I worked on our son-in-law's French Canadian ancestry yesterday and found more information on his paternal grandmother's line. I am producing a chart for his paternal grandmother as she asked for one at the wedding. I decided to try and find baptisms for her parents which I hadn't located before. I am somewhat confused by the paternal grandmother of her father. I am not sure if there were two individuals with the name Antoine Gregoire; one married to Delima Seguin and the other married to Delima Laderoute. I will continue to seek that information although the marriage that I found was for Antoine Gregoire and Rosa de Lima Seguin on 30 Aug 1869 at the Basilica de Notre Dame, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I need to try to find a marriage with Delima Laderoute and Antoine Gregoire to solve that mystery.
Eventually I will get back to my genealogy as I am working on proving my 4x great grandparents. I hope to have that completed by the early summer. There are 64 great grandparents and I have now proven eight of them. I need more information on the Farmer/Lambden 4x great grandparents before I can prove those four individuals. I will probably start back on the Knight line (Maria Jane Knight (my grandfather's mother) (I was looking for her burial/death when I stopped working on my genealogy)) as I have quite a bit of information back to the 4x great grandparents (Knight (2x), Butt, Arnold, Durnford, Ellis, Vincent, and Malton). Proving the two Knights are brothers is one of my aims for our next visit to the Family History Library. Many researchers claim that they are. My grandfather said his Knight grandparents were cousins and they had 13 children. This has proven to be true. That will complete my grandfather's 2x great grandparents (my 4x great grandparents) and then I will work on my grandmother Blake's line. Since she was illegitimate (stepfather was William Taylor as he married her mother Elizabeth Rawlings) and given the second middle name of Cotterill there is a strong possibility that her father was George Cotterill who lived on the Manor House Farm (his father was an agricultural labourer) (son of William Cotterill and Jane Sherwood). I have traced this line back to her 2x great grandparents and will prove that line but will likely halt there. I have traced her mother's Rawlings' line back to the 4x great grandparents and will enter the proofs for this line.
Then I can move to my mother's line where I have started to prove her line and have completed four (Pincombe/Pearce). Proving her paternal line should be quite straightforward as I have all the proofs back to the 4x great grandparents on every line (and beyond). Proving her maternal line though requires me still to find a paper trail back to her maternal grandparents which I lack. I have only family lore to go on and will not prove beyond the 2x great grandparents until I have found that link.
The next trip to Salt Lake City will look at a few more angles to see if I can make that leap back. I know that her mother had an illegitimate child in 1879 at Birmingham and they are found on the 1881 census in the Aston workhouse. Her age at that time was listed as 19 but she is listed as 30 on the 1891 census. If I am correct in having her parents as Ellen Roberts and Thomas Taylor they had a daughter Elizabeth born 9 Oct 1859 at Birmingham. On the 1891 census this person would have been 31 years old. However on her death registration she is listed as 37 and the date 27 Feb 1897 which would give her a birth date between 28 Feb 1859 and 27 Feb 1860. There isn't another Ellen Taylor born at Birmingham in this time period that would fit into this criteria. However, I need to caution myself that an entry could be incorrect. Finding a descendant of this family would be helpful and I continue to try to discover what happened to the five siblings of Ellen Taylor that survived childhood (Thomas born 1858, Elizabeth born 1862, Frank born 1865 died 1875, Kate (Kathryn) born 1868, Marion (Marianne) born 1869 (Ashton under Lyne), and William born 1870. All children born at Birmingham except for Marion (Marianne). They are on the 1881 census at Ashton under Lyne (Lancashire) and the 1871 census at Birmingham. My grandmother visited Lancashire when she was in England although spent most of her time in Birmingham and Coventry (Buller descendants lived at Coventry). Unfortunately I have to go on memory for her trip to England as the contents of her suitcase which held all of her information were destroyed. One of my great regrets is not taking her suitcase at the time she wanted me to do so. I thought she would live for ever and never suspect she would die eight months after we married.
Back to Genealogy! Barry Blake has taken over the Blake DNA study and added it to his webpages which will be a forward movement I think for the study of the Blake family of the British Isles.
http://blakeheritage.synthasite.com/blake-family-dna-project.php
I am still curious if this name has one founder with the other lines being descended through daughtered out female lines with a sister's child taking the Blake uncle's surname (i.e. why did Richard Caddell take the Blake surname?). Time will tell on that actually. There are so many different haplogroups though that one is left to surmise that the name arose spontaneously in several different areas. Certainly at Norfolk there are two distinct lines which go back several hundred years at Wimbotsham. The Blake family is known to be in London from early times as well. The earliest recorded mention of Blake is the Subsidy Roll in 1286 for Blakelands (Blacklands) where a Robert de Blakeland is paying his taxes. Most books tracing the Blake line do trace back to this individual. My own line being at Andover from the 1400s on is traced back on paper to this Robert de Blakeland as well. However, I terminate my line at Andover until I can find actual proof that the father of Nicholas is indeed a great grandson of Robert Blake and Avis Wallop. Still working through the wills on that connection.
Today I shall continue to work on French Canadian ancestry.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Ice Storm and shopping
Christmas is still in the air here with many shoppers at the stores in spite of the ice storm that poured down on us. We are still helping to keep the economy going replacing our blender and buying another magic bullet as we gave ours to our youngest daughter and husband when they left us last year. We bought some new pyrex storage containers to replace glass ones from 44 years ago. My grandmother gave them to us for our wedding and I have nursed them along all these years but it is time to replace them. Our entire economy is based on the idea of renewal and it is healthy to renew dishes anyway. We have gone through at least five sets of everyday dishes (mostly Corelle). Although they have a 20 year guarantee I like to replace them every five years or so because they get small scratches in them. Usually we give them away to the Canadian Diabetes Association. Works for them and works for us. I do like a change in the dishes I eat off of every once in a while!
No new clothes yesterday - we did all that before Christmas. Our new Christmas tablecloth looked great but it is off now and the plain table is back with place mats. I have quite a few so can just wash them up every other day. We need to try to stay well in Canada and keep the health care costs down as much as possible. There will always be high costs but if one can minimize them then that works for everyone.
The windows are all streaked with ice and the white snow has a thick crust of ice on it. Our tree out front is very large now and laden with ice. One hopes that the wind will be still and not send those enormous branches thrashing about. We want to get it trimmed but still did not get that done. Hopefully it will be our only bad ice storm this winter.
Our daughter will soon be back at her studies again. She had an evening out with our youngest daughter last night. Just around midnight their power failed which could be serious in the cold night with the two dogs and the bunny especially. It is hard to keep a bunny warm. The dogs at least will stay under a blanket. But the power was back on by 3:30 a.m. at least when I woke up it was on. Hopefully their house did not get too cold.
Soon back to genealogy and I think I will spend some time on the French Canadian genealogy just to pull out all the data for our son-in-law's ancestors. It is amazing doing their genealogy since the Drouin Records are all online. Plus one of his great uncles and an aunt have the family tree up on line. I also found another line of his father's family online (the mother of his grandmother). That is helpful as well. But a lot of the names have not yet been worked on. There were an amazing number of French emigrants to Quebec (and other parts of North America) in the 1600s. I have yet to find a duplicate family name in our son-in-law's entire tree.
No new clothes yesterday - we did all that before Christmas. Our new Christmas tablecloth looked great but it is off now and the plain table is back with place mats. I have quite a few so can just wash them up every other day. We need to try to stay well in Canada and keep the health care costs down as much as possible. There will always be high costs but if one can minimize them then that works for everyone.
The windows are all streaked with ice and the white snow has a thick crust of ice on it. Our tree out front is very large now and laden with ice. One hopes that the wind will be still and not send those enormous branches thrashing about. We want to get it trimmed but still did not get that done. Hopefully it will be our only bad ice storm this winter.
Our daughter will soon be back at her studies again. She had an evening out with our youngest daughter last night. Just around midnight their power failed which could be serious in the cold night with the two dogs and the bunny especially. It is hard to keep a bunny warm. The dogs at least will stay under a blanket. But the power was back on by 3:30 a.m. at least when I woke up it was on. Hopefully their house did not get too cold.
Soon back to genealogy and I think I will spend some time on the French Canadian genealogy just to pull out all the data for our son-in-law's ancestors. It is amazing doing their genealogy since the Drouin Records are all online. Plus one of his great uncles and an aunt have the family tree up on line. I also found another line of his father's family online (the mother of his grandmother). That is helpful as well. But a lot of the names have not yet been worked on. There were an amazing number of French emigrants to Quebec (and other parts of North America) in the 1600s. I have yet to find a duplicate family name in our son-in-law's entire tree.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
French Canadian ancestry
The French Canadian ancestry that I have been doing for our son-in-law was well received at the Wedding party. A few corrections were gratefully received and a couple of requests for copies. I will do the copies for him to hand on and there will be more corrections if there are any. I am hoping for pictures as well and will put a note on the copies saying pictures would be great and that we could scan them at any time or place that would suit. It will be good to have their history saved for their families.
I expect I shall be busy this winter working on the new babies genealogy through her mother's side. This new baby will have our daughter as aunt (her brother-in-law's baby to be). I also want to go in and collect all documents (baptism, marriage and burial) that I haven't located yet. I used whatever records would take me back to the 4x great grandparents on all lines. Hence, I didn't pull all the baptisms, marriages or burials if I didn't need them to work my way back.
Presents all purchased and I just need to make mincemeat and butter tarts, a coffee cake for breakfast Christmas Day and a pumpkin pie for dinner. Then the turkey to prepare and put on to roast in the oven. We are doing scalloped potatoes for a change and squash plus some mixed frozen vegetables. Cranberry sauce to make - I usually do that Christmas morning as I like it very fresh. We bought a fruit tray to go with the coffee cake this year which will be very nice I expect. We also bought some nibbles - sausage rolls, mini hot dog rolls, meatballs in sauce for lunch which will just be a buffet style while we sit around relaxing after opening presents.
We are in now and will concentrate on getting everything ready for tomorrow. The sun is now shinning brightly and the temperature may actually make it above 0 degrees celsius for a short while. The nights are still quite long here. It will be nice if we can have Christmas without an ice storm.
I may even get a little French Canadian genealogy done today. I started my first copy for our son-in-law's paternal grandmother. I used her son (father of our son-in-law) as the starting point and I am using a nine generation chart (the one at the wedding was eight generations only and started with a blank spot for a possible child of the future). My mother said that Pincombe weddings used to have a chart on the Pincombe family on display. She couldn't remember who had it though. Too bad!
I expect I shall be busy this winter working on the new babies genealogy through her mother's side. This new baby will have our daughter as aunt (her brother-in-law's baby to be). I also want to go in and collect all documents (baptism, marriage and burial) that I haven't located yet. I used whatever records would take me back to the 4x great grandparents on all lines. Hence, I didn't pull all the baptisms, marriages or burials if I didn't need them to work my way back.
Presents all purchased and I just need to make mincemeat and butter tarts, a coffee cake for breakfast Christmas Day and a pumpkin pie for dinner. Then the turkey to prepare and put on to roast in the oven. We are doing scalloped potatoes for a change and squash plus some mixed frozen vegetables. Cranberry sauce to make - I usually do that Christmas morning as I like it very fresh. We bought a fruit tray to go with the coffee cake this year which will be very nice I expect. We also bought some nibbles - sausage rolls, mini hot dog rolls, meatballs in sauce for lunch which will just be a buffet style while we sit around relaxing after opening presents.
We are in now and will concentrate on getting everything ready for tomorrow. The sun is now shinning brightly and the temperature may actually make it above 0 degrees celsius for a short while. The nights are still quite long here. It will be nice if we can have Christmas without an ice storm.
I may even get a little French Canadian genealogy done today. I started my first copy for our son-in-law's paternal grandmother. I used her son (father of our son-in-law) as the starting point and I am using a nine generation chart (the one at the wedding was eight generations only and started with a blank spot for a possible child of the future). My mother said that Pincombe weddings used to have a chart on the Pincombe family on display. She couldn't remember who had it though. Too bad!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Genealogy
The long awaited wedding day is now past and I can see myself returning slowly to Genealogy!
I have been in discussion with Barry Blake the last few weeks as he has taken over as co-administrator of the Blake DNA project at FT DNA. He has updated the webpages for this site and done a marvelous job.
http://blakeheritage.synthasite.com/blake-family-dna-project.php
I still have just the one match (8/12) on this site but it is an interesting match. I am hoping that Barry will be able to persuade this individual to test to 37 markers. With the extra 25 markers I should have a clearer picture of whether or not it is feasible that this person also descends from the Hampshire Blake family (or possibly the Wiltshire Blake family). Various posts later I am left with the thought that I originally had on the Blake family of Somerset. It is a combination of the spillover of the Blake family from Wiltshire and a Welsh Blake family that moved to Somerset. When Increase Blake visited a John Blake in Somerset in the mid 1800s and he learned that the Somerset Blake family shared kinship with the Wiltshire Blake family I suspect that over time these two Blake lines thought themselves related and their Welsh ancestry was lost to time. One individual feels that he can trace his line back to Sir Robert Blake, Lord High Admiral and he is R1b1b (the Welsh line is also R1b). His line back though goes to Norfolk which makes this even more interesting. There are already two distinct Blake lines in Norfolk at Wimbotsham (R1a1 and I2b1). These two lines are related although the original linkage is through a daughter of the Blake house which has resulted in two distinct haplogroups. This third line was located in another part of Norfolk and appears to go back into the 1500s as well.
I am hoping that the visibility of the Blake DNA project may encourage more Blake members to test and have their results put into the study. There are now at least ten distinct lines for Blake in the study and one could now relate to one of them and share ancestry.
I also said that I would work on the French Canadian ancestry of my daughter's husband's brother's wife. Half of the table is now done with our son-in-law's ancestry so just need to do the other half of the table. French Canadian ancestry is quite fascinating. I would only take it out to the 8th generation thus far.
I have the Christmas Tree all decorated and as usual it looks a little lopsided when I do it. My husband and children are much better at it. But it stood empty for nearly a week with all the rush for the wedding so I decided to do it today before Christmas is actually upon us. We are in countdown mode. We have purchased very few presents and need to do that by Thursday. Since I always did my Christmas shopping in the last two days I am not too perturbed but others around me are in a rush!
I have been in discussion with Barry Blake the last few weeks as he has taken over as co-administrator of the Blake DNA project at FT DNA. He has updated the webpages for this site and done a marvelous job.
http://blakeheritage.synthasite.com/blake-family-dna-project.php
I still have just the one match (8/12) on this site but it is an interesting match. I am hoping that Barry will be able to persuade this individual to test to 37 markers. With the extra 25 markers I should have a clearer picture of whether or not it is feasible that this person also descends from the Hampshire Blake family (or possibly the Wiltshire Blake family). Various posts later I am left with the thought that I originally had on the Blake family of Somerset. It is a combination of the spillover of the Blake family from Wiltshire and a Welsh Blake family that moved to Somerset. When Increase Blake visited a John Blake in Somerset in the mid 1800s and he learned that the Somerset Blake family shared kinship with the Wiltshire Blake family I suspect that over time these two Blake lines thought themselves related and their Welsh ancestry was lost to time. One individual feels that he can trace his line back to Sir Robert Blake, Lord High Admiral and he is R1b1b (the Welsh line is also R1b). His line back though goes to Norfolk which makes this even more interesting. There are already two distinct Blake lines in Norfolk at Wimbotsham (R1a1 and I2b1). These two lines are related although the original linkage is through a daughter of the Blake house which has resulted in two distinct haplogroups. This third line was located in another part of Norfolk and appears to go back into the 1500s as well.
I am hoping that the visibility of the Blake DNA project may encourage more Blake members to test and have their results put into the study. There are now at least ten distinct lines for Blake in the study and one could now relate to one of them and share ancestry.
I also said that I would work on the French Canadian ancestry of my daughter's husband's brother's wife. Half of the table is now done with our son-in-law's ancestry so just need to do the other half of the table. French Canadian ancestry is quite fascinating. I would only take it out to the 8th generation thus far.
I have the Christmas Tree all decorated and as usual it looks a little lopsided when I do it. My husband and children are much better at it. But it stood empty for nearly a week with all the rush for the wedding so I decided to do it today before Christmas is actually upon us. We are in countdown mode. We have purchased very few presents and need to do that by Thursday. Since I always did my Christmas shopping in the last two days I am not too perturbed but others around me are in a rush!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Wedding Day
Up at 7:00 a.m. and it is a cold crispy day here (-18 degrees celsius). Everything is prepared as of last evening which the three of us spent icing cakes. The fondant rolled on beautifully and I did not trim the sides, just top and bottom. The topper has to go on the cake and our daughter will do that when the cakes get to the caterer. The cupcakes look quite elegant. No superfluous icing, just a rosette topped with one of the fondant roses in the bride's colours for her attendants. I didn't go to the dark blue but the blue is definitely there!
The surprise cake is the Groom's Cake and it is a large golf ball shape as he is a keen golfer. We put a W on the ball for Wilson balls. They will cut the Groom's cake and that should be fun to watch them doing that. It is two cakes, one in a half hemispheric shape and then the second one just a layer cake. They are built with fondant between them and then fondant used to give the rounded top a more distinctive look. Then completely overlaid with a circle of fondant that had been imprinted to look like a golf ball. It turned out quite well and we had prepared a board with green felt (covered with saran wrap) and the golf ball rested on that. Added one strip of icing around the bottom and the W. It looks very like a golf ball and will be a surprise to the Groom as no mention has been made of this cake at all.
Writing this in the morning and I will add the wedding details in the evening as our bed and breakfast has internet. Still have to put the cupcakes into the Ikea boxes (they have lovely big ones and the topper cake and golf ball are in their smaller storage boxes). We bought the large Ikea boxes for the cupcakes. I am not sure how many boxes we will need. I will separate the rows with a row of waxed paper. We have two large boxes put together and will need either one more large box or one of the smaller boxes.
The only big item for this morning is to pick up the flowers. At -18 celsius this will be a challenge to keep them from freezing. We will warm up the van and then pick them up and deliver them to the Best Man's (Groom's brother) home and our daughter and her future husband's home. The bride and her attendant had a lovely evening together last night. We will pick up the two dogs (one from the best man's home and one from the couple's home) and that will be our job to take them to the wedding just for pictures and then they go to the Groom's mother's home and are crated for the rest of the evening. They are probably a trifled confused by all the activity but it will soon be back to normal for them. Well they are having pictures we will go to the Bed and Breakfast and get dressed for the wedding. I am happy with my new dress (although I also liked the grey dress). I just feel like I should be wearing the wheat dress with red leave trim in the material. It is a fall dress and we are just coming to the end of Fall. The grey is lovely but feels like deep winter and our winter really doesn't start until December 21!
The sky is promising a beautiful sunny day which looks deceptive when you look out the window except for the bare trees which are the giveaway to the cold weather. Hopefully it will warm up to the promised - 10 degrees celsius but our daughter can put on my new coat to go out for a couple of pictures on a small island in the pond. There is a bridge to the island and I am sure it will be beautiful pictures.
The rest of the wedding day..... tomorrow. Too sleepy tonight. A beautiful day though and our daughter a beautiful bride.
The surprise cake is the Groom's Cake and it is a large golf ball shape as he is a keen golfer. We put a W on the ball for Wilson balls. They will cut the Groom's cake and that should be fun to watch them doing that. It is two cakes, one in a half hemispheric shape and then the second one just a layer cake. They are built with fondant between them and then fondant used to give the rounded top a more distinctive look. Then completely overlaid with a circle of fondant that had been imprinted to look like a golf ball. It turned out quite well and we had prepared a board with green felt (covered with saran wrap) and the golf ball rested on that. Added one strip of icing around the bottom and the W. It looks very like a golf ball and will be a surprise to the Groom as no mention has been made of this cake at all.
Writing this in the morning and I will add the wedding details in the evening as our bed and breakfast has internet. Still have to put the cupcakes into the Ikea boxes (they have lovely big ones and the topper cake and golf ball are in their smaller storage boxes). We bought the large Ikea boxes for the cupcakes. I am not sure how many boxes we will need. I will separate the rows with a row of waxed paper. We have two large boxes put together and will need either one more large box or one of the smaller boxes.
The only big item for this morning is to pick up the flowers. At -18 celsius this will be a challenge to keep them from freezing. We will warm up the van and then pick them up and deliver them to the Best Man's (Groom's brother) home and our daughter and her future husband's home. The bride and her attendant had a lovely evening together last night. We will pick up the two dogs (one from the best man's home and one from the couple's home) and that will be our job to take them to the wedding just for pictures and then they go to the Groom's mother's home and are crated for the rest of the evening. They are probably a trifled confused by all the activity but it will soon be back to normal for them. Well they are having pictures we will go to the Bed and Breakfast and get dressed for the wedding. I am happy with my new dress (although I also liked the grey dress). I just feel like I should be wearing the wheat dress with red leave trim in the material. It is a fall dress and we are just coming to the end of Fall. The grey is lovely but feels like deep winter and our winter really doesn't start until December 21!
The sky is promising a beautiful sunny day which looks deceptive when you look out the window except for the bare trees which are the giveaway to the cold weather. Hopefully it will warm up to the promised - 10 degrees celsius but our daughter can put on my new coat to go out for a couple of pictures on a small island in the pond. There is a bridge to the island and I am sure it will be beautiful pictures.
The rest of the wedding day..... tomorrow. Too sleepy tonight. A beautiful day though and our daughter a beautiful bride.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Cake
Wednesday I baked the topper cake for the Bride's wedding cake. It is going to be a pound cake made with 125 ml of liqueur along with the 500+ gm of butter, 5 eggs etc. It is a tube pound cake and I will cut off the height that they want for the cake and then the topper goes on that. It will be wrapped with fondant and then trimmed simply with a row of tubed icing around the bottom and the top. The top will have several rows and then room for the topper to sit. Still trying to decide how much trim on the sides. If it looks lovely just like that then no additions but I could make white roses and do a thin strip top to bottom (perhaps as many as 5 strips) with white fondant roses on the strip. That is the main baking for today as I have the cakes already baked and frozen for the Rehearsal Dinner. I had suggested a restaurant but I must admit holding it in the house was much nicer.
The menu
Wine, cheese, crackers, beer, humus, raw vegetables, pickles, olives, punch
Lasagna, baked beans, ham (cubed), scalloped potatoes, turkey meatballs in garlic sauce, pasta salad, cabbage salad, caesar salad
Thin pieces of pound cake, orange chiffon cake and chocolate pound cake with fruit tray and ice cream
Tea and coffee
Most of that preparation was for Thursday with our son in law to be's mother, her husband and us taking on the responsibility for the food.
Also on Thursday I baked the eight dozen cupcakes (half white and half chocolate) and then iced them on Friday. I already made the fondant roses for the cupcakes Tuesday.
The marvels of the modern age saw us talking to our oldest daughter whilst she waited at the airport in Milwaukee for her flight home at 7:10 p.m. last night. By 9:00 p.m. she was in Toronto and then departed there at 10:30 p.m. and arrived here at 11:32 p.m. Amazing considering it took us 1.5 days to drive there! Now the busy time begins as our tree now up is quite bare and begging to be decorated for Christmas. The rest of the house is looking like Christmas but the tree (usually decorated Advent I) is looking quite beautiful in its greeness (we spent about half of an hour straightening out the branches as it is artificial but looks quite real).
The snow is building up as we have had a little snow each evening after the big snowfall. It is clinging to the branches as it has stayed quite cool and looks like the picture postcards one sees of Canada. It is going to be cold today, -26 celsius early in the morning rising to -14 celsius in the day.
The menu
Wine, cheese, crackers, beer, humus, raw vegetables, pickles, olives, punch
Lasagna, baked beans, ham (cubed), scalloped potatoes, turkey meatballs in garlic sauce, pasta salad, cabbage salad, caesar salad
Thin pieces of pound cake, orange chiffon cake and chocolate pound cake with fruit tray and ice cream
Tea and coffee
Most of that preparation was for Thursday with our son in law to be's mother, her husband and us taking on the responsibility for the food.
Also on Thursday I baked the eight dozen cupcakes (half white and half chocolate) and then iced them on Friday. I already made the fondant roses for the cupcakes Tuesday.
The marvels of the modern age saw us talking to our oldest daughter whilst she waited at the airport in Milwaukee for her flight home at 7:10 p.m. last night. By 9:00 p.m. she was in Toronto and then departed there at 10:30 p.m. and arrived here at 11:32 p.m. Amazing considering it took us 1.5 days to drive there! Now the busy time begins as our tree now up is quite bare and begging to be decorated for Christmas. The rest of the house is looking like Christmas but the tree (usually decorated Advent I) is looking quite beautiful in its greeness (we spent about half of an hour straightening out the branches as it is artificial but looks quite real).
The snow is building up as we have had a little snow each evening after the big snowfall. It is clinging to the branches as it has stayed quite cool and looks like the picture postcards one sees of Canada. It is going to be cold today, -26 celsius early in the morning rising to -14 celsius in the day.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Countdown Continuing
The winter snows are falling heavily today here and the snow hills are starting to accumulate giving us that picture postcard look of winter in snowy Canada. It is cold out there today and when we came home from Church we had about 4 centimetres of snow to brush off.
Austerity is the word of the moment and we probably need to practice that at Church as well. I like to think that some of my givings go to aid the poor of the world. I still also feel it is time to only use the bread at the Eucharist and the money saved from wine could be used to buy medicines for the people in need in Africa. It is starting to bother me watching on TV the items that discuss leprosy and the need for money to buy medicines to cure this disease which could be completely eradicated - giving up wine at Eucharist would free up a lot of money for such needs. I give by PAR but I have moments when I wonder if I should reduce that and give money monthly to help buy medicine.
A lot to do still before the wedding but I have my lists now to keep me on track. I haven't touched my genealogy for a month now but did do our future son-in-laws direct line back now from his father's side. I am missing only four of his names - French Canadian research is quite fascinating. Perhaps at the wedding someone will be able to help me with that (plus check what I have). I have tried to be very careful moving back from known members to their mariage and parents listed there and then finding the baptism as well and then the parent's marriage. It will be something for our children to have plus all of our research in the years ahead. Our daughter will become an aunt in the spring and it will be nice to give the onehalf of the chart that is the baby's ancestry to the parents.
Other than that we have been busy cleaning house and recording all the VHS tapes. The tapes are done but we are still cleaning and probably will be until spring. We are trying to downsize somewhat although ended up buying the electric fireplace and a new microwave and stand plus the portable dishwaster. They are however all items that could go with us to an apartment and we have eliminated one bedroom worth of furniture. That room had become a station for our printer server and "command" point computer that is available for a lot of technical setups. It also now has four bookcases of VHS tapes from the basement. Our next pursuit is to finish plastering the basement and paint it. Then we will put down a better floor cover under our rugs. We spend quite a bit of time down there (and did in the past but never got to doing anything with the basement through the years) and it would be nice to have white walls to give it more light. Our TV is down there as well. I need to record the DVDs that we have purchased since that new phenomenon hit the market. Five or six years ago we stopped buying any VHS and simply waited until whatever we wanted came out in DVD. That worked well actually especially given that VHS machines are now hard to find to purchase.
Still have the Christmas Tree to put up and probably next week sometime. This is the latest ever I think, usually we put it up on Advent I. It is feeling like Christmas now though and this will be our 35th Christmas in Ottawa. Although it is cold here I rather enjoy living in Ottawa now.
Three thirty now and already you can tell that evening is coming. The shortest day of the year will soon be upon us. With the snow clouds above it is a dull day today although brightened by the thickly falling white snow. I think that must be how people stand to be in the Arctic - the white snow gives us its own light.
Austerity is the word of the moment and we probably need to practice that at Church as well. I like to think that some of my givings go to aid the poor of the world. I still also feel it is time to only use the bread at the Eucharist and the money saved from wine could be used to buy medicines for the people in need in Africa. It is starting to bother me watching on TV the items that discuss leprosy and the need for money to buy medicines to cure this disease which could be completely eradicated - giving up wine at Eucharist would free up a lot of money for such needs. I give by PAR but I have moments when I wonder if I should reduce that and give money monthly to help buy medicine.
A lot to do still before the wedding but I have my lists now to keep me on track. I haven't touched my genealogy for a month now but did do our future son-in-laws direct line back now from his father's side. I am missing only four of his names - French Canadian research is quite fascinating. Perhaps at the wedding someone will be able to help me with that (plus check what I have). I have tried to be very careful moving back from known members to their mariage and parents listed there and then finding the baptism as well and then the parent's marriage. It will be something for our children to have plus all of our research in the years ahead. Our daughter will become an aunt in the spring and it will be nice to give the onehalf of the chart that is the baby's ancestry to the parents.
Other than that we have been busy cleaning house and recording all the VHS tapes. The tapes are done but we are still cleaning and probably will be until spring. We are trying to downsize somewhat although ended up buying the electric fireplace and a new microwave and stand plus the portable dishwaster. They are however all items that could go with us to an apartment and we have eliminated one bedroom worth of furniture. That room had become a station for our printer server and "command" point computer that is available for a lot of technical setups. It also now has four bookcases of VHS tapes from the basement. Our next pursuit is to finish plastering the basement and paint it. Then we will put down a better floor cover under our rugs. We spend quite a bit of time down there (and did in the past but never got to doing anything with the basement through the years) and it would be nice to have white walls to give it more light. Our TV is down there as well. I need to record the DVDs that we have purchased since that new phenomenon hit the market. Five or six years ago we stopped buying any VHS and simply waited until whatever we wanted came out in DVD. That worked well actually especially given that VHS machines are now hard to find to purchase.
Still have the Christmas Tree to put up and probably next week sometime. This is the latest ever I think, usually we put it up on Advent I. It is feeling like Christmas now though and this will be our 35th Christmas in Ottawa. Although it is cold here I rather enjoy living in Ottawa now.
Three thirty now and already you can tell that evening is coming. The shortest day of the year will soon be upon us. With the snow clouds above it is a dull day today although brightened by the thickly falling white snow. I think that must be how people stand to be in the Arctic - the white snow gives us its own light.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Snow Storm
Wicked snow storm lashing us here in Eastern Ontario at the moment - we expect 20 to 30 cm of snow only but the cold wind is swirling it about so will seem like more as it packs in around the houses and cars! We were out for groceries already and home again snug as a bug in a rug. Snow is late this year but it is coming with a vengeance just to let us know that it hasn't forgotten us.
Still no work on genealogy - just too busy. All the VHS videos are now entered into Library Thing and the next thing to enter are the DVDs. We still haven't touched all the books in the basement or upstairs - our house is more books than anything actually. When our youngest was small she asked if she lived in a Library! However, she loves books as well. I suppose in a way she did grow up in a library except it was our own. We have a more complete set of National Geographic books than the library has. We have more genealogy books in one place than most small libraries. We have been to the large repositories like Ontario Archives, LAC, NEHGS, NYPL, Allen County Public Library, Salt Lake City where there is considerably more of course. Requests for information have dropped off which is fortunate as I simply do not have time at the moment to really do anything in depth on anything. Gradually I am withdrawing from commitment to anything. Eventually I will be concentrating 100% on my own family history. It seems apt as I approach 65 to do so. Already in three months I am behind in the DNA field since I no longer read everything that I see. I am concentrating on my DNA and my husband's family lines.
Back to winter time sports and the like. It will be fun to be snowshoeing, skating and skiing once again. We have to wait for the really cold nights though to freeze the canal. Our daughter will be home for Christmas in another week or so although she will be spending a good chunk of the day on research but it will be so much nicer than writing her thesis. It is so wonderful that she is done, defended and awarded her degree. Now she can look forward instead of always having to look back at the research that she was writing up. It really does make you lose a year of research - that year of writing up although necessary in order to clear that one big hurdle that separates you from the people who haven't defended.
I am getting used to my new glasses gradually. It has been a struggle as the one lens is much stronger (like it used to be). I am not really sure why the lens was weakened but perhaps because of the weight which is quite like the glass lens actually. The way of convincing me to go to plastic lens was to say that they would be much lighter! They were actually but I never could see as well as I am seeing now. I thought it was because of the plastic but actually it was the weakening of the lens. The byproduct though is that my right eye is much stronger than it was before but it also explains my headaches of the last 12 years!
Today I shall make the orange chiffon cake and perhaps get started sewing. We will be inside for most of the day likely.
Still no work on genealogy - just too busy. All the VHS videos are now entered into Library Thing and the next thing to enter are the DVDs. We still haven't touched all the books in the basement or upstairs - our house is more books than anything actually. When our youngest was small she asked if she lived in a Library! However, she loves books as well. I suppose in a way she did grow up in a library except it was our own. We have a more complete set of National Geographic books than the library has. We have more genealogy books in one place than most small libraries. We have been to the large repositories like Ontario Archives, LAC, NEHGS, NYPL, Allen County Public Library, Salt Lake City where there is considerably more of course. Requests for information have dropped off which is fortunate as I simply do not have time at the moment to really do anything in depth on anything. Gradually I am withdrawing from commitment to anything. Eventually I will be concentrating 100% on my own family history. It seems apt as I approach 65 to do so. Already in three months I am behind in the DNA field since I no longer read everything that I see. I am concentrating on my DNA and my husband's family lines.
Back to winter time sports and the like. It will be fun to be snowshoeing, skating and skiing once again. We have to wait for the really cold nights though to freeze the canal. Our daughter will be home for Christmas in another week or so although she will be spending a good chunk of the day on research but it will be so much nicer than writing her thesis. It is so wonderful that she is done, defended and awarded her degree. Now she can look forward instead of always having to look back at the research that she was writing up. It really does make you lose a year of research - that year of writing up although necessary in order to clear that one big hurdle that separates you from the people who haven't defended.
I am getting used to my new glasses gradually. It has been a struggle as the one lens is much stronger (like it used to be). I am not really sure why the lens was weakened but perhaps because of the weight which is quite like the glass lens actually. The way of convincing me to go to plastic lens was to say that they would be much lighter! They were actually but I never could see as well as I am seeing now. I thought it was because of the plastic but actually it was the weakening of the lens. The byproduct though is that my right eye is much stronger than it was before but it also explains my headaches of the last 12 years!
Today I shall make the orange chiffon cake and perhaps get started sewing. We will be inside for most of the day likely.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Kipp and Link families
We decided to have a look for a microwave and spent most of the day going from store to store looking for the exact one that we had in mind. Along the way I decided to have a look at the suits on sale at the Bay. By the time we got there most of them were gone apparently although there was one that caught my eye. I decided that I didn't need a grey suit though and we wandered about looking for the red blouse that I had seen at the Bay at Place and wanted to replace the old red one that I have for my black suit. It was in a petite and I really wanted a regular size. I didn't find it but came across the dress that I first saw for our daughter's wedding. It was greatly reduced and I decided spontaneously to buy it and so I now have it for the wedding. I had been tempted to go back and buy it but wasn't sure that I wanted to spend such a large sum for a one time wearing of a dress. At the reduced price I decided to do that and perhaps I will wear it again. It is a dress for Fall and we are just into the late stages now. It is more colourful than my light grey panne velvet dress that I made. I like it and will wear it other times but really had liked this other dress first. I need to try it on with my black shoes now to see if I like that or if I should buy a pair of shoes that blend with the dress.
After going to a few shops and then a recommendation by our daughter and son in law to be we ended up finding the microwave that we really wanted. Smaller than our old one and some new bells and whistles - our salmon fish cakes reheated beautiful in the oven which has an inversion feature that encourages equal heating. Usually we would have to heat longer to get the same heating. It was not very expensive either and fits beautifully into the cabinet that my husband made (a particle board one from Canadian Tire that we purchased a couple of days ago).
When we decided to upgrade our house and appliances this summer we were thinking that it will help the economy. Likely others are doing the same and that is what is helping our economy to come back again. The sales though are incredible and hopefully will also help the retail section to recover.
Other than that no genealogy being done on my families still and not likely until the new year. I have quite a few backlog items that I need to work on including my Genuki Hampshire webpages. I need to consider whether I am the best person to do the webpages or should I advertise for someone new to take up the project. The Hampshire pages look good but I do not have a lot of new information. It is basic information but very handy for finding material on particular villages/towns/cities. I had hoped to do more but there are always copyright issues for some of the material. I need to avoid being in conflict with copyright.
I am gradually stepping down from many of my commitments. I would like more time to do my own research and I also want to start sewing each day (and knitting) and I want to watch one movie (or two) a day before we can no longer watch our VHS tapes! We have over 1000 tapes that we have purchased over the last 25 years. We have also managed to acquired over 200 DVDs. We tend to buy them on special (the old movies) for $6.00 or so. Some of the newer ones can be acquired for $10.00 or less. Although you can rent them fairly cheaply we like to rewatch some and tend to buy those. We also rent quite a few movies through a year.
We also got the lights up yesterday and bought a wreath for the front of the house. It has a lovely red velvet ribbon and lots of pine cones. We are starting to look Christmasy and the next item is the Christmas Tree. The Advent Candles look nice on the table and the manger scene will go up a little late today.
This has been a busy year of travel for us. We have again spent almost two months in total in the United States with our daughter. We have traveled to New York/Long Island, Boston/Cape Cod and environs, Fort Wayne Indiana, Milwaukee Wisconsin and in Canada we have been to Toronto, to London. We have been away from home for slightly over 1/4 of the year. Our travels take us to genealogical repositories for the most part and our expenses tend to be fairly low (which is good as we are retired!) with the cost of lodging and food being the largest part.
Our time at the Ontario Archives was really great as we had a hotel nearby and we spent most of the day at the Archives with a short commute and parking available at the site. The new Archives is a marvelous building. We want to spend some time at Kingston Anglican Church archives and the Toronto Anglican Church archives this year to try and find the marriage of John Link and Mary Magdalene (surname unknown). Mary Magdalene is only found on the census once and her burial at Falkland is known. On the census she states that she is from England and born in 1821. We know that John Link was at East Gwillimbury by 1839 and this is the likely time frame for the marriage (1838 to 1842). Thus far the searching has not yielded a possible marriage for these two but it is possible that they married at Kingston (or the area) or in Toronto itself. We need to spread further afield and that is one of our concentrations for this year. That one record would see my husband proved back to all of his 2x great grandparents and he has a lot of his 3x great grandparents except for the Kipp line. That is the other project that we continue to work on - any evidence on Kipp members in New York State. We have evidence that points to there plus family lore. We hope to do some more work in Dutchess County this year.
After going to a few shops and then a recommendation by our daughter and son in law to be we ended up finding the microwave that we really wanted. Smaller than our old one and some new bells and whistles - our salmon fish cakes reheated beautiful in the oven which has an inversion feature that encourages equal heating. Usually we would have to heat longer to get the same heating. It was not very expensive either and fits beautifully into the cabinet that my husband made (a particle board one from Canadian Tire that we purchased a couple of days ago).
When we decided to upgrade our house and appliances this summer we were thinking that it will help the economy. Likely others are doing the same and that is what is helping our economy to come back again. The sales though are incredible and hopefully will also help the retail section to recover.
Other than that no genealogy being done on my families still and not likely until the new year. I have quite a few backlog items that I need to work on including my Genuki Hampshire webpages. I need to consider whether I am the best person to do the webpages or should I advertise for someone new to take up the project. The Hampshire pages look good but I do not have a lot of new information. It is basic information but very handy for finding material on particular villages/towns/cities. I had hoped to do more but there are always copyright issues for some of the material. I need to avoid being in conflict with copyright.
I am gradually stepping down from many of my commitments. I would like more time to do my own research and I also want to start sewing each day (and knitting) and I want to watch one movie (or two) a day before we can no longer watch our VHS tapes! We have over 1000 tapes that we have purchased over the last 25 years. We have also managed to acquired over 200 DVDs. We tend to buy them on special (the old movies) for $6.00 or so. Some of the newer ones can be acquired for $10.00 or less. Although you can rent them fairly cheaply we like to rewatch some and tend to buy those. We also rent quite a few movies through a year.
We also got the lights up yesterday and bought a wreath for the front of the house. It has a lovely red velvet ribbon and lots of pine cones. We are starting to look Christmasy and the next item is the Christmas Tree. The Advent Candles look nice on the table and the manger scene will go up a little late today.
This has been a busy year of travel for us. We have again spent almost two months in total in the United States with our daughter. We have traveled to New York/Long Island, Boston/Cape Cod and environs, Fort Wayne Indiana, Milwaukee Wisconsin and in Canada we have been to Toronto, to London. We have been away from home for slightly over 1/4 of the year. Our travels take us to genealogical repositories for the most part and our expenses tend to be fairly low (which is good as we are retired!) with the cost of lodging and food being the largest part.
Our time at the Ontario Archives was really great as we had a hotel nearby and we spent most of the day at the Archives with a short commute and parking available at the site. The new Archives is a marvelous building. We want to spend some time at Kingston Anglican Church archives and the Toronto Anglican Church archives this year to try and find the marriage of John Link and Mary Magdalene (surname unknown). Mary Magdalene is only found on the census once and her burial at Falkland is known. On the census she states that she is from England and born in 1821. We know that John Link was at East Gwillimbury by 1839 and this is the likely time frame for the marriage (1838 to 1842). Thus far the searching has not yielded a possible marriage for these two but it is possible that they married at Kingston (or the area) or in Toronto itself. We need to spread further afield and that is one of our concentrations for this year. That one record would see my husband proved back to all of his 2x great grandparents and he has a lot of his 3x great grandparents except for the Kipp line. That is the other project that we continue to work on - any evidence on Kipp members in New York State. We have evidence that points to there plus family lore. We hope to do some more work in Dutchess County this year.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Items to do
Yesterday we got the new (to us) countertop dishwasher running and it is an interesting addition. A couple of minutes washes up preparation dishes that do not fit into the machine and then we just set it going and about an hour later all finished. We are using the cabinet that Ed built to put it on as it has rollers - he actually built it for the microwave which is a large old machine now by modern standards. It is over 20 years old and he has been thinking of renewing it with a newer smaller one which works well because it doesn't fit into the new microwave cabinet that he built yesterday. The new cabinet can hold baking dishes and utensils plus the Lean Mean Grilling machine that he bought last year. We had lamb burgers last night cooked on it and as always they are absolutely delicious. I really enjoy lamb.
Someone knocked at the door looking to sell us hydro because of the smart meter coming in the new year. We will stay with Ontario Hydro as our direct supplier. It is simply too awkward to have many middlemen supplying your services. It is different in new subdivisions where they are already in place when you buy. As I look around our home of 30 plus years I am reminded that we may not be here in ten years but may have moved on to a different accommodation (condo or living with one of our children). Adding to our furniture was not in the plans but the microwave stand will be handy as would the dishwasher if there isn't one built in. Plus you could have it on a bar in a family room in the future for washing up glassware or the like and not having to run a large one. The microwave would be handy to have in a small area especially if you were living in units that provided the main meal of the day. However, that is still somewhat in the future likely.
We talked about our trip to Europe a bit and looking at times I think we will probably go for the 20 day tour instead of the 24 day tour. Although inspired to have a longer time I did find that the 21 days in England plus our visit with cousins was a very long time and I was keen to return home before the end of the last one. You do not enjoy everything quite the same when you are thinking of going home all the time! Mind you Stonehenge on the second last day was certainly a draw and kept me concentrated on our trip. Plus we drove by Andover once again where some of my families lives for over 500 hundred years.
I need to hem my dress and that is becoming a higher priority. It has hung nicely now for over a month and the natural folds of the material have taken over once again. I will need to apply a little steam here and there to knock out the creases but for the most part it is ready to wear except for hemming.
I need to plan the cooking for the next two weeks with regard to the cakes and rehearsal dinner plus I need to order the food from Farm Boy that we are picking up. I should do that by tomorrow.
Today we are going to look at a new microwave to replace our old one and then I think we are finished with the kitchen. We are thinking of paneling two walls of the basement since we spend so much time down there now and likely to spend more with the fireplace there. We are thinking of watching one movie a day now that we have looked once again at all of the videos that we have purchased over the last 20 plus years. I am up to 635 now recording them in Library Thing. As a child I watched movies every Saturday at the theatre so probably saw most of what was produced between the late 1940s and the late 1950s when there were were a lot produced. I would say that a large number of our movies come from the period between 1930 and 1970 but also we have purchased a lot of TV series and movies produced since then but the bulk are probably earlier. Once I have the database completed I will sort by year and see how that bears out just for interest's sake!
We are also going to start using our high electricity guzzlers in the offtime (i.e. later evening)for clothes washing and drying especially. We managed to only use the dryer half a dozen times between the first of April and the end of November this year (eight months!). But we will likely use it solidly now until the snow clears away in the spring. Today is a bright day but very cold and the remaining load is heavy items so they will just freeze to the line. With just the two of us there isn't a lot of washing anyway as it turns out.
Now to accomplishing more data entry for the videos and baking a couple of cakes.
Someone knocked at the door looking to sell us hydro because of the smart meter coming in the new year. We will stay with Ontario Hydro as our direct supplier. It is simply too awkward to have many middlemen supplying your services. It is different in new subdivisions where they are already in place when you buy. As I look around our home of 30 plus years I am reminded that we may not be here in ten years but may have moved on to a different accommodation (condo or living with one of our children). Adding to our furniture was not in the plans but the microwave stand will be handy as would the dishwasher if there isn't one built in. Plus you could have it on a bar in a family room in the future for washing up glassware or the like and not having to run a large one. The microwave would be handy to have in a small area especially if you were living in units that provided the main meal of the day. However, that is still somewhat in the future likely.
We talked about our trip to Europe a bit and looking at times I think we will probably go for the 20 day tour instead of the 24 day tour. Although inspired to have a longer time I did find that the 21 days in England plus our visit with cousins was a very long time and I was keen to return home before the end of the last one. You do not enjoy everything quite the same when you are thinking of going home all the time! Mind you Stonehenge on the second last day was certainly a draw and kept me concentrated on our trip. Plus we drove by Andover once again where some of my families lives for over 500 hundred years.
I need to hem my dress and that is becoming a higher priority. It has hung nicely now for over a month and the natural folds of the material have taken over once again. I will need to apply a little steam here and there to knock out the creases but for the most part it is ready to wear except for hemming.
I need to plan the cooking for the next two weeks with regard to the cakes and rehearsal dinner plus I need to order the food from Farm Boy that we are picking up. I should do that by tomorrow.
Today we are going to look at a new microwave to replace our old one and then I think we are finished with the kitchen. We are thinking of paneling two walls of the basement since we spend so much time down there now and likely to spend more with the fireplace there. We are thinking of watching one movie a day now that we have looked once again at all of the videos that we have purchased over the last 20 plus years. I am up to 635 now recording them in Library Thing. As a child I watched movies every Saturday at the theatre so probably saw most of what was produced between the late 1940s and the late 1950s when there were were a lot produced. I would say that a large number of our movies come from the period between 1930 and 1970 but also we have purchased a lot of TV series and movies produced since then but the bulk are probably earlier. Once I have the database completed I will sort by year and see how that bears out just for interest's sake!
We are also going to start using our high electricity guzzlers in the offtime (i.e. later evening)for clothes washing and drying especially. We managed to only use the dryer half a dozen times between the first of April and the end of November this year (eight months!). But we will likely use it solidly now until the snow clears away in the spring. Today is a bright day but very cold and the remaining load is heavy items so they will just freeze to the line. With just the two of us there isn't a lot of washing anyway as it turns out.
Now to accomplishing more data entry for the videos and baking a couple of cakes.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Countdown
I feel that we are now in a countdown mode. I should feel rushed but actually feel quite enthusiastic about the month of December. It is one of my favourite times of the year - Advent. It is a reflective time for me looking back on the year and its events and this has been an extremely busy year. I began the year recovering from about one year of illness. It took a while to realize that I was ill and then a while to succumb sufficiently to require a physician's care. Then the problem of deciding what was wrong with me and then the recovery period. Interesting experience for me as I haven't been ill for quite a while other than my shoulder injury which took about four years to heal and can still annoy me if I overdo it.
The winter saw me slowly recovering and by spring I was feeling much improved although still weak. Our daughter was working on her Ph.D. thesis and we tried to spend some time with her to stave off the loneliness of working on that and teaching on three campuses. She traveled a great deal with her last academic post. The summer saw us take our usual 10 K walk and do quite a bit of traveling mostly to historical repositories. Plus our daughter had submitted her thesis and defended it in July. We had to miss the defense because we were committed to a trip to Fort Wayne that week. It went very well and by the time we picked her up in London (with her car that we had driven to Fort Wayne) she had made her corrections and the thesis was formally submitted to Graduate Studies in its final form. She graduated in the Fall but was unable to attend due to work commitments.
Then we spent several fun weeks in early August canoeing, walking and biking with our eldest daughter and our youngest was preparing for her clinical year working in the hospital. In between our travels we spent a good part of our time helping out with the dogs - taking them for walks and babysitting them at our home on occasion. They were good and we had pleasant times together. There was also the wedding in its planning stages which are now coming to fruition. Our eldest then flew off to her new academic job in Milwaukee and her sight unseen apartment which turned out very well. We had packed her up after the thesis was submitted and that was yet another trip to New York. She had to unpack on her own this time and that took her a couple of weeks in between starting her academic job. Fortunately she doesn't have a lot of stuff and setting up a basic living area was done in just the weekend before everything began.
The fall came and I had my last lecture to give which went quite well. I am glad to be finished with all of that though as it was taking up a lot of my time keeping abreast of the field so that I could speak in a knowledgeable fashion. We took a trip to Cape Cod and Whale Watching with Queensway Tours. A most pleasant trip except I took ill (perhaps Swine Flu!). I have no idea why I was ill and by the time we headed home I was quite recovered. Oddest happening actually. Then we had to prepare to go to Albany for our NYGBS research at the New York State Archives and Library. Although we still have not solved the mystery of Isaac Kipp's parentage it did expose us to some new and novel research methods which we will continue to probe at. For my research there was no value at all as all of my records are in England or I have purchased them and have them here.
Then we were scarcely home once again and we were off to Milwaukee to spend American Thanksgiving with our daughter and see Milwaukee and area. Our trip through Chicago was quite interesting and we sat in the shadow of the Sears Tower for about fifteen minutes as the traffic was backed up somewhat. Milwaukee was most interesting and we traveled about the western part of the State as far north as Sheybogan and west as Madison. We helped out daughter to put her research books on her bookshelves (she moved offices part way through the term and then was off to a conference in Vancouver so hadn't really had a chance to settle in). We also went to a number of historic sites and the museums. The trip home was two days and uneventful other than being quite interesting. I had expected the American highways to be really congested but it wasn't too bad actually.
Then back to wedding planning and we are in the home stretch more or less. Mostly it is items that I now have to do that we have planned. The baking of 120 cupcakes and icing them plus making blue fondant roses for each one and then baking and icing the main cake. The rehearsal dinner I will make scalloped potatoes, ham, turkey meatballs in a sauce, cabbage salad, ceasar salad, raw vegetable tray and dip, cheese tray and cracker tray, and several cakes. All of this is manageable in the one day and our eldest will be there to help as well since our youngest will be working in the hospital right up to the last minute almost.
I must admit to looking forward to a quiet time now for the next five or six months. We are thinking of dancing again in the winter time which will be fun. I am very reclusive I must admit and relish the winter months with its long hours that can be spent reading, walking, skiing, snowshoeing and skating. Plus we are now all set up with our electric fireplace and tapes all organized to watch movies all winter as well plus help out our daughters when they need us to do that. I suspect that I will fly to see our eldest a few times a year as well but I can spend my time there working on my genealogy which is very portable and keeping her company although she is very reclusive like me and sometimes we do clash!
But for the moment I must get the house ready for the Advent Season and it will soon be Christmas and the New Year. Next year promises to be a lot of traveling once again but hopefully a few months of dawdling about!
Then over Christmas/New Years break when our eldest daughter is doing a research/study month I hope we can finally get to the Lancet article on tagging clouds to assist physicians. It has been growing in her mind for a while now but no time to commit it to a paper. Hopefully that can also come out of this research period.
The winter saw me slowly recovering and by spring I was feeling much improved although still weak. Our daughter was working on her Ph.D. thesis and we tried to spend some time with her to stave off the loneliness of working on that and teaching on three campuses. She traveled a great deal with her last academic post. The summer saw us take our usual 10 K walk and do quite a bit of traveling mostly to historical repositories. Plus our daughter had submitted her thesis and defended it in July. We had to miss the defense because we were committed to a trip to Fort Wayne that week. It went very well and by the time we picked her up in London (with her car that we had driven to Fort Wayne) she had made her corrections and the thesis was formally submitted to Graduate Studies in its final form. She graduated in the Fall but was unable to attend due to work commitments.
Then we spent several fun weeks in early August canoeing, walking and biking with our eldest daughter and our youngest was preparing for her clinical year working in the hospital. In between our travels we spent a good part of our time helping out with the dogs - taking them for walks and babysitting them at our home on occasion. They were good and we had pleasant times together. There was also the wedding in its planning stages which are now coming to fruition. Our eldest then flew off to her new academic job in Milwaukee and her sight unseen apartment which turned out very well. We had packed her up after the thesis was submitted and that was yet another trip to New York. She had to unpack on her own this time and that took her a couple of weeks in between starting her academic job. Fortunately she doesn't have a lot of stuff and setting up a basic living area was done in just the weekend before everything began.
The fall came and I had my last lecture to give which went quite well. I am glad to be finished with all of that though as it was taking up a lot of my time keeping abreast of the field so that I could speak in a knowledgeable fashion. We took a trip to Cape Cod and Whale Watching with Queensway Tours. A most pleasant trip except I took ill (perhaps Swine Flu!). I have no idea why I was ill and by the time we headed home I was quite recovered. Oddest happening actually. Then we had to prepare to go to Albany for our NYGBS research at the New York State Archives and Library. Although we still have not solved the mystery of Isaac Kipp's parentage it did expose us to some new and novel research methods which we will continue to probe at. For my research there was no value at all as all of my records are in England or I have purchased them and have them here.
Then we were scarcely home once again and we were off to Milwaukee to spend American Thanksgiving with our daughter and see Milwaukee and area. Our trip through Chicago was quite interesting and we sat in the shadow of the Sears Tower for about fifteen minutes as the traffic was backed up somewhat. Milwaukee was most interesting and we traveled about the western part of the State as far north as Sheybogan and west as Madison. We helped out daughter to put her research books on her bookshelves (she moved offices part way through the term and then was off to a conference in Vancouver so hadn't really had a chance to settle in). We also went to a number of historic sites and the museums. The trip home was two days and uneventful other than being quite interesting. I had expected the American highways to be really congested but it wasn't too bad actually.
Then back to wedding planning and we are in the home stretch more or less. Mostly it is items that I now have to do that we have planned. The baking of 120 cupcakes and icing them plus making blue fondant roses for each one and then baking and icing the main cake. The rehearsal dinner I will make scalloped potatoes, ham, turkey meatballs in a sauce, cabbage salad, ceasar salad, raw vegetable tray and dip, cheese tray and cracker tray, and several cakes. All of this is manageable in the one day and our eldest will be there to help as well since our youngest will be working in the hospital right up to the last minute almost.
I must admit to looking forward to a quiet time now for the next five or six months. We are thinking of dancing again in the winter time which will be fun. I am very reclusive I must admit and relish the winter months with its long hours that can be spent reading, walking, skiing, snowshoeing and skating. Plus we are now all set up with our electric fireplace and tapes all organized to watch movies all winter as well plus help out our daughters when they need us to do that. I suspect that I will fly to see our eldest a few times a year as well but I can spend my time there working on my genealogy which is very portable and keeping her company although she is very reclusive like me and sometimes we do clash!
But for the moment I must get the house ready for the Advent Season and it will soon be Christmas and the New Year. Next year promises to be a lot of traveling once again but hopefully a few months of dawdling about!
Then over Christmas/New Years break when our eldest daughter is doing a research/study month I hope we can finally get to the Lancet article on tagging clouds to assist physicians. It has been growing in her mind for a while now but no time to commit it to a paper. Hopefully that can also come out of this research period.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
New Eyeglasses
My eyeglasses are repaired and I am wearing them once again. They are strengthened in one eye so that I noticed the difference going back to my old glasses and they gave me eyestrain. Glad to have the new ones back again.
We were out and bought the butter, icing sugar, eggs, etc. to start baking cakes for the wedding. The first cakes will be for the rehearsal and I will freeze them so that they are nice and fresh for the evening. The big job will be making 120 cupcakes and icing them just one day before the wedding but it can be done I am sure. The pound cake I can make a couple of days ahead as it will be made with a liqueur and will only be enhanced by standing a bit before it is iced and then frozen for the first anniversary.
I spent part of the day recording VHS tapes in Library Thing and I am now up to 600. We have quite a collection - mostly the common ones but a few good historical ones that we have found. I purchased them when I was working with the thought that I would watch one or two movies a day when I retired. As it turned out I discovered genealogy (and DNA family studies) which quite distracted me from that original intention. However, every tape has been played at some point and we are going to start to watch one per day and not spend so much time on our computers.
Other than that we need to start getting ready for Christmas. Our lights are delayed going out as we were away for a couple of weeks when we would have usually put them up. I need to put up the Creche and soon the Christmas Tree. We are not away again now for quite a long time. I am tired of traveling I must admit and would like to not do any for quite a while. It is interesting seeing new places but it is also exhausting and I would let to settle down into a rut for a while!
We need to get back to our dancing as well so that we are all practised up for the wedding. Plus we quite enjoyed the dancing and it is good exercise in the winter months especially. We are thinking of signing up again in the winter term for lessons.
I still need to hem my dress. No genealogy again and it will be a while before I get back to doing genealogy.
We were out and bought the butter, icing sugar, eggs, etc. to start baking cakes for the wedding. The first cakes will be for the rehearsal and I will freeze them so that they are nice and fresh for the evening. The big job will be making 120 cupcakes and icing them just one day before the wedding but it can be done I am sure. The pound cake I can make a couple of days ahead as it will be made with a liqueur and will only be enhanced by standing a bit before it is iced and then frozen for the first anniversary.
I spent part of the day recording VHS tapes in Library Thing and I am now up to 600. We have quite a collection - mostly the common ones but a few good historical ones that we have found. I purchased them when I was working with the thought that I would watch one or two movies a day when I retired. As it turned out I discovered genealogy (and DNA family studies) which quite distracted me from that original intention. However, every tape has been played at some point and we are going to start to watch one per day and not spend so much time on our computers.
Other than that we need to start getting ready for Christmas. Our lights are delayed going out as we were away for a couple of weeks when we would have usually put them up. I need to put up the Creche and soon the Christmas Tree. We are not away again now for quite a long time. I am tired of traveling I must admit and would like to not do any for quite a while. It is interesting seeing new places but it is also exhausting and I would let to settle down into a rut for a while!
We need to get back to our dancing as well so that we are all practised up for the wedding. Plus we quite enjoyed the dancing and it is good exercise in the winter months especially. We are thinking of signing up again in the winter term for lessons.
I still need to hem my dress. No genealogy again and it will be a while before I get back to doing genealogy.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Catching up - genealogy to come
Now we are into catchup time as I have quite a bit to do before I can get back to genealogy. For one thing I want to start planning my days to include sewing/knitting/other needlework/reading besides my computer work on genealogy. I do not want to work more than 3-4 hours a day on the computer doing transcription. The work that I do on genealogy will now be entirely transcriptions as I link my generations back. Proving back to 3x great grandparents on all lines was quite straightforward for the most part. I only needed deep research on a few but now that I am back on the four x great grandparents the proofing of these individuals will require quite a bit more work for each person since I will be finding the marriages for their parents to go with the proof. I hope to get through all of the 4x great grandparents before we make our next trip to Salt Lake City later next year.
Unfortunately I had to take my glasses back today as the left lens popped out. That used to happen when I was a young child because of the weight of the lens but haven't experienced that as an adult. The lens is stronger though and consequently larger. I do hope they can solve the problem quickly. They didn't have my large oval frames anymore so had to go for a smaller frame. Fingers crossed that they can quickly resolve that problem. Fortunately I still have my old glasses to use until they are fixed. My old reading glasses still work for me as well (good to have backups!).
I must admit I worry about my daughter in Milwaukee as she is so far from home and family. Her place there is very nice although principally a student residence they do have a number of faculty people there who have come from away. Her new friend there (a faculty member from Scotland) has her mother living with her so really has a life of her own separate from the university. That is really the problem of being an academic in a different place - not having family about to help you when you need anything. It will be exciting to have her home for Christmas and New Years although she will be doing her own research but we have a study room all set up for her with a good desktop computer that can do everything that she wants it to do. Plus it is quiet here for her to work. In between work times she and her Dad can go out skiing and snowshoeing every day (once the snow comes!) and there is always good walking here too. During the summer she can also work here and even teach online courses as she did last summer. She is thinking of doing that for Milwaukee and it would give her an interesting sideline whilst she does her research and has a break from the academic lifestyle. The walking in Milwaukee is also very very good and we had several walks along the lake side where there is almost all parkland in her area. Next time we must visit some of the facilities although we did go to the Milwaukee Museum and looked at the Library which is a beautiful structure. We also went to the Jeanne d'Arc Chapel on the Marquette Campus (from the Rhone Valley in France 1400s) as well as an art museum there. We walked about the Milwaukee Campus in Milwaukee and at Madison where we traveled on one of the days. The Madison Campus is beautiful and spread along one side of one of the lakes there. Initially I thought it so much bigger but the Milwaukee Campus is a city campus without parkland and quite large as well.
Now I must think about the best time to work on the computer. I think perhaps in the morning until noon. Then in the afternoon I can sew or do needlework while we watch movies on TV. We have over 1000 VHS movies purchased during my working days and probably 200 to 300 DVDs that we have also purchased since they came out. We have now managed to put 350 of our VHS titles into Library Thing and we want to finish that project and enter in all the music tapes/other tapes as well. Then we can start on the books upstairs - a rather large project as we have hundreds and hundreds of them. Once completed we will be able to sort them about and add notations to items to assist in manipulating them at some point later. I think that 3 or 4 hours per day on genealogy will be enough. Now that I am no longer speaking on DNA I do not feel the need to stay so current with everything and can be more selective in the articles which I read - those which pertain to my lines. I had an email the other day from another individual descended from an I2a2 line. Our closest matches are in the Balkans but our history would appear to belie that with a long association with southern England back into the 1200s. Possibly they could be descendants of the Romans but Ken Nordvedt has postulated that they are probably early Britons arriving there shortly after the retreat of the glaciers when there was still a land bridge with Europe (about 8000 years ago and it would be certainly very interesting to prove that!). Finding more matches with English descendants would be handy at this point and I have the one that comes closest thus far. Perhaps I will hear from him one of these days :)
The afternoons I will sew on my new sewing machine. I bought a lovely piece of flannelette to make a nightdress for myself and I have a large bin of material that I bought over 15 years ago and I haven't touched it in that time frame. I also want to buy a piece of tartan to make a long kilt for dress wear at the genealogy events we attend. I will smock a blouse to go with it and try to figure out the costume that my Routledge's would have worn in the 1600s or 1700s. They were a Highlander family that came south to Cumberland by the 1400s. Not sure why they left the Highlands but my cousin Thomas Routledge is busy searching that one out and I will leave him with it. I am still sorting out my 6, 7 or 8 lines of Routledge in the 1700s! Mine emigrated to Canada in 1818 arriving in London Township by late Fall at least and possibly summer since I know they were still in Bewcastle paying taxes in January 1818. I decided to choose that family to remember with a costume because they are my first Canadian ancestors.
The good news is that it is starting to snow. Once started here we usually just continue accumulating. I told my daughter that her wish for snow should be somewhat tempered as she doesn't want enormous ugly brown snow hills for her wedding. It looks like a picture postcard here a lot of the winter with the lovely white snow covering everything but it is dreadfully cold. A bone chilling cold that lasts well into the end of March. The summer is so short here really with very little spring but usually a long fall before the snow comes once again. Our front yard is dug up by the city works crew as they are working on the street lights. Hopefully they will finish before winter but I have my suspicion that we will be looking at that snow fence gradually filled in by the snow as it climbs higher and higher! Time will tell on that but the ground is fast freezing thus making their work quite difficult. Hopefully the pipes wont freeze but they are electrical so perhaps not a problem, however the open ground exposes our water pipe to more cold than it would usually enjoy so that is a concern as well.
Unfortunately I had to take my glasses back today as the left lens popped out. That used to happen when I was a young child because of the weight of the lens but haven't experienced that as an adult. The lens is stronger though and consequently larger. I do hope they can solve the problem quickly. They didn't have my large oval frames anymore so had to go for a smaller frame. Fingers crossed that they can quickly resolve that problem. Fortunately I still have my old glasses to use until they are fixed. My old reading glasses still work for me as well (good to have backups!).
I must admit I worry about my daughter in Milwaukee as she is so far from home and family. Her place there is very nice although principally a student residence they do have a number of faculty people there who have come from away. Her new friend there (a faculty member from Scotland) has her mother living with her so really has a life of her own separate from the university. That is really the problem of being an academic in a different place - not having family about to help you when you need anything. It will be exciting to have her home for Christmas and New Years although she will be doing her own research but we have a study room all set up for her with a good desktop computer that can do everything that she wants it to do. Plus it is quiet here for her to work. In between work times she and her Dad can go out skiing and snowshoeing every day (once the snow comes!) and there is always good walking here too. During the summer she can also work here and even teach online courses as she did last summer. She is thinking of doing that for Milwaukee and it would give her an interesting sideline whilst she does her research and has a break from the academic lifestyle. The walking in Milwaukee is also very very good and we had several walks along the lake side where there is almost all parkland in her area. Next time we must visit some of the facilities although we did go to the Milwaukee Museum and looked at the Library which is a beautiful structure. We also went to the Jeanne d'Arc Chapel on the Marquette Campus (from the Rhone Valley in France 1400s) as well as an art museum there. We walked about the Milwaukee Campus in Milwaukee and at Madison where we traveled on one of the days. The Madison Campus is beautiful and spread along one side of one of the lakes there. Initially I thought it so much bigger but the Milwaukee Campus is a city campus without parkland and quite large as well.
Now I must think about the best time to work on the computer. I think perhaps in the morning until noon. Then in the afternoon I can sew or do needlework while we watch movies on TV. We have over 1000 VHS movies purchased during my working days and probably 200 to 300 DVDs that we have also purchased since they came out. We have now managed to put 350 of our VHS titles into Library Thing and we want to finish that project and enter in all the music tapes/other tapes as well. Then we can start on the books upstairs - a rather large project as we have hundreds and hundreds of them. Once completed we will be able to sort them about and add notations to items to assist in manipulating them at some point later. I think that 3 or 4 hours per day on genealogy will be enough. Now that I am no longer speaking on DNA I do not feel the need to stay so current with everything and can be more selective in the articles which I read - those which pertain to my lines. I had an email the other day from another individual descended from an I2a2 line. Our closest matches are in the Balkans but our history would appear to belie that with a long association with southern England back into the 1200s. Possibly they could be descendants of the Romans but Ken Nordvedt has postulated that they are probably early Britons arriving there shortly after the retreat of the glaciers when there was still a land bridge with Europe (about 8000 years ago and it would be certainly very interesting to prove that!). Finding more matches with English descendants would be handy at this point and I have the one that comes closest thus far. Perhaps I will hear from him one of these days :)
The afternoons I will sew on my new sewing machine. I bought a lovely piece of flannelette to make a nightdress for myself and I have a large bin of material that I bought over 15 years ago and I haven't touched it in that time frame. I also want to buy a piece of tartan to make a long kilt for dress wear at the genealogy events we attend. I will smock a blouse to go with it and try to figure out the costume that my Routledge's would have worn in the 1600s or 1700s. They were a Highlander family that came south to Cumberland by the 1400s. Not sure why they left the Highlands but my cousin Thomas Routledge is busy searching that one out and I will leave him with it. I am still sorting out my 6, 7 or 8 lines of Routledge in the 1700s! Mine emigrated to Canada in 1818 arriving in London Township by late Fall at least and possibly summer since I know they were still in Bewcastle paying taxes in January 1818. I decided to choose that family to remember with a costume because they are my first Canadian ancestors.
The good news is that it is starting to snow. Once started here we usually just continue accumulating. I told my daughter that her wish for snow should be somewhat tempered as she doesn't want enormous ugly brown snow hills for her wedding. It looks like a picture postcard here a lot of the winter with the lovely white snow covering everything but it is dreadfully cold. A bone chilling cold that lasts well into the end of March. The summer is so short here really with very little spring but usually a long fall before the snow comes once again. Our front yard is dug up by the city works crew as they are working on the street lights. Hopefully they will finish before winter but I have my suspicion that we will be looking at that snow fence gradually filled in by the snow as it climbs higher and higher! Time will tell on that but the ground is fast freezing thus making their work quite difficult. Hopefully the pipes wont freeze but they are electrical so perhaps not a problem, however the open ground exposes our water pipe to more cold than it would usually enjoy so that is a concern as well.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Home again and new glasses
We arrived home this afternoon - London to Ottawa was an amazing trip. I drove from London to Kitchener and then my husband from Kitchener to Cobourg (through Toronto) and back to me again from Cobourg to Belleville (although I said I could do to Kingston!). Then my husband home to Ottawa. We made really good time - leaving London at 8:30 a.m. and arriving here at 4:00 p.m. We had several stops to eat and before we left London we visited the graves of my maternal grandparents, then my paternal grandparents and parents and also my great aunt and two great uncles (one of my great uncles was also my maternal grandfather's first cousin). Genealogy can be really fun.
I picked up my new glasses and they will take getting used to. My old lenses were badly scratched so have decided to try anti scratch Crisal lenses. We will see how they do. My lenses seldom change although the last couple of pair of glasses I did not feel that the one eye was strong enough. The new optician has gone back to the earlier prescription and I will need to get used to that but I wonder if it will solve my headache problem from eye strain. We will see.
Filled up the refrigerator with food as it was quite quite empty since we were away for a bit and that is our last trip for quite a while.
I picked up my new glasses and they will take getting used to. My old lenses were badly scratched so have decided to try anti scratch Crisal lenses. We will see how they do. My lenses seldom change although the last couple of pair of glasses I did not feel that the one eye was strong enough. The new optician has gone back to the earlier prescription and I will need to get used to that but I wonder if it will solve my headache problem from eye strain. We will see.
Filled up the refrigerator with food as it was quite quite empty since we were away for a bit and that is our last trip for quite a while.
Milwaukee to Ottawa
We traveled yesterday from Milwaukee Wisconsin to London Ontario. Going through Chicago this time was easier as we decided to take I94 to I294 and then back to I94. Last time we took the GPS selected route which took us right through downtown Chicago and we sat in the shadow of the Sears Tower for about 20 minutes in traffic. This trip was much quicker and we managed to get to Chicago before the traffic started. This was the end of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States and we expected the roads to be very busy. They were in particular the I94 as we headed east towards Detroit. When we turned onto I69 though a lot of the traffic left us (I drove this portion) and it was quiet all the way to Lansing. The trip from Lansing to Port Huron was busy at the beginning but had thinned out quite a bit as we approached the border. However, the lines at the border returning to Canada were quite lengthy and we spent nearly an hour waiting to cross. Our wait was only about five minutes when we had crossed over to the United States two weeks earlier.
Milwaukee is a very interesting city and we explored the area around Milwaukee as well. Driving there is like driving in southwestern Ontario - the same rolling hills and similar trees. I did not see a yellow headed blackbird yet.
No genealogy done at all but we do not expect to find any of Ed's families there necessarily although they could be. My grandmother's sister and her husband lived in Chicago in the 1920s so I may investigate them somewhat when we are next in the area. My mother went to Chicago as a child with her mother. But her father was so lonely that they never went again while he was living.
We head on to Ottawa today as we are still in London. Lots of work to accomplish in the next few weeks and then back to genealogy after Christmas.
Milwaukee is a very interesting city and we explored the area around Milwaukee as well. Driving there is like driving in southwestern Ontario - the same rolling hills and similar trees. I did not see a yellow headed blackbird yet.
No genealogy done at all but we do not expect to find any of Ed's families there necessarily although they could be. My grandmother's sister and her husband lived in Chicago in the 1920s so I may investigate them somewhat when we are next in the area. My mother went to Chicago as a child with her mother. But her father was so lonely that they never went again while he was living.
We head on to Ottawa today as we are still in London. Lots of work to accomplish in the next few weeks and then back to genealogy after Christmas.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Milwaukee
We have been in Milwaukee for over a week now and returning home. It is a very interesting city and of course our eldest lives here which makes it even more interesting. One of our days we drove to Sheybogan just to get a feel of the surrounding area and it was an interesting drive along Lake Michigan heading north. One time we will try the northern route into Wisconsin coming down through Sault Ste Marie and into Northern Michigan and then cross into Wisconsin and come down to Milwaukee by that route. Probably in the warmer weather we will come that way after the snows of spring are gone.
We drove all the way to Lansing on our first day and that was about an 11 hour drive including breaks for walks and meals. Except that it rained the last two hours it was a very straightforward trip. Crossing at Sarnia/Port Huron was much easier this time than last summer. Our line last summer was about 45 minutes long (we always manage to choose the longest one as some moved quicker!) and this time only about ten minutes.
Our second full day in Milwaukee we went shopping looking for a suit for our daughter to wear at her sister`s wedding and just a nice new good suit. We went to a number of stores but found the Boston Store that we had never shopped at before. They had a good range of suits and we found one that she really liked which was great. That being accomplished we had planned to spend the rest of the time sight seeing. The Museum is quite excellent and we could have spent hours more there. We saw the IMax production of Ice Worlds which was really very good. It is the first time that I have ever seen the projected look of Antarctica without snow that I can recall. It is a very large continent and one wonders if we will see it with permanent inhabitants in our life time. I am less frightened by the Greenhouse effect than «I perhaps should be. I would very much like to see our air cleaned up but a lot of the greenhouse effect is caused by our enormous dependence on cattle - beef, pork, mutton etc. That isn`t likely to change in our lifetimes so the greenhouse effect is likely here to stay and we will simply have to learn to live with it.
As for family research I haven`t touched a thing in over two weeks now. I will not be doing anything likely until after the new year as we just have too much on the go for the moment. I want to now draw up a plan for looking at all of the information that I brought back from Salt Lake City in 2008 so that I have transcribed all of it by the end of the winter that I plan to transcribe. I am probably through 50% of it now and there is one large chunk that will wait a while longer. It is the manor papers for Upper Clatford (about 100 images) that needs to wait for my Latin studies to approach my being able to understand what is written in the papers as they are entirely in Latin. I am not sure if they will actually answer any queries of mine at the moment anyway.
My hypothesis is that the manor holdings of the Blake family at Upper Clatford in the 1500s continued through to the 1800s although considerably reduced. I believe they held land on which the Terrace homes were built (Foundry Road (near Bury Hill)) and where my Grandfather Blake was born (and all of his siblings) between 1872 and 1894). I think it was sold and a cottage (Yew Cottage) at Goodworth Clatford then purchased where Edward Blake died and his widow and a widowed daughter with her son lived into the 1900s until Annie married once again and moved back to Upper Clatford. Likely the Cottage was sold as I do not appear to have any relatives living there in Goodworth Clatford.
There was an absence of years when Blake members did not live at Upper Clatford (late 1600s to mid 1700s. The Manor Papers may assist me in this time period to understand what happened to their freehold from the late 1600s to the mid 1700s when again I think that Joseph Blake was living there with Joanna King Blake (daughter of Thomas King who was a freehold farmer at Upper Clatford I think). Joseph died about four years after Thomas and his widow remarried 14 years later to Thomas Collins (a freehold farmer at Upper Clatford).
My reason for such an hypothesis is my father saying that his Grandparents lived in a house that had been in the family for 300 years. This would fit in with the above details. Looking at the house I am not sure it would be now 400 years old though but perhaps there was a smaller house there and it formed the base for the terrace homes now located there. Certainly the house that they lived in at the end of the 1800s was a terrace home (I have a picture of them beside the house in 1898). I have a letter that established this same house was there in 1939 with a front porch added to it. It would be interesting to learn more about this house and I may investigate having a house history once I ascertain that the one I have a picture of is the house that they lived in.
A few queries on Bishops Nympton I have answered in the past couple of weeks and a few contacts on Genes Reunited which have been about other families to which I have replied.
We drove all the way to Lansing on our first day and that was about an 11 hour drive including breaks for walks and meals. Except that it rained the last two hours it was a very straightforward trip. Crossing at Sarnia/Port Huron was much easier this time than last summer. Our line last summer was about 45 minutes long (we always manage to choose the longest one as some moved quicker!) and this time only about ten minutes.
Our second full day in Milwaukee we went shopping looking for a suit for our daughter to wear at her sister`s wedding and just a nice new good suit. We went to a number of stores but found the Boston Store that we had never shopped at before. They had a good range of suits and we found one that she really liked which was great. That being accomplished we had planned to spend the rest of the time sight seeing. The Museum is quite excellent and we could have spent hours more there. We saw the IMax production of Ice Worlds which was really very good. It is the first time that I have ever seen the projected look of Antarctica without snow that I can recall. It is a very large continent and one wonders if we will see it with permanent inhabitants in our life time. I am less frightened by the Greenhouse effect than «I perhaps should be. I would very much like to see our air cleaned up but a lot of the greenhouse effect is caused by our enormous dependence on cattle - beef, pork, mutton etc. That isn`t likely to change in our lifetimes so the greenhouse effect is likely here to stay and we will simply have to learn to live with it.
As for family research I haven`t touched a thing in over two weeks now. I will not be doing anything likely until after the new year as we just have too much on the go for the moment. I want to now draw up a plan for looking at all of the information that I brought back from Salt Lake City in 2008 so that I have transcribed all of it by the end of the winter that I plan to transcribe. I am probably through 50% of it now and there is one large chunk that will wait a while longer. It is the manor papers for Upper Clatford (about 100 images) that needs to wait for my Latin studies to approach my being able to understand what is written in the papers as they are entirely in Latin. I am not sure if they will actually answer any queries of mine at the moment anyway.
My hypothesis is that the manor holdings of the Blake family at Upper Clatford in the 1500s continued through to the 1800s although considerably reduced. I believe they held land on which the Terrace homes were built (Foundry Road (near Bury Hill)) and where my Grandfather Blake was born (and all of his siblings) between 1872 and 1894). I think it was sold and a cottage (Yew Cottage) at Goodworth Clatford then purchased where Edward Blake died and his widow and a widowed daughter with her son lived into the 1900s until Annie married once again and moved back to Upper Clatford. Likely the Cottage was sold as I do not appear to have any relatives living there in Goodworth Clatford.
There was an absence of years when Blake members did not live at Upper Clatford (late 1600s to mid 1700s. The Manor Papers may assist me in this time period to understand what happened to their freehold from the late 1600s to the mid 1700s when again I think that Joseph Blake was living there with Joanna King Blake (daughter of Thomas King who was a freehold farmer at Upper Clatford I think). Joseph died about four years after Thomas and his widow remarried 14 years later to Thomas Collins (a freehold farmer at Upper Clatford).
My reason for such an hypothesis is my father saying that his Grandparents lived in a house that had been in the family for 300 years. This would fit in with the above details. Looking at the house I am not sure it would be now 400 years old though but perhaps there was a smaller house there and it formed the base for the terrace homes now located there. Certainly the house that they lived in at the end of the 1800s was a terrace home (I have a picture of them beside the house in 1898). I have a letter that established this same house was there in 1939 with a front porch added to it. It would be interesting to learn more about this house and I may investigate having a house history once I ascertain that the one I have a picture of is the house that they lived in.
A few queries on Bishops Nympton I have answered in the past couple of weeks and a few contacts on Genes Reunited which have been about other families to which I have replied.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Medicine
I was noticing that the cost of medicine in Canada is 108 billion dollars. An absolutely enormous sum and one wonders what we used to spend all of our money on now before the Canada Health Act. I think it is money well spent but the costs of medicine are enormous - enormous to my daughter who is slowly sinking into debt with her medical training. Once she finishes medical school she will at least earn some money as a resident but still another 1.5 years for that.
I am proud of her to take on medicine. I walked away from all of that over 40 years ago. I just couldn't see myself taking care of people day in and day out - I wanted a more adventuresome medicine in far off Africa. The need for physicians though is here in Canada now where still 1/10th of all Canadians do not have a family doctor. Ours will soon retire I expect and we will have to start looking once again but we are fortunate in not using the system very often. Neither of us is on drugs at all and we are careful with our eating habits and life style. We walk a lot, bike a lot and lots of other exercise to keep fit. Will that keep us out of doctor's offices? Time will tell on that.
I am sorry that I had to leave work though because of my injured shoulder as I would have liked to have paid her tuition so that she wouldn't have had that debt on her shoulders. But she is young and one of these days she will be earning money as a physician which will help to pay those enormous debts that they all acquire by the end of their training. Then they work such a short time comparatively and a very busy time since they have to turn around and train the next generation of doctors.
I am proud of her to take on medicine. I walked away from all of that over 40 years ago. I just couldn't see myself taking care of people day in and day out - I wanted a more adventuresome medicine in far off Africa. The need for physicians though is here in Canada now where still 1/10th of all Canadians do not have a family doctor. Ours will soon retire I expect and we will have to start looking once again but we are fortunate in not using the system very often. Neither of us is on drugs at all and we are careful with our eating habits and life style. We walk a lot, bike a lot and lots of other exercise to keep fit. Will that keep us out of doctor's offices? Time will tell on that.
I am sorry that I had to leave work though because of my injured shoulder as I would have liked to have paid her tuition so that she wouldn't have had that debt on her shoulders. But she is young and one of these days she will be earning money as a physician which will help to pay those enormous debts that they all acquire by the end of their training. Then they work such a short time comparatively and a very busy time since they have to turn around and train the next generation of doctors.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Pearce Family - 2
I completed my proof of Martha Pearce including naming her mother as Grace Hobbs. I will need to learn more about Grace Hobbs when I start proving the 5x great grandparents but this will be one of my pursuits when next we go to Salt Lake City.
A very interesting lecture at the OGS meeting last evening. Dr. Seely was speaking about Family Reconstruction. It is a subject that I use a great deal in Genealogy but her approach is to look at each individual and give them three characteristics if you are able to do that. Since I have learned a great deal about my great grandparents as a child I think I will be able to do that and even further back for a couple. I am certainly lucky to have had such chatty grandparents. They were both very happy people - my paternal grandfather and my maternal grandmother. I do not actually think they were overly fond of each other but I loved them both dearly. Although my grandmother always said I didn't love her until my grandfather died. That may be true but he did live with us and I saw him daily for a good part of my young life.
He loved to sit and talk about Hampshire and his early life by the time I knew him. Since he was 70 when I was born and nearly 79 when he died this was a short time for me but filled with day after day of discovery. We used to watch the clouds go by over the backyard after he finished gardening and it was he who encouraged my imagination to see all sorts of things in the big fluffy clouds. It was the wonderful time of childhood when responsibilities are a long way into the future. I am glad that he repeated his stories many many times because I was so young.
Last evening the lecturer encouraged us to close our eyes and bring in a memory although she was perhaps thinking of a not so pleasant memory I decided to go for that pleasant memory of being totally loved by a grandparent. I was thinking initially of the love that shone from my husband's mother's eyes when she was with our daughters. She enjoyed them completely when she was staying with us. I let that permeate my being and then I let my mind drift back to my own childhood where I could feel that love from my grandfather's eyes as he sat and talked to me or we went for a long walk. Last night I was remembering how he used to quote the names of his ancestors and he always started with my name (I think he wanted me to remember very badly). All of his papers were destroyed when he died except for one small packed that I have which included pictures and a few other items but nothing about his family tree. I wish he had constructed one but it was in his mind and he was passing it to me. As it turned out I was able to remember back to Joseph who came from Andover and a jumble of names before that with Thomas, William, John and Nicholas. I forgot Richard over time but remembering Nicholas was important. He died at Old House and my father had also said that through the years so when I found Nicholas and that he died at Old House I knew that I had found the right trail. It was a slow one though.
My next group to work on will be the Rew/Moggridge/Sidderfin/Kent families. I have not accomplished as much as I thought that I would because we are re-organizing. It will be good to have it all done and there is cleaning thrown in with that :)
A very interesting lecture at the OGS meeting last evening. Dr. Seely was speaking about Family Reconstruction. It is a subject that I use a great deal in Genealogy but her approach is to look at each individual and give them three characteristics if you are able to do that. Since I have learned a great deal about my great grandparents as a child I think I will be able to do that and even further back for a couple. I am certainly lucky to have had such chatty grandparents. They were both very happy people - my paternal grandfather and my maternal grandmother. I do not actually think they were overly fond of each other but I loved them both dearly. Although my grandmother always said I didn't love her until my grandfather died. That may be true but he did live with us and I saw him daily for a good part of my young life.
He loved to sit and talk about Hampshire and his early life by the time I knew him. Since he was 70 when I was born and nearly 79 when he died this was a short time for me but filled with day after day of discovery. We used to watch the clouds go by over the backyard after he finished gardening and it was he who encouraged my imagination to see all sorts of things in the big fluffy clouds. It was the wonderful time of childhood when responsibilities are a long way into the future. I am glad that he repeated his stories many many times because I was so young.
Last evening the lecturer encouraged us to close our eyes and bring in a memory although she was perhaps thinking of a not so pleasant memory I decided to go for that pleasant memory of being totally loved by a grandparent. I was thinking initially of the love that shone from my husband's mother's eyes when she was with our daughters. She enjoyed them completely when she was staying with us. I let that permeate my being and then I let my mind drift back to my own childhood where I could feel that love from my grandfather's eyes as he sat and talked to me or we went for a long walk. Last night I was remembering how he used to quote the names of his ancestors and he always started with my name (I think he wanted me to remember very badly). All of his papers were destroyed when he died except for one small packed that I have which included pictures and a few other items but nothing about his family tree. I wish he had constructed one but it was in his mind and he was passing it to me. As it turned out I was able to remember back to Joseph who came from Andover and a jumble of names before that with Thomas, William, John and Nicholas. I forgot Richard over time but remembering Nicholas was important. He died at Old House and my father had also said that through the years so when I found Nicholas and that he died at Old House I knew that I had found the right trail. It was a slow one though.
My next group to work on will be the Rew/Moggridge/Sidderfin/Kent families. I have not accomplished as much as I thought that I would because we are re-organizing. It will be good to have it all done and there is cleaning thrown in with that :)
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The Pearce Family
Today I worked on the Pearce family of South Molton, Devon. I extracted all the Pearce entries from the IGI and built a table with names of fathers across the top and in columns under the names I entered the male children born to the forename from the earliest register to the 1730s. I then organized the births into ten year intervals and blocked family groups and redid the chart. I then drew family charts and found that there were nine males who were fathers of children born between 1600 and 1630 and labeled them as A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I. I was able to enter all but three sets of information into these nine heads of families except for determining the children of three Johns born 1629, 1636, and 1638. As it turned out this was less of a problem once I started looking at potential fathers for my John baptized between 1655 and 1665.
The other problem I was trying to solve is the marriage of my Philip Pearse (b 1703). There were two possibilities for the mother of my Martha Pearse. It is logical to choose Grace Hobbs because of the naming of the children and the age of the groom. Philip would have been only 20 years old at the first marriage and it would have been a second marriage for the other Philip. The name Philip was used three times until the last child survived. The burial of the first wife is, I think, in the burial register. It is difficult to read. I wonder if I can link the heads of families together into families but that will be a project for later when I get back further in time.
I know that Philip's father is John and that his mother was Martha Gwythers. The father of this John becomes the problem area - a patron entry on the IGI suggests that his father was Robert and that fits ideally into one of the family trees that I created. This would be John baptized 14 Apr 1660 at South Molton and the son of Robert Pearce from the Parish Register Transcription. This Robert was baptized Mar 1631 and his father was Robert baptized 25 Jun 1602 and the son of John Pearse (one of my founders in my chart). This is the largest family chart and the sons of the first John are: Robert, George, William, Thomas and Philip. The names George, William and Philip are used a great deal in my family lines later.
I extracted all the Pearse members from the South Molton Protestation Returns. I am able to fit all of them into family groupings except the four Johns.
Pearse Alexander
Pearse Christopher Sen
Pearse Christopher Jun
Pearse George
Pearse Henry
Pearse Humphrey
Pearse John Sen
Pearse John
Pearse John
Pearse John
Pearse Oliver
Pearse Philip
Pearse Philip
Pearse Simon
Pearse William
Marriages in the International Genealogical Index (IGI)
18 Oct 1628 Pearse Christofer Walron Mary
4 May 1720 Pearse Christopher Dunning Mary
22 Oct 1721 Pearse Christopher Tapscott Hannah
9 Sep 1658 Pearce Henry Shopland Emmott
29 Oct 1623 Pearse Hugh Sheerland Marye
10 Nov 1604 Pearce John Moore Peternell
15 Jan 1619 Pearce John Huctstable Agnes
1 Oct 1627 Pearse John Cannyforde Jane
15 Jan 1628 Pearse John Kinge Maude
19 Jun 1638 Pierce John Cole Rebecca
30 Jan 1670 Pearse John Woollocot Joane
9 May 1686 Pearce John Gwythers Martha
9 Feb 1723 Pearse Philip Parramore Joan
7 Apr 1728 Pearse Philip Hobbs Grace
27 Oct 1712 Pearse Phillip Turner Grace
14 Oct 1632 Pearse Robert Beere Christian
23 Aug 1681 Pearse Robert Jess Agnis
18 Sep 1639 Pearce Samuel Carpenter Agnes
20 Jan 1720 Pearse William Harries Joan
No Pearse entries in 1581 Tax Subsidy which is interesting.
Forename Surname Suffix Status Amount
Thomas Hacche ar L 10
William Horwood Gent L 10
Hugh Pollard Gent G 10
Dorothy Clotworthy Wid G 8
Christopher Squyre G 8
Thomas Rashleigh G 7
Joan Carpenter Wid G 5
William Amerye G 7
Robert Cotworthie G 7
John Herneman G 4
George Chaple G 4
Geffry Lawdye G 3
Thomas Allen G 4
Thomas Hobbes G 4
Roger Walshcotte G 3
William Cobleye G 3
William Chapell G 8
Richard Paynter G 3
Christopher Pincombe G 4
John Snowe G 3
Robert Hoyell G 6
John Pincombe G 4
Hugh Chapington G 3
John Haywodde G 3
William Rashley G 4
Thomas Jennynges G 3
Robert Gun G 3
Anthony Rashleighe G 3
Hugh Badcocke G 4
John Lock G 3
Thomas Brooke G 3
Maculin Bulkworthie G 3
John Pincombe Jun G 3
William Maye G 4
Gabriel Webber G 3
Thomas Griffin G 3
John Shapton G 3
John Takle L 1
Agnes Bonde Wid L 1
Grace Hunt Wid L 1
Anthony Clatworthie G 12
John Pincombe Sen G 12
John Pawle G 7
Roger Webber G 6
John Sherland G 8
Nicholas Chappie G 4
Thomas Harrys G 5
John Tamse G 3
William Huton Alien
Thomas Gun G 3
Tomorrow I will prove Martha Pearse as I now have enough information and then move on to the next couple of 4x great grandparents. This is going much slower than I thought that it would. I want to spend only my mornings on genealogy once I have got all this information entered for the 4x great grandparents and sew or do other needlework the other half of the day.
Took the two gift bags into Church this morning in a rush since we are really going to be busy and I did not wish to miss the deadline of December 7. When I arrived I suddenly realized I had forgotten to write on the tags that they were for a man medium and a woman medium. I had to buy a second bag and it was a little bit smaller so didn't know what they would want to do. I probably should give up trying to do some of these things as it makes for extra work for committee members. I find rushing since I injured my shoulder is always a bad idea. Yesterday was too full a day.
The other problem I was trying to solve is the marriage of my Philip Pearse (b 1703). There were two possibilities for the mother of my Martha Pearse. It is logical to choose Grace Hobbs because of the naming of the children and the age of the groom. Philip would have been only 20 years old at the first marriage and it would have been a second marriage for the other Philip. The name Philip was used three times until the last child survived. The burial of the first wife is, I think, in the burial register. It is difficult to read. I wonder if I can link the heads of families together into families but that will be a project for later when I get back further in time.
I know that Philip's father is John and that his mother was Martha Gwythers. The father of this John becomes the problem area - a patron entry on the IGI suggests that his father was Robert and that fits ideally into one of the family trees that I created. This would be John baptized 14 Apr 1660 at South Molton and the son of Robert Pearce from the Parish Register Transcription. This Robert was baptized Mar 1631 and his father was Robert baptized 25 Jun 1602 and the son of John Pearse (one of my founders in my chart). This is the largest family chart and the sons of the first John are: Robert, George, William, Thomas and Philip. The names George, William and Philip are used a great deal in my family lines later.
I extracted all the Pearse members from the South Molton Protestation Returns. I am able to fit all of them into family groupings except the four Johns.
Pearse Alexander
Pearse Christopher Sen
Pearse Christopher Jun
Pearse George
Pearse Henry
Pearse Humphrey
Pearse John Sen
Pearse John
Pearse John
Pearse John
Pearse Oliver
Pearse Philip
Pearse Philip
Pearse Simon
Pearse William
Marriages in the International Genealogical Index (IGI)
18 Oct 1628 Pearse Christofer Walron Mary
4 May 1720 Pearse Christopher Dunning Mary
22 Oct 1721 Pearse Christopher Tapscott Hannah
9 Sep 1658 Pearce Henry Shopland Emmott
29 Oct 1623 Pearse Hugh Sheerland Marye
10 Nov 1604 Pearce John Moore Peternell
15 Jan 1619 Pearce John Huctstable Agnes
1 Oct 1627 Pearse John Cannyforde Jane
15 Jan 1628 Pearse John Kinge Maude
19 Jun 1638 Pierce John Cole Rebecca
30 Jan 1670 Pearse John Woollocot Joane
9 May 1686 Pearce John Gwythers Martha
9 Feb 1723 Pearse Philip Parramore Joan
7 Apr 1728 Pearse Philip Hobbs Grace
27 Oct 1712 Pearse Phillip Turner Grace
14 Oct 1632 Pearse Robert Beere Christian
23 Aug 1681 Pearse Robert Jess Agnis
18 Sep 1639 Pearce Samuel Carpenter Agnes
20 Jan 1720 Pearse William Harries Joan
No Pearse entries in 1581 Tax Subsidy which is interesting.
Forename Surname Suffix Status Amount
Thomas Hacche ar L 10
William Horwood Gent L 10
Hugh Pollard Gent G 10
Dorothy Clotworthy Wid G 8
Christopher Squyre G 8
Thomas Rashleigh G 7
Joan Carpenter Wid G 5
William Amerye G 7
Robert Cotworthie G 7
John Herneman G 4
George Chaple G 4
Geffry Lawdye G 3
Thomas Allen G 4
Thomas Hobbes G 4
Roger Walshcotte G 3
William Cobleye G 3
William Chapell G 8
Richard Paynter G 3
Christopher Pincombe G 4
John Snowe G 3
Robert Hoyell G 6
John Pincombe G 4
Hugh Chapington G 3
John Haywodde G 3
William Rashley G 4
Thomas Jennynges G 3
Robert Gun G 3
Anthony Rashleighe G 3
Hugh Badcocke G 4
John Lock G 3
Thomas Brooke G 3
Maculin Bulkworthie G 3
John Pincombe Jun G 3
William Maye G 4
Gabriel Webber G 3
Thomas Griffin G 3
John Shapton G 3
John Takle L 1
Agnes Bonde Wid L 1
Grace Hunt Wid L 1
Anthony Clatworthie G 12
John Pincombe Sen G 12
John Pawle G 7
Roger Webber G 6
John Sherland G 8
Nicholas Chappie G 4
Thomas Harrys G 5
John Tamse G 3
William Huton Alien
Thomas Gun G 3
Tomorrow I will prove Martha Pearse as I now have enough information and then move on to the next couple of 4x great grandparents. This is going much slower than I thought that it would. I want to spend only my mornings on genealogy once I have got all this information entered for the 4x great grandparents and sew or do other needlework the other half of the day.
Took the two gift bags into Church this morning in a rush since we are really going to be busy and I did not wish to miss the deadline of December 7. When I arrived I suddenly realized I had forgotten to write on the tags that they were for a man medium and a woman medium. I had to buy a second bag and it was a little bit smaller so didn't know what they would want to do. I probably should give up trying to do some of these things as it makes for extra work for committee members. I find rushing since I injured my shoulder is always a bad idea. Yesterday was too full a day.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Proving 4x great grandparents
I spent yesterday proving two of my 4x great grandparents. I had so much information on John Pincombe that it took me ages to enter all of it in to his Legacy file. Not so much on his wife Mary Charley (Charlie). Unfortunately the priest at that time had women sign with their new married name so I have no idea on how Mary would have signed her surname. The Charley family was located at Arlington, Kentisbury near Barnstaple and Combe Martin in this time period. The Hugh Charley at Arlington (wife Mary) is the father of the Mary Charley baptized 21 Sep 1735 and this would be a reasonable age for Mary. I do not yet know the connection between this Hugh Charley and the Charley families at Kentisbury and Combe Martin but they are all less than 10 miles from Barnstaple (Arlington is 6 miles, Kentisbury is 8 miles and Combe Martin is 9 miles). They are all in a northeasterly direction from Barnstaple (Bishops Nympton is 14 miles from Bishops Nympton). I have not yet found a Charley family living closer but the priest records that Mary Charley is of the parish (perhaps she was living/staying with a relative). John was 39 when he married and Mary possibly 32 in 1767. They had six children though between 1768 and 1778.
I need to look through all the parish registers to see if I can discover any more information on Mary Charley. She has been my brick wall almost from the very beginning as my mother knew her name from her father. She was my grandfather's grandfather's grandmother. By the time my 2x great grandfather was born both Mary and John had died. His father Robert was 28 when he married and my 2x great grandfather John was 26 when he married. Then my grandfather was 41 when he married thus making quite long generations.
As it turns out all of my grandparents were born in the 1800s - 1872, 1875, 1876 and 1886. My great grandparents were born in 1837, 1839, 1845, 1850, 1850, 1853, 1859, and 1859. My 2x great grandparents were born in 1799, 1801, 1804, 1804, 1805, 1808, 1810, 1820, 1824, 1825, 1825, 1826, 1827, 1828, 1830, and 1841. My husband has a 2x great grandparent born in 1764. The bonus is that we are not looking for information that is still private as we know the birth/marriage and death dates of our parents.
I carried on with my proving of 4x great grandparents and started pulling out material on Philip Rowcliffe and Martha Pearse. I have quite a bit on Philip as well with land records but I do not have the marriage lines for Philip and Martha because my South Molton fiche do not do the period past 1754 and they married in 1760 so I will need to locate that record at Salt Lake City. I will complete them today and hopefully move on to John Rew, Sarah Moggridge, Robert Siderfin and Grace Kent. I was trying to do four per day!
This is the day that my daughter gets her first fitting on her wedding dress. The dress is quite lovely and will suit her. My own dress is now complete - I have added carriers for the black velvet ribbon and we will see if she likes the 3 metres or reduce to whatever she does like. I just need to hem it and add a couple of tabs to the neckline and a hook and eye. I am letting it hang though to let the natural folds of the fabric express themselves. I will need to stem out one fold line although it is barely visible now.
I want to sew my new nightdress as well in the next little while. If I am happy with it I will buy another piece of flanellette and do a second one. I am also going to buy a pattern for an 1800s dress of a Scot woman for my Routledge ancestry. I will represent that line when we go to functions that need a costume. I want to make a new costume for my husband as well since I made the other one when I was working and I was not overly pleased with it. I have more time to do a proper job of finishing it.
Back to proving ancestors. This is the slow methodical part as one works their way back in each line. I have no idea how far back I can get except in some of the lines that readily go back into the 1400s others are hopefully stuck in the mid 1700s or even one line (one of my great grandmothers and my mtDNA line!) that is family lore only from the mid 1800s back. My mtDNA matches are from Argyll Scotland though which is very interesting. Hence my interest in doing a dress of a Scot woman which would represent my Routledge ancestry and perhaps others to be found over time.
I need to look through all the parish registers to see if I can discover any more information on Mary Charley. She has been my brick wall almost from the very beginning as my mother knew her name from her father. She was my grandfather's grandfather's grandmother. By the time my 2x great grandfather was born both Mary and John had died. His father Robert was 28 when he married and my 2x great grandfather John was 26 when he married. Then my grandfather was 41 when he married thus making quite long generations.
As it turns out all of my grandparents were born in the 1800s - 1872, 1875, 1876 and 1886. My great grandparents were born in 1837, 1839, 1845, 1850, 1850, 1853, 1859, and 1859. My 2x great grandparents were born in 1799, 1801, 1804, 1804, 1805, 1808, 1810, 1820, 1824, 1825, 1825, 1826, 1827, 1828, 1830, and 1841. My husband has a 2x great grandparent born in 1764. The bonus is that we are not looking for information that is still private as we know the birth/marriage and death dates of our parents.
I carried on with my proving of 4x great grandparents and started pulling out material on Philip Rowcliffe and Martha Pearse. I have quite a bit on Philip as well with land records but I do not have the marriage lines for Philip and Martha because my South Molton fiche do not do the period past 1754 and they married in 1760 so I will need to locate that record at Salt Lake City. I will complete them today and hopefully move on to John Rew, Sarah Moggridge, Robert Siderfin and Grace Kent. I was trying to do four per day!
This is the day that my daughter gets her first fitting on her wedding dress. The dress is quite lovely and will suit her. My own dress is now complete - I have added carriers for the black velvet ribbon and we will see if she likes the 3 metres or reduce to whatever she does like. I just need to hem it and add a couple of tabs to the neckline and a hook and eye. I am letting it hang though to let the natural folds of the fabric express themselves. I will need to stem out one fold line although it is barely visible now.
I want to sew my new nightdress as well in the next little while. If I am happy with it I will buy another piece of flanellette and do a second one. I am also going to buy a pattern for an 1800s dress of a Scot woman for my Routledge ancestry. I will represent that line when we go to functions that need a costume. I want to make a new costume for my husband as well since I made the other one when I was working and I was not overly pleased with it. I have more time to do a proper job of finishing it.
Back to proving ancestors. This is the slow methodical part as one works their way back in each line. I have no idea how far back I can get except in some of the lines that readily go back into the 1400s others are hopefully stuck in the mid 1700s or even one line (one of my great grandmothers and my mtDNA line!) that is family lore only from the mid 1800s back. My mtDNA matches are from Argyll Scotland though which is very interesting. Hence my interest in doing a dress of a Scot woman which would represent my Routledge ancestry and perhaps others to be found over time.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Remembrance Day and Presentation
We attended the Remembrance Day Service at the Cenotaph in downtown Ottawa. This year TRH Prince Charles and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall were here to remember with us. I haven't seen the streets so full at a Remembrance Day in my 35 years in Ottawa. They should be pleased and for him it was likely quite poignant as his Grandfather King George VI and Grandmother Queen Elizabeth were the last Royals to attend a Remembrance Day Service here. In 1939 they made their first Canadian tour and were here for the dedication of the War Memorial (with war looming over us once again in Europe). The monument had been ten years in building and tenders were first called in 1925. Later WWII and the Korean War were added to the Monument.
I spent the rest of the day putting together my daughter's childhood pictures into a powerpoint presentation for their wedding. I have just 80 pictures of it and there will be more that they have scanned in.
Today I fixed red eye on some of the pictures and reset them into powerpoint. Then we were off doing errands and I bought flannel to make a nightdress for myself. Now that I am back to sewing I rather think I will keep it up. It gets me away from the computer screen for awhile and is probably good for me. Plus I have a brand new sewing machine (actually five years old) that I have scarcely used. I bought it when I was still working with the idea that I would have it for later and this is definitely later. It has a stretch stitch and can be set (is computerized) for specific patterns.
I also want to knit a sweater for Hogan (a 15 year old chihuahua) for the winter that will cover his hip area as he is getting to be a little arthritic for Christmas. We also bought some of the items for our Christmas bags at Church for Centre 454. We are not doing Samaritan boxes this year but then I have always felt we should support those at home as well as those in the poorer countries.
For genealogy work I will be doing some proofing of my 4x great grandparents. I want to do all the ones for whom I have the proofs at hand and then I can work on the ones that I need to transcribe items or do lookups in my purchased fiche. Of my 64 4x great grandparents I have the information for 55 although for some it is quite sparse. For 8 I have absolutely nothing and for 1 I have a forename. For 46 of the 55 I have all the information that I need to prove them and I have now completed the proofs in Legacy for 4. I would say my aim should be to complete the 42 by the end of next week if I can manage that. That gives me eight days with just five per day. I think I need to schedule myself as I tend to drift away onto other projects. That just leaves me nine to pull the information out from images and other sources that I have for them. The other nine people I will have to see if anything emerges as I am looking for the other eight but they will be on my to do list for Salt Lake City (and I will buy parish fiche for some of them in the new year).
Then I will turn to the 5x great grandparents and I have information already on 60 of the 128 that will let me prove each of them. For another 10 I have information that I need to ferret out that I already know about. Possibly for another 20 I own the information but do not have the previous generation to show me the way - working on the 4x people will help with that. That leaves me with 38 people for whom I will do research in Salt Lake City and fortunately they follow on from the group above about whom I do not have a lot of information. This time will be a strictly find the family material as opposed to discover more about the areas that was my criteria for the last visit
Definitely the Buller family, Knight family, the Farmer family and the Cheatle family will be on that list along with several others. If I give each one of them half of a day then I would be able to do 12 families in our time there. Since families overlap in areas this may actually be 24 families depending on the generation. I would like to complete the 5x great grandparents and come back with material on the 6x great grandparents. The problem with being able to trace all of your lines is ever with me but which one would I choose not to discover. Tempting to leave out my paternal grandmother's paternal line since she was illegitimate but her father was reputed to be Cotterill by the priest and only one Cotterill family in that area since the father of the possible father had only one sister and his father was from Woodford Wiltshire which was a good distance from Kimpton Hampshire. I decided to research it as long as it was reasonable straightforward but that I would not purchase documents to any great extent. What I find I will use and otherwise it will cease probably around the 6x great grandparents. I am back to the 4x and in some cases 5x great grandparents already as most of the lines were at Kimpton from the early 1700s on thus far. I need to purchase the fiche for further back.
I spent the rest of the day putting together my daughter's childhood pictures into a powerpoint presentation for their wedding. I have just 80 pictures of it and there will be more that they have scanned in.
Today I fixed red eye on some of the pictures and reset them into powerpoint. Then we were off doing errands and I bought flannel to make a nightdress for myself. Now that I am back to sewing I rather think I will keep it up. It gets me away from the computer screen for awhile and is probably good for me. Plus I have a brand new sewing machine (actually five years old) that I have scarcely used. I bought it when I was still working with the idea that I would have it for later and this is definitely later. It has a stretch stitch and can be set (is computerized) for specific patterns.
I also want to knit a sweater for Hogan (a 15 year old chihuahua) for the winter that will cover his hip area as he is getting to be a little arthritic for Christmas. We also bought some of the items for our Christmas bags at Church for Centre 454. We are not doing Samaritan boxes this year but then I have always felt we should support those at home as well as those in the poorer countries.
For genealogy work I will be doing some proofing of my 4x great grandparents. I want to do all the ones for whom I have the proofs at hand and then I can work on the ones that I need to transcribe items or do lookups in my purchased fiche. Of my 64 4x great grandparents I have the information for 55 although for some it is quite sparse. For 8 I have absolutely nothing and for 1 I have a forename. For 46 of the 55 I have all the information that I need to prove them and I have now completed the proofs in Legacy for 4. I would say my aim should be to complete the 42 by the end of next week if I can manage that. That gives me eight days with just five per day. I think I need to schedule myself as I tend to drift away onto other projects. That just leaves me nine to pull the information out from images and other sources that I have for them. The other nine people I will have to see if anything emerges as I am looking for the other eight but they will be on my to do list for Salt Lake City (and I will buy parish fiche for some of them in the new year).
Then I will turn to the 5x great grandparents and I have information already on 60 of the 128 that will let me prove each of them. For another 10 I have information that I need to ferret out that I already know about. Possibly for another 20 I own the information but do not have the previous generation to show me the way - working on the 4x people will help with that. That leaves me with 38 people for whom I will do research in Salt Lake City and fortunately they follow on from the group above about whom I do not have a lot of information. This time will be a strictly find the family material as opposed to discover more about the areas that was my criteria for the last visit
Definitely the Buller family, Knight family, the Farmer family and the Cheatle family will be on that list along with several others. If I give each one of them half of a day then I would be able to do 12 families in our time there. Since families overlap in areas this may actually be 24 families depending on the generation. I would like to complete the 5x great grandparents and come back with material on the 6x great grandparents. The problem with being able to trace all of your lines is ever with me but which one would I choose not to discover. Tempting to leave out my paternal grandmother's paternal line since she was illegitimate but her father was reputed to be Cotterill by the priest and only one Cotterill family in that area since the father of the possible father had only one sister and his father was from Woodford Wiltshire which was a good distance from Kimpton Hampshire. I decided to research it as long as it was reasonable straightforward but that I would not purchase documents to any great extent. What I find I will use and otherwise it will cease probably around the 6x great grandparents. I am back to the 4x and in some cases 5x great grandparents already as most of the lines were at Kimpton from the early 1700s on thus far. I need to purchase the fiche for further back.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
West Hampshire Tax Subsidy
I decided to turn the 30+ pages of text images into a flat file for use in my West Hampshire families (that spill back and forth across the Wiltshire and Berkshire borders). Although my great grandfather was an agricultural labourer his ancestors were farmers on his paternal line. They lived in the Andover area at least from the late 1400s on. I managed to get through about 1/3 of the entries yesterday yielding me just over 600 entries. I have fields for the Division, Hundred, Tithing, Parish, Year of Subsidy, Forename, Surname, Suffix (or additional information), Category of Land Occupancy, Value of Subsidy, and Image number. I think that captures everything that is available to capture but there is still lots more room to add items if I change my mind!
I have completed Andover Hundred where most of my families were but the Blake family was large in the early 1500s and they quickly radiated out from this area into other sections of Hampshire. Eventually many settled in the Southampton area (my father was also born in this area) and the Blake lines coming directly down from Calne Wiltshire also gravitated to this area through the New Forest thus creating a lot of Blake lines and loss of knowledge of how they fitted into this family grouping. I can not say personally if my Blake line is descendant of the Calne Blake family although published literature indicates that they are. I am still with the father of my Nicholas Blake who was born at Andover in the late 1400s and married to Jone who left a will in 1527 which names all of their children but does not give the name of her husband which was thought to be William. But if it is he didn't leave a will which exists in the Hampshire Record Office. There are wills for a Robert and a Richard which I must purchase.
I completed the West Hampshire Tax Subsidy chart today from the material that I copied at Salt Lake City. It will let me sort on all the entries by surname, by area and help me to understand the movements of the various families in this time period 1571 - 1598.
Back to the proving of the 4x great grandparents. I have about 1000 images of the 2500 images left to look at, enter into pertinent spots in my Legacy file or transcribe. One set will take quite a while - the Manor Books for Upper Clatford and they are all in Latin. What do I hope to learn with all this reading of Manor Books/Poor Law Rates/Subsidies? Not so much what they owned but rather are there any interesting stories that come out of the records that would let me really feel close to my ancestors.
I once had someone ask me if I was looking for "a lost inheritance" but actually that doesn't interest me. I just would like to know as much about my ancestors as it is physically possible for me to know about them. Until I went to Italy and England in 2001 I really thought I knew all that I would ever know about my ancestors and there wasn't a driving urge to know more. But walking in places where they may have walked or did actually walk has an effect on you that you cannot just walk away from.
In a different century my Bishops Nympton ancestors walked up the same walk towards the parish Church that I walked. The trees (now chopped down perhaps because they were just too large) would have been there in their days and if they could whisper to me they could tell me about Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth Rowcliffe as they walked down this path on their wedding day after they were married. They could tell me about the baptisms of each of their eight children. They could tell me about the sadness as they buried William at 15 years of age. The sadness of Robert as he buried his wife just two years later and then Robert himself just two years after that. They could tell me about the weddings of their children, my 2x great grandparents were married at Bishops Nympton and Elizabeth Rew's cousin came all the way from Higher Upcott Farm near Wootton Courtney Somerset to be one of the witnesses.
Trees are amazing on our planet as they are here before we are and they will be here after we are gone. But back to work and entering all the proofs into my Legacy file for those who will come after me so that they can know as much as I know about my ancestors.
Tomorrow I shall continue working on my proofs for my 4x great grandparents.
I have completed Andover Hundred where most of my families were but the Blake family was large in the early 1500s and they quickly radiated out from this area into other sections of Hampshire. Eventually many settled in the Southampton area (my father was also born in this area) and the Blake lines coming directly down from Calne Wiltshire also gravitated to this area through the New Forest thus creating a lot of Blake lines and loss of knowledge of how they fitted into this family grouping. I can not say personally if my Blake line is descendant of the Calne Blake family although published literature indicates that they are. I am still with the father of my Nicholas Blake who was born at Andover in the late 1400s and married to Jone who left a will in 1527 which names all of their children but does not give the name of her husband which was thought to be William. But if it is he didn't leave a will which exists in the Hampshire Record Office. There are wills for a Robert and a Richard which I must purchase.
I completed the West Hampshire Tax Subsidy chart today from the material that I copied at Salt Lake City. It will let me sort on all the entries by surname, by area and help me to understand the movements of the various families in this time period 1571 - 1598.
Back to the proving of the 4x great grandparents. I have about 1000 images of the 2500 images left to look at, enter into pertinent spots in my Legacy file or transcribe. One set will take quite a while - the Manor Books for Upper Clatford and they are all in Latin. What do I hope to learn with all this reading of Manor Books/Poor Law Rates/Subsidies? Not so much what they owned but rather are there any interesting stories that come out of the records that would let me really feel close to my ancestors.
I once had someone ask me if I was looking for "a lost inheritance" but actually that doesn't interest me. I just would like to know as much about my ancestors as it is physically possible for me to know about them. Until I went to Italy and England in 2001 I really thought I knew all that I would ever know about my ancestors and there wasn't a driving urge to know more. But walking in places where they may have walked or did actually walk has an effect on you that you cannot just walk away from.
In a different century my Bishops Nympton ancestors walked up the same walk towards the parish Church that I walked. The trees (now chopped down perhaps because they were just too large) would have been there in their days and if they could whisper to me they could tell me about Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth Rowcliffe as they walked down this path on their wedding day after they were married. They could tell me about the baptisms of each of their eight children. They could tell me about the sadness as they buried William at 15 years of age. The sadness of Robert as he buried his wife just two years later and then Robert himself just two years after that. They could tell me about the weddings of their children, my 2x great grandparents were married at Bishops Nympton and Elizabeth Rew's cousin came all the way from Higher Upcott Farm near Wootton Courtney Somerset to be one of the witnesses.
Trees are amazing on our planet as they are here before we are and they will be here after we are gone. But back to work and entering all the proofs into my Legacy file for those who will come after me so that they can know as much as I know about my ancestors.
Tomorrow I shall continue working on my proofs for my 4x great grandparents.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Proving 4x great grandparents
I am now back to the project that I want to complete before we have our trip to Salt Lake City. I discovered I have proven Joseph Blake, Joanna King, John Coleman and I was working on Elizabeth Pearce. I discovered that Elizabeth (Pearce) Coleman had remarried in 1781 (her husband was buried in 1780 at Upper Clatford. I suspect that they lived with Dinah (Bever) Coleman and that they were involved in running an Inn although I still have to ferret out those details. The Coleman family had an Inn at Goodworth Clatford in the late 1600s and on into the 1700s but I am not sure how long they were there yet. Still working on those details! Elizabeth married John Head in 1781 at Upper Clatford. The marriage registration lists her as a widow and I finally have now found her burial registration in 1823 at Upper Clatford and she was 85 years old. This works well back to the Elizabeth Pearce baptized at Collingbourne Ducis in 1737. This is one record that I need to look at when we are in Salt Lake City. I did do some photography of this register but I was looking for Farmer entries. Elizabeth Pearce's grandmother was likely Anne Farmer and so the story may start to come together for the Farmer family which married into the Lambden family and then into the Blake family. I was trying to place Isaac Farmer in Andover but the only really good match is at Collingbourne Ducis. I completed my proof for Elizabeth Pearce but with the stipulation that I need to verify the details on her baptism and her parentage which would appear to be William Pearce and Elizabeth Hapgood. Elizabeth is from Collingbourne Ducis and the daughter of Thomas Hapgood and Anne Farmer. If I can indeed prove this line then the linkage with the Farmer family is very intriguing. Isaac Farmer was orphaned by the time he was 7 years old but he signs his marriage registration with a firm hand and well rounded letters leading one to suspect that he was educated. I related earlier my suspicions on the Farmer family so will not expand on that thought at this moment in time.
I then moved on to my Knight 4x great grandparents. This has been something I have wanted to work on for awhile. I did not do any Knight research at Salt Lake City and will do that the next time. I have a lot of information from other researchers who link this family back to the Knight family at Shaftesbury and then Cann before that. I am still sitting at William Knight (burial at Winterborne Stickland is a W Knight in 1827 and the individual is 67 years old which would work well with the records that I have for him. There are not a large number of Knight families at Stickland and I more or less know each one there. The baptism that I am looking for is at Spetisbury. At Spetisbury in 1787 we have three Knight members listed on the Militia list - William Knight bricklayer, John Knight bricklayer, John Knight, servant bricklayer (apprentice perhaps). Possibly this is John Knight son of William Knight. Eleanor though the wife of Ellis (son of William above) is the daughter of John Knight who is a bricklayer. Are they first cousins? Family lore says that they are first cousins. William Knight and Mary Dashwood at Shaftesbury (and the Knight family is not there after the 1860s when they are found at Spetisbury) had sons William, Samuel, George, John, and Thomas. Ideally I would be looking for this William to have sons William and John and indeed they do. But is this John the father of Eleanor who married Ellis the son of William. That I am still not sure about. The difference in their station continues to plague me - John was a bricklayer and William was an agricultural labourer. I need some interesting entry that relates them so that I can actually say that they are both the sons of William Knight the bricklayer. I have started entering my proofs for them. This is my grandfather Samuel Blake's line back (his 2x great grandparents). I have thus far proven four of the sixteen. I have evidence to complete John Butt, Jane Durnford, William Arnold and Elizabeth Malton. That brings me half way. I need to add to my Knight data which is four more (two Knight and one each Ellis and Vincent). The Farmer line I do have information on the likely father of Isaac and his name was John. I have no idea of his mother's name at the moment. The Lambden line I have information on Nathanael but I am not sure that the Nathanael baptized at Bradfield Berkshire is him and need to look at the other Nathaniel baptized in this time period in Berkshire. He was not baptized at St Mary Bourne. The wife of Nathanael Lambden is thus far unknown beyond the forename of Sarah and her burial in 1797 at Andover Hampshire.
Today I am having my eyes tested and more on that later. I have been meaning to upgrade my glasses for awhile but at $200 a lens I need to contemplate it for awhile! I think they need to be a little stronger perhaps in the reading portion. Although I am reading this quite well at 18 inches from the computer. We will see!
I shall dedicate another day to my grandfather's 2x great grandparents as that should permit me to add all the proofs and images to my Legacy file. Then I shall move on to my grandmother Blake's families. I will prove her "natural" parent line Cotterill (I am missing one of her 2x great grandmothers) but I want to find the grandparents of her adopted father William Taylor and perhaps beyond if I am lucky. The researcher who is doing this line has not gone beyond what I have done thus far. Perhaps she will later and she lives in England so has easier access to the registers. For her mother's line I will be able to prove those eight lines as I have collected all the evidence.
For my maternal grandfather I have the proofs for all sixteen of his 2x great grandparents. I collected all of that information (which I didn't have already) when we were at Salt Lake City last time. For my maternal grandmother I still have the problem of using family lore to connect my Ellen Taylor (her mother) back to her parents. If that connection is true then I have the proofs for five out of eight. On my grandmother's father's side I have the proofs for four out of eight. I need to work on the Cheatle lineat the 4x great grandparents but I have the fiche for that. For my Christopher Buller's parents I do not have even an inkling at this point in time. Another line to research at Salt Lake City.
That means I will work on the Pearce family at Abbotts Ann/Collingbourne Kingston, Collingbourne Ducis to find William Pearce my 5x great grandfather and his line. I will work on the Knight family to sort them out. I will work on the Farmer family at Collingbourne Ducis - I have some information on them already that I need to sort. I will work on the Lambden family in Berkshire. I will look at my paternal Grandmother's natural parentage at the 5x great grandparent level. I will seek out the family of William Taylor (her adopted father). I want to do more work on the Charley family at Kentisbear Devon. I have a few 5x great grandparents in my mother's that are known and I need to check the registers for their parents information.
I shall soon start to build my excel file for Salt Lake City. I have one created that includes the itens that I set aside last time and I will add more items to it. I know that I can look at about 40 to 50 films if I control my day very well. I am more experienced with the camera which will help and I will repeat the few pictures that are blurry and I really want to have a good copy. Quite often the ones that were blurry were not a problem for me.
I spent most of the afternoon working on the West Hampshire Tax Subsidy as I had copied about 30 pages when we were at Salt Lake city. I am producing an excel file that I can sort by surname, forename, year or place. I have a number of Hampshire ancestors who are listed in this set of records. Since I did not have eye drops I could spend the rest of the day working - a real surprise.
My new glasses will be ready in a couple of weeks and will be a change. They are not big round lenses this time but rather more of an oblong shape. I tried them out for a bit and quite liked them.
Tomorrow I will continue with the Tax Subsidy for West Hampshire.
I then moved on to my Knight 4x great grandparents. This has been something I have wanted to work on for awhile. I did not do any Knight research at Salt Lake City and will do that the next time. I have a lot of information from other researchers who link this family back to the Knight family at Shaftesbury and then Cann before that. I am still sitting at William Knight (burial at Winterborne Stickland is a W Knight in 1827 and the individual is 67 years old which would work well with the records that I have for him. There are not a large number of Knight families at Stickland and I more or less know each one there. The baptism that I am looking for is at Spetisbury. At Spetisbury in 1787 we have three Knight members listed on the Militia list - William Knight bricklayer, John Knight bricklayer, John Knight, servant bricklayer (apprentice perhaps). Possibly this is John Knight son of William Knight. Eleanor though the wife of Ellis (son of William above) is the daughter of John Knight who is a bricklayer. Are they first cousins? Family lore says that they are first cousins. William Knight and Mary Dashwood at Shaftesbury (and the Knight family is not there after the 1860s when they are found at Spetisbury) had sons William, Samuel, George, John, and Thomas. Ideally I would be looking for this William to have sons William and John and indeed they do. But is this John the father of Eleanor who married Ellis the son of William. That I am still not sure about. The difference in their station continues to plague me - John was a bricklayer and William was an agricultural labourer. I need some interesting entry that relates them so that I can actually say that they are both the sons of William Knight the bricklayer. I have started entering my proofs for them. This is my grandfather Samuel Blake's line back (his 2x great grandparents). I have thus far proven four of the sixteen. I have evidence to complete John Butt, Jane Durnford, William Arnold and Elizabeth Malton. That brings me half way. I need to add to my Knight data which is four more (two Knight and one each Ellis and Vincent). The Farmer line I do have information on the likely father of Isaac and his name was John. I have no idea of his mother's name at the moment. The Lambden line I have information on Nathanael but I am not sure that the Nathanael baptized at Bradfield Berkshire is him and need to look at the other Nathaniel baptized in this time period in Berkshire. He was not baptized at St Mary Bourne. The wife of Nathanael Lambden is thus far unknown beyond the forename of Sarah and her burial in 1797 at Andover Hampshire.
Today I am having my eyes tested and more on that later. I have been meaning to upgrade my glasses for awhile but at $200 a lens I need to contemplate it for awhile! I think they need to be a little stronger perhaps in the reading portion. Although I am reading this quite well at 18 inches from the computer. We will see!
I shall dedicate another day to my grandfather's 2x great grandparents as that should permit me to add all the proofs and images to my Legacy file. Then I shall move on to my grandmother Blake's families. I will prove her "natural" parent line Cotterill (I am missing one of her 2x great grandmothers) but I want to find the grandparents of her adopted father William Taylor and perhaps beyond if I am lucky. The researcher who is doing this line has not gone beyond what I have done thus far. Perhaps she will later and she lives in England so has easier access to the registers. For her mother's line I will be able to prove those eight lines as I have collected all the evidence.
For my maternal grandfather I have the proofs for all sixteen of his 2x great grandparents. I collected all of that information (which I didn't have already) when we were at Salt Lake City last time. For my maternal grandmother I still have the problem of using family lore to connect my Ellen Taylor (her mother) back to her parents. If that connection is true then I have the proofs for five out of eight. On my grandmother's father's side I have the proofs for four out of eight. I need to work on the Cheatle lineat the 4x great grandparents but I have the fiche for that. For my Christopher Buller's parents I do not have even an inkling at this point in time. Another line to research at Salt Lake City.
That means I will work on the Pearce family at Abbotts Ann/Collingbourne Kingston, Collingbourne Ducis to find William Pearce my 5x great grandfather and his line. I will work on the Knight family to sort them out. I will work on the Farmer family at Collingbourne Ducis - I have some information on them already that I need to sort. I will work on the Lambden family in Berkshire. I will look at my paternal Grandmother's natural parentage at the 5x great grandparent level. I will seek out the family of William Taylor (her adopted father). I want to do more work on the Charley family at Kentisbear Devon. I have a few 5x great grandparents in my mother's that are known and I need to check the registers for their parents information.
I shall soon start to build my excel file for Salt Lake City. I have one created that includes the itens that I set aside last time and I will add more items to it. I know that I can look at about 40 to 50 films if I control my day very well. I am more experienced with the camera which will help and I will repeat the few pictures that are blurry and I really want to have a good copy. Quite often the ones that were blurry were not a problem for me.
I spent most of the afternoon working on the West Hampshire Tax Subsidy as I had copied about 30 pages when we were at Salt Lake city. I am producing an excel file that I can sort by surname, forename, year or place. I have a number of Hampshire ancestors who are listed in this set of records. Since I did not have eye drops I could spend the rest of the day working - a real surprise.
My new glasses will be ready in a couple of weeks and will be a change. They are not big round lenses this time but rather more of an oblong shape. I tried them out for a bit and quite liked them.
Tomorrow I will continue with the Tax Subsidy for West Hampshire.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
New York State Library Research
I spent several hours this morning entering all the new images into my 2009 excel file to make it easier to find items. I want to work on some of the material but sent the file off to my husband as well because they are his ancestors. Because we have tried the "frontal" approach on his Kipp and Mead ancestors unsuccessfully it is time to start moving away from that concept and work on the families in the area and related families by searching genealogies. This was a suggestion by Henry Hoff who was one of the consultants at the Albany Conference. Although Ed has been accumulating all information that he finds on the Kip family actually bringing down the contemporary families isn't something that he was necessarily working at unless they were related (i.e. siblings).
I found that Sarah Guernsey has several possible sets of parents on World Connect. I also found a will at Albany for a Peter Garnsey where he mentions the heirs of Jonathan Mead (1812). This could be Jonathan Mead married to Sarah Guernsey and these heirs would be Jehiel (died of wounds in the Revolution)'s descendants, Jonathan (the Cooper III) and to the best of our knowledge Jonathan Kipp is living with him at this date as he doesn't arrive in Canada until 1819 or 1820 - his descendants, Nathaniel Mead (married 1 Hannah Lamb and 2 Martha Quimby)'s descendants and Nathaniel is still living in 1812, and Hannah married to Stephen Atwater and she is still alive (died in 1835) and Titus who died from wounds in the revolution in 1785 (he left no known descendants). Ordering his will could be very interesting as it may provide more details on Jonathan. Jonathan Mead and Sarah Guernsey were still alive on the 1790 census and likely living with Nathaniel their son at Northeast Town. That was one rather interesting find but a search of the Gurnsey, Garnsey family books did not reveal any further information.
I shall construct a couple of *.pdf documents of information that I gleaned from a couple of journals to make it more readable. They should help with looking at the 18th century Dutchess County documents in order to determine if we should order a copy as they are all held on microfilm at Salt Lake City.
I did some searching online and found that the ancestors of Ruth Hardey have been a popular post to World Connect. Whether they have all taken from each other or several have arrived at the names individually is difficult to tell. A couple have sources so will check those out next time we are at a repository that includes the information mentioned. Ruth Hardey's mother is said to be Ann Husted. Her brother Angell Husted married Mary Mead according to our Mead Research Group. No parentage for Mary Mead though but she had to have been born in the 1620s.
Tomorrow I will continue looking at the Mead material and type some of it up to send to the research group. I also need to make a plan for completing my study of all the material that I brought back from Salt Lake City. It is now one year since we were there. The opportunity to go again next year has arisen and I want to be ready.
I found that Sarah Guernsey has several possible sets of parents on World Connect. I also found a will at Albany for a Peter Garnsey where he mentions the heirs of Jonathan Mead (1812). This could be Jonathan Mead married to Sarah Guernsey and these heirs would be Jehiel (died of wounds in the Revolution)'s descendants, Jonathan (the Cooper III) and to the best of our knowledge Jonathan Kipp is living with him at this date as he doesn't arrive in Canada until 1819 or 1820 - his descendants, Nathaniel Mead (married 1 Hannah Lamb and 2 Martha Quimby)'s descendants and Nathaniel is still living in 1812, and Hannah married to Stephen Atwater and she is still alive (died in 1835) and Titus who died from wounds in the revolution in 1785 (he left no known descendants). Ordering his will could be very interesting as it may provide more details on Jonathan. Jonathan Mead and Sarah Guernsey were still alive on the 1790 census and likely living with Nathaniel their son at Northeast Town. That was one rather interesting find but a search of the Gurnsey, Garnsey family books did not reveal any further information.
I shall construct a couple of *.pdf documents of information that I gleaned from a couple of journals to make it more readable. They should help with looking at the 18th century Dutchess County documents in order to determine if we should order a copy as they are all held on microfilm at Salt Lake City.
I did some searching online and found that the ancestors of Ruth Hardey have been a popular post to World Connect. Whether they have all taken from each other or several have arrived at the names individually is difficult to tell. A couple have sources so will check those out next time we are at a repository that includes the information mentioned. Ruth Hardey's mother is said to be Ann Husted. Her brother Angell Husted married Mary Mead according to our Mead Research Group. No parentage for Mary Mead though but she had to have been born in the 1620s.
Tomorrow I will continue looking at the Mead material and type some of it up to send to the research group. I also need to make a plan for completing my study of all the material that I brought back from Salt Lake City. It is now one year since we were there. The opportunity to go again next year has arisen and I want to be ready.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Research at Albany
I have meant to post all week but the days flew by as we were researching at Albany New York. We were on a conference with the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society working at the New York State Library and Archives. This was totally my husband's families since I do not have any American ancestry although two of my grandmother's sisters married American citizens and their children are all American. They are in the American Air Force (at least until they retired) and their descendants have continued the tradition of US Air Force. I haven't seen any of them since the mid 1970s. Nor have I corresponded with them. I should really and perhaps they will become interested in our mutual genealogy and write to me.
I wanted to review the Renssylaerwyck Manor Papers for the time period from 1790 to early 1800. I had looked at the East Manor portion about 5 years ago and noted the members of the Mead family that were there but hadn't done the West Manor portion where Rennslaerville is located. I did that this time and found a number of Mead leases but no lease for Isaac Kipp. This is actually good news because Isaac and his family were on the 1800 census at Rensslaerville in the Manor (West portion) and on the 1790 census at Northeast Town, Dutchess County. We did not have a clear picture of when he and his family made the move from Northeast Town to Blenheim Township where he is known to have arrived in October 1800. Not finding him at the Manor was a bonus. They had five small children but no baptisms for them yet. We have a marriage date and birth dates for Isaac and his wife but no definite location. Eventually we may be able to unravel this family.
Tomorrow I am going to start a length of lace for my new dress. I think I will like that better around the empire waistline.
I wanted to review the Renssylaerwyck Manor Papers for the time period from 1790 to early 1800. I had looked at the East Manor portion about 5 years ago and noted the members of the Mead family that were there but hadn't done the West Manor portion where Rennslaerville is located. I did that this time and found a number of Mead leases but no lease for Isaac Kipp. This is actually good news because Isaac and his family were on the 1800 census at Rensslaerville in the Manor (West portion) and on the 1790 census at Northeast Town, Dutchess County. We did not have a clear picture of when he and his family made the move from Northeast Town to Blenheim Township where he is known to have arrived in October 1800. Not finding him at the Manor was a bonus. They had five small children but no baptisms for them yet. We have a marriage date and birth dates for Isaac and his wife but no definite location. Eventually we may be able to unravel this family.
Tomorrow I am going to start a length of lace for my new dress. I think I will like that better around the empire waistline.
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