Tuesday, July 20, 2021

4 inch reflecting telescope and CDs of music

As Ed suggested, we are donating his 4 inch reflecting telescope to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. We were both members back in the 60s and early 70s until we moved here. Ed continued attending meetings here but did not become a member and when our oldest was interested we all went to the meetings as we could manage the time. Then a few years back Edward decided he wanted to be a member once again and we have enjoyed the meetings the last few years at the Air and Space Museum. The group has a telescope library so hopefully, if it is in good enough shape, it may get loaned to someone who does not have a telescope yet or however they want to use it. We enjoyed that telescope through the years but Ed bought an 8 inch refracting telescope (with a computer and all the bells and whistles) and that has pretty much been used ever since. We will keep that as we enjoy watching the skies. 

Another of Edward's favourite hobbies was listening to music. The house was constantly full of music whenever he was here unless he was watching television. There are at least three to four hundred CDs in this house and I like music but mostly piano and organ and I love religious music. I have some CDs of religious music which I will keep. That will be our next downsizing event but my daughter is checking with family to see if anyone would like a huge collection of CDs or some of it. She will take some as she too loves music. He used to belong to a CD club of some sort where he could buy particular CDs that he wanted on a monthly basis. I vaguely recall that as he stopped it about the time that he retired or maybe a little after. I was still working then. When I worked that was all that I did really. I did not go anywhere particularly in my own interest but did go to events with him where it was all planned and I just was there and doing mostly nothing unless I ran a video camera of him speaking. I really preferred, as I discovered, working to anything else except perhaps the years that I spent volunteering at my daughters' schools. In one case I helped with French Immersion students learning to read in English as that isn't something that was taught at that time during the French Immersion experience. The class was about 80% boys and 20% girls and the principal at that school had these short interesting stories that really did get the children reading. The sessions were about three months long for an hour I think it was. Teaching computers to the children was also a fascinating experience and I did that for about three years or so as well. 

Soon I hope to get started on Edward's research boxes to get that material blogged and available. He was in the process of doing that himself until life got in the way and he found it harder to work at his genealogy. He finally decided to tie up all the loose ends on the work that he had done for UEL and other groups by getting the material to them for their use. He spent probably the last two or three years doing that.  

Not every Kip/Kipp agreed with his thoughts on the ancient origins of their family. Edward had discovered that Kip/Kipp was actually an "added" name and that the emigrant Hendrick Hendrickson Kip was actually Hendrick Hendrickson which made it a lot easier for him to find in The Netherlands. He did locate him in an area close to the present day German border with his known wife and then found him in Amsterdam with his wife and children. He was in communication with a genealogist in The Netherlands and was hoping to get some material translated when COVID-19 descended and all the repositories shut down. I do not think I will get into that as he documented all of that for another researcher to pick up the traces. Certainly the yDNA of this Kip/Kipp family suggests that the ancient origins were within 100 km of Amsterdam. Indeed he shares common ancestry with skeletal remains (about 3000 years old) in a cave in Lichtenstein which was discovered in 1972. It is near Dorste, Lower Saxony, Germany. The reason for the added name was the presence of other Hendrick Hendricksons in New Amsterdam. This Hendrick Hendrickson Kip was outspoken apparently and so the added name of Kip is sort of amusing as it means chicken in German. One of the other Hendrick Hendrickson was a Tailor and that title was added to his name to distinguish him but did not end up being carried as a surname as far as I can tell.


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