Equal treatment in Canada

 The Editorial "Alberta just wants equal treatment in Canada" was an interesting read. With the highest salaries in Canada it will be hard for Alberta to be equal in terms of overall wealth (they are wealthier and do not pay the high Provincial Income Taxes that are paid in other provinces or the extra Health Tax which we pay in Ontario). In terms of representation in parliament, Ontario continues to be the most under represented in Parliament. I still think the original idea of the founders to think in terms of region (the Senate is based on this principle) has merit. Each region has specific interests and when the Western Premiers gathered to meet I thought that is really a good idea. They are a large region land wise and potential untapped value in these areas is huge so looking towards the future as a co-operating group is a really good idea. Alberta and Saskatchewan are basically landlocked areas depending on passage to the east through Manitoba but also through the Northwest Territories or to the west through British Columbia but also the Yukon with its access to the Arctic Ocean. So the co-operation between the western provinces/territories is really very important (which the Founders clearly noted and planned for in the original drawing up of borders in the Prairie provinces). In the east we have my province Ontario with its huge population, Toronto forms the centre in terms of business (used to be Montreal but talks of separation caused that city to lose hugely at the time as the race to be in Toronto began and is still ongoing). Toronto is ideally placed within Canada with its access to the Great Lakes that can take it west to Thunder Bay (and we await the Trans Canada being widened!) or east to the Atlantic via the St Lawrence Seaway which we built ourselves in the 1950s as the Americans were not interested in building that with us; for a small country we have pulled our weight on this continent quite remarkably until the mid 1960s which was a mistake that we are rectifying. You can tell we are moving back into that direction because of the heavy use of the Bridge between the United States and Canada at Sarnia since the bridge at Detroit/Windsor has been inadequate for quite a while. Hence Canadian taxes paid to build the new bridge at Detroit/Windsor in its entirety (using 50% Canadian and 50% American materials) so that there was better access between the two highways for the truckers and they shouldn't have to make that huge detour all the way to Sarnia to go back and forth. Sharing the tolls with Michigan once the bridge is repaid to Canadian taxes is a good sharing between two friendly nations - the benefits huge for the population of Michigan. The needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few because trickle down economics is a failed idea. It takes one back to the Dark Ages in the history of Homo sapiens in the Eastern Hemisphere. 

But I digress from Alberta. Certainly as a Canadian and an Ontarian I appreciate Alberta very much. The founders knew very well what they were acquiring with the acquisition of Rupert's Land and did due diligence in seeing that the original inhabitants (First Nations) were properly recompensed then and into the future. Billions of dollars have been poured into Alberta (particularly during the Great Depression as well as the explorations to use the oil in the oilsands) from Canadian taxes and Canada deserves to be recompensed in a reasonable way for that huge expense (the value of Alberta must be 30 trillion and likely more to purchase).  Since this is about Alberta I will not dwell on the other regions of Canada which include Central Canada (Quebec and Ontario) and the Maritime Canada (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island which were joined by Newfoundland in 1949 when they joined Confederation and we linked Labrador with the new province). Each region has its own specific needs and one must always bear in mind that Quebec using the French language has been a challenge within Confederation however the use of the French language and culture has expanded far beyond the borders of Quebec and other provinces are now officially bilingual. It has enlarged our intelligence speaking two languages for sure. 

So yes we appreciate Alberta within Confederation; we are not jealous that you have the highest salaries in Canada. After all in Ontario we have lived in the shadow of Toronto all of my life where if it involved Toronto it got done and if it didn't then you waited and tried to work Toronto into the estimate! I lived in London until I was thirty and when we moved to Ottawa 51 year ago one could see how much that city has suffered from inadequate funding because it wasn't Toronto. The 416 was basically a two lane terror trip home for many many years having already driven the 401 for most of the way from London to Ottawa until finally a Premier from the north changed that and we have a four lane highway 416)! However that Toronto centralization is changing a little perhaps as I see the mine in the north that has been wanting to happen is going to happen at long last after more than two decades and the road apparently is finally going to be built according to Premier Ford. Thank you. 

So yes we want to see Alberta prosperous and will continue to pour money into future projects from the taxes of all the people of Canada. Just wanted to write that down in case anyone doubted how much Alberta is appreciated within Confederation. But personally if the First Nations are not satisfied with events in Canada then I think that is wrong; they have been at our side from the earliest days helping to make Canada great and we should respect their knowledge of the land. Am I descendant of the First Nations, no I am not simply an appreciative Canadian noting the great contributions that have been made by the First Nations and continue to be made. Helping them to re-establish their villages/towns with the same excellent conditions which we enjoy in our cities/towns/villages is very important. We were meant to walk together in this country just as Tecumseh walked (read that as worked together) with Brock to save Canada more than 200 years ago. 

As for Senate representation that is purely decorative but helpful on a regional basis which was the whole purpose of the Senate - to keep everybody happy within Confederation. With proposed unbalanced number of senators in the Western Region we might miss seeing something needed/revised in one of the four provinces or two territories. The presence of six senators in each of these four provinces is essential in order to know what is happening in these provinces. The Senate is large enough unless one is adding for the Territories. The voting in the Senate is not really consequential because eventually when the regions are satisfied with bills then the vote of the House of Commons will prevail. At the moment I do see Yukon and the Northwest Territories very under represented considering the role these two territories will play in the expansion of trade by Canada and the desire to work the valuable deposits within these areas over the next decades.  

Not what I planned to write at all. Today is a work day and will run my Copilot program to look at the Blake matches. Should be interesting. One item to note is that the files which Copilot produced for me had stripped out the formatting that I had in the Excel document.  Now that isn't a big deal as I can just put it back in by column but it is interesting to note that. Plus the file that was produced was out of order but I had a column which lets me restore the original order. Little items that are not consequential but would require me to have extra lines in the program in order to have the perfect file that I now have. The tradeoff though is excellent as producing the files myself would have required my writing a python program which takes time and has to be trialed taking up even more time. Eventually AI will have protocols perhaps that can be readily called upon but will probably always need the human eye to regard the file and ensure that what one has thought will be produced is produced. 

Like the advance into the computer age (I was into computers back in the mid 60s and watched as the world caught up) saving money wise/time wise is unlikely. What was promised as a time saver was certainly not that as the size of companies swelled in order to make use of all the advantages of computers. I think the same will be true of AI in the long run and sudden changes will be upsetting to the systematic flow of work in industries that try to convert overnight. 

 Solitaire puzzles are next. 

Another busy cleaning day

 The second day of cleaning completely accomplished and just the basement remains and will soon start the Robot vacuuming the rug. It is a nice way to finish the three day cleaning spree! The time commitment is just two hours at the most - one hour is done by the Robot although I have to prepare the area for the Robot to run effectively which takes maybe ten minutes. 

I finished looking at the four files created by Copilot and they are in good shape. The next step I will probably take on Thursday - my first working day of the week. Copilot will look at each of the files that are referred to by the Blake file it created just by matching the name on the file and the name in the file that it created. Within those files are lists of relatives in common/Matches and I will make a list of what to look for and then Copilot will make a complete list of those names along with a list of the matches that have those names in common. I should get a list of people who match within Blake and a list of people who match within Knight as well as a list of people who are matching Blake/Knight because I did not separate them. I will not have any decision made by the Copilot on this last group because it will be confusing and hence I will do that split although I could supply enough information for Copilot to do it there is a possibility of junk emerging so will avoid that. The human input is still more valuable in this case that the input from Copilot. 

The comparisons between "common areas" will also be made by me because that is indirectly what I am looking for in these sorts - matches deep into the past that take me back to Blake lines in Andover although few people do have that in their tree but some do. The 1700s was particularly small in my Blake line with Thomas Blake (born in the 1680s marrying in the early 1700s and having just one son Thomas and this son Thomas marrying in the late 1720s and having two sons but only one survived infancy and that was Joseph baptized in Andover in 1730 and marrying in Upper Clatford in the late 1750s. He married Joanna King of Upper Clatford and they had three sons. The second eldest died as a child (around the same time as Joseph) leaving the eldest son William who lived in Andover in the latter part of the 1700s and does not appear to have any children and the youngest son Thomas (born posthumously about five months after his father died) who married Sarah Coleman in the early 1790s in Upper Clatford. This very weak line in the 1700s is replaced by a very large line in the 1800s and up to the present. This Blake family of Andover/Upper Clatford is related to the Blake family at Abbotts Ann and I would like to determine the cousinship. I do know they are related through the King family because Joanna King's sister Mary King was married to John Blake, malster, Abbots Ann and all of this is mentioned in John's will in 1796. My thought is that John Blake of Abbotts Ann is descendant of John Blake of Andover who married Elizabeth (unknown) in the late 1670s and was the father of the ancestor of John Blake of Abbotts Ann and Thomas Blake mentioned above (born in the 1680s at Andover). This would make Thomas Blake who is mentioned in John Blake's will of 1796 likely 1st cousins ?x removed. I have yet to find anyone who descends from John Blake and Elizabeth (unknown) with a reliable tree other than my own line. A lot of people have these individuals in their trees but the link is questionable that they are using although by atDNA they are matching me (generally at least three of four siblings or more)! The fun is in the chase as always and as it turns out I do not have a lot of investment in the result other than curiosity. 

It is perhaps being Canadian that I do not particularly get excited about any of my ancestral lines. They are interesting even fascinating given my small footprint on this continent with my father born in England and coming to Canada with his parents as a child in 1913. Then my mother's father's mother was my first Canadian born in Upper Canada in 1839. Grace Gray (my great grandmother) was a first cousin to Sir John Carling heavily involved in politics in Ontario (was Upper Canada) initially and then into federal politics and was Minister of Agriculture hence the naming of the now torn down Agricultural Building and Carling Avenue. This area will now be part of the new Ottawa Hospital - Civic Campus (where I actually worked at the existing campus for six years). So first generation Canadian on my father's side and fourth generation Canadian on my mother's side and I was born before "Canadian citizenship" was created on the 1st of January 1947 so grandfathered to Canadian Citizen all on my own which I always found quite exciting actually. 

Why ever do I spend so much time on this? George DeKay is mostly responsible but there was a tug on my senses after my mother passed away which was a year earlier than George asking me to do a Pincombe Profile for the book he was publishing. My mother knew that I was so into DNA as a child in the late 1950s - found it so exciting and studied Chemistry with that on my backplate at all times. She reminded me of that in the late 1990s as she was going to the Family History Library and looking up items and wanted me to use this new thought that was breaking into genealogy with yDNA studies. I explained that we would need to test my uncle for that and that thinking was in the works but he passed away in 2003 (however a cousin of his did test for me) but I digress. 

The two elements came together with George DeKay asking for the Pincombe Profile and my mother's letters and discussions with me in that regard pushed me into doing the Pincombe Profile, joining the Guild of one-name Studies and reviewing what had been done with yDNA by Sorenson in the 1990s and early 2000s. As it turned out a known Pincombe cousin in Australia had tested his yDNA and I contacted him and an in-between person wrote back (perhaps that cousin had passed away no ideas on that as the writer didn't say that).  It was sort of weird so I just used his results comparing them to my uncle's cousin and they were a match and I just moved forward with the Guild study of Pincombe and Siderfin at that time. 

Who would of ever guessed that I would be so deeply into genetic genealogy at this time in my life! I had always said that when I retired I was going to knit baby outfits and sew clothes for packages going to the First Nations Reserves in my old age as my grandmother had done in her old age. I haven't sewed or knitted very much since I got into my course work at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies and graduated with my PLCGS in 2007 in English and Canadian studies. Funny in retrospect as I continue down this path really with my mother at my side leading me onward. Then my grandfather's memories came into play as I took on the Blake study in 2011 after giving the Siderfin study to a cousin in England as he wanted to pursue it and he was much closer to the repositories than I was in 2010! So Grandpa's stories of his Blake line tumbled out of my brain and I was into Blake and Pincombe pretty much 100% from 2011 on. I continue there actually. 

At 81 nearly I had thought myself to be winding down and I have quite a bit done with that but the intent is to publish all of this on Pincombe and Blake in the next two years and then move forward into Buller and Rawlings my other grandparents to publish their information - the Rawlings because my cousin John Rawlins sent me all his research perhaps thinking I have come to the thought in retrospect that he thought I would write a book. Amazing really as I go down memory lane  - I am beginning to think that is a habit of over 80 year olds.

Must do the solitaire puzzles, tea all drank.  

 

 

Now that I am approaching 81

My only true experiences with old age consist of my grandfather, my grandmother and the visiting that I did as a teenager at a local nursing home. When my parents were in their 80s/90s I was far away and only seeing them a couple of times a year so did not really have a glimpse of their aging outside of a large family picture as many people were there whenever I was. 

My grandfather was basically a very healthy person although he did on occasion smoke a pipe. But throughout his 70s he continued to work on a very light schedule helping my father in his business. He maintained the supplies keeping them well ordered and ready for use on a daily basis. He read a lot as he borrowed books from the library or purchased them. He walked a lot as he never did learn to drive; it didn't interest him. His stroke was sudden and he passed away about three months later. During that three month period I can remember he slept a lot in a chair during the day. He could still walk about but less capable. His mind still pretty good actually as I can remember him repeating stories he had told me before and they were the same basically. His diet tended towards beef and potatoes and I would have said a high cholesterol diet on his part. This was the early 50s. 

My grandmother was similar a very healthy person except for having a slight tendency towards epilepsy which was controlled by drugs which she did not like to take. So a seizure would mean taking them for a bit and then stopping. That did not particularly seem to affect her overall health as I recall. She walked a great deal; she gardened a rather large plot which included tomato plants for her son's store. Her flowers were absolutely beautiful. She was less of a talker with regard to family but occasional stories did slip out. Most of her spare time when she wasn't helping her son with his store was spent knitting and crocheting baby outfits for bales to the North for the Salvation Army. She continued to be very nimble with her fingers pretty much up to the stroke that she had. Again she had a high cholesterol diet that I can remember very well probably because I was not a meat eater as a young person and still only eat what I need to be healthy sticking to chicken and fish which was not the case for either of my grandparents. This was the mid 60s.

The effect of cholesterol on them was perhaps partially controlled by their very active walking life styles. 

The nursing homes tended to be younger people in their late 60s and early 70s. People did not live a long time in many cases when I was a teenager. A few years after retirement for many of them. So interesting reflecting on that. I did learn that it is better to eat chicken and fish certainly by noting the effects of red meat on one's health. I also learned that constant exercise is very necessary all of your life. This was the early 60s.

An interesting thought for the day as we made a delicious meatloaf last night consisting of half ground pork and half ground beef. It made a large meatloaf which I will eat sparsely; just a narrow slice but it does taste quite good because it is also full of vegetables (2 cups of diced onion, pepper and carrot cooked in butter and cooled and then added to the meat mixture with 2 eggs, 1 cup of rolled oats, spices, herbs, garlic and hand mixed to produce a lovely loaf in a glass loaf pan. Then cooked at 350 degrees for 1.5 hours along with baked potatoes and baked squash. Overall a very healthy dinner especially if you are light on the meat but a good restorative meal if you are recovering from a bit or dental surgery and a good meat to start with in recovery stages as chicken and fish (other than poached salmon) are not necessarily easy to chew. 

Today I am cleaning the top floor and will begin around 10 washing the bathroom first and then vacuuming and dusting and should be finished around 1 hopefully. Yesterday seemed like an enormous task but I did a few extra items so I will keep it easy for this session. 

A beautiful sunny day and it is back up to 16 degrees celsius after a low of 10 degrees celsius. I must fertilize the tomato plants today as they are growing very well but fertilizing them is a good plan. 

Never a dull moment and solitaire games are next.  

Peace

 Peace is a beautiful word and what God wants for us. Jesus brought us the two commandments by which we should live - Love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. Living these two commandments could bring us to that uplifted plain of peace where all live a good life. Greed and envy must disappear from our world.  When they do the world will be a better place in which to live. 

Tough times continue in Canada and will for a while yet as our diversification of trade around the world takes hold. There are increases in jobs being created and we just have to wait. The Baby Boomers have had an entire lifetime worked around them and now they need to tighten up and help the economy to survive by spending locally instead of flying all over the place and enjoying themselves all the time. Life was easier for the Baby Boomers than it is for subsequent generations in so many ways. Attending university was so much easier and less costly and the dreaded compulsory Departamental Examinations became nonexistent in the later 60s (after I wrote them actually because I was two years ahead of my age group!). Life was handed to the Baby Boomers on a platter and they need to do the same for the generations that are following them. This diversification of trade is sixty years coming and should have been the practice of all Canadian governments prior to this one but it wasn't and we are paying the price.  We will continue to pay that price until we are on solider financial ground. 

Sad for Michigan because they were meant to split the tolls with Canada from the new bridge following the repayment to Canadian taxes as the people of Canada actually paid to build the new bridge. It would be a good bonus for Michigan and its people all that toll  money coming in to support all sorts of special projects or even just usual items like sports for children, better facilities in schools and all that sort of thing. Strange to continue to use such an old bridge especially for all these trucks when there is a bridge that is brand new (built equally with both Canadian and American steel and other products) with better access to the main highways. This new bridge has been talked about for years because the old one is just that - very heavily used and getting very old. Likely people will still use the old bridge but the truckers deserve to have a new bridge which is easier to access from the main highways and so modern. Truckers are the great heroes of people as they drive long hours; many miles to transport goods from coast to coast and back again. Ever increasing amounts of goods travel by truck all over North America. 

Worked the Pincombe file yesterday and it took only about 30 minutes to add in the Gray. Thinking of Michigan I have a lot of cousins who still live in Michigan that are descendant of the Pincombe Family. I still think that hand adding the known greatgrandparent is perhaps the better way so as not to create any confusion in the instructions to Copilot. Plus it lets me look at them in a global way as I entered them one after another without really regarding them beyond putting them into the table. The real challenge is coming where the work that I have done on the individual files will be used to help to look at matches that are totally unknown to me but share pertinent matches. That is very time consuming to do one by one but Copilot will be able to, without bias, pull out the information and produce lists that will be very productive. 

Today is cleaning day and it will be the main floor. I borrowed my sewing machine back from my daughter to make some new tea towels. The ones I have date back at least fifty years. Amazing they have lasted so long but I did make about twenty of them I think and there are three left that still have some cloth to dry dishes coming out of the dishwasher. Dishwashers have certainly made tea towels less of a necessity. 

Continuing to work on the phasing of great grandparents and creating the genealogical charts for the Blake book high on the agenda for my work time. 

Cloudy today and cooler just 15 degrees celsius - a normal June for sure. Tea brewing and solitaire puzzles to do. 

   

 

 

 

 

Copilot

 Working with Copilot yesterday was most interesting and I separated my large table into the four grandparent components although I did not do a complete separation as I wanted to see the results. They were pretty much as expected. A good separation with regard to the four names. A reasonable number in each grouping as anticipated. I could sort to get the entire table back into its numerical run and thus reproduce on a grandparent level the original chart. I could have asked Copilot to do that at the end if I so desired. I did not have it place the Knight family into this chart and will need to do that. It always picked up every incidence of Blake as I worked on Blake first (in the Greatgrandparent category). I could have written a python programme as well and will work with that methodology also. Did it save me a lot of time? Probably but the manual items that needed to be done have to be fed in one line at a time although you could do it as a long list of statements at the beginning possibly. Will have to look at that. I do need to do more work with Copilot in this regard. 

A good exercise day with my usual yoga and calisthenics in the morning followed by a run before lunch and then weightlifting in the  afternoon and a lovely walk on the beach after dinner. A most pleasant day although we had a fierce thunder storm later in the evening. 

Sunday and Church is beginning (I ended up switching to the Church online in England as I was not picking up my own Church here). God is with us always waiting and watching for us to do the one item other than loving God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. That other part that Jesus brought to us from God is loving our neighbour as ourself which really is about respect for sure. 

Solitaire puzzles later as the day escapes me today.