The Church was struggling when these words were written and hope was needed to help the Church to grow and become the strength for a better world for all. I believe that nothing can separate us from God's love but we must follow the commandments which Jesus brought to us - Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. That does include protecting them from the evil that enters into our world at various times through the centuries. We are at that moment in time when Nazism has reared its ugly head once again and threatens our society both in the language used and in acts. It is laced with all sorts of justifications but it is pure Nazism - greed for land, property, possessions. At the end of the last war we formed the United Nations and it is the duty of that organization (and they are trying) to eliminate Nazism where ever it arises. The Imperialistic war which Russia has created against Ukraine is Nazism. Russia has been, during the past one hundred years especially, trying to murder the Ukrainian people and it continues today. The sickness of the Russian leader Putin and his enablers is Nazism - wanting to steal land and denigrate a people in order to convince some countries that they are justified. Do not be persuaded - this is imperialism; Death to imperialism. Ukraine is not an imperialistic country and should be able to count on countries that suffered from imperialism in earlier times to help them. Countries have a right to exist governed by their own people. We must all band together and stop any Russian breakout. NATO was formed for that defensive purpose and when Russia has been corralled once again into their borders as established at the Fall of the Soviet Union (which Russia caused by attacking Afghanistan and going into bankruptcy) then once again that border should be reestablished and enforced by the United Nations. NO one has the right to steal another countries' land, children or property or murder the inhabitants of that country. Ukraine has every right to defend itself and we maintain the right to help them as we helped both Russia and China (and other countries endangered by Nazism) to fight off the Nazis in the Second World War. One makes better friends with kindness, attention and support; enemies are made when one country attacks another country for pure imperialism. Imperialism is wrong.
More work done on the Siderfin book and I extracted about fifteen pages of documents from the Somerset Archives which I shall have a look at. I did not see any mention of wills though so likely I have located the only will attached to land documents unless the document set has not listed one. I will think about that as there are people who live much closer than I do who could check out some of these documents sets for me and are interested in a revision of the Siderfin book.
An email today was interesting from a descendant of one of the Blake families in Hampshire - namely Minstead. I replied:
Thank you for your interesting email. I doubt that the Blake family at Andover and the Blake family at Minstead are related. Mostly because you are taking yourself back to an Edward Blake in the mid 1700s when the Blake family at Andover had dwindled pretty much to a rather small family. Most Blake lines daughtered out in the early 1700s that were descendant of the earlier Blake family at Knights Enham/Andover or they have moved to Surrey/London in the 1600s. That being said you could look at Thomas Blake at Finkley who is descendant of the Andover Blake line (left his will naming his three sons) but again I think this family has daughtered out in the 1700s.
I would look more to the Calne Blake family as it moved out of Calne to the south. Although charts show a relationship in the 1400s/1500s between the Calne Blake family and the Andover/Eastontown Blake family it is, I believe, a daughter of the Calne Blake family that married into the Andover Blake family in the early 1600s. But I am only in the early stages of constructing a book on the Andover Blake line and will not start actually writing anything for another four years. I am nearly 78.
A number of people in the yDNA study feel that they trace back to the Calne Blake family which is likely descendant of Richard leBlac of Normandy who arrived in the 1270s and was found initially in the Berkshire area before descendants moved south into the Calne Wiltshire area.
My thoughts to the blog: The best way to connect with Blake is finding a male carrying the Blake surname to test for your line. Although the yDNA study at FT DNA does not have anyone who can prove on paper that they are descendant of the Blake family at Calne a number of them do have interesting trees that take them back quite aways. The Blake family of Wiltshire left a lot of wills in the 1500s/1600s which I have put together but have not yet really linked them all. It is perhaps a task I will take on one of these winter months before I become too old. These wills are readily available for purchase from the Wiltshire Record Office.
On to the day. I am late today as it is already 10:00 a.m. and I have not yet eaten my breakfast. I became interested in a couple of items and the morning has flown by but I am definitely hungry.
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