Cleaning accomplished once again

I never grow weary of cleaning actually; it is a lovely redundant task that keeps one physically fit and the house clean week after week. When the dogs are here there is a lot more work to do for sure but they they are towards me friendly warm and loving and I enjoy their company. Perhaps in the future I will be enjoying all that lovely restful time with the dogs. They love the yard and it is full of snow which they will also love. 

Yesterday I did have a look at Gedmatch but did not find anything new that I would use from the first kit I looked at. I will do more of that today. I still have a small amount to do on ancestry. I like to do them together because that is the only way you can look at the chromosomes on ancestry matches and not that many really move their kits to Gedmatch - I have no idea what the percentage would be in total but I find it to be around 5 to 10% of my database. Since they dominate the field with 28 million tests and possibly more that I  or  AI  may not have found the latest. Another interesting statistic shows that 53 million people have tests across the four main testing companies but that doesn't include Living DNA which has a sizeable database as well. Considering there are 8 billion in the world this is just a drop in the bucket (less than 1% of the world's population). Mind you it is a higher percentage in North America where the testers predominate except for the British Isles and I do not know the percentage there that have tested with Living DNA. I know I have lots of matches there as well. 

More contemplating of the Blake in  South Newton and I will dig out all that information and construct a tree coming down using the wills from the 1600s on. Proving that they are from the Calne Blake family  is the thought in all of this and South Newton is 47.6 kilometres to the south of Calne. I just sort of thought it was that family as the Calendar of Patent Rolls does have this family involved in various activities around this area south of Calne over into Somerset. Although actual connections may be difficult but word of mouth does cover the Somerset family to a certain extent and I need to pursue the South Newton group and see what is there. Of course this all goes back to my premise that the Calne Blake is actually the descendants of Richard le Blak who applied for a Market Permit in 1274 whilst living in Rouen Normandy and in the Pipe Rolls of Hampshire we do find a Richard le Blak family at Wargrave (near Windsor, Berkshire) and then a gradual movement to the west apparently (still to be proven but why would people randomly choose the name Blake - it really doesn't make sense to choose a name that other people have and really is not something that I could see any of my known English relatives doing) to Speen Berkshire and then to Hungerford Wiltshire and eventually ending up in Calne When You look at a map this is certainly a possibility. There are a number of le Blak individuals on the Pipe Rolls at Wargrave and nearby Wargrave. It does make sense that a Norman would come to the British Isles with his commercial intentions and set up near Windsor where the King was. Anyway I still have two years slotted for this book and I am sure I will need every day of them. But as I said if I do not feel what I have found is conclusive I will publish what I am happy with and the rest of the original book will be placed in the Library of the Guild of one-name Studies for academics and genealogists to regard in the future if they so wish. 

 The Pincombe book is falling into place as I am now looking at a new chapter before the genealogical descent charts. I am thinking I will put in the DNA chapter closer to the beginning of this book than I did in the Siderfin Book where it is basically at the end of the book. I place a high value on the DNA because it helps me to sort lines often enough. There are some lengths of DNA that simply persist on and on through families and leads them back to their MRCA just by the cousin matches. 

Another day, tea all drank, snack eaten after exercises earlier, time to do Solitaire Puzzles, have breakfast, and later a nice run and lifting weights. Back into the regular days without cleaning.  

 

 

 

 

I am not totally absorbed in cleaning

 It isn't that I am overly absorbed in cleaning but rather I hate to have to rush about at the last minute cleaning. If I am always basically ready then life is easier. Plus it is good exercise and spread out over time which doesn't hurt when you are older either. So today is the basement and another week of cleaning is done. 

I do wonder sometimes if Edward had not gone off to the Ottawa Branch meetings of the OGS with Gordon Riddle if he would have gotten so involved with that group. I am not sure how long Gordon kept going actually. Edward would  never  have gone without his suggestion and invitation actually as he didn't go in  London all the time we lived there but we did lots of genealogy traveling to the United States and all around where he lived as a child once we bought a car. That really changed Edward's life having a car (the advantages of a wife working I used to say). The Ottawa Branch of OGS and being Treasurer at Orleans United and singing in the Choir there were his principal interests other than his children (he even helped out with the Macoun Field Club when our eldest was keen on that) as non work activities. Mind you it was nice seeing him enjoy the Ottawa Branch so much the few times I went until he wanted me to drive him there much later after I took on the task of the Pincombe Profile. He especially enjoyed being part of Gene-O-Rama. 

Before we moved here all of his genealogical work had been on his own with us traveling down into the States before the children were born on a pretty regular basis looking for items and he did attend some meetings at local genealogical groups there way back then. But once he retired we were back at that once again for sure. I think that might be the fun part of genealogy is going to all those interesting historical buildings - I found it quite fascinating. Not the genealogy that was much later like after 2003 when my cousin George DeKay got me to write the Pincombe Profile he wanted for the book he was publishing. 

Gordon and Edward still corresponded back and forth after the Riddle family moved away from Orleans (Edward had an amazing number of correspondents and those letters were hard to write when I wrote many of them after he passed away about 50 or 60 or so) that he had corresponded with for over fourty years and more in some cases. When we went west it was to Edward's closest relatives - his nieces and mostly the Schultz family events and the Allen family events which were in  northern Ontario (although we did not go north until 2019 although Edward did with a cousin of his as I vaguely recall) and just around the Kingston (also 2019) area and we would pop into London to see my family and then just my siblings after my parents passed away. 

I practically never think about when I was going back to do my masters and a little surprise entered our lives. We were all enriched by the arrival of our youngest for sure and we closed in as a family for quite a while after that (perhaps as much as three or four years) although I was still too busy being a volunteer secretary at Edward's Church plus all my proofreading and copyediting for local printers and I was also treasurer for Camp Bitobi I think for about three years sometime later in that period. But my eldest daughter was old enough by then to babysit although we didn't go out a lot; didn't interest me particularly actually. Edward did love to be around people. Trips down  memory lane for sure. 

I did work on the Ancestry matches and should finish that today and then check Gedmatch to see if there are any new matches in there. I  do like Gedmatch; it is well setup and I used to always pay for the extras but I do not have time to use the extras so do not at the moment. If I was to find that I had a really good set of leads on something I would. 

It still intrigues me this match with Blake at South Newton. The wills there go back into the 1500s and 1600s and I did transcribe them but without really taking it all in. I will reread them one of these days as I have a set of ancient results for Blake both in the early colonies of America and in the British Isles. I need to do trees for those families in the areas around Calne now that I have had this very fascinating match. I rather think that I am looking at a likely marriage between an individual at Enham without a surname and a daughter of a Blake since surnames were uncommon in England until after the arrival of the Normans in 1066. Since it was fashionable to do so English families did acquire and use surnames certainly by the 1400s into the 1500s but also as early as the 1200s/1300s when I am contemplating that such a marriage took place since I have seen Blake records in the Andover Manor records in the early part of the 1300s. I did not see any earlier than that. 

The Blake families in the 1200s are in distinct areas in England as seen in the Calendar of Patent Rolls and I have done a number of charts a while ago now but can be seen in the index in my blog.  

Day is moving on and I must get the robot working and then I take over with  my dusting and washing and the cleaning is done for the week. How nice. 

Forgot to make my tea and must do that and then do my solitaire puzzles whilst the robot works.  

Cleaning Day two

 Today it is the main floor and I will begin in an hour or so. It is minus 17 degrees celsius and the ice is building up here and there. Yesterday was busy although I did not accomplish a lot with the ancestry matches. I continued to check out the match with a South Newton Blake family. I will do a bit of searching on that as I have collected quite a bit of material on the South Newton Blake family including all the wills. They just always struck me as likely being descendant of the Calne Blake family. Some of the family sizes were large and certainly land was passed to the eldest and any monied items in order to keep it intact. I can understand the principle and it worked well for the times. Generally the other sons went into the military, the church or business as that grew to be a suitable occupation. Other sons stayed and worked for the eldest. That was just the way of life. 

One other item caught my eye and it was in the Cottrell line. A large match with a Cottrell family at  Upper Chute, Wiltshire and is located 3 miles NE of Ludgershall and 7 miles NW of Andover and interestingly 7 miles north of Kimpton. I am, as I said, ambivalent about the father of my paternal grandmother. Interesting that the young man similar in age to her in this family is also named George. But why did the priest use the spelling Cotterill on her baptismal record - strange really. I will have a look at the records on Find My Past and investigate. This is sizeable at 54 cM on ancestry considering the use of TIMBER. This is primarily though a Northhamptonshire family so was surprised. The furtherest back is a John Cottrell born 1804 at South Tedworth, Wiltshire. The shared matches are certainly interesting and include my two brothers tested at Ancestry. The other question of course is this a descendant of Stephen Cotterell and Mary (Rawlins) Cotterell where Mary is one of the children of my 4x great grandparents William Rawlins and Mary (Foord) Rawlins. Knowing that their daughter married her second cousin a William Rawlins leading to a possibility of large matches if I happen to actually have Cotterell/Cotterill/Cottrel DNA inherited from my grandmother. But this is the largest match that I have had thus far. This George Cottrell married in 1879 in London but in 1875 he is named as the father of a daughter in London (my grandmother was born in 1876).  Very very interesting that the name is George perhaps and close enough at just seven miles away. His marriage appears to be to the mother of the child born in 1875. Wouldn't that be amazing to find a solution. The only way that I am going to match a Cotterill/Cotterell/Cottrell is through my grandmother as my tree shows thus far. None of her direct line ancestors though are Cotterill/Cotterell/Cottrell that would have passed DNA to her. 

So Ancestry, as always, proved to be most interesting and I always check my matches there simply because of the vast amount of information that comes with the match even though it lacks the actual area where I am matching on an individual chromosome. 

Charging up my FitBit as it was down to 30% and I generally charge it as soon as I notice that it is 30% or lower. Sometimes I do not notice until it starts to send me messages but generally I notice before 20%. It is now up to 92% and does charge quickly this new one. The older one was taking somewhat longer to charge so another bonus in having a new one. This is a Charge 6 and the last one was a Charge 5. I have been a FitBit user for a lot of years now but about seven years ago I stopped using it for almost an entire year because I felt like it was driving my life. Now I have a different attitude to the FitBit and how I use it and perhaps one has to progress to that. 

So this looking at matches I have missed over the last year as I work away is proving to be most interesting. I have my lists for the others but I do like to go into Ancestry first and then have a look at GedMatch and then start pulling the matches that I found in the other databases. I am looking for anything that would upset the applecart so to speak. But also for anything that is new and adds information that I have been thinking about and Ancestry has certainly filled the bill on that one the last couple of days. Just a few matches to go there and I will be into even more indepth looking as my excel file will be built completely with all of the sibling's results filled in and any MRCAs noted on the Ancestry matches file. 

Tea all drank and must do solitaire puzzles, then breakfast and cleaning.     

 

Ancestry update on ethnicity

 Once again Ancestry has updated their ethnicity estimates especially within the British Isles. I had selected one set of data as put forward as my father and one set as my mother. They are correct. My mother has ancestry in southwestern Ontario and my father's ancestry totally in Hampshire and area although some interesting additions here and there. So you see my father's journeys all being in England plus coming to Canada as a nine year old with his parents in 1913 whereas my mother's journeys are all in southwestern Ontario. The percentages though struck me as not what I might have anticipated but I have four tests on Ancestry and need to build a table with all the results and look at them in that sort of frame of mind. For instance I inherited little Pincombe lots of Gray and others inherited lots of Pincombe and little Gray as it turned out. Again I inherited heavily from Rawlings and less Blake where the others did inherit heavily from Blake and less Rawlings. That is why I am different although percentage wise I am very like my next youngest brother; very unlike my next oldest brother and similar to my two sisters, one eight years younger and one six years older. The other two brothers have not tested (one died in 1999 prior to autosomal testing) and the other I have left it all up to him and he just never got to it and really with all the data that I have he shouldn't feel pressured for sure. He is the image of my grandfather and it continues to be the case as he ages except my grandfather was always thin and he is not as thin. But I can see it more and more every time I see him.

So that completely occupied me yesterday when I wasn't at Church (online). Although I do see it somewhat as work I always feel it brings me closer to my family so also see it as a family time. My older sister had a fall and broke her hip and is slowly recovering so prayers being said for her recovery. I continue with working on Sunday although I must admit I do feel a twinge of guilt that it is work but then it is also time spent thinking of loved ones and God would like that. 

We won silver in the playoff Hockey game; the team did well and really looked equally matched and the sudden death overtime goal broke some hearts and cheered other hearts. That is the way with sudden death ends to games! I like the way that Norway runs their Olympic training actually. The interview with someone involved in all of that was most interesting.

But ancestry continued to intrigue me through the day as it will take me quite a while to work my way through the 21 matches. I glean as much as possible especially looking at the matches in common.  

My mind wanders today back to the early years at Edward's United Churh in the late 1970s to 1985. I was volunteer secretary of Edward's Church for a number of years  (he volunteered me )).  I was marking papers at the same time for a professor that I would work with doing my masters and our daughter was all settled into school. Edward was very content at work and he and his cousin Gordon Riddle talked about their mutual Kipp genealogy and Gordon had invited Edward to go with him to the Ottawa Branch meetings of what is now Ontario Ancestors. Although planning to do my Masters all good plans sometimes get changed for excellent reasons. I returned to motherhood instead of doing my masters welcoming our surprise baby when I was 36 nearly 37 and working at home proofreading and copyediting for private printers for about a dozen or more years and finally a secretary was hired to replace my volunteerism for the Church taking that off of my plate as I was very busy. The Riddles  had moved at some point no ideas on that as our directions rarely crossed after we left Orleans United Church in the mid 1990s and never after they left Orleans. We were no longer attending Orleans United Church regularly after 1996 (Edward's brother had passed away and the minister at Dominion Chalmers sensed Edward's need to talk occasionally and that was certainly a drawing card to going there for him every week) as we went to Dominion Chalmers for a couple of years and then to Christ Church Cathedral when the minister at Dominion Chalmers retired (he was excellent; a brilliant early Biblical scholar). Christ Church Cathedral is Anglican but Edward loved the music of the organ and the choirs so was content to be there and as he said to pay me back for going to his church for nearly 20 years. I think he used to go sometimes to special services at Orleans United as I do recall being there also once or twice in the early 2000s. The women's group there used to make up lunches for Gene-O-Rama which they sold to the Ottawa Branch. I was busy in those days working full time. I also took a course at St Paul's University on developing encounter groups for people dealing with mental illnesses - a very interesting experience for me where I learned a great deal about myself having been in just such care many many years earlier (back in 1974). I do not keep in touch with Edward's Church other than donating some money for music in memory of Edward, as he requested, which I do through Canada Helps. Funny how little things pop back into one's memory on occasion. Not sure why I thought about all of that really. 

Cleaning day today and working away on the matches in Ancestry. One  match I actually wrote to in the Blake line - a very small match but it was with a Blake in South Newton, Wiltshire. Corresponding back and forth I learned that his father's line was from Salisbury. That of course brought to mind that interesting arrival in the Emigrants Database 1330 - 1550 with a Richard Blake coming to Salisbury 7 Sep 1441  from Ireland. Presumably these people listed are not British Subjects. I shall continue my correspondence with this individual as his tree begins in 1735 at South Newton where Mary Blake was born as was her son John Blake born in 1781 at South Newton and his son James was born at Salisbury. Looking at it now a little more intently I had not noticed that the original birthplace of the line was South Newton. I tend to think of South Newton as associated with the Calne Blake family. That a small match would occur with an individual that is at least 7th cousin or greater is surprising. He has built a huge tree and I have not yet investigated it for any other possible lines. A glance now shows me an Arnold line and of course my Arnold family was in Dorset to the south of this area. This is a very large family so would not jump to conclusions on that too quickly. I tend to think if there is relationship between the Calne Blake family and the Andover Blake family it is quite distant likely in the 1300s to possibly the 1400s simply because the wills of these two sets of Blake mentioning each other in the 1500s do not state cousinship or even kinship but rather friend which was a term also used by people who had a kinship but was distant and considered not really there as far as I can tell. I can be corrected on that anytime. The amount shared 10 centimorgans across 1 segment. I generally find that the use of TIMBER by Ancestry to remove ethnic related DNA lengths can affect this final length by 0 to as much as  5 or 10 centimorgans. The smaller the amount the smaller the effect I find generally. Perhaps I can persuade him to take his kit into Gedmatch. We will see. But it was very interesting to see. I do know some pieces of DNA that are common can be so stubborn and exist in a line going back quite a ways certainly as far as 10th cousins but this would need to be in the range of 16th to 20th cousins I would think. 

So that was an interesting find. Just realized I didn't finish my blog. 

It is cleaning day and must get back to it. Working a couple of solitaire puzzles as I forgot that as well. 

 

 

 

 

Sunday and another snowfall at minus 7 degrees celsius

 Cloudy and snowing but it is Sunday in God's world here in Canada. The snow falls lightly but consistently as I look out of my workroom window. I love the winter and I think I probably always will. There is something so beautiful looking at the snow covered landscape especially on a Sunday. God's day in the week when we put the tools away and just contemplate what the gifts of God have brought to us through the centuries that man has walked the face of the earth. The world has changed a great deal since my childhood when we saw the news on the newsreel or heard it on the radio although TV was not far away and I watched the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on the television with my grandfather and all  my siblings of course and my parents were in and out doing the work that they needed to do. My grandfather was thrilled as he watched and did not take his eyes off the screen the entire time I do not think. He talked a lot about the traditions and who all the people were; it was a perfect history lesson for sure. I am trying to remember if my grandmother was there but I do not think so actually. The two youngest were not born yet and so it was just the five of us watching this exciting black and white spectacle. The newsreel was more impressive and we did see that later as well. 

Church once again and we are into Lent and a time of contemplation. I did find a Lenten Study online which I will pursue on my own. Usually I join a group but as I age my desire is to be more and more alone unless it is my family of course. I am polite; I even wave if people wave at me but mostly I just want to be alone to contemplate and to write. It is wondrous all this working time as in my entire life I have never had so much time that belonged just to me. There were always items that needed doing and time was this ethereal quantity that I couldn't grab hold of very often. I love evening prayer time especially; time to talk to God and I still repeat the prayers of my childhood as they come back to me. One does need to thank God every day for everything He has given to us. His Ten Commandments told us how He wanted us to live. 

I did complete my review of 23 and Me, My Heritage, FT DNA and now I am working on the Ancestry matches and there are quite a few at 23 cM or more numbering 21 which I am slowly entering into my table that I have kept now almost from the beginning. It has nearly 1100 matches listed for the four siblings with all the details and the MRCA where known. A number of them are on Gedmatch and I need to review Gedmatch but Ancestry must come first. Then Living DNA and my task will be complete in terms of review. Now I need to go back in and get the matches and prepare the files and then enter them into my phased great grandparent file and also work them into the phased grandparent file if they are needed. So still a lot of work ahead to do in that regard. But I am also back to writing the Pincombe Book at the moment and soon the Blake book as well. 

I had an email from a member of the Galway Blake family which I will pass on to the member of our group who manages that particular Blake group (my pace at getting some of these things done is rather slow to be honest but I will do it). There are so many Blake founders that I do not even attempt to keep up with all of them in the present. Should I let the Blake one-name study be more available? I actually have not had any one write to me expressing such an interest so will probably wait for that. I have done a lot of work on the early Blake founding lines in the British Isles. 

Surprisingly I am one of those people whose mental health does better when they are alone. In conversation I will monopolize that conversation and leave it when I find it doesn't feel comfortable to me. I apologize for this tendency but my mental health does better on its own. Fortunately I bear no grudges against anyone and like the Lord's Prayer says:  "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Ever remembering that God said "Revenge is mine" and just move on with my life and live it the way that God commanded. It is important to do that as we can see the consequences of not doing so. 

 Church in a little while and it is in the middle of the Gold Medal Hockey game but I shall go to Church knowing that most of Canada will be glued to their television sets watching along with our wonderful friends and neighbours in the United States. I believe I have had at least six emails this week from different Americans looking for information that Edward may have gathered and I have tried to be as helpful as possible and do generally direct them to his tree online on our website. He did a lot of work that is used by many many people in the United States and Canada. If I forget to do something I do hope people will remind me. 

 Thank you God for another beautiful day on Your world and may I be ever mindful of this gift to us from so long ago now. Prayers that we can mend what we have created that is harming the world.