Reading 1 Chronicles

Very slow reading the genealogies of the families of Israel and Judah in 1 Chronicles. Having such data is amazing really in family lines back to Before the Common Era. As I work on preparing my genealogical charts for the Blake family at Andover, I do marvel over this exceptional set of chapters. Coming down from Joseph who lived at Andover and moved to Upper Clatford is not difficult but going back one has to be very cautious putting together the Blake family at Andover and the areas around Andover. Coming down from the two sons of Jone Blake (widow) at Enham is also a major task although I have the work of Charlou Dolan to assist me in that regard. For the most part we are in agreement but we do have discrepancies between our charts. I am using the wills to keep me on the lines but also the land records. There is more available now then there was even a decade ago. 

Yesterday very busy working on AI with a project; mostly I was watching and learning as my daughter was putting together some work that she needed. The four research projects have kept her very busy this summer and prevented her from teaching metadata which did sadden her as she enjoys teaching. But she needs to rest in the summer as she is free to do her research at that time and give her some time to recharge and back into the fall term once again with two full classes. I am looking forward to her sabbatical which she is starting to plan now. She works very hard all the year really so I like it when she can get out kayaking and just skimming along enjoying the beavers and bird life for an hour or so daily. It is good for her. 

 For me I have a couple of items to resolve and will continue with that today whilst I am cleaning. It is the top floor today and I shall start closer to noon. I can spend the morning working on the matches. 

The day or two of smoke is long ago now and any new smoke is coming out of the far west and not as heavy as that day or two was here in the east. It is rare to have it actually still but that could change as the world continues to heat up without any attempts to trap the carbon which causes the heating. The carbon trapping done here to offset the carbon production from oil fields is effective. Plus we have increased the amount of forest management that we were doing because of the increased risk of wildfire with all the heat and electrical storms. 

One third of the way through August and the days are shorter and the nights are going to start to cool off as there is a cold front moving down from the north. Fall is coming and with it the polar vortex with all that lovely snow. I do love the snow. 

The Houthis continue their trouble making in the Red Sea. Why Iran founded and supports Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis is really a travesty against the world. They ask for a release of the sanctions being levied against them but because of Iran's violence against countries in the Middle East (and they shot down a civilian aircraft headed for Canada) they have shown no effort to curtail and eliminate Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. These terror groups have to be gone; they are ignorant people who do not know how to live in this world and belong on an island somewhere that they can do no harm. Personally I am ambivalent about the Hormuz Strait opening again especially if the countries that used to use it can find alternative methods of shipping. Then it will be just Iran that can not ship oil and that would be a good thing as they only use the money for evil purposes whilst their people starve. 

 Another beautiful day in God's world although it is cloudy but even through the clouds the birds fly, the flowers bloom and the sky is inviting. Thank you God for this day in your world. 

 

The descendant of David

 King Jehoiachin of Judah, David's descendant, was released from prison in Babylon by King Evilmerodach at the beginning of his reign. He was kind to the King of Judah and placed him above the other kings who were with him in Babylon. God's promise continued to be fulfilled that a descendant of David would continue to live even in the Babylonian Exile when the people of Judah were forced to move to Mesopotamia in the Babylonian Empire from Judah. Some of the Israelis remained in Judah on the farms and were not forced to move and they remain to this day. Moving on to 1 Chronicles and I have a wall chart of the ancestors of Jesus on his mother's side. 

Genealogy was not my thing at all through most of my life. It was my cousin (my great grandmother's father Robert Gray had a brother James Gray and this cousin George De Kay was descendant of this line) who wrote to me (he first wrote to my younger sister who declined the offer and suggested me) and asked me to do a Pincombe Profile. It was a surprise and initially I said I really did not have the training to do that but after a couple of emails he persuaded me to take it on. So I did my usual when I know nothing and I took 42 courses from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies which was at St Michaels College, University of Toronto at that time. The item for the book was due in mid to late 2005 and this was spring of 2003 so I had my work cut out for me and I was also still working. However my husband had been doing genealogy for most of his life and I did help him at repositories when he asked me to do so. So I had a little introduction to that although my husband was looking for his colonial American ancestors (and he did find thousands of them as it turned out but he knew that they were early colonial with lots of surprises as it turned out for him). I needed English research from distinct counties in England namely in the case of the Pincombe family from Devon and Somerset and my great grandmother Grace (Gray) Pincombe's family was from the East Riding of Yorkshire. Grace was my first Canadian born ancestor and surprisingly her first cousin was Sir John Carling (which I did always know as a child). George had already produced a book on the Carling Routledge Gray families of London Township. Grace's mother was Mary Elizabeth Ann Routledge and her sister Margaret Routledge had married Thomas Carling. The Routledge family were my first immigrants to Canada in the fall of 1818  coming from Bewcastle, Cumberland, England. Sir John was very involved in politics both before, during and after Confederation. But I digress from my Bible Readings today and will now return to the 1st chapter of 1 Chronicles. 

These books were written for the people of Israel to remember who they were whilst they were away from their lands in Israel living in captivity in Assyria and Babylon. It will be the time of the prophets and we will start to hear about the Messiah to come. The desire to return to Israel (their known home through thousands of years of history) was always in their blood and one can understand that desire especially when one knows the entire history of the Israeli people. It always amazed me as a child that their history had been so lovingly preserved in the Bible. 

My grandfather used to talk about his Blake family having lived in the Andover area for ever; indeed Grandpa and one of his younger brothers were the first of Edward (my great grandfather) Blake's children to leave England and both came to Canada although another brother went to Africa a little later but my knowledge of him is weak as I can not remember my grandfather mentioning him that often. Grandpa talked about his oldest brother who had remained in England and all his sisters. He did write back and forth to them and I have some of those letters. I corresponded with a descendant of Grandpa's youngest brother William namely Ivan Kent who has since passed away. I went to England (my second trip and Edward's first) and spent about half a week with Ivan and we traveled about with his wife to the Andover area and to Barnstaple in Devon and area. He wanted to visit the Atlantic once again and I spent time in Bishops Nympton where the Pincombe family lived from whom my mother was descended. 

 Sunday today and it is a beautiful day following the rain yesterday although still somewhat cloudy. I will go to church in another hour online. God's day is always beautiful and contemplating the luxury of living in this beautiful world for eighty one years crosses my mind every day pretty much. I was born into peace as World War II was over and peace was coming to the world. It was a fragile peace but the wisdom of the Allies was to create the United Nations so that we would have a place in which to argue the events of the world and so we survived the Cold War. This public forum has stood us well through my entire life. I will say that the founding nations more than did their part in bringing together the nations of the world and helping many nations to come back from the absolute horror of the Second World War. It is good to see that these Allies have stayed together bringing in many many other nations over time. There are few areas of the world that are not represented well at the United Nations. No one wins in a war; everyone is a loser because lives are lost; money is used up quickly to provide war materials and the threat of war that annihilates the entire world hangs over us on a daily basis. Living underground for twenty years does not even come close to letting Mother Nature heal the world after a nuclear war. Perhaps one hundred years but providing for so much time underground does not really sound like a reasonable alternative. Peace is the better alternative. We had peace; we should return to it and make the punishment even harder for those who break the peace. Sanctions to absolutely cripple their ability to make war. The Houthis have bombed an oil company in Saudi Arabia - what foolishness. Why do they do that - why did Iran create such monsters to live amongst normal people namely Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Iran needs to change this situation (they created it) and quickly to give the world back its peace. Russia needs to get out of all of Ukraine as it existed prior to 2014 to ease that murderous rampage on the part of Russia against Ukraine. 

Today more work on the matches and gradually the number is decreasing. All of the databases have been adjusted with the newest matches that I have been through. There are still fifty five matches to sort into the various databases and then back to the work at hand which is producing the genealogical chart for Blake and phasing the great grandparents. My work never seems to be done but constantly leads on to a new idea. 

Solitaire puzzles to do.  

Babylon and its King Nebuchadnezzar

 The whole of Judah (except for the farmers it appears) was carried off to Babylon by the end of 2 Kings. But God promised that they would return to the land which He promised to Abraham and He has. Historically the story is well known and not only the Bible tells that story as the time has come when the early great Libraries of the world are now the centers of learning. The libraries before the Common Era (BC) included Ashurpanipal (Nineveh, Assyria now the city of Mosul, northern Iraq) (some tablets are in the British Museum); Alexandria, Egypt and most of this was entirely lost; Celsus (Ephesus, Turkey)   destroyed in an earthquake and a fire that burned the interior and then into the Common Era the Library at Constantinople which was sacked in 1204 Common Era but that accumulation of knowledge stretched far and wide across the known world and the House of Wisdom in Baghdad (Iraq) which was destroyed during the Mongol siege in 1258 Common Era but knowledge had been passed over its five centuries of existence to Islamic centres Basra (Iraq), Kufa (Iraq) and Damascus (Syria). The human desire to understand its past meant that knowledge was passed down from generation to generation although the proofs in permanent copy were destroyed very often. There is always a danger when knowledge and the accumulation of knowledge becomes less important. Knowledge is what brought us out of the caves and into homes and protected the human existence. 

Another good research day as I barely left the house except to mail a letter to my sister. It will take a while to enter 73 matches into my databases though but I am pleased with this gleaning from the databases of the companies. This knowledge of DNA is going to be helpful in the future not so much on an individual level but in understanding the evolution of mankind and how to protect that continuing evolution into the next centuries. 

Lots of exercise as I did my yoga and calisthenics first thing, then my 30 minute run and 15 minute walk later in the morning and in the afternoon a four mile walk and calisthenics. Exercise is the best way to maintain a good life style I think. But at 81 one should consider very carefully starting exercise and a visit with the doctor might show you the way to get back into healthy exercise even at my age. There are lots of good ideas on YouTube for actual exercises and a slow motion into them. 

 Today more of the same and we are promised heavy thunder storms this afternoon. The ground can always use more rain for sure. This is the warmest August that I ever remember actually. Generally it becomes cooler at night as we get into August but that is coming in the next week.  

 Also continuing with the matches into my databases and first my solitaire games. 

 

2 Kings continues the history of Israel and Judah

I listened to the entire episode for nearly two hours on YouTube for 1 Kings. My initial thoughts that the readings do not mention the coming of a Redeemer remains as I am looking for the exact wording which the prophets do use later in the Bible (not that far away now) but listening carefully one does collect the thoughts of the author of these particular You Tube presentations. I think the rules for life that are mentioned in these presentations are quite good actually. The text strongly points out that David's line (including David) have the qualities of leadership that God is looking for in a King. Both Elijah and Elisha were chosen by God as prophets to bring to the people proofs of God in our world to help the people to maintain their adoration of God the Creator who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. There will be more prophets to come as I continue reading. What does baal represent? I am contemplating that the heathen god baal represents the movement away in a society from loving God the Creator with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and does not love their neighbour as themself (perhaps baal was an old word for adoration of money). A society can only prosper if there is a certain amount of sharing of the goods of that society; when that sharing ceases and only a few benefit from the work of a particular society then the people suffer and it breaks down that sharing element of life that has given us so much in this modern century. Continuing to read 2 Kings and Hezekiah is now King of Judah and successfully with the help of Isaiah (now introduced) saves Judah from the King of Assyria. One needs to look at a map of this part of the world when reading the Bible.  Hezekiah, a descendant of David, has followed his ancestor's way and God the Creator is supportive of him. I will listen to 2 Kings on YouTube when I run later. I find these presentations to be most interesting even if I do not entirely agree with the thoughts on how/when the Redeemer Jesus was introduced. But I am not a specialist in the language of these times!

Yesterday was a work day and I completed all of the matches that I will likely do at this time any way. I now need to insert the  70+ new matches into my database and that will be part of my work day today. Lots of interesting matches particularly for Buller and Blake but also some Rawlings and a few Pincombe. The Pincombe though I can mostly place into their line making it rather handy but I do have some really good matches for Pincombe. 

We decided to do weight lifting instead of going to the beach yesterday afternoon after my eye appointment. My eyes have changed very little this past year although the eye doctor did give me a slightly stronger lens which I will do the next time that I change my glasses. These actually suit me very well that I am now using. He suggested Progressive lens but I have now gotten used to not wearing my glasses when I am out of the house. I doubt that I will move back to wearing glasses all the time ever again. Time will tell though on that one. 

It seemed so strange for such a long time but it is like being born again sort of as I recognize virtually no one because my eyes are seeing so differently. Also I have not really spoken to people in my area other than the usual people because I went back to work in the city (a good half to an hour bus trip every day in and then out again back in 1994). Other than going to my children's schools for parent teacher events I really was totally uninvolved in the area especially when Edward decided to go to Dominion Chalmers United Church for a special series of lectures back in the mid 1990s. 

Up until then he was still singing in the Choir and had stepped down as Treasurer  a little before that at his United Church locally. He liked the minister so much at Dominion Chalmers that we continued to go there until that minister retired and then Edward decided to go to my Church and he selected Christ Church Cathedral I think mostly because of the Music and he said it was his turn to go to my church which was very sweet. Then my new eyes so to speak after cataract surgery and everything is different. No one looks the same including my own children. 

It is amazing that my sight became so much clearer and distinct really but it was interesting to hear a young man (maybe in his late teens or early twenties) talk about his first eye being operated on for strabismus and the doctor wanted him to wait six months for the second eye to give the eye a chance to strengthen. He talked about how different items looked now and that was before my first surgery. So I know other people experience this sudden change in their vision but usually people would have been operated on for strabismus in childhood at some point although when I was young I do not think that was done. I was born just after World War II.  

Solitaire puzzles to do next.  

Continuing history in 2 Kings

 Reading word for word through these chapters in the book of 2 Kings and the history of the people of Israel. Generation after generation this history tells the story. I will continue with 2 Kings tomorrow. 

Yesterday I completed the basement cleaning and so these days until Sunday are work days. I hope to finish extracting the rest of the matches that interest me and then I can enter the new matches into the database and once again extract the database into the four family lines. I shall give a longer explanation to the AI before asking for the work to be done although the last extraction was well done as I requested except for the formatting being stripped from the charts and the order not being maintained.   

A lovely walk on the beach yesterday and it was again very busy. A lot of people swimming in the water actually but it was a really warm day. I did the path six times which is about 3 kilometers. Today I will run and again it is about 3 kilometres. I always run on the days that I do not clean the house. I am content to still be running at 81 and hope to run for quite a while yet. No marathons for me; not my sort of running. 

A couple of the matches were very interesting and again with individuals having early American Colonial ancestry and fitting into Blake-Knight. Some of them are Knight family but I do know that many members of the Knight family  went to Newfoundland early on and then moved to the American Colonies when they were first beginning. I only actually know of one Blake family from Andover that went to Massachusetts in the mid 1600s. It was one of Richard Blake's daughters Joanna who married Robert Sedgewick. Her husband died in Jamaica and she returned to London and died there. Her sons remained in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 

The flowers are quite lovely this summer and have done well both front and back - those that survived. I have to judge when I am weeding in the spring and sometimes I am right but sometimes I am wrong and have lost a number of lovely plants I must admit. 

The cat from across the road was over hunting in our yard. Very handy to have a cat do that actually. Right now the cat is letting a visiting dog know that it should not read on its property and the dog has moved on. Amazing how a small cat can manage a large dog. Cats are very intelligent animals. But it lives with a large dog and wouldn't be fazed by one. 

Today my eye doctor appointment. I was thinking every second year myself but will go this time and if all is well and reasonable for an 81 year old then I will start going every two years. For me that is a real treat as I used to go to the ophthalmologist until I was about 52 or 53 at least every year since I can remember and how I hated those eye drops. To be able to go without glasses now at 81 is amazing. A gift of cataract surgery for sure and it was not expected to be absolutely honest. I had no idea what cataract surgery would do to my eyes but this has been a real treat for sure. 

Solitaire puzzles are next.