Cross Country Skiing

We decided to go cross country skiing yesterday; I haven't gone skiing in perhaps six or seven years but I decided I was up for the idea. We went o the local skiing trail and spent about 1.5 hours going to the so-called point and back again. I fell twice on the way out but managed to get into a good style on the way back and stayed on my feet. It felt like a great accomplishment and really enjoyed it. We should get another couple of times out before the next rain event. All that fresh air was quite nice and it was perhaps minus 8 degrees celsius so well in my range of temperature as minus 20 is definitely out for me. 

Hence, I did not complete the will that I was working on but hope to finish that today and post it. It is an interesting will and I have not seen it online anywhere. It is an interesting comment by a woman of this time frame as she discusses finance in a way that shows she was an equal partner with her husband. They were cousins (possibly second I haven't worked it out) so would have known each other all of their lives. Their large family can be found all around the world now. One of their grand daughters (daughter of William and Dorothy (Madgwick) Blake married Major General Robert Sedgwicke 6 Jan 1634 at Andover. He died in the West Indes in 1656 and she died in London in 1667. Their children, interestingly enough, were baptized at Charlestown in the Royal Colony of Massachusetts. Samuel 31 Mar 1638; Benjamin (no date found); Joanna (Hanah) 14 Jan 1640; William circa 1643; Robert 1645 and did continue living in America. Those dates not confirmed by me but found in a writeup on the Sedgwicke family. It is a will written when Charles I was still King. 

Yesterday was also cleaning house day and two flours are completed so today I clean the basement and another week of cleaning accomplished. I do like cleaning as it lets me be orderly but I can also live quite well with disorder when it suits the times. My husband and I were somewhat opposite in that regard; he always had piles neatly organized mind you but piles none the less all over the house as he dealt with various events and projects in which he was involved and he was involved in a lot of these through our marriage. When I look back I can see how involved a person he was; he enjoyed all of these particular involvements for sure and I did go with him for some of them. Genealogy, to be honest, I avoided for a very very long time until DNA arrived on the scene and my cousin who wanted a Pincombe Profile for his history book publication of Westminster and Delaware Townships, Middlesex County, Ontario. Edward was already into genealogy way back when I first knew him although I did not notice how consumed he was by the search for his roots until later as we mostly talked science and especially Chemistry which also interested him. But gradually genealogy became his second occupation in life and then his first when he retired and he loved every minute of that pursuit. I remember our trip to Boston in 2004 to the NEHGS Research weekend. Edward had been busy working away on his own research for a bit and had discovered a really lost ancestry in his mother's line. Verifying the information was very important to him and a trip that involved this research time was planned. Meeting Gary Boyd Roberts set him on a path that encouraged him to retire and pursue this information. We were both signed up for the event but I passed on my research time to him as my interest was in Pincombe and I did not expect to find much on Pincombe in the library although I did actually which was a surprise. Mostly I knew all of that history but I did discover that my third cousin's line that had gone there was not the only one. However, I was still a newbie and carefully blocked that at the time! But my cousin had already contacted me and I had agreed to help out and then there was all this talk of DNA in the air which did really interest me. Both the yDNA of my father's line would end with my brothers (four of them) and my mother's mtDNA would end with her daughter's daughters unless my own daughters had daughters which did not happen and so I felt an imperative to gather all of that DNA information for future researchers in our lines. That was just starting to emerge in my mind in that time frame along with collecting information on the Pincombe family for the Profile which was already in the works at that time - I was taking 42 courses from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies to prepare myself and conduct research using the various courses which was most successful. 

Out of my workroom window is a lovely view of the snow falling. The trees are once again coated with a thin layer of white and it looks quite ethereal out there. I do so love the winter. I really can not imagine living anywhere else. 

On to the day and breakfast. Probably no skiing today but time will tell we could do a short run.  It is just minus 3 degrees celsius at 9:00 a.m. so tempting.