And another day of cleaning

Today the top floor and then it will be almost complete. Yesterday went well although I was tired by the end of the day for sure. 

I did complete the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter Volume 11 Issue 2 2026 and it is in for review. Perhaps on the website later today. Very brief this time as I am in the thinking process for the next chapter of the book and I have decided it will be on Autosomal DNA pointing out different lines. 

The end of the week should see me back into the matches once again but the days fly by quickly. 

Tea all drank and Solitaire Puzzles next. 

 

Cleaning Day

Cleaning day and it is the main floor that I will be working on. Nothing unusual just the regular cleaning.. 

Yesterday passed very quickly as I watched the television somewhat with regard to the War against Iran. Support is strong for the United States in this especially in the Middle East but also we in Canada believe they are doing the right thing; the people of Iran in great numbers have risen against the government but it is difficult to face bullets with no ability to counteract that. Time will tell but the death of the Ayatollah and the reaction in Canada does show how we feel about the leadership currently in Iran. The leadership are a bitter satanic people to have destroyed all those lives and the lives they have destroyed in Iran itself trying to stay in power. To shoot down a civilian aircraft headed back to Canada filled with children, women and men was a callous act - so many deaths. It was the act of a despicable satanic leader.  

 Very little real work yesterday as I took the day off contemplating that it is Sunday and the Lenten studies, I am looking at two different ones, have been particularly interesting. But it is just contemplating how to manage the house and the yard that does occupy me somewhat at this moment. I am all set up for the winter but the summer will soon come and I believe I will have this company that clears the snow cut the lawns. That will leave much smaller amounts of land for me to take care of plus I think I will get the tree trimmed this year as well. I can see dead wood up in there and best to get that out. I would rather not chop it down as I look at the fir tree next door that is slowly dying and it is huge and this tree in front of my house might catch it if it comes down if I am lucky as it is strong and healthy. Plus I love trees and they are so good for the environment. Most people have taken the trees down that the city planted over 45 years ago. Some  have replaced them with trees but a lot have not and it doesn't look quite so lovely having all those trees I have to admit. Trees do give character to a street. 

I need to continue looking at Gedmatch to see if there are any matches that I particularly want to collect from there. Then I will move on to FT DNA, My Heritage and Living DNA to see if there is anything new in the last eight months that would assist me. The chapter I am creating in my brain for the Pincombe book is slowly coming into focus so will also work on that but first the Pincombe Newsletter was due yesterday and I completely forgot actually so will likely work on that first of all today in my down time from cleaning. 

Drinking tea and must do my solitaire puzzles.  

 

The people on the Canadian Plane that was shot down on the order of the Ayatollah Khamenei

All those beautiful children, men, women shot down in the Canadian plane so many years ago in Tehran will be remembered once again with love and it is said that the Ayatollah Khamenei has died in the US-Israeli strikes. The young girl murdered for not wearing a hijab will also be remembered. All of those people who never came home again after being arrested by the Iranian Guard will be remembered but the Ayatollah and his proxies both within Iran and Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas creating terror in the Middle East  especially in Israel will not be mourned by the world or many of their own countrymen. Khamenei was satanic; as evil as evil can be. Canada stands with the Iranian people injured by this man as our Prime Minister said although his words dealt more with nuclear weapons for sure as that is the greatest danger that was being presented. Iran using the threat of nuclear weapons by pursuing them to gain an upper hand is just evil in the same way that Russia's use of the threat is also evil; totally satanic. 

The day moved quickly yesterday and I did little work actually. I am contemplating my next steps as I give my eyes a rest for a bit. They are 80 years old even if the lenses were renewed! I still marvel at being able to actually see without glasses and read so much. When the letters get smaller than I  need my glasses. 

I like to be organized and that is perhaps why my days are so very similar week after week. I get more done if I am totally organized. Although my free time tends to be spent on future organization in order to complete a project which isn't a bad use of the time. 

There was an article on some cuneiform tablets found recently which I was reading first thing this  morning involving King Nebuchadnezzar. There is so much verification of events in the Bible with all of these discoveries of ancient tablets.  I have always found all of these discoveres so intriguing in particular the Dead Sea Scrolls. I moved on without saving but have found a couple of items referring to the same stones:

  Cuneiform cylinder with inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II, describing the rebuilding of Ebabbar, the temple of the sun-god Shamash at Sippar - Babylonian - Neo-Babylonian - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  Ancient Cuneiform Cylinders Shed Light on Nebuchadnezzar II’s Work in Babylon - GreekReporter.com

 The second one refers to this earlier article I note. But the first one I have not read so will do that one next. I can remember our priest when I was a child (his surname was Abraham and as a young child I did confuse the Biblical Abraham with the priest on occasion) and his sermons always appeared to be booming from the pulpit and caught the attention of this child with the wandering mind. I listened avidly to every word he said and having learned to read at a young age would try to follow the story as written in the Bible later in the day to learn more about what he had been talking about. Sundays are precious to me as I do love going to Church and soon it will be time for the on-line service. 

Early mornings are generally my time to see what is going on in the world. How is Canada interacting with the world? But mostly at the moment my mind is on Canada becoming tariff proof because we need to have a solid investment with our country for the children of the future - it is really always about the future not about ourselves. When we become too deeply engrossed in our activities; our desires to travel here and there; our desires to do so many things than we do not concentrate on what is really important. The future of Canada is for the children of Canada; they have to live with what we do now in the present.  It was this continual concentration by the adults in the past that brought Canada to its greatest in the first sixty years of the 1900s. But then we slipped into complacency and being a secondary partner along with Mexico also a secondary partner (various industries tried to make extra money by building in these two secondary countries where the cost was lower and then selling them in the United States at a greater profit to them) in what was meant to be a great trade deal. We were weak and did not develop our industries (allowed our industries to be out competed and closed) in a way that would benefit the future but rather always thinking in terms of the greater continent. We need to concentrate totally on Canada and making Canada tariff proof. 

It will take time and hard work and being up to date on where we are at the present. Five contracts to widen Highway 17 from Arnprior to Renfrew was in the news but the road is widened now from Arnprior nearly to Renfrew with four lanes why not to widen the Highway 17 from nearly to Renfrew to Pembroke where the military have successfully widened the road for quite a while now to Petawawa (perhaps give the money to the military and let them get the road built; they are better at it). Perhaps that is what they meant and the news reporting got it wrong; I surely hope so. Then there is the portion of the road from Petawawa to North Bay and when is that getting done and beyond North Bay to Sault Ste Marie and along the shores of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay and finally to the Manitoba border. When is all of that getting built? I trust we do not hear anymore about a tunnel under the 401 in Toronto. Highway 17 has needed widening ever since it was built and we did get the passing lane eventually (I can remember when it was just two lanes as we went north summer after summer to canoe in the northern lakes in the 1960s and early 1970s). This road is so heavily used now and desperately needs to be four lane; shovels in the ground hopefully when the snow melts and the ground unfreezes. The road for the mines also needs to be done and the extension of the railway line if that isn't already done; hard to keep up with it all.

So I do pay my taxes happily every spring on the money that I have earned during the year (do spend it on the Highway 17 being widened) that didn't get taxed at source. I do not receive junk mail trying to steal my refund usually because I do not get one. It does make you wonder how the scammers achieve their information. AI would trap them very quickly. Take back the money they steal from people and put them in jail where they belong. Get a job, work for a living instead of scamming people. 

Time for breakfast.  

 

 

Life is changing rapidly all around us in the world

 A little shocked to see how changed the world is today monitoring it as the day passes. Canada is a quiet place in the north and it remains that way really. We like our quietness and our calmness. Budget deficits come and go with the rise and fall of trade and commerce. I remember an Alberta recovering slowly from the depression and then the World War reactivated some of their economy (all this before I was born) but the recovery was ongoing and eventually the extraction of oil put them into the black and they became a have province. The natural resources in this province will sustain them for many years if the money is carefully invested like Norway did but it was wasted by earlier Premiers. That is the value of provincial taxes as it gives them a surplus in the good years to invest in items that produce a steady income to support all of the province's needs. Alberta pays very low provincial taxes. 

Taxes produce a future for the generations to follow and are a good thing in my opinion. I do not begrudge my taxes to the government and always I pay taxes in March/April just because I prefer that. The donations I do as well but donations do not reduce taxes that much unless you have a lot of money you are donating. Yesterday my groceries were $135 for the week to come so I have not noticed prices creeping up as I was around $85 last year at this time but I did buy some extras like a bar of lovely 90% cocoa chocolate and some prepared canned tuna which caught my eye plus a few other items that make up perhaps $30 of it but that is still up somewhat over last year. Mostly I just buy basic things but a package of chicken was nearly $35 up quite a bit I think but it is lovely chicken. The salmon maybe up a little I do not always pay that much attention. 

But I still believe in taxes being the best way to manage a country and ensure that all of the people are taken care of although I am a conservative in that regard as people should not expect the government to pay for their upkeep. It unbalances the tax system forcing the well to do to pay too much of their income into taxes - when it is over 50% of your income then you wonder about the taxing system unless you are the ultra-rich in which case they made their money on the backs of Canadians and should find a way to support the government and not expect to pay low taxes. Mostly it is the well to do who are using private medicine because they like the convenience whereas public medicine does cost a lot of money (I had to go private for my cataract surgery because I simply couldn't timetable it when I had 100% support as I knew when my eyes were operated on I would need that and I did). I also accept that that was my problem not the problem of the health care system. As it turned out this young ophthalmologist trained here and did a fellowship in the United States immediately recognized that I would be best with the simple lens. The original ophthalmologist paid no attention at all to my time frame which I do understand may not be high on the list with public medicine but I was telling her more than half a year ahead of when I needed the surgery to happen. But had she said so at the beginning (she was actually always on holiday at that time) I would have gone private immediately and had the surgery earlier but it was delayed by nearly a year (it took several months to get my records transferred as the secretary did not appear to be able to manage that quickly - having worked in the hospital that was a surprise). I do believe we should only hire people in our medical system trained in our country personally. I can now see like I absolutely never have and, do not wear glasses except for reading. I am getting old and so I keep resting them as I have a lot more to transcribe from Latin. 

 Completed ancestry yesterday and moving into Gedmatch full time for a couple of days probably as I look at all the matches that have been added since 2024. There are a lot of new matches but so far not too many that fit into my categories. 

Tea all drank and on to solitaire puzzles. Another work and exercise day.  

 

The Budget Bill passed

 It should have  happened in December before Christmas break and I begrudge the time wasted about 2 and a half months that things could  have been happening. We need to move along and be quicker doing things. There are people unemployed and we need to get these ideas going so that they are employed. So that we are looking for workers and not having people without jobs. I have little patience for criticism at the moment. 

I did listen to the talk given by the Conservative Party Leader and there were some really good points there like working with the current government and getting it all done. I think of this as a Unity government at the moment and anyone who upsets the apple cart will find at the polls that most Canadians want these things to happen and as quickly and carefully as possible to give the greatest benefit to the Canadian people. That is what Confederation was all about; benefit to everyone in Canada. The provinces are simply a tool to make it easier to handle local issues; they are not autonomous and if you do not have enough money for health care then bring in a health tax and stiffle the complaints. 

I go to a doctor maybe once a year and the $750 health tax I pay is barely scratched by that visit although overhead affects this for sure as rent/equipment costs money and doctors pay for their own clinics (plus I pay more than that monthly in Income Tax which also goes partly to health care). I am actually part of the Ontario long term medical study and have to get my blood work for that and will very shortly when one of my daughters has time to take me. It is not that far away to drive but I have never given six tubes of blood and then driven and this is not going to be the first time when I am 80. Looking forward to the results of that test actually. I sort of think these days that people should know how much a doctor's visit costs even if the system is universal. Generally I think doctors are underpaid often enough for the work that they do. I like and dislike universal health care - it becomes too soft a cushion and one doesn't regard the actual cost of their medical care. Yet I do not want to see children without health care wandering about and it is a measure of a community that the people who live in it care for the people that live there. 

We have to be careful when we are over 75 and driving I think. Extremely careful with our mind totally on the road at all times and not to drive if we are tired. It is a must and if you fail to follow that you should not be driving. The world depends on that driver behind the wheel being aware at all times; no drugs and no drinking of alcohol.

Yesterday I worked away on Ancestry with some work on Gedmatch. A few more very interesting matches on Ancestry with Cotterell cousins and given the frequency of Cotterell on their side the matches were quite good for sixth cousins as they traced back to William Rawlins and Mary Ford (my five x great grandparents) through their daughter Mary who married Stephen Cotterell. They have a good tree and now I have all the children of Stephen and Mary which is so very helpful. There was also a long length of shared matches in Ancestry also very handy. Is the Cottrell family at Upper Chute/South Tedworth related to this Cotterell family? Are they both related to the Cotterill family at Kimpton (and I think Stephen is by the records I extracted but I am always looking for anything that contradicts any of this research). I do like it to be correct. So that made the day very interesting and obviously I do have Cotterell DNA (unless they are in a common area but that is the treat of Ancestry as they remove common lengths with TIMBER so generally your match is a true match with a similar family line). Since my only connection would appear to be through my paternal grandmother the priest recording her name as Ada Bessie Cotteril Rawlings was capturing what he believed to be true plus she was registered with that name and I must check the dates on those two items. I think the baptism was before the registration actually. In both cases Rawlings should have been Rawlins as her mother was baptized as Rawlins and Cotteril should have been Cotterill if the father was from the village of Kimpton. So very interesting and I am avoiding it looking like a soap box opera as far as I am able and sticking to facts. 

My mother used to watch all these soap box operas on the television and when I used to get home from university she would say come and watch and so I did a few times just to give her company but it gave me a dislike for soap box opera and whenever politics or anything begins to look like a soap box I avoid it if at all possible. 

Collection Day and I have already been outside to put the collected items out to the curb. This is the first time I have put out a garbage bag (I didn't even bother with the container which generally sits way at the back of the garage) which has basically one white garbage bag in it which has dental floss for six weeks, a few bandaids and the furnace filter which I checked and it is garbage not recyclable. Amazing really how much is being recycled. I am busy using the bread bags to collect up the smaller plastic bags from freezer goods and others, I use one of the yoghurt containers to collect up the small tinfoil, flexible plastic lids and the like, items that look like paper but do not tear so have plastic in them and then I put that filled container into the waste container and start a new one. It is starting to look neater when I put it out to the street but it all recycles. How wonderful that is. I do want to start buying my meat in butcher paper though although having these sealed plastic containers gives it a longer shelf life so it becomes problematic and I understand that. So I use that method when I want a little more time and the butcher paper from another store which generally has that for immediate usage. A new company has been formed to take care of all that addition to recycling; great for business. 

We are a country that produces boxes and other paper containers and we need to move to that where it is possible. It is easy to recycle paper. I can remember life without plastic bags so it can be done but it is more difficult to keep items fresh, to keep brown sugar from caking and there are other examples. One step I have taken is to use a freezer bag for storing brown sugar and wonder if a movement towards brown sugar in paper bags would work and just store it in the freezer bag. It can still clump in the lighter plastic but the freezer bag does a really good job and you just wash it and I have been using the same one for a couple of years now. 

Today I continue working on Gedmatch as Ancestry is mostly complete although will check for new matches and I am going through the four accounts that I have for siblings and looking at all the Common Ancestors and placing them into their coloured groups for ready recall in the future. That was how I located one set of Cotterell (sixth cousins) sharing 20 cM as my cutoff is 23 cM in Ancestry which can be quite a large number and likely I am missing items between 18 and 22 cM and in particular this one but I can only do so much of this and I have a lot more to do. 

Drinking my tea and time to do the solitaire puzzles.