Ancestry extraction completed

I did complete the Ancestry extraction yesterday; good news for that as it was eye tiring work. Because I changed my strategy part way through I need to go back and check some of the division of paternal and maternal into the two lines within the grouping but for the most part it is complete and I have  39 Rawlings/? (possibly Cotteril) matches between 27 and 111 cM at Ancestry. Since they use TIMBER to create these particular results they will likely be smaller than the actual since lengths that are "common" to simply being of the British Isles or particularly in the British Isles are removed by this application. All of the matches has myself as the largest match which was not a surprise since I am the strongest match to Rawlings of the four of us. No one else comes even close to the numbers that I have for matching. They are all less than half of my matches. A number of the matches are known to me in terms of our MRCA. That will be my next step and then eliminate all of those that match these individuals. I will then be left with people who are descendant of my paternal grandmother's father. It is a back-burner project though that I will add to as matches come in. More of a housekeeping project; since it exists I should work on it but there was never this deep need in my memory to actually know but perhaps that was because my paternal grandmother was raised by her actual mother. I think that I should come closer to 60 matches (looking at the other databases I do exceed that number in all the other databases another 50 or more above 30 cM (I may move this to 40 cM because of TIMBER) but the size of the Ancestry database does tend to make me keep looking there; plus the trees) before I really get going on this project. It certainly is an interesting way to put in one's retirement but I suspect I would have also enjoyed knitting, smocking and sewing if I had lived a half century earlier but it is now and life has changed. 

I do think that having Mary Simon as our Governor General is an excellent idea. We need to have more input from the First Nations peoples in our governance. The Kings/Queens signed the treaties  between the First Nations and these treaties should be respected and honoured. If the land was not ceded but rather claimed as Crown Land then sold the original owner does continue to be the First Nations and they should receive some recompense for that land and it comes before any provincial claim. The First Nations know the land and they love the land; it isn't just a place to live; it is in their souls.

I do find the Residential Schools to be a stain on Canada. Reconciliation is certainly a step forward but we need to keep the First Nations peoples in our minds and thoughts. That children would be forced to leave their families rather than being asked if they want to come to schools where they could learn and take that learning back to their families is so wrong. The children were not treated in a proper manner; their beliefs were not respected; the horror is that some children died from poor medical care or fear which made them run away and they did not always make it home. We must move forward walking together; learning together how to live respectfully in this land that they have shared with us. 

Prayers for Ukraine as always. 

On to breakfast. Today I shall look at my backburner projects and decide how to divide up the next couple of weeks of my research time. Definitely the Siderfin book is high on that list and I have now decided to put the stories that James Sanders recounted concerning the various Siderfin families into an Appendix at the back of the book. As I come to each individual thus mentioned I will refer the reader to the appropriate Appendix. I suspect there will be about five Appendices in total although time will tell on that. Continuing working on the 5th and 6th Generations will be the next project as I work my way through the hits for Siderfin on the Find My Past website. I am on page 39 which means I have reached the 781st hit so I am roughly one third of the way through. I am only looking at results for Britain and do have the World package but the movement out of England into the rest of the world did not happen until the 1800s and at that point I will not likely follow the families unless I have the material at hand already for the most part. I will think about that though as I am working my way through. For instance my line came to Canada in 1851 represented by Elizabeth (Rew) Pincombe whose mother was Elizabeth (Betty) Siderfin daughter of Robert and Grace (Kent) Siderfin. She was baptized in 1759 and Elizabeth Rew was baptized in 1801 so quite aways back. Time is such an asset in doing research. As you set down a project to do the routine work you mull it about and come up with ideas on how to continue.