Cornwall Census and Blake

Working away on the Cornwall Census and it is a slow process. Managed to have two colds in the last month which have rather slowed me down. Until I tested myself at 23 and Me I thought it was just flukey that I acquire colds and flus even though I do take the flu shot but it does turn out that I have no resistance to some diseases but then no one is resistant to the common cold. Without the flu shot I would be returning to the person who used to be sick much more often even.

As this year works its way towards the end both my husband and I are feeling that we should do something different with our days. We still will do genealogy but less of it. We would like to take on something else. I thought about doing English as a Second Language teaching if there is a need with all the refugees about to arrive. My husband has his Ph.D. in Chemistry and his Masters in Library Science so has quite a wide variety of language skills to bring to such teaching. Myself I have worked in a number of places and lots of different vocabulary as well although perhaps mostly slanted towards science. We could team teach and perhaps be helpful to people coming here whose English skills are not as strong as they could be. I think that is what often holds new Canadians from non-English speaking countries back.

Many of the refugee families are quite large and coming from a large family I am comfortable with working with an entire family and I believe Ed would find that interesting as well. We will see what transpires in the New Year.

The Blake yDNA study is slowly growing but needs to be at least four times the size it is now for yDNA before I would even really say much beyond what is on the page now. I am working on a way to display Family Finder Results that retains people's anonymity. Thus far other than my own and my families results no one matches anyone else to any great degree. Although I am keen on the projects it can not just be driven by this small group. A lot of people have to become interested in Blake for it to move forward. I know that what I have published on the Blake family in the 1200s and 1300s has disappointed many people who saw this as a singleton family but I think it is rather simplistic to think that many families will be singleton to be honest.

Cornwall I would like to finish towards the end of the month. I am still considering how I will display this information and I think I will do a descendant chart for each unique line and publish them down to the 1871 census. No idea yet on how many lines that will be in terms of founders since the records do not go back far enough to determine if all the Blake family members are Bodmin are related. Working out from Bodmin though has been quite interesting. I could not do the same working out from Landrake. I suppose I am convinced that the founder of this line is from Breton arriving in Cornwall in the Bodmin area prior to 1525. I know that is a disappointment to at least one person and that has resulted in my rethinking my entire project. I will work on the lines to publish the information that I have found but I will restrict it to prior to 1872 in all cases except for my own personal family line which I have brought further down to the present.