I worked on our son-in-law's French Canadian ancestry yesterday and found more information on his paternal grandmother's line. I am producing a chart for his paternal grandmother as she asked for one at the wedding. I decided to try and find baptisms for her parents which I hadn't located before. I am somewhat confused by the paternal grandmother of her father. I am not sure if there were two individuals with the name Antoine Gregoire; one married to Delima Seguin and the other married to Delima Laderoute. I will continue to seek that information although the marriage that I found was for Antoine Gregoire and Rosa de Lima Seguin on 30 Aug 1869 at the Basilica de Notre Dame, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I need to try to find a marriage with Delima Laderoute and Antoine Gregoire to solve that mystery.
Eventually I will get back to my genealogy as I am working on proving my 4x great grandparents. I hope to have that completed by the early summer. There are 64 great grandparents and I have now proven eight of them. I need more information on the Farmer/Lambden 4x great grandparents before I can prove those four individuals. I will probably start back on the Knight line (Maria Jane Knight (my grandfather's mother) (I was looking for her burial/death when I stopped working on my genealogy)) as I have quite a bit of information back to the 4x great grandparents (Knight (2x), Butt, Arnold, Durnford, Ellis, Vincent, and Malton). Proving the two Knights are brothers is one of my aims for our next visit to the Family History Library. Many researchers claim that they are. My grandfather said his Knight grandparents were cousins and they had 13 children. This has proven to be true. That will complete my grandfather's 2x great grandparents (my 4x great grandparents) and then I will work on my grandmother Blake's line. Since she was illegitimate (stepfather was William Taylor as he married her mother Elizabeth Rawlings) and given the second middle name of Cotterill there is a strong possibility that her father was George Cotterill who lived on the Manor House Farm (his father was an agricultural labourer) (son of William Cotterill and Jane Sherwood). I have traced this line back to her 2x great grandparents and will prove that line but will likely halt there. I have traced her mother's Rawlings' line back to the 4x great grandparents and will enter the proofs for this line.
Then I can move to my mother's line where I have started to prove her line and have completed four (Pincombe/Pearce). Proving her paternal line should be quite straightforward as I have all the proofs back to the 4x great grandparents on every line (and beyond). Proving her maternal line though requires me still to find a paper trail back to her maternal grandparents which I lack. I have only family lore to go on and will not prove beyond the 2x great grandparents until I have found that link.
The next trip to Salt Lake City will look at a few more angles to see if I can make that leap back. I know that her mother had an illegitimate child in 1879 at Birmingham and they are found on the 1881 census in the Aston workhouse. Her age at that time was listed as 19 but she is listed as 30 on the 1891 census. If I am correct in having her parents as Ellen Roberts and Thomas Taylor they had a daughter Elizabeth born 9 Oct 1859 at Birmingham. On the 1891 census this person would have been 31 years old. However on her death registration she is listed as 37 and the date 27 Feb 1897 which would give her a birth date between 28 Feb 1859 and 27 Feb 1860. There isn't another Ellen Taylor born at Birmingham in this time period that would fit into this criteria. However, I need to caution myself that an entry could be incorrect. Finding a descendant of this family would be helpful and I continue to try to discover what happened to the five siblings of Ellen Taylor that survived childhood (Thomas born 1858, Elizabeth born 1862, Frank born 1865 died 1875, Kate (Kathryn) born 1868, Marion (Marianne) born 1869 (Ashton under Lyne), and William born 1870. All children born at Birmingham except for Marion (Marianne). They are on the 1881 census at Ashton under Lyne (Lancashire) and the 1871 census at Birmingham. My grandmother visited Lancashire when she was in England although spent most of her time in Birmingham and Coventry (Buller descendants lived at Coventry). Unfortunately I have to go on memory for her trip to England as the contents of her suitcase which held all of her information were destroyed. One of my great regrets is not taking her suitcase at the time she wanted me to do so. I thought she would live for ever and never suspect she would die eight months after we married.
Back to Genealogy! Barry Blake has taken over the Blake DNA study and added it to his webpages which will be a forward movement I think for the study of the Blake family of the British Isles.
http://blakeheritage.synthasite.com/blake-family-dna-project.php
I am still curious if this name has one founder with the other lines being descended through daughtered out female lines with a sister's child taking the Blake uncle's surname (i.e. why did Richard Caddell take the Blake surname?). Time will tell on that actually. There are so many different haplogroups though that one is left to surmise that the name arose spontaneously in several different areas. Certainly at Norfolk there are two distinct lines which go back several hundred years at Wimbotsham. The Blake family is known to be in London from early times as well. The earliest recorded mention of Blake is the Subsidy Roll in 1286 for Blakelands (Blacklands) where a Robert de Blakeland is paying his taxes. Most books tracing the Blake line do trace back to this individual. My own line being at Andover from the 1400s on is traced back on paper to this Robert de Blakeland as well. However, I terminate my line at Andover until I can find actual proof that the father of Nicholas is indeed a great grandson of Robert Blake and Avis Wallop. Still working through the wills on that connection.
Today I shall continue to work on French Canadian ancestry.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Ice Storm and shopping
Christmas is still in the air here with many shoppers at the stores in spite of the ice storm that poured down on us. We are still helping to keep the economy going replacing our blender and buying another magic bullet as we gave ours to our youngest daughter and husband when they left us last year. We bought some new pyrex storage containers to replace glass ones from 44 years ago. My grandmother gave them to us for our wedding and I have nursed them along all these years but it is time to replace them. Our entire economy is based on the idea of renewal and it is healthy to renew dishes anyway. We have gone through at least five sets of everyday dishes (mostly Corelle). Although they have a 20 year guarantee I like to replace them every five years or so because they get small scratches in them. Usually we give them away to the Canadian Diabetes Association. Works for them and works for us. I do like a change in the dishes I eat off of every once in a while!
No new clothes yesterday - we did all that before Christmas. Our new Christmas tablecloth looked great but it is off now and the plain table is back with place mats. I have quite a few so can just wash them up every other day. We need to try to stay well in Canada and keep the health care costs down as much as possible. There will always be high costs but if one can minimize them then that works for everyone.
The windows are all streaked with ice and the white snow has a thick crust of ice on it. Our tree out front is very large now and laden with ice. One hopes that the wind will be still and not send those enormous branches thrashing about. We want to get it trimmed but still did not get that done. Hopefully it will be our only bad ice storm this winter.
Our daughter will soon be back at her studies again. She had an evening out with our youngest daughter last night. Just around midnight their power failed which could be serious in the cold night with the two dogs and the bunny especially. It is hard to keep a bunny warm. The dogs at least will stay under a blanket. But the power was back on by 3:30 a.m. at least when I woke up it was on. Hopefully their house did not get too cold.
Soon back to genealogy and I think I will spend some time on the French Canadian genealogy just to pull out all the data for our son-in-law's ancestors. It is amazing doing their genealogy since the Drouin Records are all online. Plus one of his great uncles and an aunt have the family tree up on line. I also found another line of his father's family online (the mother of his grandmother). That is helpful as well. But a lot of the names have not yet been worked on. There were an amazing number of French emigrants to Quebec (and other parts of North America) in the 1600s. I have yet to find a duplicate family name in our son-in-law's entire tree.
No new clothes yesterday - we did all that before Christmas. Our new Christmas tablecloth looked great but it is off now and the plain table is back with place mats. I have quite a few so can just wash them up every other day. We need to try to stay well in Canada and keep the health care costs down as much as possible. There will always be high costs but if one can minimize them then that works for everyone.
The windows are all streaked with ice and the white snow has a thick crust of ice on it. Our tree out front is very large now and laden with ice. One hopes that the wind will be still and not send those enormous branches thrashing about. We want to get it trimmed but still did not get that done. Hopefully it will be our only bad ice storm this winter.
Our daughter will soon be back at her studies again. She had an evening out with our youngest daughter last night. Just around midnight their power failed which could be serious in the cold night with the two dogs and the bunny especially. It is hard to keep a bunny warm. The dogs at least will stay under a blanket. But the power was back on by 3:30 a.m. at least when I woke up it was on. Hopefully their house did not get too cold.
Soon back to genealogy and I think I will spend some time on the French Canadian genealogy just to pull out all the data for our son-in-law's ancestors. It is amazing doing their genealogy since the Drouin Records are all online. Plus one of his great uncles and an aunt have the family tree up on line. I also found another line of his father's family online (the mother of his grandmother). That is helpful as well. But a lot of the names have not yet been worked on. There were an amazing number of French emigrants to Quebec (and other parts of North America) in the 1600s. I have yet to find a duplicate family name in our son-in-law's entire tree.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
French Canadian ancestry
The French Canadian ancestry that I have been doing for our son-in-law was well received at the Wedding party. A few corrections were gratefully received and a couple of requests for copies. I will do the copies for him to hand on and there will be more corrections if there are any. I am hoping for pictures as well and will put a note on the copies saying pictures would be great and that we could scan them at any time or place that would suit. It will be good to have their history saved for their families.
I expect I shall be busy this winter working on the new babies genealogy through her mother's side. This new baby will have our daughter as aunt (her brother-in-law's baby to be). I also want to go in and collect all documents (baptism, marriage and burial) that I haven't located yet. I used whatever records would take me back to the 4x great grandparents on all lines. Hence, I didn't pull all the baptisms, marriages or burials if I didn't need them to work my way back.
Presents all purchased and I just need to make mincemeat and butter tarts, a coffee cake for breakfast Christmas Day and a pumpkin pie for dinner. Then the turkey to prepare and put on to roast in the oven. We are doing scalloped potatoes for a change and squash plus some mixed frozen vegetables. Cranberry sauce to make - I usually do that Christmas morning as I like it very fresh. We bought a fruit tray to go with the coffee cake this year which will be very nice I expect. We also bought some nibbles - sausage rolls, mini hot dog rolls, meatballs in sauce for lunch which will just be a buffet style while we sit around relaxing after opening presents.
We are in now and will concentrate on getting everything ready for tomorrow. The sun is now shinning brightly and the temperature may actually make it above 0 degrees celsius for a short while. The nights are still quite long here. It will be nice if we can have Christmas without an ice storm.
I may even get a little French Canadian genealogy done today. I started my first copy for our son-in-law's paternal grandmother. I used her son (father of our son-in-law) as the starting point and I am using a nine generation chart (the one at the wedding was eight generations only and started with a blank spot for a possible child of the future). My mother said that Pincombe weddings used to have a chart on the Pincombe family on display. She couldn't remember who had it though. Too bad!
I expect I shall be busy this winter working on the new babies genealogy through her mother's side. This new baby will have our daughter as aunt (her brother-in-law's baby to be). I also want to go in and collect all documents (baptism, marriage and burial) that I haven't located yet. I used whatever records would take me back to the 4x great grandparents on all lines. Hence, I didn't pull all the baptisms, marriages or burials if I didn't need them to work my way back.
Presents all purchased and I just need to make mincemeat and butter tarts, a coffee cake for breakfast Christmas Day and a pumpkin pie for dinner. Then the turkey to prepare and put on to roast in the oven. We are doing scalloped potatoes for a change and squash plus some mixed frozen vegetables. Cranberry sauce to make - I usually do that Christmas morning as I like it very fresh. We bought a fruit tray to go with the coffee cake this year which will be very nice I expect. We also bought some nibbles - sausage rolls, mini hot dog rolls, meatballs in sauce for lunch which will just be a buffet style while we sit around relaxing after opening presents.
We are in now and will concentrate on getting everything ready for tomorrow. The sun is now shinning brightly and the temperature may actually make it above 0 degrees celsius for a short while. The nights are still quite long here. It will be nice if we can have Christmas without an ice storm.
I may even get a little French Canadian genealogy done today. I started my first copy for our son-in-law's paternal grandmother. I used her son (father of our son-in-law) as the starting point and I am using a nine generation chart (the one at the wedding was eight generations only and started with a blank spot for a possible child of the future). My mother said that Pincombe weddings used to have a chart on the Pincombe family on display. She couldn't remember who had it though. Too bad!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Genealogy
The long awaited wedding day is now past and I can see myself returning slowly to Genealogy!
I have been in discussion with Barry Blake the last few weeks as he has taken over as co-administrator of the Blake DNA project at FT DNA. He has updated the webpages for this site and done a marvelous job.
http://blakeheritage.synthasite.com/blake-family-dna-project.php
I still have just the one match (8/12) on this site but it is an interesting match. I am hoping that Barry will be able to persuade this individual to test to 37 markers. With the extra 25 markers I should have a clearer picture of whether or not it is feasible that this person also descends from the Hampshire Blake family (or possibly the Wiltshire Blake family). Various posts later I am left with the thought that I originally had on the Blake family of Somerset. It is a combination of the spillover of the Blake family from Wiltshire and a Welsh Blake family that moved to Somerset. When Increase Blake visited a John Blake in Somerset in the mid 1800s and he learned that the Somerset Blake family shared kinship with the Wiltshire Blake family I suspect that over time these two Blake lines thought themselves related and their Welsh ancestry was lost to time. One individual feels that he can trace his line back to Sir Robert Blake, Lord High Admiral and he is R1b1b (the Welsh line is also R1b). His line back though goes to Norfolk which makes this even more interesting. There are already two distinct Blake lines in Norfolk at Wimbotsham (R1a1 and I2b1). These two lines are related although the original linkage is through a daughter of the Blake house which has resulted in two distinct haplogroups. This third line was located in another part of Norfolk and appears to go back into the 1500s as well.
I am hoping that the visibility of the Blake DNA project may encourage more Blake members to test and have their results put into the study. There are now at least ten distinct lines for Blake in the study and one could now relate to one of them and share ancestry.
I also said that I would work on the French Canadian ancestry of my daughter's husband's brother's wife. Half of the table is now done with our son-in-law's ancestry so just need to do the other half of the table. French Canadian ancestry is quite fascinating. I would only take it out to the 8th generation thus far.
I have the Christmas Tree all decorated and as usual it looks a little lopsided when I do it. My husband and children are much better at it. But it stood empty for nearly a week with all the rush for the wedding so I decided to do it today before Christmas is actually upon us. We are in countdown mode. We have purchased very few presents and need to do that by Thursday. Since I always did my Christmas shopping in the last two days I am not too perturbed but others around me are in a rush!
I have been in discussion with Barry Blake the last few weeks as he has taken over as co-administrator of the Blake DNA project at FT DNA. He has updated the webpages for this site and done a marvelous job.
http://blakeheritage.synthasite.com/blake-family-dna-project.php
I still have just the one match (8/12) on this site but it is an interesting match. I am hoping that Barry will be able to persuade this individual to test to 37 markers. With the extra 25 markers I should have a clearer picture of whether or not it is feasible that this person also descends from the Hampshire Blake family (or possibly the Wiltshire Blake family). Various posts later I am left with the thought that I originally had on the Blake family of Somerset. It is a combination of the spillover of the Blake family from Wiltshire and a Welsh Blake family that moved to Somerset. When Increase Blake visited a John Blake in Somerset in the mid 1800s and he learned that the Somerset Blake family shared kinship with the Wiltshire Blake family I suspect that over time these two Blake lines thought themselves related and their Welsh ancestry was lost to time. One individual feels that he can trace his line back to Sir Robert Blake, Lord High Admiral and he is R1b1b (the Welsh line is also R1b). His line back though goes to Norfolk which makes this even more interesting. There are already two distinct Blake lines in Norfolk at Wimbotsham (R1a1 and I2b1). These two lines are related although the original linkage is through a daughter of the Blake house which has resulted in two distinct haplogroups. This third line was located in another part of Norfolk and appears to go back into the 1500s as well.
I am hoping that the visibility of the Blake DNA project may encourage more Blake members to test and have their results put into the study. There are now at least ten distinct lines for Blake in the study and one could now relate to one of them and share ancestry.
I also said that I would work on the French Canadian ancestry of my daughter's husband's brother's wife. Half of the table is now done with our son-in-law's ancestry so just need to do the other half of the table. French Canadian ancestry is quite fascinating. I would only take it out to the 8th generation thus far.
I have the Christmas Tree all decorated and as usual it looks a little lopsided when I do it. My husband and children are much better at it. But it stood empty for nearly a week with all the rush for the wedding so I decided to do it today before Christmas is actually upon us. We are in countdown mode. We have purchased very few presents and need to do that by Thursday. Since I always did my Christmas shopping in the last two days I am not too perturbed but others around me are in a rush!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Wedding Day
Up at 7:00 a.m. and it is a cold crispy day here (-18 degrees celsius). Everything is prepared as of last evening which the three of us spent icing cakes. The fondant rolled on beautifully and I did not trim the sides, just top and bottom. The topper has to go on the cake and our daughter will do that when the cakes get to the caterer. The cupcakes look quite elegant. No superfluous icing, just a rosette topped with one of the fondant roses in the bride's colours for her attendants. I didn't go to the dark blue but the blue is definitely there!
The surprise cake is the Groom's Cake and it is a large golf ball shape as he is a keen golfer. We put a W on the ball for Wilson balls. They will cut the Groom's cake and that should be fun to watch them doing that. It is two cakes, one in a half hemispheric shape and then the second one just a layer cake. They are built with fondant between them and then fondant used to give the rounded top a more distinctive look. Then completely overlaid with a circle of fondant that had been imprinted to look like a golf ball. It turned out quite well and we had prepared a board with green felt (covered with saran wrap) and the golf ball rested on that. Added one strip of icing around the bottom and the W. It looks very like a golf ball and will be a surprise to the Groom as no mention has been made of this cake at all.
Writing this in the morning and I will add the wedding details in the evening as our bed and breakfast has internet. Still have to put the cupcakes into the Ikea boxes (they have lovely big ones and the topper cake and golf ball are in their smaller storage boxes). We bought the large Ikea boxes for the cupcakes. I am not sure how many boxes we will need. I will separate the rows with a row of waxed paper. We have two large boxes put together and will need either one more large box or one of the smaller boxes.
The only big item for this morning is to pick up the flowers. At -18 celsius this will be a challenge to keep them from freezing. We will warm up the van and then pick them up and deliver them to the Best Man's (Groom's brother) home and our daughter and her future husband's home. The bride and her attendant had a lovely evening together last night. We will pick up the two dogs (one from the best man's home and one from the couple's home) and that will be our job to take them to the wedding just for pictures and then they go to the Groom's mother's home and are crated for the rest of the evening. They are probably a trifled confused by all the activity but it will soon be back to normal for them. Well they are having pictures we will go to the Bed and Breakfast and get dressed for the wedding. I am happy with my new dress (although I also liked the grey dress). I just feel like I should be wearing the wheat dress with red leave trim in the material. It is a fall dress and we are just coming to the end of Fall. The grey is lovely but feels like deep winter and our winter really doesn't start until December 21!
The sky is promising a beautiful sunny day which looks deceptive when you look out the window except for the bare trees which are the giveaway to the cold weather. Hopefully it will warm up to the promised - 10 degrees celsius but our daughter can put on my new coat to go out for a couple of pictures on a small island in the pond. There is a bridge to the island and I am sure it will be beautiful pictures.
The rest of the wedding day..... tomorrow. Too sleepy tonight. A beautiful day though and our daughter a beautiful bride.
The surprise cake is the Groom's Cake and it is a large golf ball shape as he is a keen golfer. We put a W on the ball for Wilson balls. They will cut the Groom's cake and that should be fun to watch them doing that. It is two cakes, one in a half hemispheric shape and then the second one just a layer cake. They are built with fondant between them and then fondant used to give the rounded top a more distinctive look. Then completely overlaid with a circle of fondant that had been imprinted to look like a golf ball. It turned out quite well and we had prepared a board with green felt (covered with saran wrap) and the golf ball rested on that. Added one strip of icing around the bottom and the W. It looks very like a golf ball and will be a surprise to the Groom as no mention has been made of this cake at all.
Writing this in the morning and I will add the wedding details in the evening as our bed and breakfast has internet. Still have to put the cupcakes into the Ikea boxes (they have lovely big ones and the topper cake and golf ball are in their smaller storage boxes). We bought the large Ikea boxes for the cupcakes. I am not sure how many boxes we will need. I will separate the rows with a row of waxed paper. We have two large boxes put together and will need either one more large box or one of the smaller boxes.
The only big item for this morning is to pick up the flowers. At -18 celsius this will be a challenge to keep them from freezing. We will warm up the van and then pick them up and deliver them to the Best Man's (Groom's brother) home and our daughter and her future husband's home. The bride and her attendant had a lovely evening together last night. We will pick up the two dogs (one from the best man's home and one from the couple's home) and that will be our job to take them to the wedding just for pictures and then they go to the Groom's mother's home and are crated for the rest of the evening. They are probably a trifled confused by all the activity but it will soon be back to normal for them. Well they are having pictures we will go to the Bed and Breakfast and get dressed for the wedding. I am happy with my new dress (although I also liked the grey dress). I just feel like I should be wearing the wheat dress with red leave trim in the material. It is a fall dress and we are just coming to the end of Fall. The grey is lovely but feels like deep winter and our winter really doesn't start until December 21!
The sky is promising a beautiful sunny day which looks deceptive when you look out the window except for the bare trees which are the giveaway to the cold weather. Hopefully it will warm up to the promised - 10 degrees celsius but our daughter can put on my new coat to go out for a couple of pictures on a small island in the pond. There is a bridge to the island and I am sure it will be beautiful pictures.
The rest of the wedding day..... tomorrow. Too sleepy tonight. A beautiful day though and our daughter a beautiful bride.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Cake
Wednesday I baked the topper cake for the Bride's wedding cake. It is going to be a pound cake made with 125 ml of liqueur along with the 500+ gm of butter, 5 eggs etc. It is a tube pound cake and I will cut off the height that they want for the cake and then the topper goes on that. It will be wrapped with fondant and then trimmed simply with a row of tubed icing around the bottom and the top. The top will have several rows and then room for the topper to sit. Still trying to decide how much trim on the sides. If it looks lovely just like that then no additions but I could make white roses and do a thin strip top to bottom (perhaps as many as 5 strips) with white fondant roses on the strip. That is the main baking for today as I have the cakes already baked and frozen for the Rehearsal Dinner. I had suggested a restaurant but I must admit holding it in the house was much nicer.
The menu
Wine, cheese, crackers, beer, humus, raw vegetables, pickles, olives, punch
Lasagna, baked beans, ham (cubed), scalloped potatoes, turkey meatballs in garlic sauce, pasta salad, cabbage salad, caesar salad
Thin pieces of pound cake, orange chiffon cake and chocolate pound cake with fruit tray and ice cream
Tea and coffee
Most of that preparation was for Thursday with our son in law to be's mother, her husband and us taking on the responsibility for the food.
Also on Thursday I baked the eight dozen cupcakes (half white and half chocolate) and then iced them on Friday. I already made the fondant roses for the cupcakes Tuesday.
The marvels of the modern age saw us talking to our oldest daughter whilst she waited at the airport in Milwaukee for her flight home at 7:10 p.m. last night. By 9:00 p.m. she was in Toronto and then departed there at 10:30 p.m. and arrived here at 11:32 p.m. Amazing considering it took us 1.5 days to drive there! Now the busy time begins as our tree now up is quite bare and begging to be decorated for Christmas. The rest of the house is looking like Christmas but the tree (usually decorated Advent I) is looking quite beautiful in its greeness (we spent about half of an hour straightening out the branches as it is artificial but looks quite real).
The snow is building up as we have had a little snow each evening after the big snowfall. It is clinging to the branches as it has stayed quite cool and looks like the picture postcards one sees of Canada. It is going to be cold today, -26 celsius early in the morning rising to -14 celsius in the day.
The menu
Wine, cheese, crackers, beer, humus, raw vegetables, pickles, olives, punch
Lasagna, baked beans, ham (cubed), scalloped potatoes, turkey meatballs in garlic sauce, pasta salad, cabbage salad, caesar salad
Thin pieces of pound cake, orange chiffon cake and chocolate pound cake with fruit tray and ice cream
Tea and coffee
Most of that preparation was for Thursday with our son in law to be's mother, her husband and us taking on the responsibility for the food.
Also on Thursday I baked the eight dozen cupcakes (half white and half chocolate) and then iced them on Friday. I already made the fondant roses for the cupcakes Tuesday.
The marvels of the modern age saw us talking to our oldest daughter whilst she waited at the airport in Milwaukee for her flight home at 7:10 p.m. last night. By 9:00 p.m. she was in Toronto and then departed there at 10:30 p.m. and arrived here at 11:32 p.m. Amazing considering it took us 1.5 days to drive there! Now the busy time begins as our tree now up is quite bare and begging to be decorated for Christmas. The rest of the house is looking like Christmas but the tree (usually decorated Advent I) is looking quite beautiful in its greeness (we spent about half of an hour straightening out the branches as it is artificial but looks quite real).
The snow is building up as we have had a little snow each evening after the big snowfall. It is clinging to the branches as it has stayed quite cool and looks like the picture postcards one sees of Canada. It is going to be cold today, -26 celsius early in the morning rising to -14 celsius in the day.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Countdown Continuing
The winter snows are falling heavily today here and the snow hills are starting to accumulate giving us that picture postcard look of winter in snowy Canada. It is cold out there today and when we came home from Church we had about 4 centimetres of snow to brush off.
Austerity is the word of the moment and we probably need to practice that at Church as well. I like to think that some of my givings go to aid the poor of the world. I still also feel it is time to only use the bread at the Eucharist and the money saved from wine could be used to buy medicines for the people in need in Africa. It is starting to bother me watching on TV the items that discuss leprosy and the need for money to buy medicines to cure this disease which could be completely eradicated - giving up wine at Eucharist would free up a lot of money for such needs. I give by PAR but I have moments when I wonder if I should reduce that and give money monthly to help buy medicine.
A lot to do still before the wedding but I have my lists now to keep me on track. I haven't touched my genealogy for a month now but did do our future son-in-laws direct line back now from his father's side. I am missing only four of his names - French Canadian research is quite fascinating. Perhaps at the wedding someone will be able to help me with that (plus check what I have). I have tried to be very careful moving back from known members to their mariage and parents listed there and then finding the baptism as well and then the parent's marriage. It will be something for our children to have plus all of our research in the years ahead. Our daughter will become an aunt in the spring and it will be nice to give the onehalf of the chart that is the baby's ancestry to the parents.
Other than that we have been busy cleaning house and recording all the VHS tapes. The tapes are done but we are still cleaning and probably will be until spring. We are trying to downsize somewhat although ended up buying the electric fireplace and a new microwave and stand plus the portable dishwaster. They are however all items that could go with us to an apartment and we have eliminated one bedroom worth of furniture. That room had become a station for our printer server and "command" point computer that is available for a lot of technical setups. It also now has four bookcases of VHS tapes from the basement. Our next pursuit is to finish plastering the basement and paint it. Then we will put down a better floor cover under our rugs. We spend quite a bit of time down there (and did in the past but never got to doing anything with the basement through the years) and it would be nice to have white walls to give it more light. Our TV is down there as well. I need to record the DVDs that we have purchased since that new phenomenon hit the market. Five or six years ago we stopped buying any VHS and simply waited until whatever we wanted came out in DVD. That worked well actually especially given that VHS machines are now hard to find to purchase.
Still have the Christmas Tree to put up and probably next week sometime. This is the latest ever I think, usually we put it up on Advent I. It is feeling like Christmas now though and this will be our 35th Christmas in Ottawa. Although it is cold here I rather enjoy living in Ottawa now.
Three thirty now and already you can tell that evening is coming. The shortest day of the year will soon be upon us. With the snow clouds above it is a dull day today although brightened by the thickly falling white snow. I think that must be how people stand to be in the Arctic - the white snow gives us its own light.
Austerity is the word of the moment and we probably need to practice that at Church as well. I like to think that some of my givings go to aid the poor of the world. I still also feel it is time to only use the bread at the Eucharist and the money saved from wine could be used to buy medicines for the people in need in Africa. It is starting to bother me watching on TV the items that discuss leprosy and the need for money to buy medicines to cure this disease which could be completely eradicated - giving up wine at Eucharist would free up a lot of money for such needs. I give by PAR but I have moments when I wonder if I should reduce that and give money monthly to help buy medicine.
A lot to do still before the wedding but I have my lists now to keep me on track. I haven't touched my genealogy for a month now but did do our future son-in-laws direct line back now from his father's side. I am missing only four of his names - French Canadian research is quite fascinating. Perhaps at the wedding someone will be able to help me with that (plus check what I have). I have tried to be very careful moving back from known members to their mariage and parents listed there and then finding the baptism as well and then the parent's marriage. It will be something for our children to have plus all of our research in the years ahead. Our daughter will become an aunt in the spring and it will be nice to give the onehalf of the chart that is the baby's ancestry to the parents.
Other than that we have been busy cleaning house and recording all the VHS tapes. The tapes are done but we are still cleaning and probably will be until spring. We are trying to downsize somewhat although ended up buying the electric fireplace and a new microwave and stand plus the portable dishwaster. They are however all items that could go with us to an apartment and we have eliminated one bedroom worth of furniture. That room had become a station for our printer server and "command" point computer that is available for a lot of technical setups. It also now has four bookcases of VHS tapes from the basement. Our next pursuit is to finish plastering the basement and paint it. Then we will put down a better floor cover under our rugs. We spend quite a bit of time down there (and did in the past but never got to doing anything with the basement through the years) and it would be nice to have white walls to give it more light. Our TV is down there as well. I need to record the DVDs that we have purchased since that new phenomenon hit the market. Five or six years ago we stopped buying any VHS and simply waited until whatever we wanted came out in DVD. That worked well actually especially given that VHS machines are now hard to find to purchase.
Still have the Christmas Tree to put up and probably next week sometime. This is the latest ever I think, usually we put it up on Advent I. It is feeling like Christmas now though and this will be our 35th Christmas in Ottawa. Although it is cold here I rather enjoy living in Ottawa now.
Three thirty now and already you can tell that evening is coming. The shortest day of the year will soon be upon us. With the snow clouds above it is a dull day today although brightened by the thickly falling white snow. I think that must be how people stand to be in the Arctic - the white snow gives us its own light.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Snow Storm
Wicked snow storm lashing us here in Eastern Ontario at the moment - we expect 20 to 30 cm of snow only but the cold wind is swirling it about so will seem like more as it packs in around the houses and cars! We were out for groceries already and home again snug as a bug in a rug. Snow is late this year but it is coming with a vengeance just to let us know that it hasn't forgotten us.
Still no work on genealogy - just too busy. All the VHS videos are now entered into Library Thing and the next thing to enter are the DVDs. We still haven't touched all the books in the basement or upstairs - our house is more books than anything actually. When our youngest was small she asked if she lived in a Library! However, she loves books as well. I suppose in a way she did grow up in a library except it was our own. We have a more complete set of National Geographic books than the library has. We have more genealogy books in one place than most small libraries. We have been to the large repositories like Ontario Archives, LAC, NEHGS, NYPL, Allen County Public Library, Salt Lake City where there is considerably more of course. Requests for information have dropped off which is fortunate as I simply do not have time at the moment to really do anything in depth on anything. Gradually I am withdrawing from commitment to anything. Eventually I will be concentrating 100% on my own family history. It seems apt as I approach 65 to do so. Already in three months I am behind in the DNA field since I no longer read everything that I see. I am concentrating on my DNA and my husband's family lines.
Back to winter time sports and the like. It will be fun to be snowshoeing, skating and skiing once again. We have to wait for the really cold nights though to freeze the canal. Our daughter will be home for Christmas in another week or so although she will be spending a good chunk of the day on research but it will be so much nicer than writing her thesis. It is so wonderful that she is done, defended and awarded her degree. Now she can look forward instead of always having to look back at the research that she was writing up. It really does make you lose a year of research - that year of writing up although necessary in order to clear that one big hurdle that separates you from the people who haven't defended.
I am getting used to my new glasses gradually. It has been a struggle as the one lens is much stronger (like it used to be). I am not really sure why the lens was weakened but perhaps because of the weight which is quite like the glass lens actually. The way of convincing me to go to plastic lens was to say that they would be much lighter! They were actually but I never could see as well as I am seeing now. I thought it was because of the plastic but actually it was the weakening of the lens. The byproduct though is that my right eye is much stronger than it was before but it also explains my headaches of the last 12 years!
Today I shall make the orange chiffon cake and perhaps get started sewing. We will be inside for most of the day likely.
Still no work on genealogy - just too busy. All the VHS videos are now entered into Library Thing and the next thing to enter are the DVDs. We still haven't touched all the books in the basement or upstairs - our house is more books than anything actually. When our youngest was small she asked if she lived in a Library! However, she loves books as well. I suppose in a way she did grow up in a library except it was our own. We have a more complete set of National Geographic books than the library has. We have more genealogy books in one place than most small libraries. We have been to the large repositories like Ontario Archives, LAC, NEHGS, NYPL, Allen County Public Library, Salt Lake City where there is considerably more of course. Requests for information have dropped off which is fortunate as I simply do not have time at the moment to really do anything in depth on anything. Gradually I am withdrawing from commitment to anything. Eventually I will be concentrating 100% on my own family history. It seems apt as I approach 65 to do so. Already in three months I am behind in the DNA field since I no longer read everything that I see. I am concentrating on my DNA and my husband's family lines.
Back to winter time sports and the like. It will be fun to be snowshoeing, skating and skiing once again. We have to wait for the really cold nights though to freeze the canal. Our daughter will be home for Christmas in another week or so although she will be spending a good chunk of the day on research but it will be so much nicer than writing her thesis. It is so wonderful that she is done, defended and awarded her degree. Now she can look forward instead of always having to look back at the research that she was writing up. It really does make you lose a year of research - that year of writing up although necessary in order to clear that one big hurdle that separates you from the people who haven't defended.
I am getting used to my new glasses gradually. It has been a struggle as the one lens is much stronger (like it used to be). I am not really sure why the lens was weakened but perhaps because of the weight which is quite like the glass lens actually. The way of convincing me to go to plastic lens was to say that they would be much lighter! They were actually but I never could see as well as I am seeing now. I thought it was because of the plastic but actually it was the weakening of the lens. The byproduct though is that my right eye is much stronger than it was before but it also explains my headaches of the last 12 years!
Today I shall make the orange chiffon cake and perhaps get started sewing. We will be inside for most of the day likely.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Kipp and Link families
We decided to have a look for a microwave and spent most of the day going from store to store looking for the exact one that we had in mind. Along the way I decided to have a look at the suits on sale at the Bay. By the time we got there most of them were gone apparently although there was one that caught my eye. I decided that I didn't need a grey suit though and we wandered about looking for the red blouse that I had seen at the Bay at Place and wanted to replace the old red one that I have for my black suit. It was in a petite and I really wanted a regular size. I didn't find it but came across the dress that I first saw for our daughter's wedding. It was greatly reduced and I decided spontaneously to buy it and so I now have it for the wedding. I had been tempted to go back and buy it but wasn't sure that I wanted to spend such a large sum for a one time wearing of a dress. At the reduced price I decided to do that and perhaps I will wear it again. It is a dress for Fall and we are just into the late stages now. It is more colourful than my light grey panne velvet dress that I made. I like it and will wear it other times but really had liked this other dress first. I need to try it on with my black shoes now to see if I like that or if I should buy a pair of shoes that blend with the dress.
After going to a few shops and then a recommendation by our daughter and son in law to be we ended up finding the microwave that we really wanted. Smaller than our old one and some new bells and whistles - our salmon fish cakes reheated beautiful in the oven which has an inversion feature that encourages equal heating. Usually we would have to heat longer to get the same heating. It was not very expensive either and fits beautifully into the cabinet that my husband made (a particle board one from Canadian Tire that we purchased a couple of days ago).
When we decided to upgrade our house and appliances this summer we were thinking that it will help the economy. Likely others are doing the same and that is what is helping our economy to come back again. The sales though are incredible and hopefully will also help the retail section to recover.
Other than that no genealogy being done on my families still and not likely until the new year. I have quite a few backlog items that I need to work on including my Genuki Hampshire webpages. I need to consider whether I am the best person to do the webpages or should I advertise for someone new to take up the project. The Hampshire pages look good but I do not have a lot of new information. It is basic information but very handy for finding material on particular villages/towns/cities. I had hoped to do more but there are always copyright issues for some of the material. I need to avoid being in conflict with copyright.
I am gradually stepping down from many of my commitments. I would like more time to do my own research and I also want to start sewing each day (and knitting) and I want to watch one movie (or two) a day before we can no longer watch our VHS tapes! We have over 1000 tapes that we have purchased over the last 25 years. We have also managed to acquired over 200 DVDs. We tend to buy them on special (the old movies) for $6.00 or so. Some of the newer ones can be acquired for $10.00 or less. Although you can rent them fairly cheaply we like to rewatch some and tend to buy those. We also rent quite a few movies through a year.
We also got the lights up yesterday and bought a wreath for the front of the house. It has a lovely red velvet ribbon and lots of pine cones. We are starting to look Christmasy and the next item is the Christmas Tree. The Advent Candles look nice on the table and the manger scene will go up a little late today.
This has been a busy year of travel for us. We have again spent almost two months in total in the United States with our daughter. We have traveled to New York/Long Island, Boston/Cape Cod and environs, Fort Wayne Indiana, Milwaukee Wisconsin and in Canada we have been to Toronto, to London. We have been away from home for slightly over 1/4 of the year. Our travels take us to genealogical repositories for the most part and our expenses tend to be fairly low (which is good as we are retired!) with the cost of lodging and food being the largest part.
Our time at the Ontario Archives was really great as we had a hotel nearby and we spent most of the day at the Archives with a short commute and parking available at the site. The new Archives is a marvelous building. We want to spend some time at Kingston Anglican Church archives and the Toronto Anglican Church archives this year to try and find the marriage of John Link and Mary Magdalene (surname unknown). Mary Magdalene is only found on the census once and her burial at Falkland is known. On the census she states that she is from England and born in 1821. We know that John Link was at East Gwillimbury by 1839 and this is the likely time frame for the marriage (1838 to 1842). Thus far the searching has not yielded a possible marriage for these two but it is possible that they married at Kingston (or the area) or in Toronto itself. We need to spread further afield and that is one of our concentrations for this year. That one record would see my husband proved back to all of his 2x great grandparents and he has a lot of his 3x great grandparents except for the Kipp line. That is the other project that we continue to work on - any evidence on Kipp members in New York State. We have evidence that points to there plus family lore. We hope to do some more work in Dutchess County this year.
After going to a few shops and then a recommendation by our daughter and son in law to be we ended up finding the microwave that we really wanted. Smaller than our old one and some new bells and whistles - our salmon fish cakes reheated beautiful in the oven which has an inversion feature that encourages equal heating. Usually we would have to heat longer to get the same heating. It was not very expensive either and fits beautifully into the cabinet that my husband made (a particle board one from Canadian Tire that we purchased a couple of days ago).
When we decided to upgrade our house and appliances this summer we were thinking that it will help the economy. Likely others are doing the same and that is what is helping our economy to come back again. The sales though are incredible and hopefully will also help the retail section to recover.
Other than that no genealogy being done on my families still and not likely until the new year. I have quite a few backlog items that I need to work on including my Genuki Hampshire webpages. I need to consider whether I am the best person to do the webpages or should I advertise for someone new to take up the project. The Hampshire pages look good but I do not have a lot of new information. It is basic information but very handy for finding material on particular villages/towns/cities. I had hoped to do more but there are always copyright issues for some of the material. I need to avoid being in conflict with copyright.
I am gradually stepping down from many of my commitments. I would like more time to do my own research and I also want to start sewing each day (and knitting) and I want to watch one movie (or two) a day before we can no longer watch our VHS tapes! We have over 1000 tapes that we have purchased over the last 25 years. We have also managed to acquired over 200 DVDs. We tend to buy them on special (the old movies) for $6.00 or so. Some of the newer ones can be acquired for $10.00 or less. Although you can rent them fairly cheaply we like to rewatch some and tend to buy those. We also rent quite a few movies through a year.
We also got the lights up yesterday and bought a wreath for the front of the house. It has a lovely red velvet ribbon and lots of pine cones. We are starting to look Christmasy and the next item is the Christmas Tree. The Advent Candles look nice on the table and the manger scene will go up a little late today.
This has been a busy year of travel for us. We have again spent almost two months in total in the United States with our daughter. We have traveled to New York/Long Island, Boston/Cape Cod and environs, Fort Wayne Indiana, Milwaukee Wisconsin and in Canada we have been to Toronto, to London. We have been away from home for slightly over 1/4 of the year. Our travels take us to genealogical repositories for the most part and our expenses tend to be fairly low (which is good as we are retired!) with the cost of lodging and food being the largest part.
Our time at the Ontario Archives was really great as we had a hotel nearby and we spent most of the day at the Archives with a short commute and parking available at the site. The new Archives is a marvelous building. We want to spend some time at Kingston Anglican Church archives and the Toronto Anglican Church archives this year to try and find the marriage of John Link and Mary Magdalene (surname unknown). Mary Magdalene is only found on the census once and her burial at Falkland is known. On the census she states that she is from England and born in 1821. We know that John Link was at East Gwillimbury by 1839 and this is the likely time frame for the marriage (1838 to 1842). Thus far the searching has not yielded a possible marriage for these two but it is possible that they married at Kingston (or the area) or in Toronto itself. We need to spread further afield and that is one of our concentrations for this year. That one record would see my husband proved back to all of his 2x great grandparents and he has a lot of his 3x great grandparents except for the Kipp line. That is the other project that we continue to work on - any evidence on Kipp members in New York State. We have evidence that points to there plus family lore. We hope to do some more work in Dutchess County this year.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Items to do
Yesterday we got the new (to us) countertop dishwasher running and it is an interesting addition. A couple of minutes washes up preparation dishes that do not fit into the machine and then we just set it going and about an hour later all finished. We are using the cabinet that Ed built to put it on as it has rollers - he actually built it for the microwave which is a large old machine now by modern standards. It is over 20 years old and he has been thinking of renewing it with a newer smaller one which works well because it doesn't fit into the new microwave cabinet that he built yesterday. The new cabinet can hold baking dishes and utensils plus the Lean Mean Grilling machine that he bought last year. We had lamb burgers last night cooked on it and as always they are absolutely delicious. I really enjoy lamb.
Someone knocked at the door looking to sell us hydro because of the smart meter coming in the new year. We will stay with Ontario Hydro as our direct supplier. It is simply too awkward to have many middlemen supplying your services. It is different in new subdivisions where they are already in place when you buy. As I look around our home of 30 plus years I am reminded that we may not be here in ten years but may have moved on to a different accommodation (condo or living with one of our children). Adding to our furniture was not in the plans but the microwave stand will be handy as would the dishwasher if there isn't one built in. Plus you could have it on a bar in a family room in the future for washing up glassware or the like and not having to run a large one. The microwave would be handy to have in a small area especially if you were living in units that provided the main meal of the day. However, that is still somewhat in the future likely.
We talked about our trip to Europe a bit and looking at times I think we will probably go for the 20 day tour instead of the 24 day tour. Although inspired to have a longer time I did find that the 21 days in England plus our visit with cousins was a very long time and I was keen to return home before the end of the last one. You do not enjoy everything quite the same when you are thinking of going home all the time! Mind you Stonehenge on the second last day was certainly a draw and kept me concentrated on our trip. Plus we drove by Andover once again where some of my families lives for over 500 hundred years.
I need to hem my dress and that is becoming a higher priority. It has hung nicely now for over a month and the natural folds of the material have taken over once again. I will need to apply a little steam here and there to knock out the creases but for the most part it is ready to wear except for hemming.
I need to plan the cooking for the next two weeks with regard to the cakes and rehearsal dinner plus I need to order the food from Farm Boy that we are picking up. I should do that by tomorrow.
Today we are going to look at a new microwave to replace our old one and then I think we are finished with the kitchen. We are thinking of paneling two walls of the basement since we spend so much time down there now and likely to spend more with the fireplace there. We are thinking of watching one movie a day now that we have looked once again at all of the videos that we have purchased over the last 20 plus years. I am up to 635 now recording them in Library Thing. As a child I watched movies every Saturday at the theatre so probably saw most of what was produced between the late 1940s and the late 1950s when there were were a lot produced. I would say that a large number of our movies come from the period between 1930 and 1970 but also we have purchased a lot of TV series and movies produced since then but the bulk are probably earlier. Once I have the database completed I will sort by year and see how that bears out just for interest's sake!
We are also going to start using our high electricity guzzlers in the offtime (i.e. later evening)for clothes washing and drying especially. We managed to only use the dryer half a dozen times between the first of April and the end of November this year (eight months!). But we will likely use it solidly now until the snow clears away in the spring. Today is a bright day but very cold and the remaining load is heavy items so they will just freeze to the line. With just the two of us there isn't a lot of washing anyway as it turns out.
Now to accomplishing more data entry for the videos and baking a couple of cakes.
Someone knocked at the door looking to sell us hydro because of the smart meter coming in the new year. We will stay with Ontario Hydro as our direct supplier. It is simply too awkward to have many middlemen supplying your services. It is different in new subdivisions where they are already in place when you buy. As I look around our home of 30 plus years I am reminded that we may not be here in ten years but may have moved on to a different accommodation (condo or living with one of our children). Adding to our furniture was not in the plans but the microwave stand will be handy as would the dishwasher if there isn't one built in. Plus you could have it on a bar in a family room in the future for washing up glassware or the like and not having to run a large one. The microwave would be handy to have in a small area especially if you were living in units that provided the main meal of the day. However, that is still somewhat in the future likely.
We talked about our trip to Europe a bit and looking at times I think we will probably go for the 20 day tour instead of the 24 day tour. Although inspired to have a longer time I did find that the 21 days in England plus our visit with cousins was a very long time and I was keen to return home before the end of the last one. You do not enjoy everything quite the same when you are thinking of going home all the time! Mind you Stonehenge on the second last day was certainly a draw and kept me concentrated on our trip. Plus we drove by Andover once again where some of my families lives for over 500 hundred years.
I need to hem my dress and that is becoming a higher priority. It has hung nicely now for over a month and the natural folds of the material have taken over once again. I will need to apply a little steam here and there to knock out the creases but for the most part it is ready to wear except for hemming.
I need to plan the cooking for the next two weeks with regard to the cakes and rehearsal dinner plus I need to order the food from Farm Boy that we are picking up. I should do that by tomorrow.
Today we are going to look at a new microwave to replace our old one and then I think we are finished with the kitchen. We are thinking of paneling two walls of the basement since we spend so much time down there now and likely to spend more with the fireplace there. We are thinking of watching one movie a day now that we have looked once again at all of the videos that we have purchased over the last 20 plus years. I am up to 635 now recording them in Library Thing. As a child I watched movies every Saturday at the theatre so probably saw most of what was produced between the late 1940s and the late 1950s when there were were a lot produced. I would say that a large number of our movies come from the period between 1930 and 1970 but also we have purchased a lot of TV series and movies produced since then but the bulk are probably earlier. Once I have the database completed I will sort by year and see how that bears out just for interest's sake!
We are also going to start using our high electricity guzzlers in the offtime (i.e. later evening)for clothes washing and drying especially. We managed to only use the dryer half a dozen times between the first of April and the end of November this year (eight months!). But we will likely use it solidly now until the snow clears away in the spring. Today is a bright day but very cold and the remaining load is heavy items so they will just freeze to the line. With just the two of us there isn't a lot of washing anyway as it turns out.
Now to accomplishing more data entry for the videos and baking a couple of cakes.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Countdown
I feel that we are now in a countdown mode. I should feel rushed but actually feel quite enthusiastic about the month of December. It is one of my favourite times of the year - Advent. It is a reflective time for me looking back on the year and its events and this has been an extremely busy year. I began the year recovering from about one year of illness. It took a while to realize that I was ill and then a while to succumb sufficiently to require a physician's care. Then the problem of deciding what was wrong with me and then the recovery period. Interesting experience for me as I haven't been ill for quite a while other than my shoulder injury which took about four years to heal and can still annoy me if I overdo it.
The winter saw me slowly recovering and by spring I was feeling much improved although still weak. Our daughter was working on her Ph.D. thesis and we tried to spend some time with her to stave off the loneliness of working on that and teaching on three campuses. She traveled a great deal with her last academic post. The summer saw us take our usual 10 K walk and do quite a bit of traveling mostly to historical repositories. Plus our daughter had submitted her thesis and defended it in July. We had to miss the defense because we were committed to a trip to Fort Wayne that week. It went very well and by the time we picked her up in London (with her car that we had driven to Fort Wayne) she had made her corrections and the thesis was formally submitted to Graduate Studies in its final form. She graduated in the Fall but was unable to attend due to work commitments.
Then we spent several fun weeks in early August canoeing, walking and biking with our eldest daughter and our youngest was preparing for her clinical year working in the hospital. In between our travels we spent a good part of our time helping out with the dogs - taking them for walks and babysitting them at our home on occasion. They were good and we had pleasant times together. There was also the wedding in its planning stages which are now coming to fruition. Our eldest then flew off to her new academic job in Milwaukee and her sight unseen apartment which turned out very well. We had packed her up after the thesis was submitted and that was yet another trip to New York. She had to unpack on her own this time and that took her a couple of weeks in between starting her academic job. Fortunately she doesn't have a lot of stuff and setting up a basic living area was done in just the weekend before everything began.
The fall came and I had my last lecture to give which went quite well. I am glad to be finished with all of that though as it was taking up a lot of my time keeping abreast of the field so that I could speak in a knowledgeable fashion. We took a trip to Cape Cod and Whale Watching with Queensway Tours. A most pleasant trip except I took ill (perhaps Swine Flu!). I have no idea why I was ill and by the time we headed home I was quite recovered. Oddest happening actually. Then we had to prepare to go to Albany for our NYGBS research at the New York State Archives and Library. Although we still have not solved the mystery of Isaac Kipp's parentage it did expose us to some new and novel research methods which we will continue to probe at. For my research there was no value at all as all of my records are in England or I have purchased them and have them here.
Then we were scarcely home once again and we were off to Milwaukee to spend American Thanksgiving with our daughter and see Milwaukee and area. Our trip through Chicago was quite interesting and we sat in the shadow of the Sears Tower for about fifteen minutes as the traffic was backed up somewhat. Milwaukee was most interesting and we traveled about the western part of the State as far north as Sheybogan and west as Madison. We helped out daughter to put her research books on her bookshelves (she moved offices part way through the term and then was off to a conference in Vancouver so hadn't really had a chance to settle in). We also went to a number of historic sites and the museums. The trip home was two days and uneventful other than being quite interesting. I had expected the American highways to be really congested but it wasn't too bad actually.
Then back to wedding planning and we are in the home stretch more or less. Mostly it is items that I now have to do that we have planned. The baking of 120 cupcakes and icing them plus making blue fondant roses for each one and then baking and icing the main cake. The rehearsal dinner I will make scalloped potatoes, ham, turkey meatballs in a sauce, cabbage salad, ceasar salad, raw vegetable tray and dip, cheese tray and cracker tray, and several cakes. All of this is manageable in the one day and our eldest will be there to help as well since our youngest will be working in the hospital right up to the last minute almost.
I must admit to looking forward to a quiet time now for the next five or six months. We are thinking of dancing again in the winter time which will be fun. I am very reclusive I must admit and relish the winter months with its long hours that can be spent reading, walking, skiing, snowshoeing and skating. Plus we are now all set up with our electric fireplace and tapes all organized to watch movies all winter as well plus help out our daughters when they need us to do that. I suspect that I will fly to see our eldest a few times a year as well but I can spend my time there working on my genealogy which is very portable and keeping her company although she is very reclusive like me and sometimes we do clash!
But for the moment I must get the house ready for the Advent Season and it will soon be Christmas and the New Year. Next year promises to be a lot of traveling once again but hopefully a few months of dawdling about!
Then over Christmas/New Years break when our eldest daughter is doing a research/study month I hope we can finally get to the Lancet article on tagging clouds to assist physicians. It has been growing in her mind for a while now but no time to commit it to a paper. Hopefully that can also come out of this research period.
The winter saw me slowly recovering and by spring I was feeling much improved although still weak. Our daughter was working on her Ph.D. thesis and we tried to spend some time with her to stave off the loneliness of working on that and teaching on three campuses. She traveled a great deal with her last academic post. The summer saw us take our usual 10 K walk and do quite a bit of traveling mostly to historical repositories. Plus our daughter had submitted her thesis and defended it in July. We had to miss the defense because we were committed to a trip to Fort Wayne that week. It went very well and by the time we picked her up in London (with her car that we had driven to Fort Wayne) she had made her corrections and the thesis was formally submitted to Graduate Studies in its final form. She graduated in the Fall but was unable to attend due to work commitments.
Then we spent several fun weeks in early August canoeing, walking and biking with our eldest daughter and our youngest was preparing for her clinical year working in the hospital. In between our travels we spent a good part of our time helping out with the dogs - taking them for walks and babysitting them at our home on occasion. They were good and we had pleasant times together. There was also the wedding in its planning stages which are now coming to fruition. Our eldest then flew off to her new academic job in Milwaukee and her sight unseen apartment which turned out very well. We had packed her up after the thesis was submitted and that was yet another trip to New York. She had to unpack on her own this time and that took her a couple of weeks in between starting her academic job. Fortunately she doesn't have a lot of stuff and setting up a basic living area was done in just the weekend before everything began.
The fall came and I had my last lecture to give which went quite well. I am glad to be finished with all of that though as it was taking up a lot of my time keeping abreast of the field so that I could speak in a knowledgeable fashion. We took a trip to Cape Cod and Whale Watching with Queensway Tours. A most pleasant trip except I took ill (perhaps Swine Flu!). I have no idea why I was ill and by the time we headed home I was quite recovered. Oddest happening actually. Then we had to prepare to go to Albany for our NYGBS research at the New York State Archives and Library. Although we still have not solved the mystery of Isaac Kipp's parentage it did expose us to some new and novel research methods which we will continue to probe at. For my research there was no value at all as all of my records are in England or I have purchased them and have them here.
Then we were scarcely home once again and we were off to Milwaukee to spend American Thanksgiving with our daughter and see Milwaukee and area. Our trip through Chicago was quite interesting and we sat in the shadow of the Sears Tower for about fifteen minutes as the traffic was backed up somewhat. Milwaukee was most interesting and we traveled about the western part of the State as far north as Sheybogan and west as Madison. We helped out daughter to put her research books on her bookshelves (she moved offices part way through the term and then was off to a conference in Vancouver so hadn't really had a chance to settle in). We also went to a number of historic sites and the museums. The trip home was two days and uneventful other than being quite interesting. I had expected the American highways to be really congested but it wasn't too bad actually.
Then back to wedding planning and we are in the home stretch more or less. Mostly it is items that I now have to do that we have planned. The baking of 120 cupcakes and icing them plus making blue fondant roses for each one and then baking and icing the main cake. The rehearsal dinner I will make scalloped potatoes, ham, turkey meatballs in a sauce, cabbage salad, ceasar salad, raw vegetable tray and dip, cheese tray and cracker tray, and several cakes. All of this is manageable in the one day and our eldest will be there to help as well since our youngest will be working in the hospital right up to the last minute almost.
I must admit to looking forward to a quiet time now for the next five or six months. We are thinking of dancing again in the winter time which will be fun. I am very reclusive I must admit and relish the winter months with its long hours that can be spent reading, walking, skiing, snowshoeing and skating. Plus we are now all set up with our electric fireplace and tapes all organized to watch movies all winter as well plus help out our daughters when they need us to do that. I suspect that I will fly to see our eldest a few times a year as well but I can spend my time there working on my genealogy which is very portable and keeping her company although she is very reclusive like me and sometimes we do clash!
But for the moment I must get the house ready for the Advent Season and it will soon be Christmas and the New Year. Next year promises to be a lot of traveling once again but hopefully a few months of dawdling about!
Then over Christmas/New Years break when our eldest daughter is doing a research/study month I hope we can finally get to the Lancet article on tagging clouds to assist physicians. It has been growing in her mind for a while now but no time to commit it to a paper. Hopefully that can also come out of this research period.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
New Eyeglasses
My eyeglasses are repaired and I am wearing them once again. They are strengthened in one eye so that I noticed the difference going back to my old glasses and they gave me eyestrain. Glad to have the new ones back again.
We were out and bought the butter, icing sugar, eggs, etc. to start baking cakes for the wedding. The first cakes will be for the rehearsal and I will freeze them so that they are nice and fresh for the evening. The big job will be making 120 cupcakes and icing them just one day before the wedding but it can be done I am sure. The pound cake I can make a couple of days ahead as it will be made with a liqueur and will only be enhanced by standing a bit before it is iced and then frozen for the first anniversary.
I spent part of the day recording VHS tapes in Library Thing and I am now up to 600. We have quite a collection - mostly the common ones but a few good historical ones that we have found. I purchased them when I was working with the thought that I would watch one or two movies a day when I retired. As it turned out I discovered genealogy (and DNA family studies) which quite distracted me from that original intention. However, every tape has been played at some point and we are going to start to watch one per day and not spend so much time on our computers.
Other than that we need to start getting ready for Christmas. Our lights are delayed going out as we were away for a couple of weeks when we would have usually put them up. I need to put up the Creche and soon the Christmas Tree. We are not away again now for quite a long time. I am tired of traveling I must admit and would like to not do any for quite a while. It is interesting seeing new places but it is also exhausting and I would let to settle down into a rut for a while!
We need to get back to our dancing as well so that we are all practised up for the wedding. Plus we quite enjoyed the dancing and it is good exercise in the winter months especially. We are thinking of signing up again in the winter term for lessons.
I still need to hem my dress. No genealogy again and it will be a while before I get back to doing genealogy.
We were out and bought the butter, icing sugar, eggs, etc. to start baking cakes for the wedding. The first cakes will be for the rehearsal and I will freeze them so that they are nice and fresh for the evening. The big job will be making 120 cupcakes and icing them just one day before the wedding but it can be done I am sure. The pound cake I can make a couple of days ahead as it will be made with a liqueur and will only be enhanced by standing a bit before it is iced and then frozen for the first anniversary.
I spent part of the day recording VHS tapes in Library Thing and I am now up to 600. We have quite a collection - mostly the common ones but a few good historical ones that we have found. I purchased them when I was working with the thought that I would watch one or two movies a day when I retired. As it turned out I discovered genealogy (and DNA family studies) which quite distracted me from that original intention. However, every tape has been played at some point and we are going to start to watch one per day and not spend so much time on our computers.
Other than that we need to start getting ready for Christmas. Our lights are delayed going out as we were away for a couple of weeks when we would have usually put them up. I need to put up the Creche and soon the Christmas Tree. We are not away again now for quite a long time. I am tired of traveling I must admit and would like to not do any for quite a while. It is interesting seeing new places but it is also exhausting and I would let to settle down into a rut for a while!
We need to get back to our dancing as well so that we are all practised up for the wedding. Plus we quite enjoyed the dancing and it is good exercise in the winter months especially. We are thinking of signing up again in the winter term for lessons.
I still need to hem my dress. No genealogy again and it will be a while before I get back to doing genealogy.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Catching up - genealogy to come
Now we are into catchup time as I have quite a bit to do before I can get back to genealogy. For one thing I want to start planning my days to include sewing/knitting/other needlework/reading besides my computer work on genealogy. I do not want to work more than 3-4 hours a day on the computer doing transcription. The work that I do on genealogy will now be entirely transcriptions as I link my generations back. Proving back to 3x great grandparents on all lines was quite straightforward for the most part. I only needed deep research on a few but now that I am back on the four x great grandparents the proofing of these individuals will require quite a bit more work for each person since I will be finding the marriages for their parents to go with the proof. I hope to get through all of the 4x great grandparents before we make our next trip to Salt Lake City later next year.
Unfortunately I had to take my glasses back today as the left lens popped out. That used to happen when I was a young child because of the weight of the lens but haven't experienced that as an adult. The lens is stronger though and consequently larger. I do hope they can solve the problem quickly. They didn't have my large oval frames anymore so had to go for a smaller frame. Fingers crossed that they can quickly resolve that problem. Fortunately I still have my old glasses to use until they are fixed. My old reading glasses still work for me as well (good to have backups!).
I must admit I worry about my daughter in Milwaukee as she is so far from home and family. Her place there is very nice although principally a student residence they do have a number of faculty people there who have come from away. Her new friend there (a faculty member from Scotland) has her mother living with her so really has a life of her own separate from the university. That is really the problem of being an academic in a different place - not having family about to help you when you need anything. It will be exciting to have her home for Christmas and New Years although she will be doing her own research but we have a study room all set up for her with a good desktop computer that can do everything that she wants it to do. Plus it is quiet here for her to work. In between work times she and her Dad can go out skiing and snowshoeing every day (once the snow comes!) and there is always good walking here too. During the summer she can also work here and even teach online courses as she did last summer. She is thinking of doing that for Milwaukee and it would give her an interesting sideline whilst she does her research and has a break from the academic lifestyle. The walking in Milwaukee is also very very good and we had several walks along the lake side where there is almost all parkland in her area. Next time we must visit some of the facilities although we did go to the Milwaukee Museum and looked at the Library which is a beautiful structure. We also went to the Jeanne d'Arc Chapel on the Marquette Campus (from the Rhone Valley in France 1400s) as well as an art museum there. We walked about the Milwaukee Campus in Milwaukee and at Madison where we traveled on one of the days. The Madison Campus is beautiful and spread along one side of one of the lakes there. Initially I thought it so much bigger but the Milwaukee Campus is a city campus without parkland and quite large as well.
Now I must think about the best time to work on the computer. I think perhaps in the morning until noon. Then in the afternoon I can sew or do needlework while we watch movies on TV. We have over 1000 VHS movies purchased during my working days and probably 200 to 300 DVDs that we have also purchased since they came out. We have now managed to put 350 of our VHS titles into Library Thing and we want to finish that project and enter in all the music tapes/other tapes as well. Then we can start on the books upstairs - a rather large project as we have hundreds and hundreds of them. Once completed we will be able to sort them about and add notations to items to assist in manipulating them at some point later. I think that 3 or 4 hours per day on genealogy will be enough. Now that I am no longer speaking on DNA I do not feel the need to stay so current with everything and can be more selective in the articles which I read - those which pertain to my lines. I had an email the other day from another individual descended from an I2a2 line. Our closest matches are in the Balkans but our history would appear to belie that with a long association with southern England back into the 1200s. Possibly they could be descendants of the Romans but Ken Nordvedt has postulated that they are probably early Britons arriving there shortly after the retreat of the glaciers when there was still a land bridge with Europe (about 8000 years ago and it would be certainly very interesting to prove that!). Finding more matches with English descendants would be handy at this point and I have the one that comes closest thus far. Perhaps I will hear from him one of these days :)
The afternoons I will sew on my new sewing machine. I bought a lovely piece of flannelette to make a nightdress for myself and I have a large bin of material that I bought over 15 years ago and I haven't touched it in that time frame. I also want to buy a piece of tartan to make a long kilt for dress wear at the genealogy events we attend. I will smock a blouse to go with it and try to figure out the costume that my Routledge's would have worn in the 1600s or 1700s. They were a Highlander family that came south to Cumberland by the 1400s. Not sure why they left the Highlands but my cousin Thomas Routledge is busy searching that one out and I will leave him with it. I am still sorting out my 6, 7 or 8 lines of Routledge in the 1700s! Mine emigrated to Canada in 1818 arriving in London Township by late Fall at least and possibly summer since I know they were still in Bewcastle paying taxes in January 1818. I decided to choose that family to remember with a costume because they are my first Canadian ancestors.
The good news is that it is starting to snow. Once started here we usually just continue accumulating. I told my daughter that her wish for snow should be somewhat tempered as she doesn't want enormous ugly brown snow hills for her wedding. It looks like a picture postcard here a lot of the winter with the lovely white snow covering everything but it is dreadfully cold. A bone chilling cold that lasts well into the end of March. The summer is so short here really with very little spring but usually a long fall before the snow comes once again. Our front yard is dug up by the city works crew as they are working on the street lights. Hopefully they will finish before winter but I have my suspicion that we will be looking at that snow fence gradually filled in by the snow as it climbs higher and higher! Time will tell on that but the ground is fast freezing thus making their work quite difficult. Hopefully the pipes wont freeze but they are electrical so perhaps not a problem, however the open ground exposes our water pipe to more cold than it would usually enjoy so that is a concern as well.
Unfortunately I had to take my glasses back today as the left lens popped out. That used to happen when I was a young child because of the weight of the lens but haven't experienced that as an adult. The lens is stronger though and consequently larger. I do hope they can solve the problem quickly. They didn't have my large oval frames anymore so had to go for a smaller frame. Fingers crossed that they can quickly resolve that problem. Fortunately I still have my old glasses to use until they are fixed. My old reading glasses still work for me as well (good to have backups!).
I must admit I worry about my daughter in Milwaukee as she is so far from home and family. Her place there is very nice although principally a student residence they do have a number of faculty people there who have come from away. Her new friend there (a faculty member from Scotland) has her mother living with her so really has a life of her own separate from the university. That is really the problem of being an academic in a different place - not having family about to help you when you need anything. It will be exciting to have her home for Christmas and New Years although she will be doing her own research but we have a study room all set up for her with a good desktop computer that can do everything that she wants it to do. Plus it is quiet here for her to work. In between work times she and her Dad can go out skiing and snowshoeing every day (once the snow comes!) and there is always good walking here too. During the summer she can also work here and even teach online courses as she did last summer. She is thinking of doing that for Milwaukee and it would give her an interesting sideline whilst she does her research and has a break from the academic lifestyle. The walking in Milwaukee is also very very good and we had several walks along the lake side where there is almost all parkland in her area. Next time we must visit some of the facilities although we did go to the Milwaukee Museum and looked at the Library which is a beautiful structure. We also went to the Jeanne d'Arc Chapel on the Marquette Campus (from the Rhone Valley in France 1400s) as well as an art museum there. We walked about the Milwaukee Campus in Milwaukee and at Madison where we traveled on one of the days. The Madison Campus is beautiful and spread along one side of one of the lakes there. Initially I thought it so much bigger but the Milwaukee Campus is a city campus without parkland and quite large as well.
Now I must think about the best time to work on the computer. I think perhaps in the morning until noon. Then in the afternoon I can sew or do needlework while we watch movies on TV. We have over 1000 VHS movies purchased during my working days and probably 200 to 300 DVDs that we have also purchased since they came out. We have now managed to put 350 of our VHS titles into Library Thing and we want to finish that project and enter in all the music tapes/other tapes as well. Then we can start on the books upstairs - a rather large project as we have hundreds and hundreds of them. Once completed we will be able to sort them about and add notations to items to assist in manipulating them at some point later. I think that 3 or 4 hours per day on genealogy will be enough. Now that I am no longer speaking on DNA I do not feel the need to stay so current with everything and can be more selective in the articles which I read - those which pertain to my lines. I had an email the other day from another individual descended from an I2a2 line. Our closest matches are in the Balkans but our history would appear to belie that with a long association with southern England back into the 1200s. Possibly they could be descendants of the Romans but Ken Nordvedt has postulated that they are probably early Britons arriving there shortly after the retreat of the glaciers when there was still a land bridge with Europe (about 8000 years ago and it would be certainly very interesting to prove that!). Finding more matches with English descendants would be handy at this point and I have the one that comes closest thus far. Perhaps I will hear from him one of these days :)
The afternoons I will sew on my new sewing machine. I bought a lovely piece of flannelette to make a nightdress for myself and I have a large bin of material that I bought over 15 years ago and I haven't touched it in that time frame. I also want to buy a piece of tartan to make a long kilt for dress wear at the genealogy events we attend. I will smock a blouse to go with it and try to figure out the costume that my Routledge's would have worn in the 1600s or 1700s. They were a Highlander family that came south to Cumberland by the 1400s. Not sure why they left the Highlands but my cousin Thomas Routledge is busy searching that one out and I will leave him with it. I am still sorting out my 6, 7 or 8 lines of Routledge in the 1700s! Mine emigrated to Canada in 1818 arriving in London Township by late Fall at least and possibly summer since I know they were still in Bewcastle paying taxes in January 1818. I decided to choose that family to remember with a costume because they are my first Canadian ancestors.
The good news is that it is starting to snow. Once started here we usually just continue accumulating. I told my daughter that her wish for snow should be somewhat tempered as she doesn't want enormous ugly brown snow hills for her wedding. It looks like a picture postcard here a lot of the winter with the lovely white snow covering everything but it is dreadfully cold. A bone chilling cold that lasts well into the end of March. The summer is so short here really with very little spring but usually a long fall before the snow comes once again. Our front yard is dug up by the city works crew as they are working on the street lights. Hopefully they will finish before winter but I have my suspicion that we will be looking at that snow fence gradually filled in by the snow as it climbs higher and higher! Time will tell on that but the ground is fast freezing thus making their work quite difficult. Hopefully the pipes wont freeze but they are electrical so perhaps not a problem, however the open ground exposes our water pipe to more cold than it would usually enjoy so that is a concern as well.
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