Cleaning Day One and progress on matches

Yesterday I extracted all the new Ancestry matches and completed all of my new ones which was the first 16 and there are 9 left to do. I have to pull the data for everyone in each of the matches as I pull for myself first, then my brother Doug, my brother John and my sister in that order so that I have the largest number of matches under my name although the others also match. 

I had thoughts on going outside yesterday but I did not make it out. Since it was Sunday I do not like to do a lot of heavy gardening on the Lord's Day. Just a habit from childhood I guess or I am lazy but one day of rest a week was a good idea that God had for humans. God is at our side but we need to remember the laws He gave to us; love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. That would bring us to the uplifted plain of peace in our world. 

The budding is happening much more quickly now and soon everything will be green and because there was so much moisture it will be lovely. The Ottawa River is slowly dropping and was a problem here and there but not right here actually. We have been lucky all these fourty eight years that no flooding has ever occurred in this area. The bank is quite high here along the river. It would have to be probably more than three metres of flood water to come over the bank and it is still somewhat uphill to where I am. 

I got everything done that I needed to do in the house on Sunday and that was good. Church was very beautiful and the music as usual really well done. The Sermon interesting as it centered on the Lord is my Shepherd and was well researched for sure. There was a baptism of an infant as well which meant the music was really quite lovely; baptisms always bring out the really beautiful music. 

 Good exercise as well with my hour of calisthenics when I get up and then a thirty minute run before lunch (after Church) and later in the day I did weight lifting for thirty minutes. 

Today I will be cleaning the top floor and also working on extracting the data for the matches at FT DNA, My Heritage and 23 and Me. The 23 and Me are limited though unless you have contacted the match. I have all the material from before the change in the system.  I have fifteen interesting matches at 23 and Me but our shared matches pretty much tell me the story there. Only four of them are 2nd cousins but 3xr. My Heritage I have six matches (also shared with my siblings), and there are another eight that I do not share with my siblings. At FT DNA there are ten new matches in total to draw out the information so will take a few hours to complete that. I will go back to checking once a month for new matches possibly the first day of the month just to keep it easy. That is also the day that I generally create the Newsletter for the three different projects that I manage the newsletter. 

The new projects in Canada are slowly coming to fruition; it does take time. More barriers between the provinces need to be eliminated in order to tariff proof Canada though. That really is what this is all about plus making use of the ability of Canada to produce  items that have been set aside during the prior fifteen years for various reasons. I am all for greening the planet and we will work at it but in the meantime it takes money to do all these things and so we must utilize what is needed and marketable right now. Looking at foodstuff when I was a child shopping at the grocery store or helping out in my uncle's store most products were Canadian made or grown actually with the seasonal additions of oranges from Florida, bananas from the tropics somewhere and such things that we do not grow due to six months give or take of snow and too cold most of the year anyway. 

Chicken stew last night was delightful plus I had a salmon/pickle sandwich for lunch. I am a very light eater for sure which makes a big difference grocery wise. I seldom snack unless I am eating nuts (of most  kinds) or Greek yoghurt. 

Drinking tea and time for solitaire puzzles.  

 

Another day of matches

Yesterday I spent the day pulling the new matches from Living DNA. They have to be closely examined because I have so many cousins in England (in general I would say most of my Blake cousins live in England) and a goodly number of my Pincombe cousins. Then there are all the other lines that go back from that marriage of a Blake and Pincombe here in Canada. Less details for these matches although I do subscribe to Find My Past and there are trees there as well. But it is where they match me that I want to see as I can mostly slot them into their great grandparent line that we share although many times I can not separate the great grandparent couple yet. That process is coming slowly as I work away at it. My great grandparents as mentioned were all born between 1837 and 1859. Their location of birth being Upper Clatford, Hampshire; Turnworth, Dorset; Kimpton, Hampshire (possibly); Kimpton, Hampshire;  Molland, Devon; London Township, Upper Canada; Birmingham, Warwickshire, and Birmingham, Warwickshire.

It did take the entire day to extract these matches as I reviewed the first 22 pages of each of the five siblings. I am looking forward somewhat to not doing that anymore and will have to think of contingency plans on what to do with all of these results into the future. I actually, at this time, do not think any of my siblings or their descendants are interested but time will tell. I know my daughters have virtually no interest in doing this work although they do like to hear results on occasion. But then they always felt like genealogy took their Dad away from them so it doesn't  have a good feeling to it even yet. They miss him very much. 

Today's work will be to draw out the information from FT DNA, My Heritage and 23 and Me where I just collected the names and did not create the files. Then a check on Ancestry to look at the new matches (these tend to increase daily I sometimes think). Although in my case the total number of matches for myself and three siblings  are in the range of  17,000 to 23,000 compared to my husband with his huge number of American cousins at 35,000. That is interesting actually as it changed over the last ten years when my matches and those of siblings tended to be between 5,000 and 8,000. Interesting but then I was thinking there were more when I was collecting lately. I have American cousins but not in very large numbers compared to Edward but his latest arrivals in Canada were his Rathbun/Niles family in the early 1830s. I have a few second cousins, more third cousins and probably a lot more fourth and continuing back even to eighth and ninth because of endogamy in my Routledge, Knight and Blake lines. Whereas when we went to the Rathbun Reunions in the United States memories of William Rathbun were still known and he was mentioned as having "an itchy foot" which sent him off to Upper Canada as it was known at that time with his wife and I am not sure how many of the children were born here. I need to look at that. 

But it is another glorious Sunday with a shadow on it somewhat as shots were fired last evening at the Gala Dinner that the President of the United States was speaking at. He was rushed off stage by the Secret Service and the gun holder tackled and taken out by the Secret Service. Wonderful that the Secret Service was able to prevent such an act of violence. Peace in our time is the wish and thankful prayers that all went well. 

Off to Church in a bit online as always. I really should get out more and that will soon happen but not quite yet. I also have the washing to do this afternoon and will rest my eyes quite a bit today as they were pretty tired last night. 

Tea all drank and time to do my Solitaire Puzzles. The new matches on Ancestry total 25 in two months although in total there were a lot more matches than that going back to 21 cM and down to 8 cM. I do not collect these but I do look at them if we share a common ancestor. Sometimes I do a search for Blake and that pulls up some of these tiny matches but with the use of Timber then 8 cM can be a larger match but there are only so many hours in the day and my eyes can only do so much so I do put limitations on my searches for sure. 

 

Matches dominated

 Just Living DNA to finish now as yesterday saw me go through the others although I am still drawing out the data for some of them as I made lists at the time. Not a lot of new ones because I am getting pickier about the ones that I select to put into my files. I will get back to my Latin probably tomorrow and working on the old wills. All of this will come together as I start the Genealogical Chart for Blake. I am still contemplating Robert Blake who left his will in 1521. 

It has kept me from writing the end to the Somerby Chapter as I think about it. I need to continue working on the Latin  transcription of these two wills and that will occupy me for a while now I think although in between I will get the rest of these matches into their files and then sorted and entered into the big chart that will be my focus whilst I do the generational chart for Blake. 

Beautiful day yesterday and I went out and picked up more wood in the back yard. I may have it all now. Everything is coming up and it is nearly the end of April. the budding seems late this year but coming. The trees are very slow this year surprisingly although it was cool and they do like that burst of heat to get the budding going. The yard looks old to me now. I started in the spring of 2011 to work in the garden full time as Edward could not. Gardening has never been my thing and now fifteen years later I believe I am worked out for gardening. I shall get as much of it into grass as I can. 

A couple of good matches came out of my looking at Gedmatch so will get those entered into the table perhaps today. We will see how the day flows. These are my four working days on research although I generally do not do very much on Sunday. 

Salmon for dinner and it was a lovely piece along with sweet potato and peas and a slice of tomato. It was delicious and there is enough of the salmon for tonight and tomorrow lunch. I like doing it that way and spread the salmon out although I could not eat that big a piece at one sitting ever. I find that about $10 worth of salmon goes a long way actually.  

The European Union has proposed an alternative route to Hormuz Strait for shipping oil and they will meet with the Middle East countries to work on that. After all pipelines work very well and Turkey and Syria have ports on the Mediterranean which is a direct route to Europe. An interesting idea for sure. Pipelines continue to be the safest way to move oil and gas (more fragile than a ship for sure but the containment and transport can be much more direct).  However shipping a long way is still likely ships. I do think Europe is very innovative and the European Union has stood the test of time and change very well. Remembering the bombed buildings in newsreels when I was a child going to the show with my grandfather and brothers and then seeing the rebuilt  Europe as an adult years later was an experience over time for me. Europe has also proposed that they would  help with this rebuilding. We have an enormous amount in common with Europe as we are a multilingual country (many First Nations languages, French and English). I must get back to my French lessons just to keep that more current. I was doing quite well when I was working. It has been lucky for me to be living in an area that lets me keep up my French although certainly not fluent like our French neighbours or for that matter my son in law who is French-Canadian going all the way back to early Quebec and even the first settlement in New Brunswick. Oil and gas continue to be a very important product for any country as there is wealth attached to these products and spreading it around more never hurts. They are a timely item though as greening the planet is better in the long run but in the short haul businesses and people in their homes need energy.

Today continuing with the Living DNA matches and then extracting the list that I made from the various databases and entering that into my databases including the large one which I will use for the genealogical tables. The construction of this table will take the longest time. I have a table for my line going back but now I will bring in the lines that are adjacent to mine living in the Andover area going back (I do have a lot of material available in my database for these lines but I have never put them together other than in my Legacy file). There is a bottleneck so to speak in my line between 1709 and the late 1700s. Thomas Blake  (second born child of John and Elizabeth Blake, a sibling one year older died as an infant) was baptized 21 Feb 1685 at Andover St Mary. He married Mary Spring 6 Nov 1708 at Andover St Mary. Their only child Thomas was baptized 4 May 1709 at Andover St Mary. He married Ann Carter 8 Dec 1728 at Penton Mewsey Holy Trinity and they baptized two sons Joseph 21 Oct 1730 at Andover St Mary and Thomas 19 Sep 1734 at Andover St Mary (Thomas (infant)was buried 22 Dec 1734 at Penton Mewsey Holy Trinity). Joseph married Joanna King 8 Jun 1757 at Upper Clatford All Saints (priest made note that Joseph was of Andover) and they had five children although even at this point the bottleneck was still evident until Thomas (the youngest child and second of that name as his older brother died at the age of six before the second Thomas was born) married Sarah Coleman 10 Jun 1792 at Upper Clatford All Saints. They had ten children and a very large number of grandchildren and on and on. It is amazing that but for one child per generation for several generations my line would have died out and now it is a very large family around the world. Sorting out the siblings of Thomas baptized in 1685 is a process I must do although I do again have quite a bit of information having transcribed the entire set of registers in that area of Andover including Andover St Mary itself. 

My grandfather would have loved this for sure but that was a different time and in a different place. He and his siblings used to go up on Bury Hill near their house which was a high point I gather and it did appear so although we did not spend a lot of time in Upper Clatford. Mostly we were at the Church and then down to Goodworth Clatford where my great grandparents lived after Edward (my great grandfather) retired. He loved Upper Clatford and used to run from Goodworth Clatford to Upper Clatford and back again in the days after he moved apparently. He had lived there all of his life. I think it is exciting to know some of these details of my great grandparents. My grandfather had known a number of his great grandparents on both sides of his family.  

Drinking tea and solitaire puzzles are next

Busy day

Part of yesterday was planned as I needed to go shopping and yes I agree prices are rising. I no longer pay $75 a week and I estimate that I am perhaps at $90 a week (it varies one week to the next because I buy 12 chicken thighs and freeze 11 of them after I cook them in the oven with spices/herbs, olive oil and I also buy one piece of salmon big enough for me for three meals). That means that I spend in total $65 in each three week period on meat only. I then make a fresh chicken stew every day (figured that out on my retreat with the dogs, the cats and the fish). It was nice to have a fresh stew every day with the chicken out of the freezer. Absolutely delicious. So four days a week I eat chicken stew and three days a week I eat fish (usually scallops one night (frozen in a bag by a company for the store I shop at and the bag lasts maybe four weeks (I usually eat about 15 or 20 as they are small)) and then salmon for dinner two nights and for lunch one day). I come from a family with high cholesterol and almost never eat red meat I keep it under control. I do not buy prepared foods and there are more and more of them all prepared. It looks nice but I have 24 hours a day that belong to me and so I cook everything from scratch. We store a lot of vegetables for winter use in Canada and I use mostly them. Money will be tight I expect for the next little while; we were warned. 

Yesterday was also the day to cook my banana bread as I had the three ripe bananas left from last weeks purchase (I try to get a bundle of ten bananas so that I have enough for my favourite cake which I butter when I slice it as icing does not appeal to me). I do not have a sweet tooth. I did buy a bar of dark chocolate with mint in it made in Quebec (absolutely delicious and lasts me the entire week). My expensive extra. I neither drink alcohol to any degree (a glass of wine with my younger daughter on occasion) nor do I smoke or take any type of drugs. That saves a lot of money I think but because I have never smoked or drank particularly or used recreational drugs I do not really know how much I save to be honest. 

Then I did my run of 30 minutes which is four days a week as I clean three days a week and I was finding that maybe running every day was too much as I reached 80 (although if I feel running I do).  I watch television as I do that and it was the time for the Leader of the Conservative of Canada to speak. Does he know that CBC can be heard all around the world? I wonder about that sometimes. As for affordability, the Conservatives were opposed to dental care (the intent of which was to help people with their health care), the Conservatives were opposed to day care support and the list goes on so crying affordability now just seems weird to be honest. Good policies would be supporting the pipelines (I mean they could be there in BC helping with discussions to get this going). All he does is whine about restrictions and insult the Prime Minister which I do not think of as policy when really the first Nations need to see that this is of value as it crosses their land as we gradually do move away from fossil fuels but this is not yet the time but it is there in the future. I also fail to see the value in the Conservative Leader going on a talk show in the United States; I found that very weird and I have been Conservative all of my voting life except for rare occasions (all of which I have regretted so tend to avoid that). However I do feel the government in place is taking us on the right paths to make Canada more independent as we were when I was a child but the Leader of the Opposition has no such memories and clings to an economic state that no longer works for Canada. 

There is no slacking on getting the military going and the protection of the Arctic is a joint project with all the members of NATO but particularly the Arctic NATO countries. The XL pipeline has finally been approved in the US and we will see how that goes (it has been approved in Canada for a long time). I fail to see a value in televising Question Period these days (perhaps we could have a program on archaeological finds that would be exciting). We want investors to come to Canada and sharing all of that negativity which is fake really does not seem constructive. The new trade committee has several prior Conservative government members which is good to see. Lots of interesting people in that group. 

As for Chief Tecumseh and Sir Isaac Brock I was very proud to hear the Prime Minister talk about them. I went to Tecumseh Avenue Public School for my entire elementary school education. We were proud of  Tecumseh. We all knew the stories about Chief Tecumseh and forever he will be remembered in that namesake school. Mentioning them brings home once again the need for all Canadians to come together on all of these projects as they slowly but surely work their way forward. This needs to be a Unity Government and thank you to the Conservatives who gave the majority to the Prime Minister. I support them 100% for wanting after eleven years of being in opposition (or less) to help their communities since that was why they went into politics. Sarnia in particular could have oil refineries again and not buy our now refined oil back from the United States at three times what they pay us for the oil  (hence a pipeline to Thunder Bay would facilitate that as ships can take the oil to Sarnia not as fast as a pipeline but it takes time to build pipelines and we already have the ships). The two big gas guzzling provinces (Ontario and Quebec) could then have locally refined gasoline for their cars and still pay the same with the money benefiting everyone as Ontario doesn't mind paying taxes to the federal government and we in Ontario are by far the biggest users of gas in our cars. The company doing the refining pays taxes (by employing people and by making so much money) to the government especially their health care payment along with our personal Health Care Tax in Ontario we will not be struggling to look after the Baby Boomers as they age. Lots more money in the federal pot for everyone to share because this is Canada and that is what we do. 

The afternoon yesterday was a time of reflection and planning. It was beautiful outside and I can remember as a child my mother calling up to the attic and telling me to stop reading and go outside and play on such a day. I didn't go out though yesterday as the gardening just looks overwhelming; my mother wasn't here to send me out! My daughter tends to get me out when she comes to do her research. Walking and kayaking and gardening but the road is still flooded at Petrie so not happening yet. Good news is the Ottawa River appears to have peaked so by mid May we may be able to get into Petrie. AI is such a neat item to do research on for sure (the implementation is the key). It needs to be set up in a systematic and robust way so that it can be incorporated into our world in the best way.  Can you actually get a robot to consider all the alternatives when they are not yet really developed that actually does not make sense (they need to be sentient and I am dubious of that; humans are sentient); processes have to be established so that we do not get useless material back that has to be filtered through (that is a waste of time). The asset of AI is the amount of memory it can hold but the deficit lies in the inability of AI to manage that data without expert human control. Better to have expert people trained in how to question AI so that the best results are obtained. Soon I will use AI on my huge table once it is completely ready and it will help me with creating my genealogical tables. I need to also continue with the "Phasing" of my great grandparents as they are all born between 1837 and 1859. Except for Grace Gray they were all born in England and are all known to me and on the census (all of my grandparents mentioned these people to me in meaningful ways because they knew all of them so I have a sort of picture of them and even some of the 2x great grandparents actually as many of them were know to my grandfather not so much my grandmother). Luckily Grace (Gray) Pincombe was the first cousin of Sir John Carling and that family is well written up so lots of detail and I have done quite a bit of research going back. 

Hopefully this is truly a research day; I do not have any other plans other than my exercises which are the second most important thing in my day to work at.  

Tea to drink and solitaire puzzles to do.  May God be with the world and help us to reach that plain of peace where all can live without fear. Europe has found peace and that is beautiful to see and they will enforce their keeping of that peace; they are ready or getting ready to do that very thing in a much bigger way and we along with them as part of NATO. But peace is preferred. Ukraine would also like peace but they are not willing to sacrifice any of their people on the stolen lands; they want the people and their lands back and no one can blame them. Russians who do not like where they live can always go back to Russia (and that goes for anyone who doesn't like something where they live (they can get to like it or leave so that the bulk of the people do not have to listen to such things)). Go somewhere where you can be happy (usually it is just greed that causes unhappiness and greed does need to go). In the case of Russia so many young men have lost their lives in this useless war that they likely need the people in Russia and then they will stop being a thorn in the side in countries where they cause trouble. Israel and the United States are no longer accepting that Iran can export terror with the intention of annihilating Israel using their proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis amongst others to attack Israel. That would be peace then and living the rules that God gave to us. They are good rules and the closer we live to those rules the better off the world would be. 

I think I shall stop watching the news once again. It distracts me from my work.  

Was there accomplishment on the book? No.

 I did think about the book a lot but I need to really work on the wills and the matches and will co-join those two projects starting today so that I do not strain my eyes. I guess I am getting old. Either that or my brain just seemed to be over-running or something. It has calmed down. 

Prayers for the two French Peace-Keepers who were killed in Lebanon. So sad really as the UN functions well with so many countries providing Peace-Keepers. How sad for their families and for France. 

England and France are both thought highly of here in Canada and I always remember our trip that was solely France and we traveled about the entire country. A marvelous few weeks and the food so wonderful. Especially I loved the walnuts - walnut everything; you name it ice cream, walnut bread (oh that was exceptional) and so many other items made with walnuts. I love walnuts; mind you I love all the nuts and eat at least one handful every day. The protein is wonderful especially when you are old and still doing as much exercise as I do. Finishing up a run with an apple, nuts and some cheese; delicious. 

I also did spend a lot of time in England; I went there four times and Edward three times. The first time was with my eldest daughter in the Fall of 2001 as she accompanied me on my pilgrimage to Rome. What a fantastic time that was; I saw so much. Then we flew to England and another wonderful time mostly in London. Edward and I went in 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2016. We had a trip to go all over Germany in 2020 but it was cancelled due to COVID. That was a huge disappointment for Edward as his Schultz great grandparents came to Canada directly from Eastern Germany in the 1800s. His only other ancestor coming to Canada directly was from East Anglia in the 1830s. All of his ancestors other than these three came up from the United States to Upper Canada between 1800 and 1830 and to the Maritimes between 1750 (planters moved to the Maritimes by the British) and 1780 (a few loyalists in his line to both Upper Canada and the Maritimes and a number of patriots all to Upper Canada). An interesting mix I always thought; with a Patriot descendant marrying a Loyalist descendant. His American colonials arrived between 1620 and 1709 with most being between 1620 and 1640. The first were Dutch and then the English Dissenters and then more Dutch followed by Palatines. He was 30% German, 30% Dutch, 20% French, 5% Swedish, 5% English and then some from Poland, Switzerland and Belgium to make up the other 10%. I went back to his 9x great grandparents and added them all up and divided them into birth countries and calculated the percentage. The DNA companies actually come very close with his ethnicity. My ethnicity is 100% English back to the 1400s and then I have Scot from the Highlands and Huguenot from France and we show some Irish and it is possible that is the Charly family as that is a claim made by this line again very early from Ireland to England. No idea on that. My 4x great grandmother was a Charly. 

I am tired of the way that news appears on the television at the moment. I just want actual reporting and no more questions by reporters. I hate it when they ask questions to create issues; they just do it for the notoriety. The questions they are asking are unimportant. What I want to hear about is shovels in the ground, agreements on pipe lines. I am tired of hearing about affordability (we have to manage that is what the PM said). It will not be easy for sure and yes I would love to sell my house (it is too big for me although it is only a carriage home of 1400 square feet) but I have to wait for another few years until my daughter returns because she, like many Canadians, could not get a job here (Americans were hired instead so when one is offered a job in the United States one takes it of course). When your educational aims take you on a path that you have to find a research group that you fit into that is the way that it is. Americans are much more innovative than we are research wise and it shows particularly in some fields for sure and so that is where you have to go when you choose something that is new and innovative. Once you find that research group you are going to stay obviously unless you can find it or create it here. Her ideas to bring her field home is a great one and she will try but right now she has PhD students to finish off and research projects as well. One in particular is fascinating and funded. At 80 it is just too unstable for me to move several times in a few years. 

Canada is on a mission to improve our output and our trade around the world. Our new Prime Minister is also innovative and will push us towards being more like that and that is good. But it will cost money and we will need to tighten up our finances and just make them work. We liked CUSMA and had really no complaints but tariff is hurting our companies and so we must diversify both internally between provinces and around the world.   In the meantime we have a task ongoing which is to improve our military and particularly our military activities are increasing exponentially in the Arctic along with our Arctic partners. Affordability is a personal thing; the government can not be the bank account for the people. That is the focus; the reporters need to get with it; the Conservative Party needs to get with it. Their last time in power military projects were not properly supported and even cancelled. They sold the science library to Americans after Canadians had built up a perfect distribution system that made money. Who does that?  I would like to see some good policy coming out of the Conservative Party. You have had my support for a very long time and I would like to see adults in the room and Question Period is revolting to be honest. I would rather have a long list of what is being done in the field to get things going. The work at Montreal Harbour would be a much more interesting discussion and the upcoming work on Port Churchill even more so and the possibility finally of a new pipeline to tidewater in British Columbia and also the XL Pipeline (I would like to see this as a potential 3 way distribution (south to the United States, northwest to Port Churchill and east to Thunder Bay). Tricky perhaps but our engineers are up to that task I am sure. Listening to the Premier of the North West Territories was very interesting and he too has good ideas. Asking the Premiers dumb questions on a program that is transmitted around the world is just unbelievable. Less of CUSMA please until we need to hear about it. I love my American cousins and the American people for that matter but do not need to hear some of the things that are being said. I can hardly believe some of the comments being made to be honest and it annoys my American cousins as well. More discussion of our trade around the world and between provinces would be nice. I agree with the Prime Minister on that for sure. Thank you.

I am getting distracted again and so must start being more organized first thing to accomplish everything that I want to get done. Life moves on and I move on towards 81 and my date for the books is the end of 2028 so concentration is upper most in my mind. I can do nothing about what is happening in the world. We need to follow God's commandments and sooner rather than later. So many of us worship the same God although our path to God somewhat different but in the long run He is the same God, always has been, always will be. 

Thank you God for another beautiful day in your world.