H11 Newsletter on the website

 Accomplished yesterday and it is on the website awaiting approval from the support group. It is a time saver as it turns out. The process I used to use for the first newsletter of the year  for H11 took me about five or six hours of going through all the material but FT DNA's new mt tree is perfect and covers everything much better as it identifies the matches in common. So thank you to FT DNA for saving me some time as I move away from so much time on newsletters to working on my books. 

I continue to contemplate how nice it will be when I move from here. Yesterday the black recycling bin was not emptied by the collection people; possibly because I put it up on  top of the snowhill (as did others) and nothing was sticking out which seems a bit strange as I could see into it. It takes me a long time to fill the black bin. It will be so nice to be gone from all of that for sure. I am tired of dealing with people in my 80th year. I just want to work away on my books and have no one about me that isn't my family. Honesty for sure but then I have worked since I was twelve years old and except for a short period when my oldest was born and I was ill for a few years I have worked until I retired in 2008. A little sooner than I planned but I had tore my rotator cup and it needed rest and finally I decided just to retire. It was a good idea except my husband always had so many things he was doing and wanted me to help him and so I did but I managed to avoid getting involved beyond the event that he  needed help with or a trip that he and another fellow had put together and I would help with that but then quiet came for a while until Edward had something else he wanted to do. Me, I prefer just to stay at home and work on my projects. I am not a people person and even less so now that I am 80. My time that is for fun is spent with my family but they are very busy people and so I have all this lovely beautiful time to myself to work on my books. 

That recent event brought it to my notice how much the world is changing and all that waste of paper is too excessive delivering it door to door (it would take  me a month or two to accumulate a black box full of paper and as time passes it will take longer and longer. Have a stand somewhere in a mall where people can pick it up. I still  have stamps that I bought fifteen years ago (there are still three there) which tells you how much I use the Post Office. The Post office needs virtual mailboxes for people to receive their information (usually one is printing something and then putting it into an envelope and then mailing it but if one had access to a system that sent the item via the post office that would be perfect). Bulk mailing is done very well by the Post Office.  I would go for that as I do think the Post Office is an important part of government. I do see a value in the Post Office just not the current setup. That way one is always able to access their mail anywhere they  have an internet connection.  I agree with the opinion of the government that door to door delivery needs to disappear. 

I have been using computers for 60 years now and our young people are so good at managing computers starting even younger than my 20 years of age at the time. Lately in a discussion with a Chatbox trying to solve a problem the AI that I talked to could not get beyond simple sentences that a child would use and so could not understand what I was saying. It finally gave me a telephone number that I sat for nearly an hour listening to the excuses before looking up a number that did give me a person after 25 minutes.  AI needs a lot of work still. 

However in spite of the mishaps, I did complete Chromosome 2 and I will move on to Chromosome 1 today. I was pleased with the overall result of this chromosome. I rejected  ten matches because they were too small; that is the most so far. The file is now 3627 lines and by the time I have completed Chromosome 1 I estimate that will be over 4000 lines easily. Then the real work begins. Although I still have to check the databases for new matches which I will do first. 

 My usual exercises yesterday replacing weight lifting with rowing. I do like rowing and we canoed all over Northern Ontario in our young days my husband and I. It was fantastic and I highly recommend it. The rowing is a sort of strength training along with just the good cardio that goes with it. So for 400 rows, 23 minutes, 135 calories and a cardio load of 43. Today's morning exercise was 1 hour, 403 cal, and cardio load of 49. My steps were 3203 a little longer than usual but I was contemplating my blog and lost count a few times so just added 100 more. 

The FitBit wants me to slow down but it needs to continue to refine itself to work with me in my normal exercise routine (it is just six weeks old now!). It is getting better and better. My step count was 16,002 steps yesterday. 

Just the Kipp Newsletter to look at today and I will think about it. I only mention Y-DNA in the newsletter. 

Forgot to make my tea so must do that and solitaire games to play.  

 

 

H11 Newsletter in progress

I did work on the H11 project yesterday and all ungrouped members are now grouped. It is not of any value to do the statistics I used to do in this issue of the newsletter. In each individual member's page is all the information that I used to provide in an anonymous way which is now available to each person except they can see the matches. Thank you to FT DNA for doing such a great job in this upgrade. I can not publish the new mitogroups because that information is personal. So a small writeup on that in the Newsletter. I still have to have a look at the recent messaging online about H11 and see if there is anything other than my newsletters. 

H11 is an old haplogroup subclade which wintered in Ukraina during the last Ice Age. Presumably given the tracking of some of the members of this group it would appear that there were several paths to the west through central Europe and into southern England and through the Scandinavian Peninsula and into Scotland where my ancestor appears on the Blood of the Isles Database created by Bryan Sykes. The H11 also trekked east and south east and south west. The Blood of the Isles Database is a limited look as few markers are mentioned but the ones that are end up, in my case, being significant and it is likely that both of my lines y-DNA and mt-DNA were in the British Isles 8,000 to 12,000 years ago as Western Hunter Gatherers. Both of these signatures go extinct when my generation is gone and when the grandchildren generation is gone (y-DNA in my generation and mt-DNA in the grandchildren generation). I think sometimes it is hard to believe given that I have six siblings but there you go. However there are still, in my estimation, around half a million to a million holders of this mt-DNA and an unknown number for the y-DNA (there were fourteen matches on the Chromo2 test). This being an expensive test probably did not get as many testers as it might have. But I do know that the y-DNA is all over the British Commonwealth but not so sure of the United States as no one has tested there that matches. I do not know of any male Blake of Andover going to the United States. It became a very small family in the mid 1700s and most holders were still in England. Time will tell though and if DNA studies continue to interest people more will be available in the future. 

 Today finish up the H11 Newsletter and work on the Kipp Newsletter. I also hope to get back to the matches and there are 22 to finish off Chromosome 2 and then on to the last one - Chromosome 1 with its 250+ matches. That will take a bit of time. 

My new exercise routine now a few weeks old is going very well and I think it was time for a change to that type of longer exercise. I also ran for thirty minutes and lifted weights for 20 minutes. It gives me a good cardio load for the day and exercise level. At 80 one has to keep up the exercises as you lose the muscle tone very quickly. The balance also has to be part of the whole exercise story and I was amazed at how adding two sets of exercises that my daughter mentioned to my routine kept me from falling down readily whilst skiing. 

Started filling in my income tax with basic details and I do believe I will move to one of the Canadian manufactured income tax form programs. I suppose I knew it was American but I guess I thought maybe it was also Canadian but it is totally American owned. But at $27 for the basic form it isn't a lot but I will move to possibly UFile as it looks interesting, has a lovely Canadian flag in the corner and is downloaded to the computer which I prefer. It is sad though as I really like Turbo Tax. We were all happy I think with the status quo but time changes and life moves on and so must we. I do like what Prime Minister Carney is doing. One mustn't think of the deficit at this point; we need to think of increasing jobs and Canadian content of everything. 

Today the opening of the new Consulate in Nuuk, Greenland and the Governor General is there along with Minister Anand  and we are well represented there by many Canadian Inuit cousins and friends to support this new Consulate and it will bring us even closer as peoples. It isn't far from Baffin Island to Greenland and new trade routes are opening up in the Hudson Bay and we can all work together to make our lives more productive. 

Drinking tea and on to the Solitaire Puzzles. Still enjoying the Sudoku very much and do get a good laugh out of the Superstar label.  I do miss the sixteen games of Spider to achieve the Diamond level in that particular Solitaire game and perhaps I will return once my  eyes adjust to this sparkling as it tends to give me a headache. So move on from that; there are other games and Sudoku is great as a memory and brain game for sure. 

 

 

 

H11 Newsletter is a complete redo of the site

 It will take me a while to do the H11 Newsletter as the mitogroups will necessitate a complete rework of the site. I am in the process of looking at that. The Kipp Newsletter only deals with the yDNA groups and will also have a look at that but again I am moving away from working on Kipp since I do not know the family and perhaps someone in the group will come forward and become involved. We will see how that goes; I will mention it in the next Newsletter.

Cleaning was slow as I decided to download my TurboTax which took me a bit to accomplish but everything  is working very very well. I do like using Turbo Tax to do my Income Tax. It is an American product but it will be difficult for me to change that unless I just do it. We will see in the future but this year it is TurboTax once again.

Cleaning completed although it was a dragged out session today as I kept on checking in on a couple of items.  That completes cleaning for the week except little everyday things. 

I did absolutely nothing on the matches as I decided to work on the Newsletters and will likely do that to a large extent today. Reworking the H11 viewing chart will be a large task with  517 members although some are only Family Finder and did not test their mitochondrial DNA at FT DNA (I am assuming that they did test it elsewhere which is why they are on the H11 site!). 

I will start out though with the matches as I am now down to  43 left to do (my guess of 40 was pretty close). Then there is just Chromosome 1 to add to the flat file and I am looking forward to that. This was a huge task as it turned out but I have now really looked at all of those matches after many years of not opening some of the files or just a brief glimpse. 

The bright sun out this morning does tell me that cold weather is coming since the clouds are not very prominent but then we are promised the Polar Vortex for a few days and it is  minus 16 degrees celsius at 7:44 a.m. EST. This is normal weather for us although we have had a mild winter or two in the last couple of years but a return to normal winter for Canada. Definitely we need all that snow to build up the water reserves on the land. 

The new consulate is being opening in Nuuk Greenland today by the Governor General. It is a nice feeling to realize that our Governor General is Inuit just as the people of Greenland have Inuit heritage. Long ago the Inuit people traveled across the Northern Pacific (estimated 5000 plus years ago) in some fashion we are still learning about that (our simple thought of an ice land bridge across the Bering Strait is being replaced by a very reasonable thought that the peoples moving across would have stayed close to the shore or on it but not necessarily go all the way north to the Bering Strait given that the winter would have provided lots of ice covered areas for travel. Our Inuit are very used to traveling about in Northern Canada during the winter and have built homes of ice for many thousands of years at stopping points. 

It is fascinating what DNA reveals to us about our heritage. I continue to marvel that my paternal grandfather talking about his family and saying they always lived in the Andover, Hampshire, England area (he always specified it like that as I was young and he wanted me to understand that this was a different place on this planet of ours). I am glad he did that and repeated it so many times (I loved to hear him talk and he could have said it every day and I would  have listened just as eagerly as I did as I loved being with him). But I am distracted my point in bringing up my grandfather was that the yDNA of our line is Western Hunter Gatherer and the particular haplogroup belongs to a lineage named the "Deer-Hunters" by Ethnoancestry. I tested my brother everywhere I could as he was so willing that I do so and the second brother I tested when he was willing just to have the two samples in the system. The Western Hunter Gatherers were said to be in England 8,000 to 12,000 years ago but I always wonder if they were there before the Ice Age and simply returned to the lands of their ancestors. The proof may lie way below the surface as there was a kilometre of ice on the British Isles at the height of the Ice Age.  

Tea all drank and must do my solitaire puzzles for the day. I was also doing a weekly challenge with Spider but had to give it up when my eyes discovered sparkling and it still overwhelms somewhat and tires them so I have stopped for a bit (I have done them every since that project was added to the site so do miss it on occasion but replaced with Sudoku) but perhaps I will return one day as I love doing Spider Solitaire Puzzles. The Sudoku has these levels gained as you are given points and I am now at Super Star having passed through a number of levels over the past couple of months. I take my time as I aim to have no errors and it is fun I must admit. 

 

 

Updating exercise routine

 I updated my morning exercise routine over the last couple of months bringing together the two sets of exercises and doing them first thing on awaking. Working very well and amounts to 1 hour of exercise around 400 to 450 calories with a cardio load of 45 to 50. It was my daughter who inspired me actually to take on some exercises I never considered or even thought about. So it is 23 stages in total and the first nine stages are waking up and stretching and then a couple of YOGA type exercises and then I get up and touch my toes 30 times and at that point I add in 200 steps after each exercise set. I was having trouble with my shoulder aching which I just always attribute to my arthritis but she suggested that I might not be working the shoulder enough. There you go so I added in my exercises from the period when I was in physio after I tore my rotator cup. So another four sets of exercises which follow a walk of 200 steps and are ended by a walk of 200 steps. Then Reverse Warrior count of 30 on each side, a 200 step walk, then 40 squats, a 200 step walk and on to the Pose of Tranquility for two minutes and a 200 step walk. Then a new one that she had found is to sweep one foot in a circular motion forward and then back with the other foot firmly on the floor. This took a bit to accomplish but I discovered that when I really got the hang of it and doing it 30 times each way on each leg I didn't fall down skiing anymore. So a real bonus there. Then the 200 steps and I balance first on one foot and then on the other for 60 seconds and follow that with 200 steps. Then into the full plank for 1 and one half minutes followed by 200 steps and then a full squat as far down as I can go and hold it for 60 seconds with hands upward praying above your head but in front to keep the back straight (I think that is another yoga pose actually). That one is really hard and it took a while to get up to 60 seconds. Then walk 200 steps and do 100 jumping jacks followed by a 200 step walk. So that combined all of my exercises from the two sessions into one and then I have a snack and sit in front of the computer and write my blog, drink my tea and do my solitaire puzzles to exercise the brain. I do not recommend this all at once. It has taken me three months to combine my two sets of exercises and to add in the new exercises. I am very physically fit for sure but I always start small and work my way up that way you will not injure yourself. Consulting a doctor is always a good plan if you do not do regular exercise. 

My new FitBit is in tune with me now and I am happy with it. Has some new bells and whistles so to speak and a learning curve. The old FitBit was actually four years old and did very well. I have used a FitBit now for ten years I think although would have to check that. These ten years have been very different for me.  

 I accomplished nothing on the Newsletters yesterday but had a good day working on the matches. I must do the Newsletters they are past due now. I am up to the M's (first name) now in the matches and I have been busy collecting the Relatives in common for quite a few of the samples. AI will do a good job of creating a useful table for me to work with these matches. There are about 50 matches left to do or perhaps less I did not count them just estimated. There are still nine cousins known to me not yet added to the chart so that may affect some of the unknown matches with regard to solving the great grandparent. 

Just minus 10 degrees celsius today but another polar vortex is headed our way so February will be cold for a bit but the gradual movement upward to spring and heavier snows is likely coming our way. We will see. All of this snow is a good thing to fill up the reservoirs, the creeks, the rivers and the lakes. The run off will be horrific though if it is sudden so hoping for gradual and slow run off. 

Cleaning Day three and it is the top floor. Although I would very much like to move to a smaller house I do not see that happening in the near future. We have been here for nearly fifty years now; in the early spring it will be  fourty eight years exactly. The first set of houses was all that was here when we came and you could see the Ottawa River from our upstairs windows. Neighbours have come and gone through the years and when I went back to work outside the home (I proofread and copyedited for about fifteen years at home) in 1994 that was really the last time that I knew the neighbours beyond the houses beside me (although I do have this sort of occasional wave at neighbours as many of them are the same people) as I went off to work early and came home late and all my time went to my children and husband. Working away from home was great; I needed the change for my mental health for sure and I gradually slipped away from any and all volunteer activities. There just wasn't time although my husband regularly volunteered me to do items in his volunteer work. But now all that time is devoted to writing these books and keeping up my newsletters. 

Tea being drank and must do the solitaire puzzles. On to the day.  

Two Newsletters

I do have two newsletters to write - H11 Newsletter and Kipp-Kipp Newsletter. They are both looking only at the DNA groups within the FT DNA study. I shall work away at them today. I always mean to do them as I used to a couple of days before the due date but writing books has distracted me from this task the last year or so.  In the case of the Kipp Newsletter I really do not know this family (it is my husband's family) and feel somewhat in left field working on it although I always did write a portion for Edward on the yDNA study that he managed at FT DNA. I took it over until someone does come forward to take it on. 

The basement completely cleaned yesterday and today it is the main floor and soon will begin that process. I also worked on the matches and I am about 1/3rd of the way through at this point I think. A new Rawlings/Cotterill match where the testing was at 23 and Me so a nice list of Relatives in common in this last batch. An interesting find in that the  Farley family does appear to have a Knight connection. This actually would be a step forward in solving one of my largest matches outside of family so we will see how that flows.  David Farley (son of John Farley and Mary (Yeates) Farley) married Mary Ann Blake (daughter of John Blake and Ann (Farmer) Blake) 12 Jun 1853 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire. Two known Blake matches were very handy as well. Today will see me working on the J's and there is a long list of them. I hope to complete Chromosome 2 this week and perhaps into Chromosome 1 which has over 250 matches and will take a good week or two to accomplish but then complete and I can start to use the file in ways that should give me interesting tables to explore with regard to the four great grandparents being noted in this particular rendition of the phasing as they match these five siblings tested (five tested out of three girls and four boys) of the great grandparents. I find I talk more about my brothers but they were all closer in age to me than my sisters (one sister is six years older and another sister is eight years younger). Just one brother is outside of that closeness to me as he is ten years younger. My prayers are very much with my older sister who had to have surgery lately and for a speedy recovery for her. 

I do feel a great desire to get back to writing the books Blake and Pincombe these days and a bit impatient to have that begin. But it is a process and will involve my transcribing the latin documents that I have at hand with regard to this Blake family way back in time. I feel I can progress from Robert Blake who left his will in 1521 living at Enham and will begin there initially. If I can take it back further I will but time will tell me that as I work through the material. With regard to the Pincombe book (which is really Pencombe as that was their surname when they arrived at North Molton it does appear) I can begin with John Pencombe who is on the Tax rolls and work my way forward but there to I have information on the Pencombe family of Pencombe Herefordshire which can be added in once I have transcribed the documents at hand. In this case I am working on a family that probably came from the modern Belgium area of the Continent perhaps in the early 1100s as there are records back that far. I  shall have to have a look at the archives there to see if there is anything. But the yDNA line points to a European line and not a Western Hunter Gatherer as is the case with my Blake line. 

But also I want to start scheduling myself to work on the index of the photo albums and to start collecting matches using Edward's present charts and the Excel files that I gave to him as I downloaded his matches from Ancestry. I need to see if any of them are on Gedmatch. Unfortunately collecting from 23 and Me did not happen in his case although he has many many excellent matches there. I may try writing to people to see if I can acquire the matching lengths to help with phasing his grandparents as it might interest people to have that information as well that are his 2nd cousins since they share great grandparents. For the other testing companies I have that material at hand and can search for those matches. It is a long shot for sure but I think it does make me feel happier about breaking up this set of fourty albums that covered all of his life really but they are all scanned. The early pictures I scanned for him maybe six months before he passed away and he found that to be something very pleasant to look at as he organized them in an online type of photo album so thinking about that does make me think he would like what I am doing. He and I belong to the generation that viewed everything in place not online. But this generation that will receive the photo albums  will view it online by preference. But perhaps in the future there will be a child who wants to see those original pictures in their binders; no one can know that. 

Vanilla tea all drank; a gift of my daughter, and now solitaire puzzles and then breakfast and the cleaning. I am a bit late today.