Cold Virus continuing - evening 31 March 2009

This was an exceptionally strong cold virus but I continue to improve. Today we looked after the dogs again which kept us busy most of the afternoon. They were inside mostly because it is just too wet and muddy in the garden. We took them for a long walk (good for my cough I suspect) and then they snoozed for about an hour.

I did manage to complete Bishops Nympton census for 1901 and pull out what I could of the 1911. I am still missing 400 people but now that I have them all together in one file (I called it story-line as it will be part of the basis of my family story lines for Bishops Nympton)I can have another look at the 1911 census as I work my way through each family. The Pincombe family disappeared after the 1870s and then returned in the 1930s. The Pincombe family that returned are not closely related to me. My excel file has nearly 8500 entries from 1841 to 1911 so will provide a good deal of information for the study. Plus I have the extracted land records from 1780 to the mid 1830s to go with this information and also the freeholder books which I helped to transcribe and they take me back to the early 1700s. Along with the Parish Registers and if I can find the Poor Law information (I think it may have been destroyed), I should have lots of information for my story. There is also Eric Tull's book on BishopsNympton which is quite interesting and I will quote from it as I look at the families in real time. I also have the tax records which span the time from the early 1500s to the late 1600s and also the Protestation Returns of 1641-42 and the St Pauls Brief of 1678 which I transcribed for Genuki.

I now need to move on to other projects but keep this one moving on the back burner. I expect I will do my writing up next winter.

Cold Virus continuing - 31 March 2009

I still have my cold virus but it appears to definitely be improving. Yesterday I completed RD 3 for 1901 Bishops Nympton Census. I am still missing 410 names for the 1911 census but perhaps as I work my way through RD4 and RD5 for Bishops Nympton I will be able to locate more people in my broadcast searching of the 1911 census. I do not expect to find all of them because people are moving about more now than earlier and new names are appearing in each census and missing from the following - simply not predictable. I also sent a note off to the Library to correct the census for Bishops Nympton in 1881 and 1891 on their webpage. I think perhaps only one RD was done for those two years. They wrote back to thank me and say that they will correct the numbers.

As I work my way through my summary now (1841-1891) I am wondering how much information I can acquire about these many families at Bishops Nympton. Should I attempt to write them up or would it be meaningless since I do not know them. Well I do know a very few of them because they are my ancestors and their blood relatives but I lack that knowledge that makes them really come alive. Just being able to write about them being in the census, knowing the dates of birth, marriage and death of their children is interesting and productive for family research. From the Census I can tell where they lived every ten years. I can reconstruct the parish showing the location of all the farms but can I reconstruct the Village. Possibly I can acquire maps of the village and that might be a good next step. I have the details back into the 1700s on the village with respect to ownership/lease of properties. I find it fascinating that Robert Pincombe farmed Park, Eastwood and Westwood which ended up being three separate farms after he and his brothers were no longer alive. Mind you he had eight children and my ancestor John was 19 when his father died so likely already on the land working for him. There is a gap between 1827 and 1834 when I do not know precisely where John was. I need to finish my transcription of the land records for Bishops Nympton which is perhaps where I should head once again. It is some months now since I did my transcription of the records that I photographed at Salt Lake City.

Today I shall continue with the census of 1901 and extracting what I can of 1911 for Bishops Nympton. I should investigate the Devon Record Office to see what type of maps I might be able to purchase. I should like to begin writing up Bishops Nympton and perhaps I can find someone to look at my writeup. I shall have to think about that. It would be quite fascinating to produce something useful given that I have heard of Bishops Nympton since I was a young child. But all of that knowledge was third hand from my mother who had it from her father - neither of whom had ever been to Bishops Nympton. William Robert (my great grandfather) was only 14 when they came to Canada in 1851 and he lived at Molland. I wonder if they traveled back and forth to Bishops Nympton? His uncle Thomas Rew was at Sheepwash which wasn't far from Gatcombe (farm at Molland). Certainly they did travel as I found Elizabeth (mother of William Robert) Rew Pincombe with her eldest son John at Upper Hopcott Farm in Wootton Courtney Somerset in 1841.

Woke up early coughing a little but it is so much better with regard to sleeping. Back to sleep for a couple of hours and perhaps in my dreams I will recall incidences that help me with my research. I am blessed with this recall memory and it can also be a punishment as I recall unpleasantness as well as happy times.

Cold Virus continues

I am feeling somewhat better and really glad that Bryan took over my lecture yesterday. If I had tried to talk even for just 30 minutes I would be quite ill today as I still have the chills of the virus in the evening.

I did however manage to complete the 1891 census for Bishops Nympton and started the 1901 census. I am about half way through the first enumeration district. By 1901 there are less than 1000 people living at Bishops Nympton and the population continues to fall until the 1970s when it starts to increase again although not yet over 1000. Bishops Nympton is a very pleasant village situated just south of the main highway. You can approach it from the west coming along an older road from South Molton or stay on the main road and come in off the highway. We came in the back way (along West Street), drove to the Church and spent about half of an hour in the graveyard and then proceeded through the village and turned back towards the highway. The streets are fairly narrow but very little traffic. The Churchyard was immaculate and the Church very neat and tidy looking. Finding my 3x great grandparents gravestone attached to the exterior wall of the Church was absolutely wonderful. Robert Pincombe died so young compared to his three other brothers (only 52 years old) and all of his brothers lived well into their 70s and 80s. I have no idea why he died. The will was "written" in haste it sounds like so he was either struck down suddenly or a gradual illness that suddenly caused his demise. He left behind his youngest son who was only eight years old when he died.

I extracted more of the 1911 Bishops Nympton census by searching on common first names at Bishops Nympton and I am now half way. I will continue to extract names as I tanscribe the 1901 census. I expect I will miss some as there are quite a few agricultural labourers and domestic servants listed in the 1891 census with different names from the usual village names. I am sorting the families where I can in reference to the 1901 census to make the 1911 results more useful. Eventually I hope to write about the families at Bishops Nympton although I will not know any real stories but just where they lived, their children and such things.

Tomorrow I will continue with the census and reread the information for our telephone conference on Friday for the APG committee that I am serving on. It is quite interesting and I shall see if I can be helpful with this group. Hopefully my voice will have recovered although I have a tendency not to say very much when I am in a first meeting. I like to listen to what people have to say before I jump in with comments. That is my only commitment. I have stepped away from anything else that has a time frame. I do have a lot of items to work on but it is my own time frame which is the way that I need things to be now.

Cold Virus

Another day with the cold virus and I am beginning to think I am finally on the upswing for this virus - it certainly was a nasty one. I will be a couple more days before I am talking again :)

However, I did manage to get a little work done. I completed ED 4 for Bishops Nympton and started ED 5 with the first three pages completed (six pages to go). Then the Census for 1891 will be complete and I will then do 1901 plus look up the names as I transcribe on the 1911 census database and extract the ones that are in Bishops Nympton. I have already collected 100 names from just the first four pages of the 1901 census so suspect I will do quite well although the changes in the village are becoming are larger percentage in each census with people moving about.

I joined Twitter today and added it to my Blog. I shall see what I think of that.

I also spent some time when the headache was bad extracting Siderfin entries from the GRO index and have now completed all births from 1911 to 2005. I also extracted the marriages and the burials up to 2005 so I am starting to have a very complete record of all the Siderfin family members in England. Since very few have emigrated that should work quite well. Eventually I want to compose a letter to write to the direct male descendants to see if I can find two individuals to test their yDNA for my One Name Study Siderfin DNA Project. By the time I get to that I should have saved up enough money to pay for two. I couldn't even chance a guess as to their likely haplogroup but family lore has them being early religious emigrees who fled to England very early on as they can be found in the early 1500s in Somerset and early family lore has then in south Devon in the late 1400s. The possibility of them being Frisian has crossed my mind. Certainly DNA testing would reveal that about this family. The name itself is very distinctive.

Tomorrow I shall continue with the Census of Bishops Nympton. My goal is to complete the census by the end of this next week. My cold has caused me to lose quite a bit of working time as I am resting. It is hard to believe that it is almost the end of March.

Viruses and not the computer kind

Both my husband and I have succumbed to a bad cold that has become progressively worse all week. Today we went to the Doctor and now we are back at home resting, drinking and resting! Just a normal cold but it has a good foothold. I managed to find an alternative speaker for my DNA talk and that just wasn't going to happen - no voice. Fortunately one member of the DNA group was willing to take it on and much appreciation to Bryan Cook for doing that.

No work done today but lots of TV watching. Nice thing about being sick is spending time watching all those movies you meant to watch.

Bishops Nympton Census - 25 March 2009

I completed to the end of page 5 enumeration district 4 for the 1891 Bishops Nympton Census. I am about half way through 1891 and hope to complete it by Friday evening. Then I have 1901 census to do and at the same time extract the 1911 people searching on the 1911 site for the names in the 1901 census. I will try to group them into their families if I can. Eventually it will be online at Ancestry (2011 I think!). I can not afford to look up all of those pages as it would be one for each family I think so at least 100 families which would be 3000 points. Eventually I want to subscribe to FindMyPast but I simply do not have time at the moment to make really good use of their databases. My husband and I both use Ancestry so it is very practical for us to subscribe to them and will be for quite a while as there is an enormous amount of material that I haven't had time to look at nor has my husband. Plus they are always adding new information.

We have been busy watching the James Heriott series - Yorkshire Dales Veterinarian in 1937 (fictitious name but built around an actual veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales). Watching the series has been fun as we relive our trip through England where we did see some of the Dales. It is amazing how different the country is as you travel up one side and down the other side - the entire Island could fit into southwestern Ontario. However, Southwestern Ontario is also of varied geographic types from the flat farmlands in between Huron and Erie Lakes to the escarpment at Hamilton which snakes across Ontario to the Bruce Peninsula with its fantastic craggy views.

Today I had four requests for information on Bishops Nympton and I answered all but one. One involves more work and so it must wait until I can fit it into my schedule. I have one pending which is quite a bit of work and will accomplish that one in the next month.

Tomorrow I will work on the census for Bishops Nympton and time to clean again. The days sneak by so quickly.

Bishops Nympton Census - 24 March 2009

I continued on with the Bishops Nympton Census for 1891 and completed to the end of page 12 Enumeration District 3. Farms continue to become larger and the smaller farms are disappearing. There are more and more agricultural labourers (sons of farmers).

I set up a Hampshire County - England DNA Project at FT DNA. I think it will be an interesting project and I have put my brother's results in and I will do them by community if possible - ours is Andover in the 1400s which is the furtherest back that we are able to go in our y DNA line.

Tomorrow I will continue to work on the 1891 census and advertise the new Hampshire County and Devon County DNA projects. I think these will be quite exciting if enough people sign up. Both counties have very very old neolithic histories and in the case of my line in Hampshire I can trace my paternal line back to the late 1400s at Andover. My King line goes back before 1500 at Upper Clatford and a number of other lines appear to be equally old in this general area around Andover.

I find the Devon project exciting because my Pincombe family was there from 1485 on, the Rowcliffe family is quite ancient in this county as well as the Blackmoore, Allen, Tapp, Manning, Vicary and others.

I had been contemplating such a project for awhile but the tone of the DNA lists these days is geographic location and what better way to look at the geography of family lines than to do it by County and especially England as the proportion of people whose ancestry traces back to England in DNA projects is quite large. I will also do separate charting from FT DNA in case people from other DNA projects particularly in the UK want to join. I have tested my brothers yDNA at Ethnoancestry as well as FT DNA.

Bishops Nympton Census - 22 March 2009

I completed the 1881 census transcription for Bishops Nympton today and started the 1891. I also assembled 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 into one file and sorted it by surname, forename and then year. It should prove to be an interesting review of the area.

We went for another long walk (about 4.5 km) today and by next week we will likely be able to go for a bicycle ride.

Tomorrow the dogs are coming for the day so we will be busy with them although I will spend my spare time working on the 1891 census for Bishops Nympton. There is quite a decrease between 1881 and 1891 and there are only 35 reporting sheets compared to 50 in 1881 although now there are 30 maximum entries per page rather than 25. The farms are larger and fewer small farmers but more agricultural workers. A few new occupations have crept in - road workers, sanitary inspectors and more carpenters.

Bishops Nympton Census - 21 March 2009

Continuing with Bishops Nympton 1881 Census and I completed RD 3 and the first seven pages of RD 4. A number of the old families are missing now and there are new families from areas around Bishops Nympton. A surprising number of people come down from London so wonder if that is the "place" to move to when one is looking for jobs outside of Bishops Nympton.

We went for a long walk today and the weather was beautiful. Still a lot of snow to melt away but April rains will soon diminish those piles although fresh snow is promised tonight.

My tennis elbow is gone for the moment but I am being cautious about how much time I spend at the keyboard.

Bishops Nympton Census - continuing

I continued transcribing the 1881 Bishops Nympton Census and will hopefully finish that in another couple of days. The families are changing in this 19th century moreso than in the earlier centuries as people move about more frequently. We will soon be up to the time of cars being the mode of travel. Children are staying in school longer and especially more girls are attending school. If you think about it; it is only 130 years that girls have routinely been educated in our countries. Indeed, the world has moved on quickly as we approach the 1900s in my recordings of the census. By now my direct family line is settled in Canada and the emigrant children have their own families. However, the first cousins of these emigrant children are still in England farming. They have also had families and these cousins corresponded back and forth well into the 1900s.

I updated my GPS (TomTom) including our European maps. Although we are going to put our trip to Europe off for another year or two, we want to keep our GPS updated as I found it very handy as we traveled about in England on the bus. I should imagine it will be equally interesting in Europe. Too bad that the tourist buses do not have plugins though as we could keep it charged up as we go along!

Tomorrow I shall continue with the census and scanning books into Library Thing. Once I have 100 in there I am going to extract the file and see what I think.

Bishops Nympton Census

I continued on with the 1881 British Census today but did not accomplish a great deal. Our daughter came over with the two dogs who had missed us very much. the puppy especially was so relieved to see me once again - he must have wondered where I went. I actually didn't think he would miss me so was rather surprised. It took him quite a few minutes before he was content that he had been patted and rubbed down enough. The older dog was relieved to see Ed once again as he really misses him when he doesn't see him at least every couple of days. They have a strong relationship.

Our daughter gave me a Cat keyboard for scanning in the ISBN numbers on our books so I spent a little while doing that. I also completed my last presentation that I shall ever give and it is for next week. I have decided to completely retire and take life easier. Plus I will have more time for transcriptions.

Bishops Nympton Census

My next project is the Bishops Nympton Census from 1841 to 1911. I have already completed 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871 in the past few years and have begun 1881. As well I have been extracting by surname entries in 1911. I will likely miss a few as the population would have changed between 1901 and 1911 but I have already found over 100 and the population of the village remained steady around 1200 people over this time period. I have used the 1901 census and extracted the names based on the first four pages thus far - I still have another 45 pages to look at!

I am still looking at the Siderfin family and will do some charting of Sanders's genealogical charts in his book using the parish registers as I build the charts. I am not sure that he used the original registers himself but rather relied on his visual accumulation of data from Church burials in the Church and graveyard. He doesn't mention using the original registers. There is still some confusion on my line as to whether they are descended from Augustine a younger brother to Robert. Robert would have been over 60 when he married. I felt that James Sanders would have known his mother's first and second cousins and hence his attribution of my line to a brother of Augustine rather than a descendant of Augustine made sense but I must now examine this possibility looking at information now available that may not have been readily available at the time. Earlier I had concluded that Sanders was probably right but that was in my "early" days of genealogy and I was definitely a novice.

Siderfin Family

I have had the opportunity to spend some time studying the Siderfin family of Somerset (principally Luccombe, Luxworthy, Selworthy, Dunster, Minehead and Wootton Courtney). My 3x great grandmother was Elizabeth Siderfin daughter of Robert Siderfin. I have had a couple of queries about the genealogical chart which was produced in a book on the Siderfin family. I myself was somewhat perplexed by the Chart but the individual who wrote the book would have likely had knowledge of his mother's first and second cousins so felt that his chart may have been somewhat more accurate than my own studies on this family. However, as I read and reread his book I am realizing he may have been mistaken in his tracing of my direct family line and that they were actually descended from Augustine Siderfin rather than his uncle Robert Siderfin. Augustine was the local school teacher and my 2x great grandmother was also a school teacher as well as her older sister. My 3x great grandmother signed her marriage registration in 1792. I had linked one of her sisters to the Nurcombe family but in his book he notes a Nutcombe family. I need to work my way through an extensive will that mentions all the siblings of my 3x great grandmother and discover the relationship of this individual to the family and it may well be the clue that lets me link back through Augustine. Robert (current father of my Elizabeth) would have been 103 when he died and over 60 when he married  so I have always debated it somewhat because of the enormous age disparity. Robert, son of Augustine has always been a possibility.

Tennis Elbow improving

I really relaxed the last couple of days and my tennis elbow is rapidly disappearing. I rather think by midweek I will be back at typing again for hours on end! This time I will type for two hours and then take breaks though. I was just so intent on completing the Bishops Nympton Parish Registers :)

Continuing to read and I completed Ann Gibbons book. I found it most fascinating and will continue reading in that vein. Knowing ones ancestors is a marvelous topic to occupy one's retirement days and it is so beneficial to so many. I had an email today from an individual in Tunisia looking for a match on his T2 mtDNA results. I mentioned the FGS study and he is keen to sign up to see what more he can learn. One can not be sure of finding out anything more than one's deep ancestry but sometimes there can be surprises.

Back to reading - I have a book on pilgrimages which I have meant to read for awhile and it too is very interesting.

Tennis Elbow continues

Still relaxing and reading as my tennis elbow improves and I expect another week will see me completely recovered.

I have nearly finished Ann Gibbons book - The First Human. A very intriguing and well written history of the search by various world famous scientists as they have pursued their desire to find skeletal remains of the ancestors of homo sapiens.

Tomorrow I plan to read the Siderfin family book once again and carefully extract the information in case I have missed any details. A few queries have led me to think that I need to reread Saunders book and think through my process by which I determined the descent of my family line and whether I could be mistaken. I need to write to Devon and acquire photocopies of the wills that Saunders refers to in his book.

Continuing Tennis Elbow

My elbow is slowly improving - I didn't type yesterday or today until now. I expect another week or so and I will be typing away for hours on end (until tennis elbow comes back).

I am reading "The First Human" by Ann Gibbons and it is a very interesting book. I am learning a great deal about the early findings that I vaguely recall as they were announced but with my interest in DNA this is excellent reading.

Tennis Elbow continues

Another day of reading and transcribing old documents that I purchased last year just before we went to England. I have not had a chance to get at them until now and working on them is a lead in to the manor records for upper Clatford that I photographed at Salt Lake City. Once my arm behaves nicely again I will get back at typing for more than a few minutes at a time. Probably my eyes needed a rest anyway from peering at the microfiche reader and the computer screen for hours on end.

Tomorrow I will continue with transcribing the old wills, indentures, and other documents from the 1600s and 1700s for the Blake family of Andover/Upper Clatford/Longparish etc.

Tennis Elbow

I did not accomplish a great deal today because my "tennis elbow" has returned. Since I play tennis very very poorly I was surprised when the doctor diagnosed my arm pain as tennis elbow.

Today I read and watched TV. A quietly enjoyable day that will likely be repeated for several more days.

Housekeeping

Today was a housekeeping day as I backed up all of my files - 3 different places! Plus we cleaned the house - also an essential happening. I also worked on my Income Tax - a first run at it. This will be the last year for my business. I do not want to sell historical CDs any longer. The effort of keeping the books, invoicing etc is more than it is worth actually. Canadian Genealogy Centre is going to put the Carleton Index online on their website which is great. Although I was named as Editor of the project, the entry and proofreading was by students hired via a Canada Job grant that John Ruch and I managed to obtain. It was very effective and the entire database was completed in just eighteen months time. The UEL has been selling the CDs of the database (my husband organized that) for the last fifteen years but demand has certainly diminished and it is time now to have it up on the Canadian Genealogy website where it is readily available as the records have been maintained by Library and Archives Canada all of these years.

Tomorrow I shall work on my DNA talk. I need to decide which sets of data to use. I have some new and interesting families to look at and some additional material on existing studies. It is just 25 minutes so not a lot will be covered.

Babysitting

I spent the day babysitting the dogs and they were very good. The puppy was so tired by all of his running up and down the snowhills in the back yard that he slept for 2.5 hours in the morning and another 1 hour in the afternoon. We also took them for a walk around the block which is about 1.5 kilometres so a pretty tired pup when back home with our daughter and son in law to be.

Tomorrow I shall work on the census for Bishops Nympton, I completed 1841 some time ago for the 1841 Genuki Devon 1841 Census Project. I started 1851 and perhaps I will be able to complete that. Also I may begin Rose Ash Parish Registers. I have decided not to purchase anymore fiche until I have made a big dent in all the material that I have.

Bishops Nympton Parish Register - 2 March 2009

After five years of transcribing (mostly the last year intently), I have completed the Parish Registers of Bishops Nympton Devon. They still need proofreading and I am building an Excel file but having them complete is great. Eventually I will bring all the files into Access so that I can query across villages.

That was about my entire day actually as I wanted to complete the burials and I felt inspired since I was on the last few fiche.

Tomorrow I shall babysit the dogs all day and the puppy will love the backyard. I expect I will be tracking back and forth all day out there except when he is sleeping!

Bishops Nympton Parish Register - 1 March 2009

I am continuing to work on the burials for Bishops Nympton and have now completed up to the middle of 1895. There was an interesting memorandum which listed all of the legacies given to the Church over a two hundred year period. I need to proofread the memorandum on the Church and Churchyard as I have one request for a copy of that.

I hope to complete the burials, as I am on the second last fiche now, by this evening. I can then turn my attention with regard to Bishops Nympton to extracting the census from 1851 (1841 is complete) to 1911 and proofreading of the parish register. At the same time I am creating an excel file that I can readily sort to look at the different families that lived there over the five hundred years.

My next extraction task will be the parish registers of Rose Ash which I have from the earliest registers up to the middle 1700s. I will be looking for my Vicary family there along with the Bray family that married into the Vicary family.