I agree with Conrad Black and the task is not easy.   We must do it for the future and take our place once again as we were back at the end of the Second World War; secondary to no one.  

 

Conversation on Ancestry messages

 I have been having a conversation on Ancestry re the spelling of a surname. The spelling of the husband of Elizabeth Ann Pincombe (my great maternal grandfather's younger sister) was Ormond in the records that I located and this individual is disagreeing with me. That is fine but according to English law your name is however you spell it and particularly in Upper Canada at this time English law prevailed. But certainly in this time frame that would have been considered correct. She had noted that in my published tree I had both Orman and Ormond. But Orman is in my Knight family which is my father's grandmother Maria Jane Knight and down the line from Elizabeth Knight and Samuel Ballam (married 1 Sep 1834 at Turnworth, Dorset) one of their descendants married an Orman. The argument put forward was that the surname for Ormond should be Orman. Interesting and I will save it because I will eventually be publishing Elizabeth and her descendants likely down to the late 1800s in my Pincombe book. I follow Canadian tradition and keep the 100 year rule for release of information (it is also perhaps a bit of laziness). So I have replied once again and wished her Good luck with her research and I feel I have sort of terminated that discussion as I am not at a point where I will work on this Ormond family a bit. 

I am not overly fixated on the spelling of surnames as they did vary on occasion through the years. I just spell as it occurs on the records and that works for me.  

I am noting that I get fewer and fewer emails directed at me personally and I am finding that that is a good place for me to be. I always feel I should respond and do but it is good to no longer have as many to be honest. At 80 I am moving towards only doing my project; retaining my Guild membership, my membership with BIFHSGO (I am after all English but Canadian first for sure) and perhaps OGS if I can get them to change me to the email I prefer. We will see. It might just be easier to make my donation to Canada Helps. My siblings other than my older sister and older brother did not generally email me very regularly. My older sister, sad to say, is in Long Term Care now and prayers as always that she is comfortable. Could I go and see her; I do not know. It is not an easy trip and about 1000 kilometres although by air one has to go to Halifax and then Charlottetown. So I think perhaps not although my thoughts and best wishes are with her at this time and always. Doug of course passed away in 2020 although I sense him close to me as I work away on his DNA for the projects he loved to hear about. I do message with my youngest brother on Messenger occasionally but he is busy raising his two grand daughters whilst his daughter and son in law both work. After years of work running his own business (I mentioned him as he had completed the trades of electrician, carpenter and plumber and used all of these skills in his business) he is enjoying spending time with his grand children. I occasionally hear from my younger sister as she has a huge family tree and occasionally we chat on the telephone although not for quite a while I am thinking. 

 I finally completed the Ancestry extraction project but it did take all day yesterday but some really good information so worthwhile. I collected up about five new known cousins and all had trees. Mind you I am not really using their trees as my cutoff for the book is likely going to be in the late 1800s. 

This is May Day. One of my father's favourite days as he would go to Upper Clatford and visit his cousins. As an only child that was a treat. Although he lived right next door to his Uncle John and he and his wife had two daughters just a little older but a picture of them as small children tells it all I think. Three small children together in life so coming to Canada at nine years of age and leaving all those cousins behind was painful although another of his uncles, Uncle Henry, was in Toronto and my grandfather (Samuel) was in London waiting for them with a house all set up (actually he met them at the boat when they arrived in Montreal). But May Day meant the Maypole and as a child he danced around the May Pole with his cousins in the village that his Blake family had lived in for a long time since Joseph Blake moved there from Andover (he remembered all of that history down to Thomas son of Joseph; then John son of Thomas and Edward son of John and his father son of Edward). 

Today another research day and it will be the extraction of the matches in FT DNA (7 matches). I should accomplish it quickly; all depends on what is there in terms of trees and what not and whom else they match.  

The pipeline already laid in Alberta ready to go right to the border and now the agreement has been signed by the President for the Bridger Pipeline. Another profitable venture in Alberta. This MOU signed between the Prime Minister and the Premier of Alberta has really set the course towards more pipelines but in the long run it will see us become more and more green in our energy as the phase of oil for energy winds down and green energy takes over the planet. The money from oil will save the planet. Now just the pipeline to tidewater on the Pacific Ocean and I so want the Eastern Pipeline to Port Churchill to sell oil in Europe and to Ontario to bring refining of our oil back to us and save the three times the price we sell it to the Americans to bring it back here and have that in our income as well here in Canada. We will be tariff proof before another decade passes.  All of this money coming into the coffers and the greedy separatists broke the law and published private material on line - how sad to have such greed in Canada. Canada is about sharing all across the country; greed really does need to become a sin of the past. It ruins so many lives. 

Oil will have so many profitable uses in the future that burning it up will become such a waste in our minds. It creates a very solid product of use in so many areas including medicine and many others. 

Probably back to the Latin wills today and finish off that Somerby fraud chapter. Drinking tea and soon solitaire puzzles.     

 

 

 

Continuing with Ancestry matches

 I did manage to complete all but the last siblings matches in my Ancestry File so will finish that today. A couple of interesting matches and I do colour code where I recognize the lines that merge with mine in the past. It is the trees though that tend to be the most interesting with Ancestry although the amount shared is also meaningful along with the number of chromosomes shared. Just FT DNA to work on today and will work on that. I have decided that with these new books I will set them aside at the point where I am getting ready to publish and then a month later do my final proofreading. I suspect that in my rush to finish whilst my eyes were still handling somewhat the amount of reading I was doing I may not have followed through on my lists for proofreading which my daughter helped me to set up. Looking at the list yesterday I had not checked off proofreading the Index. The names in the index will be as in the text but I am somewhat concerned about the paging as I did not proofread the index. It was just a moment in my early widowhood when I was using James Sanders book that the thought came to me to revise it and it was never really a long thought out project but rather I dove in and did it and then my cataracts were dimming my sight somewhat, I just thought it was aging, and I rushed to publish it. Even the corrected version was part of that rushing after I completed the Companion Charting Book. An apology and a mention to any users that the paging in the indexes might be questionable because I did not actually proofread the indexes against the text. At some point I will do that and republish (there is more material that I could insert along the way although may just put it into my blog and let someone in the future carry on with a new revision). 

Once I have completed pulling the matches and entering them into my database I will return to my latin transcriptions of the wills and make a final decision on where to begin the Blake genealogical descent table for the Andover Blake family (I still tend towards Robert but should I mention Richard Blake found at Salisbury in the 1440s from Ireland). I think one contemplates whether he is English and his ancestral line went to Ireland earlier although I do not find anything in the Calendar of Patent Rolls. That he arrived twice (10 Jul 1440 and 7 Sep 1441) is interesting. Historically speaking in the 1440s the Normans are fully in control of England at this point and Henry VI is King (1422-1461 and 1470-1471). He is crowned King of both England (1429) and France (1431). By 1447 the term "The Pale" first refers to English rule and it was pretty much limited to areas within Dublin, Meath, Louth and Kildare.Ireland is seeing a change with a decline of centralized English control and the Anglo-Irish lordships are taking over control of Ireland. It could be mere coincidence that Robert has named his sons as Richard and Thomas. But I feel that I should mention this individual. Perhaps in time more British/Irish yDNA tests will come forth for the Blake family. There are a number of founding lines known in England already and the Emigrant's Database between 1330 and 1550 includes 50  Blake individuals (including three female Blake where it is not possible using the chart to determine if they were wives or Blake was their maiden name) coming into Britain but not all have a location of exit (i.e. the country they lived in prior to their arrival).  Using Paul Reed's papers and my own transcription and a couple of other items that support one thought or the other I will move to this next phase of the Blake book. It does occasionally cross my mind that my two brothers having tested their yDNA and the result being Western Hunter Gatherer it would be interesting to test my grandfather who was buried in London, Ontario at some point but at 80 probably it isn't going to be me I am thinking. It is his memories that I carry within my mind; he definitely did a good job of placing material within my brain which I have retained through these years because he said it so often and I loved him dearly and his words remain with me on many occasions. I still dream about Grandpa and I can remember that last day together when I was just past my eighth birthday. I found it hard to believe he was dead but I had kissed him goodbye lying there in his coffin. I just didn't want him to be but children grow up and accept the loss of loved ones slowly but knowing they are with God. He was born in 1875 in Upper Clatford. I think the future holds great excitement for those pursing the past in their family lines. I am fairly content with the first one hundred pages although will be reading it again and again. I need to complete my footnoting (I have done quite a bit as I have moved along but will footnote items that I may have missed). Already there are nearly 200 footnotes on the first 100 pages. Amazingly my sight is so much better now and the time taken after the cataract surgery not overdoing anything has given that to me I believe. I am still amazed that I now live a life without glasses except when I work on the computer or read a book. Wearing glasses everyday, all day, for 78 years does form habits that take time to change. Particularly putting your glasses on every day. I noticed that stayed with me; that hand movement for nearly two years.  

The Pincombe book appears to have drifted into some resting spot but actually I do think about it particularly with the Pincombe matches on Living DNA. These are the descendants of the Pincombe lines including common ancestry further back than John Pincombe and Mary (Charly) Pincombe.  The six children of John and Mary Pincombe all married but a number of them emigrated to British Colonies. My line (Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth (Rowcliffe) Pincombe) went to the United States and Canada as well as one son George who went to Australia (at least one of his descendants emigrated to South Africa). But two of their children (Robert and Elizabeth Pincombe) remained in England with the youngest Philip having a large family but living in Somerset. Looking at the six children of John and Mary Pincombe a number of their grandchildren/great grandchildren emigrated to various places including the United States, Canada, South Africa and Australia. I will return to Pincombe probably in May sometime. The newsletter for May 1 is for the Pincombe study at FT DNA. I am contemplating that newsletter. They are brief at the moment due to my working on these books. 

A cloudy day again and the slight wind in the trees tells me God is with us; at our side watching and waiting patiently for us to do the right thing in the world. Love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. 

Soon time for breakfast and the first day that is devoted to research; cleaning is all accomplished. I also have the car ready for summer and my daughter's return to do her research. This will be a busy summer for her as are all of them. But she gets a chance to kayak and enjoy the world around her and I suspect she worries that I will not be always here and at 80 that is a legitimate thought for sure plus she is my caregiver. But I try hard to take care of myself so that I can still be here until I am not. The wonder of the internet means that I chat with my daughters every day and I am blessed that I am able to do so. 

The Economic Update

 So long as the government doesn't try to balance the budget by selling off services that were making money for Canada, I really do not have a problem with the methodology that the Prime Minister and his Cabinet are following along with the Caucus as well. The end of the 1800s when we built the railway across the country was an expensive time and has more than paid its way this past century and more. Renewing Canada as an independent producer on the world's stage is very very important. Short term panic just doesn't do it; we need to be aggressive and get our products to market (where ever that market is). Continuing to break down any trade barriers between the provinces/territories is extremely important because of tariff. CUSMA/NAFTA provided a good living both sides of the border including the United States and Mexico but we became vulnerable when the tenets of CUSMA/NAFTA were no longer being the methodology but rather tariff and the desire to force our companies to relocate south of the border (we are a democracy and it is their choice always but one hopes that they too see the greater good in what we are doing and diversify our trade within Canada particularly and around the world). We are a smaller country in terms of people than both of our partners in CUSMA (half the size of Mexico and one eight of the size of the United States); in terms of land and wealth we are huge and it is time to work on the ideas that the Prime Minister and his party have brought to the table. I continue to see this as a Unity government; we need to all work together and tighten up our belts and survive this for the sake of our children/grand children in the future. We have enjoyed the good life and now we need to make that possible for the next generations. We must be prudent and aim for the welfare of those who follow us. 

The money in trades is excellent. The jobs at hand that are needed are in the trades. One of my brothers is a plumber/electrician/carpenter. So be expansive in your thinking when you go into the trades and move towards setting up your own company. He was the youngest and the computer was very much part of his working life. It provided more scope for jobs and was very inventive and progressive. That is important and certainly tradesmen work closely with engineers providing those details that just are not learned in engineering school. The difference in money earned is pretty small these days and I suspect a trades person will make more in the long run as their job is of their own making often enough and not part of an engineering conglomerate. 

Just my thoughts and I am pleased with the economic update. We will continue to eliminate trade barriers between provinces that were not created to support our trade deals (many exist because of NAFTA/CUSMA and so we await the outcome of that trade discussion with regard to anything like that). Ontario/Quebec/BC could easily supply dairy to the west but that is predominately being supplied by American farmers (it is closer after all). Instead we sell milk cheaply around the world to countries less fortunate than ourselves and the same goes for other dairy products. 

Busy cleaning and almost done. Have done a little work on the matches in Ancestry. Still three siblings to work through. I completed myself and my second kit of myself which is basically the same but done about seven years apart.  The number of obviously Blake matches that are quite small is surprising really although Colonial families were large in those early years. If they were large matches (as many of them are) than I would know they were much more recent. But with endogamy in the Blake/Knight lines and I can spot those quite quickly as they match the many that are in the database and the matches are larger (and more recent). 

Just have to put everything back in the basement and it is lunch time.  

The basement today and it is generally just an hour and a half to two hours

 Received an email from Paul Howes, Vice President, Guild of One-Name Studies, as BIFHSGO is looking for a speaker to discuss the Guild and its wonderful possibilities and research content. I must write him back and apologize for not thinking about it! I gave a talk years ago (I have been a member of BIFHSGO since the first meeting actually (not because I was interested in genealogy, at that time I was not, but it is good to have a group that has English heritage (when one refers to English Canadians only a portion of them are actually "English") although I have not attended a meeting since COVID although occasionally online in the more recent past). The opportunity for someone to really get into the especially new features of the Guild and speak on that would be excellent. I gave my last talk in 2016 I think it was and that was it. I said never again I am done. It was interesting doing the lectures as it entails research and planning and re-examining some of the different items that I learned when I took the 42 courses from the National Institute in Genealogical Studies way back in 2004 I started and graduated in English, Canadian and Methodology Studies in 2007 plus all the features available to you as a Member of the Guild of One-Name Studies. I have been a member of the Guild for twenty years now which is amazing for someone with no interest in genealogy until 2004 (although I used to help Edward pull out items that he wanted a summary on as well as photographic copies when we went to various repositories particularly in the United States actually from the early 1970s on but the interest really wasn't there although I thought exciting that he enjoyed it so much). Here's hoping somebody takes it on. 

Managed to get through all sibling's matches on Ancestry except for the shared so that remains and will probably take me most of today to complete that but there are a lot of Blake's in there which is good news. Still I am looking for Blake that went to the American Colonies in the 1600s because I know they did go there from the Andover Blake line and where they lived but it is nice to see the match. 

Cleaning all accomplished and I spent quite a bit of time watching television in the afternoon. I listed to the King's speech to Congress and it was excellent. He is a marvelous speaker and he really discussed the history of the United States; it is a joined history with England for sure although he didn't mention the presence of the Dutch in what is now Long Island as they were my husband's first ancestors in the American Colonies. But Edward was 30% German and 30% Dutch  with his English Dissenters just being a small group but their impact was huge like Roger Williams, Hannah Feake, John Bowne etc etc. There were so many of them but compared to his German/Dutch ancestors in America a small number. 

Basement to clean today and then finished the cleaning for the week. If it isn't too wet I might do a little picking up in the gardens since everything is coming up. We will see. I am finding that I can either do the cleaning or the gardening but not really both; it is too exhausting for sure. Edward used to say it was because I was too thorough but how else can you do gardening or cleaning. A funny thought from the past.  

Tomorrow will be a research day but will try to do some gardening. 

Tea to prepare and then solitaire games and set up the I-Robot to clean the basement rugs.