Friday, June 18, 2021

Working on the Blake Newsletter, Volume 10, Issue 1, 2021

I really can not believe it is the tenth year since I started the Blake Newsletter. This one is an interesting look at the ancestry of Lady Diana, Princess of Wales. Her Blake ancestry is in the 12th generation and 11th generation. Her Blake ancestor in the 11th generation was female and hence a name change. The ancient Blake line that she descends from was in the Andover Hampshire area living at Easton Town. If indeed this is my Blake family's yDNA then this particular line for her extends back into ancient Britain with this yDNA signature coming to the British Isles between 8,000 and 12,000 years ago. My grandfather always said that his Blake line had always been at Andover. Thus far I can see they were there in the 1400s on. One of these days I will read the Manor Books as they mention Blake as early as 1307 - a John Blake. 

The largish section of the Newsletter continues to be Baptisms at Andover and I include 300 baptisms in each issue from the fiche of the original parish registers. I have not always proofread this material so if you have a question I can go back into the fiche and check although do not promise a speedy reply but will reply as time permits. Life continues to be very busy.

We have packed all of the books to be donated to the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. Just have to wait now until the donation actually happens. The COVID-19 lockdown was a busy time as my daughter and I went through row after row of books recording all the ones to be donated directly to OGS in a list and preparing a second set of boxes to donate to the Friends of the Archives of the Ottawa City Archives for their book sale. Edward loved to read novels and there are all kinds of them. 

Although we found it difficult taking his library apart that he has enjoyed all these years it was what he wanted; one of his last instructions was to donate his books to the OGS. I do not do any Canadian or American research so do not use any of the books and have duplicates of any that overlap just so that we were not conflicting with each other in our book usage but they are fairly rare as all of my research is in the British Isles; mostly Old Britain (England and Scotland). He also has some British Isles but he just used my books once I actually got into genealogy in 2003 when he wanted something rather than buy duplicates. Most of his research was in continental Europe and Scandinavia. 

Edward was into genealogy when we married in 1966 so that is 55 years of genealogical research for him. We didn't join the OGS in London when we lived there. Life was really busy and his interest was more in collecting artifacts of the 1800s as we attended farm auction after farm auction.   

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