We are into pre-spring and the heavy snows we often get in March. The weather warms up (for us anyway from the minus teens and twenties of February) and we know that Spring is around the corner. Winter means small children do not get out as often although we skated and skied all winter long but still small children could not just run out into the yard without a coat and enjoy the warmth of the sun and the green grass. For six months and more of the year they live inside the house for the most part. That is Canada for young people and even older but I tend to revel in it. I enjoy my hours and hours of working time that I will soon lose to the outdoors which will need my input to get the yard ready for spring once the snow melts. I have accomplished a lot this winter on my own studies but there is so much more I could be doing and perhaps next winter will see that happen.
Yesterday was lovely and a beautiful Lenten 2 Service at Church. An interesting sermon as always but sometimes they are really interesting and capture my thoughts. This one was like that. The Lenten Without Borders email into my box every morning has been a wonderful trip through Lent and I am very happy that the PWRDF has chosen to do that this year or perhaps I have only just noticed that they have a Lenten type of study. Generally I like to do a Bible Study but I have found this much more appealing than I realized I would. This week's author the Rt Rev Shaw has presented today an interesting question for Reflection and Prayer. How are we called to participate in the healing of the world and how are we responding? It is perhaps the most important statement of the decade I am thinking and one that reaches into the hearts of the children who want this to be a world that they bring their own children into. The success of Homo sapiens through the last 100,000 years is all around us but there are snags and somehow we need to resolve the snags. It isn't about power; it is about what is best for the planet so that it is here for years to come. Where everyone can benefit from the richness of the earth and give their gifts to prolong and sustain it. It isn't about winning it is about sustaining and nurturing the world and making it the best place for all species to survive in. We have been hard-wired to think winning is the important part; we need to think more about the world that our children and grand-children will inherit and how they can all have the best life. This Lenten without Borders project by PWRDF has been marvelous.
Yesterday I worked away on the Siderfin family and dipped into the 1939 Register mostly out of curiosity as to just how many Siderfins have survived from those lines that were successful coming down from Robert (William 2 John 1). Family names do disappear; the Blake surname of my Father ends with my brothers in our line but survives very strongly still in England from cousins of my great grandfather. The Pincombe surname of my mother died with her brother but it too has many holders in both the British Isles and Canada but also the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa (and likely other places but I do not actually look into the present days leaving that closer family research to my younger sister). Once DNA entered into the realm of genealogy, I became quite a dedicated genealogist because I could see the path; I did and still do find it harder to see in the records without those interesting matches that cinch the written record. On a social level, one can become part of a line through adoption like my paternal grandmother whom I always thought was a Taylor because that was how she was mentioned. But in reality she, due to the style of life at the time of her birth, carries the Rawlings surname of her mother and a middle name that perhaps points to her actual father Coterill along with Ida Bessie. But she was known as Edith Bessie Taylor. It was only through a very long sleuthing game that involved buying ten records that I was able to firmly prove who she was. It was a good feeling to have done that even though my beloved grandfather had done whatever he could to block my ever knowing that. Perhaps that is one of the gifts of this century; it really doesn't matter anymore - illegitimacy is a misnomer. All births are welcome and legitimate; they belong to someone. Hence when I receive an email asking if I can help to show where a person fits into my ever enlarging family then I try. I do believe everyone has a right to know their birth parents even if only by name. One of my strongest matches is one such event and I can track him back by DNA to two lines actually both Blake and Knight and have proposed a likely scenario just because of location. Once done I have left that discussion because it really isn't any of my business but sharing what I have learned to help someone in their path is something that I do do. But mostly I concentrate on my one-name studies and have gone back to revising the Siderfin book which was originally one of my three one-name studies I took on way back when I was a very new genealogist. It needs doing and someone else in the future will pick it up and do an even better job I am sure and I thank them for it.
Today is cleaning day and I begin on the top floor. I am looking forward to my one room concept one of these days but at 77.5 years I still feel able to take on all of the things that I do although it does make me somewhat of a hermit which suits my personality very well actually.
On to breakfast and the addition to my exercise routines of jumping jacks has worked very well (75 jumping jacks four times a day - first thing before breakfast, then with my weightlifting, just before my 40 minute run and then during my calisthenics in the late afternoon. I am actually doing 100 fewer jumping jacks but I was feeling that maybe I was doing just a little too much exercise. One has to adjust as time passes. .
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