Andover Parish Registers - 9

I did not manage to cover as much material today as the last couple of days. The last row of the first fiche is difficult to read and large chunks of the pages are missing unfortunately. The good side is that this is not a time period that is critical for my Blake research. I have completed to July 1624 and there are now 1850 baptisms in the database. I have 26 pages left to transcribe in the baptisms. The next seven though will be rather slow and I haven't looked at the 2nd fiche yet to see how it looks in terms of legibility.

I did not find the baptism of Richard Spring (my 8x great grandfather married to Ellen Drew). Nor do I find a baptism for Ellen although there was a Drew family at Andover in the 1590s and early 1600s. I shall have to check for these families in the areas around Andover.

I worked on my family tree examining some of the lines to consider my next steps in looking at the material that I brought back from Salt Lake City. Once I have completed up to 1700 for Andover I will set it aside for other pursuits.

I had ordered the marriage registration for Isaac Debnam and Emma Hemsley Buller and it arrived. The witnesses are George and Elizabeth Debnam and a George Debnam and Elizabeth Eaton can be found on Free BMD marrying December quarter 1838 at Newington Surrey. If this is the witnesses that could be quite interesting. Christopher Buller is listed as a cutter on the wedding registration. I can not tell by the registration if he is alive (the death registration I have for a Christopher Buller is dated 18 Nov 1839 Bromley Kent). The Buller family continues to quite fascinate me. There I sit in the middle to late 1700s with all this information but I can not move backwards yet. What I need to find are a few wills!

Tomorrow I will continue with the Parish Registers of Andover but it will be slower going. I am getting eye strain. I need to get back to working on the DNA study database as well.

Andover Parish Registers - 8

I have now completed the transcription of the Andover Parish Registers for baptisms to October 1621. That is a total of 1690 baptisms. The Blake lines are thinning out as they moved to Abbotts Ann, Penton Mewsey, Monxton, Upper Clatford, Kimpton, and others in the area of Andover. I will be looking for the Spring, Drew, Madgwick, and Hellier families as I move on through the register.

That was pretty well all of the transcription that I did today. I spent a couple of hours on Genuki and I need to continue with adding parish register transcriptions that I have received. I also have a number of pictures to add to the villages that we visited last year when we were in Hampshire.

We went for a 3Km walk today and a 14 Km bike ride. As well I hung the clothes on the line. We have managed to do that for the entire month of April and hope to continue right through to the end of October. It saves on electricity usage.

All in all an interesting day. We are watching as the alert level rises from the WHO regarding the swine flu. So far no cases in Ottawa.

Andover Parish Registers - 7

Andover Parish Registers continued to be my focus and I have completed to November 1617 and there are now 1456 baptisms in the Andover Parish Registers. I can separate out most of the Blake lines in this time period but I have one conflict with two John Blake fathers which I shall have to see if I can resolve with the wills. This is a time of several Blake families attending the Parish Church at Andover and baptizing their children. I thought I would find more of the baptisms for the daughters of Richard's children but not thus far. I have 39 pages of baptisms completed with 39 remaining - half way through Register 1!

I also proofread the Poor Law Rate files that I had produced for Andover a week or so ago. I extracted all the Blake entries and sent them on to the person with whom I am working. I need to convert my excel file to a word document for her and send it on.

The editor of the Cumbria Journal wrote to ask me to check over the Lanercost Protestation Returns as she has decided to publish them. I added a preamble and the text that is included on the Returns. I hope that people find it valuable and it will be about two pages in total. I decided to use only my name and take full responsibility for the transcription. That seemed like the appropriate way. I also mentioned that I had transcribed the rest of Eskdale Ward if any of the readers want to contact me.

I babysat the dogs today and they were good. We spent a lot of the early day inside because it was raining but then we were outside for awhile. They certainly love running up and down the yard. The baby is growing up fast and will soon be an adult dog. The older dog has established himself as the leader although he is about one third the size of the other dog. The other dog looks to him for "advice."

Tomorrow I will continue with the Parish Registers. I also want to get started proofreading some other items. Also, I want to update my Genuki webpages with some of the information that has been flowing in the past couple of weeks.

Andover Parish Registers - 6

The parish registers for Andover continued to occupy my day and I have completed to the end of 1613 which is 1288 baptisms. I am starting to get quite familiar with the names and thus far all of my Andover names date back to the beginning of the registers. The Blake family here is relatively small (the general thought that I had on the Hampshire List was that it was full of Blake names) with two distinct lines in this time period. However, I have now discovered not quite so distinct as my 10 x great grandparents - Richard Blake and Jone Blake - shared the same great grandparents Blake making them second cousins. There is a possibility that Richard's mother was also a Blake and I will continue to investigate that. I have already experienced the wonders of many lines in one family with my Routledge 3x great grandparents - of their four parents three have the Routledge surname and it continues thus on the way back. Certainly makes for easier tracing of a family line!

I did a practice walk for the 10K in the Ottawa marathon at the end of May and managed 1 km per 7 minutes walking. I would like to get that closer to 6.5 minutes per kilometre and we shall see. It is the beginning that controls the overall trend and sometimes you get trapped at the beginning and can not get free of the large group to get your pace.

We biked 12 kilometres later in the day and it was quite warm but a really good ride. I am doing exercise by measure so that I do not overdo it. I tend to do that and eventually get exhausted and ill. Instead I shall use my 64 years of insight and observe a little more carefully that I am overdoing my exercise routines since I tend to be a bit of an exercise fiend.

Tommorrow I shall continue on with the transcription of the Andover parish register although I will have the dogs all day. We will have a great day although rain is promised but the dogs are happy here and will have the run of the yard when it isn't raining. I have 49 pages remaining of baptisms (I have completed 29 pages) and then there are 27 pages of marriages and 63 pages of burials. I am into neat script now and the pages no longer look eaten. The writing is a bit small but with close attention I am managing to read the old writing. The priest is no longer recording the place of residence except on occasion but is noting the status which can be quite helpful. For instance I have three Robert Blake in this time period, one is a yeoman, one is a victualler and one is a gent. I know which one is which and I am thus able to separate the births out quite well.

Andover Parish Registers - 5

Continuing on the Andover Parish Registers and still working on baptisms. I have reached July 1606 and there are 933 baptisms. The pages are in much better shape and I am not missing parts of them! Lots of good genealogical material there for me as I will fill in the baptisms for the Blake families there since I have now entered a number of the lines into my family tree. The Blake family is just too large to do a one name study at least that is my thought at the moment.

I finished constructing the giant family tree of the Blake family at Eastontown/Knights Enham/Andover in the 1500s and part way into the 1600s. There was just so much detail provided that I had to draw the tree. I have found the ancestry for the Blake / Blake marriages including one in my line. It makes the will easier to read when you can look at all these cousins (on both sides) that are Blake. I had thought that the Robert Blake separated out much earlier from the Nicholas line at Andover but his grandson Richard married Jone (Joane) Blake and this brings the two sides back together again. Interesting having two Blake lines!

I think I will persevere with the Andover Parish Registers the first set of three fiche cover the period from 1587 - 1634 for baptisms, marriages and burials. Instead of moving to marriages after 20 years (I am nearly there now) I shall keep on extracting the baptisms to 1634 and then do the marriages and then the burials. I expect it will take me a couple of months. Then I can move on to the next set of fiche (which is the 2nd register).

An interesting comment on the R1b-U106 list. My husband's yDNA results match the Lichenstein Cave results for an R1b male dated about 3000 years ago. Since he can trace on paper and with his DNA match the Kip emigrant to New Amsterdam/New York in 1635 and this line has been traced back to Rulof de Kype who lived at Alencon Bretagne France - the match is extremely interesting. However, it is only 12 markers. It would have been interesting if DYS 426 had been tested as his family line has the rare 13 value. That would have made one wonder if this was a fairly direct line back and imagine knowing where your ancestor was 3000 years ago!

Time to quit for the night. I spend a lot of hours transcribing but we take a lot of breaks. We had a 17 kilometre bike ride yesterday and today about a 5km walk. I think as spring has arrived my illness of the fall into the new year may be lifting now. The warm sun brings a glow to one's heart that is for sure.

Andover Parish Registers - 4

I completed to September 1605 today which is 893 baptisms at Andover. There is a new priest and he is noting (at least at the beginning) the village/town that the family lives in. This could be very very handy and we will see if the notations continue. There are three distinct Blake lines at Andover now - Richard, Robert and John. John is from Penton Mewsey, Richard is my ancestor and Robert is the unknown. Is he the brother of Richard's wife? It certainly would be interesting to know that piece of information!

I also entered another 50 books into Library Thingy. I need to register before I enter anymore. But I think it will be a very handy system for the books. I was entering them into Reference Manager but it was a slower progress than using the wand and scanning the ISBN when it is available or just typing it in.

I have a number of other items that I am working on but they are mostly small and I do them when my eyes tire of reading the microfiche. The new priest decided to have two columns on his first page and it is the tiniest writing that I think I have ever seen. He has gone back to just one column to a page with the next page.

We went for 14 kilometres on our bikes today. We want to build up to 30 kilometres through the summer. It is good exercise and lets us go right into downtown Ottawa and use the bike paths there. A very pleasant all day ride with a picnic in the park.

I am still trekking across Canada on the virtual trail and I am getting closer and closer to the Alberta/British Columbia border. I have been at it for ten months now. I never would have expected that it would take so long but the trail is quite windy (and probably uphill through the mountains)!

Tomorrow I will continue on the Registers and I also want to start my Blake chart of the new records that I received from another researcher. It is the only way that I can visualize the family lines that are noted in wills.

Andover Parish Registers - 3

Continued today on the Andover Parish Registers and I have now reached the milestone of 1600 with 636 baptisms recorded. This includes a number of Blake entries and one in particular I had wondered about is identified as of Pewsie (Penton Mewsey) and that explains that particular John Blake line at Andover. I also searched the Hampshire Record Office database and pulled out wills for Robert Blake at Knights Enham and for his four sons. This has become much more interesting to me now that I know the wife of Richard Blake was Joan (Jone) Blake daughter of Robert Blake. This new will to me for the mother of Nicholas indicates that Robert and Nicholas are brothers with one sister Elizabeth (Nicholas is the furtherest back ancestor that my family lore identifies). I would like a few more proofs between my Thomas (b 1685) and his father John (b 1649) and his father William (b 1615) than just the parish registers. The remainder both back to Nicholas and forward to my time is proved already by wills, parish registers and BMDs or other information.

I need to rethink the so called Nicholas Blake and Robert Blake lines at Andover as they are much more intertwined than I originally thought. It would appear that Richard married his second cousin. The name Gilberd (Gilbert) appears in this will as well and that is one of the names that is kinsman to John Blake at Abbotts Ann. The Blake family is becoming very interesting again now that I am backing away from all the published material from the 1900s. I have completely split out the Somerset line from my records. I think this relationship that has been published by Francis E Blake, Increase Blake, Edward Wales Blake and others will need to have more proof to satisfy the Genealogical Proof Standard. Genealogy has come a long way.

I have revised my webpage to reflect the new information from the will of Richard Blake (d 1624)'s wife Joan (Jone) Blake Blake. I have deleted the material from the published sources for the Blake family. If it can stand on its own once I get back into looking at Wiltshire Blakes then I will put it up again with appropriate notation. I am still not in agreement with the other Blake researcher as she has one more William generation between Nicholas and Richard. I will work away at that by making a large paper chart. Sometimes that is just simply the easiest way to understand all the wills.

Tomorrow I will continue with the Parish Registers for Andover. I wonder when I will reach marriages and burials. It is a couple of years since I looked at these registers so I need to check that out as well. I would like to do about 20 years at a time of baptisms, then switch to marriages and then to burials so that I can utilize the data right away.

Andover Parish Registers - 2

I had every intention of working on the Andover Parish Registers later in the day yesterday but never got back to them. We took the dogs for a walk and then spent the afternoon with them - they were lonely!

Today I will spend some time on the Andover Parish Registers but I also want to do two more bookshelves and put them on LibraryThingy. This is an exciting new database online in which you can enter all your books. It will give us a chance to do an inventory and then figure out what else we want to give away as we continue to downsize. Eventually I only want to keep the books that I enjoy reading that are non genealogical and all my genealogical material.

I am still deep in thought on the Blake family and it is quite exciting actually to be once again looking at them. It is quite a while since I actually did do so. From my grandfather and father I have my ancestry back to Nicholas although it was always tricky between John (b 1649) and William (b 1615). I would really like to find items other than the Parish Register and family lore that would link them together. Linking together William (b 1615) to William to Richard to William to Nicholas (b 1489) is easily obtained by wills and tax records. Finding one of my cousins to test their yDNA would also be exciting and I continue to mention that to every Blake male that writes to me on Genes Reunited! Mostly they write about Charles Blake and I finally put the will of John Blake up on my website. Linking Charles Blake back to my Thomas Blake is the usual reason for writing to me. Although I have searched the Andover Register and the Abbotts Ann Register I can not find an entry for the baptism of Charles Blake who married Mary Prince in 1737 at Abbotts Ann. Since Charles and his family are mentioned before mine in John's will and they receive more money I rather think they are more closely related. I still suspect the relationship between my Thomas (3x great grandfather) and John Blake is through the King family since Thomas King is his will (1762 probate) mentions the daughter of John Blake and gives her a legacy. She was just a young child then and the only surviving child of John. We visited his gravestone and that of Mary Blake Holmes his daughter when we were at Abbotts Ann last year. They were substantial stones about five feet high, well engraved and still in excellent condition 230 years later with Mary's stone being closer to 250 years old. Interestingly he remembered Mary's husband after my family!

Delving into the myriad Blake families in the Andover area will be a large task but most worthwhile now that I also have someone working with me on it who has been looking at the Blake family for quite a long period of time. Two heads are always better than one.

The discussion on APG looking at Genealogy and Academia continued apace yesterday but I stepped back from it after my original couple of posts. I am still new to the list and have much to learn. It is an interesting discussion list actually and they are very up to date in their comments particularly using the Genealogical Proof Standard.

Andover Parish Registers - 1

I have been so caught up in new information (new to me) on the Blake family that I have failed to post to my blog for several days. I have begun extracting the data from the Parish Registers for Andover and the first ten pages have been slow going. The damage to these first few pages is quite extensive but I have beavered away at extracting as much as I can. I want to get familiar with the family names that were present in the late 1500s when the registers begin (1588 are the first entries for baptism). I expect to find quite a few Blake baptisms in these early years and I hope to be able to separate them into the known Blake lines but there may be surprises. My likely ancestor Richard was born/baptized at Eastontown with his siblings I should rather think but this would have been about 1557 so preceded the registers. He did not inherit any land like his elder siblings but did receive 50 pounds currant English money and it would appear that he set himself up as a Draper at Andover. Possibly he was already a Draper and the money simply enhanced his holdings - hard to tell at this point in time. What is known is that he was at Andover, he was a Draper and he married Joan Blake daughter of Robert Blake. This was new information (to me) gleaned from the will of his widow. I have a puzzle with this family as my 3x great grandfather Thomas Blake is mentioned in the will of John Blake maltster at Abbotts Ann (probated 1797). As I have worked the John Blake family back he appears to be descended from the "Robert Blake" line at Andover (line designation my term). I found that to be quite interesting as there doesn't appear to be a relationship between the two families other than the maternal grandfather of Thomas remembers the daughter of John Blake (Abbotts Ann) in his will which had been probated in 1762. Truly amazing sometimes how looking at the entire family leads to linkages that can not be found in a straight line back approach.

I have now transcribed over 360 baptisms in the Andover register (about to begin 1595). This will be a slow process at the beginning but I know that as I get into this register I will reach pages that are utterly beautiful to read and only about 10 pages distant from where I am now. They will still be in early handwriting but the pages have not been eaten away obliterating forever names and dates. The early register pages are well aligned although sometimes the writing is a little hard to decipher but by the middle of this first fiche I will be looking at improved writing and considerably less damage to the pages. I am finding a number of my families both direct and related by marriage - Blake, Spring, Carter, and Helyer are all direct and others by marriage.

I joined the APG list a week or so ago and yesterday they started to discuss academia with respect to genealogy. I jumped in with an introduction and have probably put my head in a noose. However, it is a topic that is dear to my heart. Likely I will continue listening for a while at the responses now that I have replied twice.

This is one of my replies:

Since I stuck my head in the noose with the notion of "Population Studies" I might as well continue to do so. Ultimately all disciplines have started out the same way with people who practice as their life's work certain elements that encompass a particular subject. Gradually these elements lead one to a theory on how to practice them and a craft/trade/profession is born. At least that is how I see knowledge growing.

All those who have spent their lifetime honing skills in genealogy may well have the experience of seeing those skills given the best commendation that any lifework can ever receive - the idea that such skills are so valuable that they can be used as a basis for developing theories that ultimately lead to the acceptance of a field as an academic entity that can stand on its own and not just be put under a label of "history." Genealogy is more than just history or geography or archaeology or anthropology or life science - elements of each are included in genealogy. The most important part of genealogy is the collection of families that link together and have produced the populations that currently inhabit our earth. Being able to examine the extant records and actually sort out your lines in this intricate maze is truly amazing but it can only be done by following the theoretical guidelines that have been produced by active clinicians in the field. When
you stray from those guidelines you risk not finding the line that emerges as evidence based (one just has to look at some of the genealogies that were produced in the 1800s and early 1900s). The exciting answer is to develop an academic program that can provide the tools to best search the extant records and draw out the evidence. Although a graduate in science, I took a number of history courses at the university level to enrich my knowledge (after graduation). I think every field has its theorists and its clinicians and its hobbyists.

My interests in Genealogy are working on my Genuki webpages for Hampshire, various DNA projects (one a research based project), transcription projects (FreeBMD, Parish Registers, Census, etc) and my family history. I do not have any interest in client work although I have done a number of projects for individuals. I have a much stronger interest in helping to develop DNA research and Palaeography as tools for research.

Today I shall continue to transcribe the Parish Registers of Andover. I want to work my way through to 1730 when my ancestor Joseph Blake was baptized. He was the son of Thomas Blake and Ann . Having all the baptisms for the Blake family at Andover I can then start to build my table. I have the parish registers for a number of the villages around Andover where the Blake family lived in this time period so I will then move on to these villages to extract the BMDs from them as well so that I can then build a table of all Blake baptisms, marriages and burials from the inception of registers to 1730.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 19 April 2008

I continued working on the Blake records and reviewed all the evidence that I now have for the wife of Richard Blake. Using her will abstract prepared by another researcher, it is obvious that she is the daughter of Robert Blake of Knights Enham and her name is Joan Blake. Her will is dated 1631. Her husband died by 1622.

I decided the best approach for me was to transcribe the parish registers for Andover. It will be a lengthy task over many years but the initial 60 years are going to be very valuable for my understanding the Blake family at Andover (includes Eastontown, Knights Enham, Penton Mewsey, Upper Clatford, Wherwell and Charlton).

I found the will for Joan Blake on the Hampshire Record Office site and will order that tomorrow as a digital image along with two other Blake wills. Although I have a draft of the transcription I would like to see the original since I have revised my webpage removing the reference to Joana Noyse. Richard's will had referred to his brother in law Peter Noyse; I will investigate this as I move through the registers but definitely his wife was Joan Blake.

We spent the afternoon with the dogs and they were happy to see us. It meant no work though! We did get a 10 K bike ride in though which was most pleasant.

Tomorrow another day of transcribing and I shall continue with the Andover records. I would like to get familiar with the names so that I can proofread the poor law rate transcriptions that I did from the material I brought back from Salt Lake City.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 18 April 2008

I continued working on my Blake ancestors inspired by a new cousin (about 14th) who is also descended from the Andover Blake line. We are conversing back and forth but eventually I expect our emails will become full of transcriptions. Right now we need to see where we are yet. I do not agree with the line back (I have two less generations) but we will see how all the data falls together.

I also finished transcribing an indenture that is quite interesting between Nicholas Blake and William Blake Clerk at Andover. It is land that was originally leased to William Blake Clerk and it now passes to Nicholas Blake as a freehold. It is a piece of property that was held by the Blake family for a very long period of time as a leasehold. It will be interesting to see what happened to this particular piece. This Nicholas is I think a cousin to William but need to determine that as well.

We went to the Opera today (Madama Butterfly) so that cut down considerably on my transcribing time. It was an excellent opera. We then had a 4 mile walk and dinner. I did a little work and then we watched a movie. The day went very quickly.

Tomorrow I shall continue working on Andover and the Blake family.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 17 April 2008

I continued transcribing the Poor Law Rate records for Andover and discovered that they cover about nine years only. Occasionally the name of the property is mentioned but not usually. It will provide me with an interesting list of the people who owned property at Andover.

Since the names in Andover are not overly familiar to me, I decided it is time to start extracting the parish records for Andover. They begin in 1588 with baptisms on the first fiche. I managed to do the first three images on the first row. It will be slow going until I get used to the names. The pages are very poor (missing large sections and the copy is poorly written. I know that further on these registers are incredibly good so will keep remembering that as I work forward.

Tomorrow I shall continue transcribing the parish registers for Andover. It will take me a very very long time as there are a couple of hundred fiche with 60 pages to a fiche. Mainly I am interested in the earliest years to 1730 although I will likely transcribe them all eventually. I want to start to organize my days around particular items I would like to accomplish and I think I will use my calendar to do that online. Perhaps I can get it to ring when I should be changing just as a prompter. I want to continue extracting information from the images I brought back from Salt Lake City but I need to become familiar with particular areas in order to do that efficiently.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 16 April 2009

I spent the day working on my Blake family reading over the material from another Blake researcher. She has done an enormous amount of work looking at the families related to the Blake family at Andover in the 1400s and 1500s. I decided, on the basis of material that I had purchased and downloaded that I would simply stick to my direct line back to Nicholas. However we do not agree on the generations between Nicholas and Richard. I have just one generation so I need to review all of her material in order to extract the evidence pointing to the correct historical ancestry.

I also started to extract the Poor Law Records for Andover. I have three sets of records of data about 30 years apart. There are several Blake records that will be interesting.

Tomorrow I will continue transcribing the Andover Poor Law Records and I want to construct a hand drawn tree of the information and get a visual picture of all the data. The Visitation for the Blake family of Hampshire is one of the key tools that I used to construct the family from Nicholas to William to Richard so we will see how that fits in.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 15 April 2008

A number of queries from Siderfin family descendants resulted in my reexamining the book on the Siderfin Family of West Somerset produced by James Hooper Saunders in 1910. He had constructed a genealogical chart in his book (last pages) that had baffled me initially when I first saw it. My 3x great grandmother was listed (Betty Siderfin) as the daughter of Robert Siderfin and Grace Kent. This is quite clear in her baptismal registration in the original parish records. The marriage of Robert Siderfin and Grace Kent is in the Parish Records as is the marriage of Betty Siderfin and John Rew (Selworthy Somerset). However, James Saunders placed this family in the descent from Robert Siderfin and Thomasine with a second marriage to Elizabeth Blackford (no children). This would make Robert over 60 years old when he married Grace Kent (only 21 years old) and the father of eight children. This could have happened especially as Robert is known to have lived to 103 years of age "apparently." On reviewing the Parish Registers the priest does not give any details. Hidden away on this genealogical chart is another marriage between a Robert Siderfin and Grace Kent. This Robert is the son of Augustine Siderfin (brother to Robert above and also a son of Robert Siderfin and Thomasine ). Robert (s/o Augustine) also married a Grace Kent according to the chart. I can find only one Robert Siderfin/Grace Kent marriage. I copied the Graveyard transcriptions when we were at Salt Lake City and yesterday I transcribed this record. I know that by his will John Rew (who died at South Molton in 1848) asked to be buried beside his wife in the Selworthy Churchyard. There is a Rew family buried in the Davis plot that is identifed as J and M. Augustine Siderfin married Mary Davi[e]s. More evidence pointing to Augustine as the correct line exists in the Mary Escott will where she leaves the bulk of her estate to the children of Robert Siderfin (and Grace Kent). The principal recipient was John Siderfin and the burial of Mary Escott is in the Siderfin plot of the John Siderfin family at Knowle (which is the Augustine Siderfin line). With this evidence in hand, I have changed my descent to follow through Augustine and it appears revised on my webpages. I will continue to collect information but I suspect that James simply make a transcription error in his chart. Since this is his line (his great grandfather was the grandson of Augustine Siderfin) I was giving him the benefit of the doubt since he would have known his grandfather. James was 14 when his grandfather died and his grandfather was 26 when his father died. Although they lived at Selworthy and James grew up at South Molton, I do have my families visiting back and forth between Bishops Nympton and Wootton Courtney in the 1840s so certainly theoretically possible. But James and his contemporary cousins from my line would have been fourth cousins (i.e. my grandfather John Routledge Pincombe would have been fourth cousin to James Hooper Saunders). My family had emigrated to Canada in 1851 and Betty Siderfin's marriage and children were not on James' chart. That being said, it is not surprising that an error was made.

Eventually I will put the transcription of Sander's book on my website (I still need to proofread it along with the chart and the corrections that I have made to it and why). Augustine was a schoolteacher and my family line has a number of school teachers (my 2x great grandmother was a school teacher as was one of her sisters). All members of the Augustine family appear to have been able to read and write as they always signed their marriage registrations. I am still extracting information on Selworthy and nearby places from the Parish Registers.

I also received a surprise email on the Blake family. I have been working on my proofs following back from Thomas Blake (b 1685) to John Blake to William Blake (Clerk) to William Blake to Richard Blake to William Blake to Nicholas Blake. I have revised my webpage slightly to show that dates are approximate where I do not clearly have a Parish Register record just so that there is no error in this thought. In discussion, there is perhaps a conflict in our data in that the other researcher shows two more generations between Nicholas and Richard Blake. I will review all the evidence and see if I have been too simplistic since I have only been researching a short period of time and I am always willing to step back and look at the available evidence and revise. I am generally on the cautious side with my webpage in order to prevent errors creeping into the genealogy of my families. There is a lot of mis-information out there and I do not want to add to it. It was interesting to see the tree that she had constructed from my family information online as it shows quite clearly what I do know and what I do not. That is somewhat of a relief as I wanted to be sure not to add to the misinformation. I will work away at all the evidence and see what emerges with respect to this rather ancient Hampshire family. Many claim that the roots of this family are at Calne Wiltshire but that is still to be proven in my mind.

Other than that I did not do any other work. The day flew by quickly and today I want to construct a large map of the Churchyard at Selworthy Somerset. I will also be working on the Blake family. I have copied the Manor Records for Upper Clatford to learn more about the Blake family there plus some Andover records. Perhaps it is time to move back to Hampshire records which also includes Abbots Ann where the Blake families lived.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 14 April 2009

As my husband's ancestors came from Beaminster Dorset, I decided to transcribe the Protestation Returns for Beaminster today. I did a quick run through and surprisingly there were 421 names. I need to proofread the names before I send it off to be published on the Beaminster webpage for the OPC Dorset site. There were 6 Nyle (Niles) and 3 Paviot names (my husband's ancestors were John Nile and Johane Paviot). They married in 1606 at Beaminster Dorset. They had both died by 1614 and John must have been taken in by other family members. He was apprenticed as a weaver and emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634 departing from Weymouth. We visited the likely site for the departure when we were in England last year. My cousin took us on a drive down to Weymouth which was really great.

I also transcribed the apprenticeship list for Selworthy Somerset. The Siderfin, Kent, Beague, Clarke families all took on apprentices. The list does not show the particular trade that they apprenticed in. The Robert mentioned is likely my Robert although I am still determining if Robert Siderfin (mine) is the son of Augustine Siderfin or Robert Siderfin his brother. It is quite a mystery but the wills are starting to look like it was the Augustine Siderfin family as Grace Siderfin (mother of my Elizabeth Siderfin) died at Knowle where this branch of the Siderfin family is most often found. Interestingly the property Elizabeth and her husband John Rew farmed at Bratton was a gift of Mary Escott in her will. In between all of these wills I think that I will eventually be able to show the correct line of descent. What I really need to show is that the Robert (brother to Augustine) never married. There is one death of a Robert Siderfin in all the deaths of the Siderfin family that I can not link and perhaps this is that brother. I continue digging through all the records as I am sure there is a clue there somewhere that will help to solve the mystery. I have the parish registers, poor law records, apprenticeship, wills and a host of other records and I am thinking once I have transcribed the cemetery records at Selworthy perhaps I should dedicate a day or two to really examine in detail all the records once again. Part of the reason that I accepted James Hooper Saunders genealogical tree for the family was that his grandfather Siderfin would have been second cousin to my 3x great grandmother if she descended from the Augustine line. It just seems strange that he wouldn't have known the correct line. However, he great up at South Molton and by then the children of John Rew and Elizabeth Siderfin were all in Somerset or, as in my case, in Canada. Even if I know my second cousins very well and how they fit in, I do not have any first cousins so put special emphasis on the second. I have decided to step back from James necessarily knowing the family that well. He had many many first cousins and second cousins and the children that he would relate to for this line would be his fourth cousins. It is time to relook at all the evidence.

Tomorrow I will transcribe the cemetery at Selworthy and then spend some time on the Siderfin family. I also need to get my hair cut.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 13 April 2008

I completed the story for my husband to use in the next issue of the Branch Journal on researching at Salt Lake City. We wanted to express the necessity of being prepared before going to do research there. The need to follow your plans when you do start researching as there is just so much material there to look at that you can easily become distracted. Having goals in mind helps to keep you focused and, I think, yields you better results for the overall time spent there.

I then continued with the Poor Law Records for Turnworth working on 1751 for the Poor Law Rate. The remainder of the records are "snapshots" that refer to my ancestors. My 3x great grandmother Ellen Knight was paid for cleaning the Church and her brother in law (and first cousin) was paid as Parish Clerk. The Knight family at Turnworth was involved with care of the Church from the mid 1820s to the early 1900s. When we visited Turnworth the lady across from the Church was most kind to us and we saw inside the Church and the font where my 2x great grandfather was baptized. The key to the Church I held in my hand and it was a memory maker as I am sure that 150 years ago my Samuel probably held that same key in his hands and nearly 200 years ago my 3x great grandparents Ellis and Ellen Knight also held likely that same key in their hands. It gives one a warm fuzzy feeling to experience the continuum of time through such objects that exist before we are born and are still there after we die. My Knight family before 1820 lived at Spetisbury where Ellen was born and baptized. Their first six children were all born and baptized at Spetisbury and the last seven were all born and baptized at Turnworth. Why they moved from Spetisbury to Turnworth is a mystery which I had hoped to solve with records. It eludes me at the moment but perhaps in the future.

I also continued drawing out people on the 1911 Census at Turnworth and I am now missing only 18 of the 128 people which is really great. I will have to wait until Ancestry has them online or I am thinking of subscribing to FindMyPast once they have it available. I have a number of items to look up on FindMyPast which would make a membership quite practical. Because Ancestry offers American, Canadian and British records it is most practical for me to have a membership with them for both my husband and I since he has so much American and Canadian ancestry plus they are getting records for French, Dutch and German which date back into his earlier time periods. But FindMyPast will likely have far more English records. So eventually I can see that I will want a subscription with them as well.

Tomorrow I will continue with the Family Library images completing the Turnworth and then moving on to Winterborne Stickland (I do not have a lot of images for this village). I will transcribe the graveyard records for Selworthy Somerset and then move on to records for Wiltshire which I acquired at the Family History Library. But tomorrow I will likely only complete to the end of the graveyard records for Selworthy. Plus I need to get my hair cut!

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 12 April 2009

Today was an incredibly busy day as we prepared for Easter Dinner and enjoyed our "grand" dogs when our daughter arrived mid afternoon. She took her dog for a 2 k run with her and we took the older dog for a walk around the block. I had already prepared the beans (they were in the crock pot) and so then I prepared the scalloped potatoes and then the salad (stored in the refrigerator so that it would be really crisp). Then finally the ham went in and I prepared the cheese tea biscuits for cooking. Then I put the fruit tray together (to go with the chocolate cake for my husband's birthday) and we were more or less ready. I ran in and out with the dogs in between as they love to play in the back yard and when our daughter's partner arrived from work we had a lovely Easter dinner.

I remembered that I needed to complete the story of researching at Salt Lake City for the Ottawa Journal so that became my focus for work today. Plus I wrote up the Easter Blessing for the Anglican internet list. It turned out very well. I was quite pleased.

Dinner was lovely and all ready on time. The boys got to watch the end of the golfing tournament in between courses so really worked very very well. The dogs had some good runs in the back yard. Tonight I am beat so I haven't accomplished a thing!

Had a request for Siderfin information on my ancestry account and so I responded to that one. Interestingly it was one of Augustine's descendants and I am still working on the descent for my line which I strongly suspect will also come down from Augustine's line after all.

Tomorrow I shall complete the story on searching at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and continue with transcribing my images. I expect the day will proceed very quickly. I also need to get my hair cut.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 11 April 2009

I completed the census for Turnworth Parish Dorset from 1841 to 1911 although I am missing 25 names for 1911. There were 128 people listed on the Census and I only found 103 thus far. I will be submitting this file to the OPC Dorset webpages for Turnworth once I have proofread them and the poor law records. I still need to look at the Parish Records, draw out the militia information for Turnworth and select pictures. I have a number of gravestone pictures including my 2x great grandparents. I will see what other information I may have for Turnworth to add in. I seldom have a request for Winterborne Clenstone as everything is on line. Eventually I hope to do that with all of my parishes for which I am online parish clerk. It is a slow process.

Today I shall return to the images from Salt Lake City as I again became distracted doing the Census extraction for Turnworth Dorset. However, it is Easter and we have company coming for dinner so perhaps only just a brief glance to plan tomorrow.

Saturday evening found my husband and I at Church sharing a Labyrinth Service with about 50 other people. The New Fire was lit in the Great Porch where we all gathered waiting for the lighting of the Paschal Candle. Slowly the sun was sinking into the west and from our windows we could see the beginnings of what would be a glorious sunset on Holy Saturday as we welcomed in the new day in Jewish tradition which begins at sundown. Our Easter Journey was about to begin.

Our leader began the Labyrinth Litany and the Dean lit the Paschal Candle and we followed him into the Great Hall where our Labyrinth had been prepared in the style of Chartres Cathedral in France. Slowly the Dean entered the Labyrinth carrying the Paschal Candle and made his way to the centre where he would then hold the Candle high waiting for each of those present to work their way around the Labyrinth to light their candles from the Paschal Candle. My turn came and I slipped off my shoes, walking the Labyrinth is a sacred moment for me and as I reached each lighted turn I remembered those who had passed on before me reciting a Hail Mary at each. Beginning with the most recent, my sister in law, my brother, my mother, my mother in law, my brother in law, my father, my grandfather in law, my grandmother, my grandfather and then those that I had not known in life my grandmother, my grandfather, my great grandparents until I reached the centre - the New Jerusalem. Another Hail Mary as I waited a few moments in the centre and then with my lit candle - New Fire - in my hands I followed the Labyrinth back out again remembering the Living starting with Jesus Christ and then my family members - my husband, my daughters and then other relatives as I traveled my journey back to the beginning of the Labyrinth. Reaching the beginning I turned to embrace the New Light once again from afar.

When the last of the faithful had lit their Candle, the Dean carrying the Paschal Candle himself retraced his footsteps back to the opening of the Labyrinth and we followed the Paschal Candle back through the Great Porch and into the Sanctuary itself where our Service continued with prayer and readings. We passed the Peace and then in darkness departed for our homes. As we left the Church the sky now a velvety dark blue still had a hint of the crimson sunset on the horizon from nearly an hour earlier.

The experience of the Labyrinth on the eve before Easter proved to be as wondrous as the Great Vigil that we normally worship.

The Labyrinth has an ancient history dating back to the Bronze Age with the Labyrinth at Knossos. Labyrinth comes from the word labrys, referring to a double, or two-bladed, axe. Its representation had religious and probably magical significance. It was used throughout the Mycenaean world as an apotropaic symbol; that is, the presence of the symbol on an object would prevent it from being "killed." The modern meaning of labyrinth as a twisting maze is based on this earlier story.

In Christian times the Labyrinth emerged as a means of Christian worship to replace the Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy Lands because it became very dangerous and many people could not make the long trip anyway. One of the most famous is the Labyrinth at Chartres France in the entrance way to the Cathedral. Here the faithful could follow the path to the centre which was considered the New Jerusalem. Last evening our group, using a similarly marked path, retraced the footsteps of the pilgrims at Chartres.

I wonder if Stonehenge was a Labyrinth at one time. When we visited there nearly a year ago, I felt an oldness there that exceeded the timelessness that I felt when we visited the Pantheon in Rome (2006 years old). The history that exists within that site is just so long. Because I have ancestors from that part of Wiltshire I wonder if some of them, like myself, gazed upon those stones and felt the life in the stone at the entrance that we were permitted to touch. What a story those stones could tell if ever there was a way to understand them from a time perspective that didn't include destroying them to find out. The rain continues to wash them clean of anything that would help us to establish a time pattern but the ground beneath them may help to tell the story.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 10 April 2008

I completed the census to the end of 1871 and started 1881 for Turnworth. I am wondering who Anna Arnold, schoolmistress in 1871, is. She is from Stickland so is perhaps related to Hannah's family. The 1881 census is part of the Blandford and not listed separately. The Okedon family was enormous on the 1861 and 1871 census pushing the population of Turnworth up to 150 people from its usual 120 or so.

It was a busy day and I worked on a couple of other projects. We went to a concert at Church last night. It was my first time back at Church for nearly a year. The concert was very well attended which is good to see. We will go to a service Saturday night - not the Great Vigil of Easter but rather a Labyrinth service. It sounds interesting and perhaps very indicative of where I am at - pondering my Church and how it will survive in the 21st century. That in essence is what we must do - all of us - find a way for the work of Jesus Christ to continue to be relevant and to keep the Church as a strong part of society in the years to come.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 9 April 2008

I continued working on the Turnworth Poor Law Records and then started to do a database of the census returns for Turnworth. Samuel Knight is on the 1911 census for Turnworth along with his granddaughter Louisa Blake Hall and his son in law Charles and seven grandchildren including baby Muriel who was six months old and died at 9 months of age. My grandfather never mentioned Louisa or at least I do not recall him mentioning her as his sister - I do remember hearing about a Hall family. My father had forgotten that she was also his aunt but she appears to have lived with her grandparents from the age of 9 at least as she never appears on the census with her family at Upper Clatford.

I am also busy proofreading some material for a study that I am involved with but will slow that down just a little as eye strain is beginning to occur.

I ordered the marriage registration for one of my 2x great grandfather Buller's sisters just to see what was entered in the father's column for both actually. The descendants of this line think that it was a second marriage for Isaac Debnam although it is a known first marriage of Emma Hemsley Buller. I continue trying to discover more about this family and made an exciting discovery searching the BMDs listed on the NA newsletter yesterday. I had not been able to find a marriage for Elizabeth Jane (third sister of my Henry Christopher Buller) and it was in these records. Elizabeth Jane married Edward Churchyard at St Dionis Backchurch in London. A fascinating Church (no longer in use) located just across the Thames River from where they lived in Bermondsey. I also found the Fairburn 1801 map of London and was able to capture two sections with one showing Tooly Street (Christopher Buller had his Slop Shop here) and St Thomas St where they lived which is just two blocks to the south of Tooly. Tooly runs behind the wharves and piers on the southside of the river just past the Tower of London (north side of river) going east. The adjacent portion of the map also on the south side has Grange Road where the Beard and Hemsley families lived. Christopher Buller married Mary Beard. Henry Beard (her father) married Elizabeth Hemsley and the burial of Elizabeth Hemsley Beard in 1781 lists her last address as Grange Road. The burial for a John Hemsley is also Grange Road.

The parents of Christopher Buller and now the parents of Henry Beard continue to elude me. I have a death registration for a Christopher Buller in 1839 at Bromley Kent and it would put his birth at 1757 which would mean that he was 38 when he married Mary Beard (she was likely around 20). Was he in the navy? I think I may start to look at that. Producing naval uniforms would appear to be an appointment so wonder if it is because he is related to the well known Buller family in London or because he was in the navy himself. The death registration lists him as a gentleman and Bromley is not that far from London but one would wonder why he is there as he is 81 years old. The informant was not a family member. Christopher Buller was not a common name at any time period. I just have one sibling of Henry's Robert Huxley (Hemsley?) Buller that I am not able to find after his birth and baptism in 1806. I am hoping that the LMA records soon come online at Ancestry as they will answer a few of my questions perhaps or if I am very lucky many of them.

Today I take a break. I tend to push myself very hard. We will have a lovely long walk. I spent part of the morning listening to services for Good Friday and tomorrow we will go to the evening Labyrinth Liturgy service at the Cathedral. Most of our snow is gone now.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 8 April 2009

I completed my Centenary Club application and sent it off to OGS. I decided to have my Centenary ancestor as John Pincombe. I know the most about this family line with respect to my Canadian ancestry.

I continued working on my Turnworth Poor Law Records and I did hear back from the OPC Dorset project. I will take on the Turnworth parish along with the Winterborne Clenstone. These are both very tiny parishes (seldom more than 100 on any census). Turnworth especially is interesting to me as my great grandmother Blake was born, baptized and grew up in this small village. I am not sure how she ended up in Upper Clatford but suspect she was visiting her Knight cousins when she met my great grandfather. The Knight family lived just down the street from him in Upper Clatford. Always fascinating how people meet. I am realizing that in every generation my Blake ancestor always married someone from outside the village although their siblings offered married a local person. Joseph Blake was from Andover and he married Joanna King in Upper Clatford. Their son Thomas married Sarah Coleman from Abbots Ann. Their son John married Ann Farmer from Andover. Their son Edward (my great grandfather) married Maria Jane from Turnworth. Their son Samuel married Edith Bessie Taylor from Kimpton Hampshire. My father of course married in Canada and he was born at Eastleigh Hampshire. Amazing really.

We walked almost out to the point in the park today (about 4 kilometres). We are gradually working up to our much longer walks and bicycle rides soon to happen as the weather improves. It snowed here today but spring is coming!

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 7 April 2008

I continued working on the Milton Abbas Poor Law Records and they will take me several more days to complete (about 25 more images). No new discoveries of my family names there.

I also discovered the Centenary Club at the Ontario Genealogical Society (of which I am a member) and downloaded their form (actually I decided to retype it into word and then I could type it instead of handwriting). I have filled in most of the form and I have five emigrant ancestors (plus two children who were born in England) who have been in Ontario for more than 100 years. My maternal grandmother came in 1908 but I decided not to trace her back since she is just over the 100 years and I already had five adult emigrant ancestors.

I also am back on track doing my exercises which is great. I used the elliptical machine for 7 minutes which is good for me and then did aerobics for another 20 minutes then weightlifting for 10 minutes. I followed that up with my special shoulder exercises which I have been doing since I had therapy on my shoulder following the torn rotator cup. This injury has healed I think as I usually am not bothered by it.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 6 April 2008

I continued with the Milton Abbas Poor Law Records and learned a little about the Norris family (John Arnold married Hannah Norris 5 July 1751 at Milton Abbas). Hannah's father was John and definitely not mentioned on this Poor Law Record but the Poor Law Record of 1667 thus far in transcription lists Christopher Norris and the Protestation Returns of 1641-2 list Christopher Norris, George Norris, Leonard Norris and William Norris. A Francis Arnold is listed on the 1696 Poor Law Rate and the 1641-42 Protestation Return lists David Arnold, Henry Arnold Gent, Henry Arnold, John Arnold, Richard Arnold and William Arnold. The father of my John Arnold was also John Arnold and his father was likely James Arnold. But I have no idea who the father of this James (bc 1668) was. Nor do I know the father of John Norris (bc 1700). I was hoping to learn more about this family at Salt Lake City as the Parish Registers have never been filmed (only the Bishops Transcripts are available and they are limited). Thus far neither of these families appears on the disbursements which is unfortunate :) They were both farmers.

I continued working on DNA studies as well. My Hampshire study has now expanded to four members. This has the potential to be very popular and will eventually occupy a lot of time I suspect. The potential for interesting observations remains very high if enough people join that can trace their ancestry back into the 1500s or earlier on paper. I do not think that I will turn people away but will put them into an Unassigned category for the moment. If their family lore says Hampshire, they may one day prove the line. If the study becomes very large I will concentrate only on the individuals with a valid paper trail in my reporting. That would also encourage people to do the paper trail and not just wait for matches.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 5 April 2009

Returning to working on the Salt Lake City images and I transcribed Milton Abbas Poor Law Records for 1696 and 1656 today. Very interesting reading and I need to analyze them now to see if I have added to the information on my Arnold family who lived at Milton Abbas in the 1600s and 1700s by parish records. Hannah Arnold married Charles Butt at Winterborne Stickland and they were my 3x great grandparents. I will continue transcribing the Milton Abbas records to see if any interesting Arnold information emerges. The next set of Poor Law records are for Turnworth and those I am going to find extremely interesting as my Knight family quite dominate the parish registers at Turnworth in the 1800s.

I also added a list of surnames to the Hampshire England DNA project with assistance from the coordinator for the Devon Project. I had drawn out a list from the UK Surnames site but I added to that the Kingsclere site which she had mentioned to me. Up to three members now and I am hopeful that this particular study will form the nucleus of my Hampshire research. Managing the Hampshire Genuki pages gives me the opportunity to really add detail to the parishes of Hampshire.

Tomorrow I shall continue working on the Milton Abbas records. Other than the APG committee that I am serving on I do not have any commitments that are time related. I really want it to be like that so that I can work on items at my call rather than being dictated to by the needs of presenting or assisting.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 4 April 2009

Back to working on my Salt Lake City images and I decided to move to Dorset and work on the Protestation Returns for my villages there in the Winterbourne Valley - Winterborne Clenstone, Winterborne Stickland, Milton Abbas, Turnworth, Winterborne Houghton, etc. I have the Poor Rate for these villages and I have a mixture of people from here - agricultural labourers, stone masons, carpenters, and land owners. I shall transcribe the records and see what I can learn about all of them. My great grandmother Blake was Maria Jane Knight and she was born at Turnworth early in January 1850 but I am still trying to find her death date. I have her picture and she has a quiet smile in 1898. Usually people were shy or very stiff in their pictures but she stares forthrightly at the camera with just the hint of a smile in her face. She is wearing her blond braided hair like a coronet around her head, her black dress looking neat and tidy and her shoes are highly polished. My father adored his father's mother and he stayed with them at Upper Clatford a number of times as a child. My father remembered that she had come from close to Blandford Forum (Turnworth is just to the northwest of Blandford) and the name quite intrigued him I rather think.

Maria Jane Knight's parents were Samuel Knight and Louisa Butt and two of her aunts and uncles Knight married two of her aunts and uncles Butt. They were a closely knit family and my father knew his great grandfather Samuel Knight fairly well. They used to visit him every summer by traveling through the New Forest which quite stuck in his memory. Samuel died in 1912 when my father was eight. He was a tall thin white haired man who lived with his eldest granddaughter (my grandfather's oldest sister). The Knight family were stone masons and carpenters, the Butt family were agricultural labourers (Charles (Samuel's father) was a Wesleyan Methodist Lay Preacher) mostly as far back as I can tell, the Arnolds were land owners and other surnames were: Ball, Dashwood, Durnford, Ellis, Foster, Gantrell, Lemon, Long, Malton, Norris, Rolles, Sandle, Vincent and Wellspring. Unfortunately, I am unable to purchase these parish registers and the Bishops Transcripts are quite incomplete. One day I hope to spend a few days at Dorchester reading through the register copies although, to be honest, I would rather be out visiting where they lived.

Tomorrow I shall continue with the Poor Law Rates of these little villages. It is good to be back to the Salt Lake City Records. I would like to carry on through them now until I finish.

DNA Research

Again I worked on the DNA studies that I share with others and do myself. Certainly this is yet another tool in the basket of genealogists but one shouldn't depend totally on this information either as people could and did move about a surprising amount. Looking at deep ancestry though is possible but surprising.

Today is going to be another rainy one here and I want to continue working on scanning books into our database as well as decide what records to begin working on from our trip to Salt Lake City last November. Hard to believe that it was six months ago now. The time has absolutely fled by and to think that at the time we contemplated returning there in September 2009. Not possible as I shall not have gotten through all the material by then and that doesn't include compiling it and drawing out the sections that contemplate my family tree. I also want to do more work on my one name studies material that I collected there. I need to continue inputting the previous studies that I inherited for the Pincombe project. I drew out a lot of Siderfin material when I was ill these past couple of weeks that I can incorporate into the Siderfin study. I would love to find a Siderfin family member who would test for the line (actually two as I have one line of Siderfin that I am linking back to the Siderfin family at Selworthy although they do not have a definitive link back to Thomas (younger brother of my Elizabeth)). It would appear logical this is the same Thomas but something more concrete would be nice.

DNA studies

I spent most of yesterday working on updating my various DNA studies that I do either by myself or in a group. The latest phylogenetic chart which was published is quite interesting and I am sure the academic world is now reviewing it with regard to their bank of data. The struggle to reach back and understand time is quite fascinating. I have three perfect coding matches with my mtDNA but I have two mutations in the control region that they do not have and they have two that I do not have. Since these matches are in Ossetia it would appear that we are separated by thousands of years which is most interesting and adds more thought to my hypothesis that my ancestors left the Ukraina Refuge likely as the ice retreated and made their trek across to Scotland via the grassy plain that is now the North Sea. Quite fascinating to contemplate but a recent match HVRI and HVRII with a female line that descends from Scotland traveling to Carlisle cumberland and then Manchester Lancashire before emigrating to Utah is quite fascinating. My own line is brickwalled in the Midlands of England.

I am still contemplating where to begin once again with my data that I brought back from Salt Lake City and will make a decision on that today. I want to have a good deal of this work transcribed by the end of the summer. Then I can return to my fiche that I have purchased in the last year and begin transcription of that material. My tree doesn't grow too much any more but not surprising given that I am working back at the 4x great grandparent level. The progress back will be much slower.

Catch up

I spent yesterday catching up on various items and answering a lot of email requests. I had accumulated four for Bishops Nympton (along with two that require more effort) and so I responded to them. In general the requests are quite straightforward and people ask for small amounts of information but on occasion the request is very large and it takes me time to go in and pull out the information. Or they ask for you to basically do their history for a couple of generations which I usually do not do unless it is my line in which case I am able to oblige. Several times lately I have had people write and the very nice day go to the Devon list and complain that they didn't have an answer. People ask to much of volunteers I rather think and I always strongly suggest that they could find more answers if they did some volunteering but generally get the answer I work full time to which I can respond quite gleefully so did I when I did my 20,000 entries on Free BMD!

I need to spend some time today deciding which part of the Salt Lake City I will return to as I was working on Devon items when I decided to go back and do all the Bishops Nympton records before proceeding any further. It is good to have them done and I now need to create my excel database of the Parish Register document file. Having a verbatim translation of the entire registers will always be very handy though in the future.

We went out for a walk between rains and our colds are definitely on the mend.

We were scooped for our T study in that a group from The Netherlands has published an entire phylogenetic tree which includes a very well broken down T group. I examined the mutations and their working database must have been huge although they only mention GenBank and published papers. It denotes me as H11a1 which was the postulated name that I sent in for my haplogroup. Looking at it more intently though it isn't actually my sample that was used and I have one more mutation so I become H11a1a or something like that. Fascinating stuff DNA studies and being able to pinpoint my geographic location as Argyll Scotland is a real plus given that I am brickwalled in The Midlands of England. I now have another match where the individual is able to trace back her female line to Manchester in the 1840s and prior to that Carlisle Cumberland in the early 1800s with a birth in Scotland (no details) prior to that. I need to find the submitter of that information to the IGI and will be looking for that to write to them - located now in Utah. Perhaps I can drum up an interest in testing the FGS to see if we match. Definitely I have no ideas on my female ancestor past a couple of hundred years.