I have finally completed my initial cleaning up of the records in order to best graph the marriages in the Blake families in England between 1841 and 1950 (a century plus). I now have to clean the data because of double keying in the Free BMD database. Thus far I have completed four registration districts and in total I have 740 Registration Districts for which I have accumulated information. By the decade 1941 to 1950, the Blake family can be found in nearly every Registration District in England. However, there are still large pockets of Blake families in particular areas and this charting will, hopefully, be meaningful in that regard.
Once completed then my next step will be to look at the marriage records combined with the birth and death registrations to try to put families together beginning in the 1941 to 1950 time period. As I reach back to 1911 I will be able to bring the census into play but we are lucky with the civil registration records as the marriages include the partner's surname from 1912 on and in the case of the birth of children, the mother's maiden name.
This will be a very long term project which will occupy my mind's enjoyment for numbers and graphing and publication of results (primarily in my blog although if I find the data interesting I will write an article for the Guild of one-name Studies journal).
We are into house renovations as well. We have replaced two sets of closet doors and will also look at replacing the room doors. There is still one more set of closet doors to replace as well. Downsizing is always at the back of my mind. Although I am finding it is doable for me to do the gardening. I do not have my husband's fascination with plants - it is more that it is nice to see the yard looking neat on my part. The locust tree at the front of the house has dropped all of its leaves and we have them all raked up. Now it is the enormous maple in the rear garden that needs to drop its leaves along with the crab apple tree. That is the next major cleanup job along with the garden. We have whittled away at the garden and have only beets and broccoli left. The broccoli will probably go this weekend and we can enjoy the beets for awhile yet. The more the frost the better they taste - although I like beets anyway!
The flowers have managed to evade a lot of the frost thus far but one of these mornings they will be gone. We have filled the ruts between the bricks of our front patio and the trim along the paved laneway and it looks very smart. I like the sand in the crevices. It is a very interesting look instead of just the raw stones looking at you.
Our locust tree always looks so bleak so much of the year. It drops its leaves (and stems) in early October and isn't really into bloom until June so only four months of vegetation but it is a beautiful tree placed there by the city about thirty years ago. The maple tree at the back was grown from a sapling by our oldest daughter and my husband. It must be over 300 metres tall now. It has a beautiful shape and the richness of the colour is still in its leaves. The crabapple tree is about 33 years old and produces an abundant crop of crabapples which I used to make into jelly. The jelly eaters no longer do so and the fruit is now for the squirrels or anyone else who wants them. Generally they are composted.
This will be one of the last days to put out the washing and the umbrella clothes dryer will soon be put away for the winter. I love the smell of washing fresh from the line outdoors. It is my most favourite smell of spring actually once the line can go out into the soggy ground. We used to have a fixed one but then it is out there all winter so instead have one that we can readily take up.
The Canadian flag in the rear yard doesn't have any wind today but perhaps later when the rain storm comes. It is nice to look out the window and see it there - our beautiful red maple leaf flag that became our flag in my lifetime since as a child we still flew the Union Jack.
Back to my Blake chart, I am finding this study of my surname to be a most interesting one and it tends to occupy most of my time. Pincombe is also always in the front of my mind and I want to continue working on the wills and will do that before I start on the many Blake wills that I have acquired. That will be my control on working on the Blake wills - I must complete Pincombe first.
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