Continuing to work on the Siderfin Book

 Although not a lot of accomplishment yesterday, I did continue to move forward. I am nearly half way but it is Christmas and other items are definitely on my mind. Like where is the snow; we still have some but it is melting somewhat and it is very icy - not fit for skiing unfortunately. We are meant to get more snow and time will tell on that. It is going to be very cold and it does not snow much when it is very cold although the ice will built up. I wonder if the World's Longest Skating Rink will be open this year. Last year was the first time in memory that it did not open. 

The dog is barking outside; it is cold for him. Something must be upsetting him. I haven't been out in the back for a long time so haven't had a chat with him. I do hate to see dogs out in the minus 13 degree weather and it feels like minus 20 apparently. We are expecting snow showers but they will be rather dusty and not good solid snow when it is this cold.

Back to work and see how much I can accomplish today. Breakfast done.

Up to Page 61

I am up to Page 61 on this second last time through the Companion Charting Book. Not actually finding very much but will reread it one more time before publishing. The month of December has gone quickly as we are now at the 19th. 

Staying away from the news again for a bit; I know Ontario is in good hands with Premier Ford. I do think we might as well have a federal election and then a government would be in place for the next four years. I continue to feel that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did a great job during COVID except for the liberal habit of just throwing money at anything that they think might work without due diligence and we see that with all of the errors in people applying for money to which they were not entitled apparently and the need to have all of that refunded to the government. I think in general we remained a fairly calm people during COVID due to the calm and helping attitude of both our Public Health Officer (who was absolutely excellent) and the Prime Minister both of whom gave mostly daily accounts throughout the entire period of time. The distribution of vaccine was excellent and we enjoyed high rates of uptake which helped to get us all back to work once again (except me but I like to think I am working in retirement!). I actually got a great deal done during this time period and was absolutely not troubled by the shutdown. Went for food a couple of times a week and medicine for my husband and just generally kept to ourselves. 

I think there are enough cool heads in the Conservative Party to stay away from social conservative topics and manage the swollen public service to get it stabilized. I do not care what they do with school lunches, dental care or any of that - the present setup is inefficient (there are no school lunches served yet apparently but hopefully the news is wrong as so much has been spent already). Although there are comments that there is great uptake to the dental care I suspect that people can live with the loss of it but perhaps will prioritize their dental care so as not to become critical for them again. Perhaps some consideration will be given to removing the extra money from the over 75 year olds in the OAS and having the payout the same for all in that receiving group. Increase the GIS if people are in great need but I think that they should have to submit receipts to show value for money if received and CRA could add a couple of lines to the Income Tax reporting (i.e. dental care or medical drugs/care that is not covered).  Other than that I am ready to see the Conservatives in power once again hopefully doing what they have done in the past (fiscal conservatism and reducing the size of the public service using efficiency as the byword) until PM Harper mucked it up with reducing the GST and trying to balance the budget during a critical time when the method he used was harming LAC and Fisheries (and muzzling scientists which is unacceptable). Increase the GST to 7% or higher and I do dislike this GST holiday - it funds the government so that we do not have to have funding bills every couple of months like in my youth. All it does is increase the national debt.

Back to work and no more politics; I will try very hard to stay away from all of that. I must say though the idea of 13 new states continues to appeal to me. I love Canada - it is a great country but the world is changing and we need to protect our borders and could do it much more efficiently as a single entity as all of that border surveillance would become unnecessary allowing us to concentrate on the water borders which are in general somewhat easier to manage. If it isn't supposed to be there and it doesn't respond properly you just can just blow it out of the water or air. My grandfather used to say that about the English Channel and the North Sea when I was young - he did love England but he also loved Canada - after all his only child and grandchildren were all here and Canadians! We would be just one huge island with a small border to the south with Mexico which could be armed to the hilt if necessary and tunneling could be controlled with interesting methodology. Long live North America; God bless North America. Grandparents are interesting people I think. Definitely past their prime but always ready to help. 

Lots to do; busy day ahead.

13 new States as we are 10 provinces and 3 territories not the 51st State only

An interesting proposition to have one country north of Mexico for sure but we would be 13 new States. What would we gain if we keep this non-functional government that is taking us towards a welfare state?  This government absolutely never considers how to make new ideas work for themselves so they become self-supporting instead of increasing debt onto the next generation (no they just set up a new branch of government and hire thousands of people increasing the national debt). The Americans would want to have keen excited citizens (second class citizens have no say). So no, we need to be first class Americans not second class citizens. All that we would likely share as states would be policing, foreign affairs and other national level items and our military as your states appear to do now (along with tax collecting as that is how ours works with transfer payments to the provinces for health, for education, for national infrastructure and other negotiated items plus the Provincial taxes since the tax monies are all submitted to the CRA by us!). For our military to give up their present Canadian military status would be a big deal. We have stood tall amongst the allies during the First and Second World War and during the Cold War and that status is born on the blood of our youth (our losses in the First World War were huge (and we were a very small country much less than half of what we are now in population) and substantial enough in the Second World War). The Americans too stood tall as our allies in these conflicts and coming together is not a bad idea given the way that the world is moving; we already work together on many items. But to leave us as we are one unit in 51 would not benefit us. There needs to be a gain for us in becoming one huge country; one huge wealthy country - Canada is a very wealthy country in minerals, fresh uncontaminated water and so many other assets etc etc. But, of course, there must also be buy-in with our First Nations. Our medical system although short at the moment on physicians (that is the fault of the stingy government reducing Medical School enrollments in the 1990s knowing that the Baby Boomers were on their way to old age) is very effective and costs less overall than in a lot of countries (I worked there for 12 years). No Canadian is refused normal health care but you do have to pay for your own drugs unless you have a health plan but some of these are not covered so can be expensive for some.

As for the electricity that crosses into the United States; paying 25% tariffs to sell it is not practical. But everything is negotiable and that is the trademark of the incoming President-elect Donald Trump "to make a deal." One wonders what kind of deals will be offered. We are after all your good friend and neighbour.

On the other hand we could work on our provincial trade barriers and eliminate all of them making it easier to sell our goods between provinces if we face tariffs going south. Hopefully our government will soon be replaced with people interested in making government efficient. I really dislike the attitude of the present government towards Israel; they have a right to defend themselves. You can counter with "they can defend themselves" but that doesn't change what started it all. Israel was invaded by a foreign government that was elected by the people of Gaza - they and they alone are responsible for what is happening. When a bully attacks (Hamas supported by in this case Iran and the people of Gaza and here that cheered in our streets (they should have been arrested for their hate crime on the 8th of October last year and later)). We normally side with the person attacked whether they can defend themselves or not. Plus they continue to hold hostages to this day in inhuman conditions under ground including children, women and men (both old and young). The people of Gaza (they did after all elect Hamas) have not returned all the bodies of the people Hamas killed for proper burial. Free the hostages immediately.

Back to the book today. Cleaning all accomplished. Hopefully fresh snow on that crusty ice so that we can get some more skiing in. The first time out was great; difficult but great but I am going on 80 so not surprising. I haven't skied for a while for sure. 

Breakfast completed. Latin is next and then the book broken up with exercise routines throughout the day along with my 250 steps per hour for the FitBit.

The line at the passport office is very long

Went to renew my passport and the passport office was bulging at the doors with a row of people outside who might not get inside on the day. Amazing really. I will try again later in the week. I am not in a rush just renewing to have it on hand since it will expire if I do not. I was actually surprised as it is coming up on Christmas and thought it might be a quiet time. 

Basement cleaning accomplished and today the main and top floor to do. 

No work done otherwise; the day was busy with things that needed to be done although the passport did not happen but picking up a parcel did. When we went in on the weekend the line for the registers was very very long and they do not appear to use the bin at the Orleans store. 

Going out shopping on last Thursday the traffic was so heavy at 2:00 in the afternoon - doesn't anyone work anymore! The traffic has really increased in the daytime these days for some reason. Mind you I haven't been off my street hardly for nearly four months!

Must get back to the Companion Charting book as I want to finish it sooner rather than later. 

Apparently the Prime Minister says we are going to increase our defense spending by 3x by 2030. That would be truly amazing. 

Breakfast next.

Third Sunday in Advent

 A wonderful carol service at St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead in North London. Again I did not see this particular area except perhaps from the windows of a touring bus - no ideas on that. I did try to take note of where I was most of the time with my GPS but I missed many things I am sure. For each day I had a list of what I could see that wasn't included in the actual tour but in the area where our bus stayed for the night. Edward and I enjoyed many quick walks on arrival at the hotels and after dinner when it was possible to see what was available in the area. Since neither of us was really from most of the areas that we visited we did not miss anything actually that we wanted to see. Edward's Dissenters left England very very early in the 1600s to go to the American Colonies and his ancestral list there is legendary in actuality (Rogers Williams, Hannah Feake, John Bowne, Anne Winthrop,  Obadiah Holmes and the list goes on and on - all lost over time as the families moved west in the United States and north to Canada). So much lost in his lines as people moved north to Canada at various times (mostly settlers which included his Kipp line (his surname)). His mother's line appears to have had most of the Loyalists that he did have - Link, Parlee, Folkins, Burt and a number of others. Link (from New York) and the rest from the New England States and they went to the Maritimes (New Brunswick) although some of them had gone as colonists earlier than the Revolution and were called Planters. He unearthed them all in our many trips into the New England States and New York/Pennsylvania and then further west into Indiana, Wisconsin and Utah. I would have to look all of that up again as it is long ago gone from my mind as I settled into Blake and Pincombe my parent's lines. Mine of course came much later to Canada with my Blake coming from Upper Clatford, Hampshire (my father was born at Eastleigh where his father worked for the Southern Railway) but the Blake line he descended from traces back to the mid 1700s in Upper Clatford and before that Andover, Hampshire where Joseph Blake was born in 1730 moving to Upper Clatford to marry Joanna King ( and they were distant cousins as their mothers were second cousins likely). For my mother her line came from Bishops Nympton, Devon although her grandfather was born at Molland (Lower Gatcomb) and they came to Canada November 1850 arriving at the Port of New York 7 Jan 1851 and thence to Upper Canada in the spring but stopping to visit his uncle Robert Pincombe who lived at Genesee New York for the remainder of the winter. But that is just the two surnames (my Buller and my Rawlings/? have not yet begun in book form as that is a later project to do those two books). There is also the Routledge book to revise/update that George DeKay wrote initially back in 1976 and which we talked about updating but he passed away a couple of years ago and I guess that leaves me with that project which is our mutual Routledge family my earliest emigrant to what is now Canada in the late summer/early fall of 1818. These were my 3x great grandparents and from Cumberland which we did visit and came quite close to Bewcastle where they lived actually. There hasn't been an ambition for me to actually visit these places other than going with Ivan Kent my cousin in 2008 to Upper Clatford where my Blake line last was before Eastleigh and other areas where our mutual Knight family lived in Dorset (Turnworth, Winterborne Stickland, Winterborne Clenstone, Winterborne Whitchurch, and Milton Abbas). A lovely trip through the Winterborne Valley together was greatly enjoyed and then lunch at Blandford Forum on our way to Upper Clatford. 

Interesting article this morning on the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens connection. Our mutual results (my siblings and I) have 2% Neanderthal and 3% Denisovan which is 5% of our DNA coming from these earlier human groups. No idea on the Denisovan but suspect it is from our H11 ancestors in the mtDNA who wintered at Ukraina during the Last Glacial Maximum. Then, using the Blood of the Isles Database, appear in Scotland very early on in the Argyllshire/Ayrshire area whilst the yDNA of my Blake line was also an early arrival to the British Isles known as Deer-Hunters ( so hunter gatherer) . Amazing really what DNA tells us about our migrations. This article is leaning towards the idea that Homo sapiens exists because of inter-breeding with the Neanderthals permitting the passage of protective genes which enabled us to survive diseases prevalent at the times and with our more advanced ability to survive at the time of the Ice Ages when the Neanderthals succumbed to unknown but theorized causes. Must get back to my project of re-phasing my grandparents/great-grandparents as I have not completed that project for nearly four years now. My newest set of data (over 200 results) not yet fed into my database. 

Cleaning today and it is the basement to start. That only takes up part of the day so I shall continue work on the Charting Book. I thought it might be a little faster but this stubborn mind of mine insists on going over each and every page microscopically. Always fun though especially when I find something that needs further explanation. But I keep it short. 

Just 1 cm of snow on Wednesday which may not be enough to cover the ice to let me ski unfortunately. Although I loved our ski the other day it was pretty difficult for me. I do need a smooth/not icy surface to ski on in my old age!

Teatime and I am looking forward to a hot cup of green tea for sure this minus 9 degree morning. sunrise in a bit and the day begins. Thank you God for the beautiful world. Russia as always careless in how they manage has had an oil tanker split in half in the Kerch Strait causing a possible environmental catastrophe in the Black Sea which leads through the Bosphorus Straits into the Mediterranean and then the Ocean. Fortunately there are a lot of countries there that can help to corral the floating oil and remove it hopefully. Russia really is a very careless country - attacking their neighbour Ukraine over two years ago and continuing with that war in a brutal sadistic way for no reason other than a land grab and hatred of the Ukrainian people because they represent the earliest people in that area of Eastern Europe. At least it does look like that - pure jealousy and greed on the part of the Satanic Nazi Putin and his enablers. 

On to the day.

A lot of shopping and more work on the book

 Yesterday was a busy day with shopping getting me caught up on items that were running low for cleaning etc. Also getting my passport pictures to get that renewed. There is a 10 year renewal and that should be plenty; I never go out of the country anyway normally but may do so in the next ten years with one of my children. 

Worked on the book as well and it is slow going but up to page 34 so about 21% but it may go faster here and there but I am committed to getting this right so will take all the time that it takes. A few lines added here and there as explanation for the flow of the charting book. Adding in a couple of details here and there just for a fuller explanation of items that I extrapolated from the available data to prove my point. 

A quieter day as yesterday's skiing was a lot for this old person but greatly enjoyed just need a day or so of rest in between such bouts of extreme exercise it would appear although did do my calisthenics, weight lifting and running instead of outdoor exercise. 

Time to start shopping for Christmas once I know what everyone wants. I am opposed to shopping blindly and than having to take things back. I used to take my daughters shopping before Christmas to make sure the size was right, the colour correct and that it was what they wanted and then I wrapped it up for Christmas. Did it spoil Christmas? No I do not think so at least they never told me that it did. They seemed quite excited to open their presents. And I didn't have to go back to the store again to return it which is a bonus in life for sure. I do dislike shopping actually. A quick trip in and out satisfies me if I want to buy something. I do buy things; I am not a scrooge! But I must admit they were very excited to open the presents from their father as he did it the old fashioned way and went out and bought things to surprise them. Then took them back if they did not like them but he mostly got it right and they didn't take anything back. The children did love the shopping trips throughout the year whenever they wanted something; the advantage I suppose of both parents working is that children do get to buy more of the things they want throughout the year and do not have to wait for Christmas or birthdays.

Minus 15 degrees but no new snow promised yet. It is too cold to snow perhaps and this will solidify the base hopefully so that it remains to protect the plants under the ground. It can be cold in the winter in Canada and it can go on for weeks sometimes. It apparently feels like minus 22 degrees celsius. I think I will wait awhile to test that for sure!

The hostages in Gaza need to be released; this is taking much too long. The pain and suffering for these young people especially ripped from their harmless attendance at a music festival and subjected to unknown torture along with the deprivation of food and personal belongings and living underground is animalistic behaviour towards humans and should be punished if the perpetrators are caught. One notes that the sympathy for the Gazan people has definitely waned as they could help these hostages to escape and why do they not; this horrific horror needs to stop.  There are still two young children held as hostage; what criminals/sick people these Hamas are along with Hezbollah and the Houthis all supported by Iran.

Tea time and then breakfast and Latin. Already 6:30 a.m. and soon dawn.

Good News - Daylight Savings is to become a thing of the past

We have wanted to get rid of daylight savings for a while but could not move to that unless the United States also does so and President-Elect Trump has announced that he will eliminate daylight savings. Great news from our neighbours to the south. I really prefer the bright early mornings when I arise at 6:00 a.m. Thank you for moving to that for sure. Dawn is just creeping in and it is 7:00 a.m. as I write.

Premier Ford (our premier in Ontario) wants to make a deal that works for all of us living on the North American continent and President-Elect Trump has apparently said the same according to the newsfeed.

I was not the least bit sad to see Israel eliminate all of those stockpiles of armaments, the planes and other tools of war that were in Syria. Better gone than in the hands of terrorists for sure. I think they did the world a great service actually. 

Yesterday work on the book continued. It is not yet a final read through but probably the second last one. I will be happy to see it published for sure. I will not publish a first book and a charting book later ever again as they belong together in your thoughts as you are working but it was my first genealogy book and I give myself leeway for the learning phase. Publishing that I have been involved in in the past did not require two books to complete the process but I can see the value in having the two elements separate for readability and usage. Today continuing in that same vein, reading and updating or revising but on a much smaller scale than the first time through. 

We were out for our first ski of the season yesterday. It was tough going for me as it was a bit icy but I managed to stay on my feet the entire time and distance which was about 3.5 km on my Fitbit and 76 minutes. So for a 79+ years old person I did well. I do love skiing although downhill does not appear to be my thing. Although now that I have depth of vision I might like it better. I just couldn't get a feel for going downhill at great rates unless it was just the small hills that you find on a cross country ski trail - those I could manage easily. 

Tea next and then breakfast and Latin.

And into the reading

 Happy with the Companion Charting Book for the Siderfin Family up to Page 27. A few cosmetic changes here and there. Added in Jone Webber (married daughter and her daughter) to one of the charts for this family. Interesting really, Jone must have been fairly young when she married and had the first child - a daughter Jone Webber (as mentioned in her mother's will (Wilmot (Foster) Siderfin) in 1579 and then a marriage in 1602 to William Westeron and their son Robert Westeron and grandson Elner Westeron mentioned in his uncle Robert Siderfin's will in 1627. Funny I did not notice that before but I was distracted by my eyes for sure! But there is also my habit as a one-namer of not following the female lines past the children although I should have caught this one!

A lovely walk outside yesterday at minus 16 degrees celsius later in the day around the block. It was actually very nice but I was also very warmly dressed. We walked quickly though. 

Continuing with the Charting book today and perhaps will get to 50 or so pages. Not rushing; just taking my time. I want to be totally finished by the end of December but hopefully a little earlier than that. Then I put away the Siderfin material and back to the Blake and Pincombe books. 

Drinking my green tea and breakfast time soon and then Latin and the day begins as usual.

Change in government

 We do need a change in government here as the Liberals since the onset of COVID has rapidly turned us into a welfare state that doesn't benefit people overall in the long run; if you do not have enough money in retirement then you will likely have to work; the government isn't a piggy bank! We need to reduce the bloated government payroll first and foremost. They are inefficient and the latest scam with CRA demonstrates that quite clearly. People need to pass a test in the English/French language as the CBC continues to have spelling errors in the television banners of the news. We need to have a third language on the CBC which the First Nations need to choose to work for their particularly children who are being raised to speak their own languages along with English or French or both. But we need to have everything spelled properly. Nothing is happening so suddenly in the world that necessitates putting up text carelessly. Especially the government needs to use the tools of the CRA when handing out money instead of setting up even more bureaucracy. If money is given for specific items then the individual receiving the money (this can be the parent if it is a child) must submit receipts on their income tax to show that the money has been properly spent. If the money is not used properly then it will be recalled. 

I did promise myself that I would not let these distractions take me away from my real work. I am still not convinced that Pierre Poilivere will move forward with a fiscal conservative agenda but I am willing to be convinced of that; he did vote for the OAS increase to match the older group and it would be better to simply discontinue that increase because it is a much smaller group into the future (the present recipients). I wonder how many people actually have it raked back because they make too much money anyway. Could ask people actually about a recall on that addition to OAS back a couple of years (no money paid back but a reduction going forward) and that would keep this program sustainable and not allow it to get out of hand. Plus CRA can certainly go in and run a program to extract the number of people who have it raked back and the total number receiving it.

Mind you I do know that the Liberals and the NDP are simply going to continue with taking us into a welfare state if we do not get rid of both of them in the polls. The Block has less of a tendency in that way; The Block are responding perhaps to a greater need in their province where likely the older group does need that money as they are often small business owners - again a program could be run to see province by province how many people are affected by the rake back and how many actually keep the total amount just to make any decision fair. Computers are wonderful tools. The Better Business Bureau and other such facilities should be online as well (if they are not already, it is 17 years since I worked!) so that they can be rapidly searched to verify any information needed. People should have a cognitive test to determine that they are capable of self-thinking before anyone is hired for a job in the Public Service. AI is creeping into every tool and one must know how to use it and not allow it to do our thinking for us. People should determine how it is managed as a searching tool at all times. It is an excellent tool but requires discipline on the part of the user to be attentive to what is coming out of a search or for whatever reason it is being used.

Well back to work, I have completed the index proofing and am into re-reading and making tiny adjustments here and there. For instance I noticed before that in the second generation Jone Siderfin is listed in 1579 by her mother as Jone Webber and she has a daughter Jone Webber so a first marriage there that I do not mention but suggest it might be an error which I am thinking now it is not and then she married again in 1602 and had a son Robert Westeron (I added a footnote to the chart). I will notice these things as I read through and my mind is certainly less clouded than when I was trying to get my cataract surgeries done (finally went private although the surgery did end up in the hospital which I appreciate as I do prefer our medical system over privately funded care) - all in the past and the eyes are great. Amazing really, depth of vision although I have no regrets on not having it my entire life. The views now rather amuse me in my old age. The sudden noticing of items that I now see as three sided is amazing and quite a distraction for a few minutes. The biggest change is people as very few look the same as they did so if I do not recognize you; I don't actually and I do not see it as a problem in my old age. On the other hand I always know where I am going and do not like to be slowed down on my way!

Breakfast next and I am late today but I am retired and one just meanders through life on retirement to a certain extent.

 

 

 

Distractions

 The intent is to get back to the Siderfin book today. Cleaning all accomplished and getting ready for Christmas. I have a few projects beside the Siderfin book that have been neglected. I also took on the Probate Index for the Guild of one name studies. Since I contributed thousands of lines it would appear that I could help out with that for a bit. I said no promises as I am working on 80 this year coming. There are a lot of Blake lines in the probate index. I am behind submitting my latest set so it will be easy now. 

I shall avoid the news for a bit; perhaps surface again in four years and see where we are at! I still think becoming 13 states in the United States is interesting for Canada and restores this entire North American continent to a singleton country land mass allowing for the natural migration of the animal species and it is good for human travel as well. That way all the borders are water borders except for the border with Mexico and it does sound like that is going to be better managed (although tunneling does appear to be a problem as well). Definitely water borders are easier to handle. Since the present day American States do have collegial groupings already we can simply retain the "Canadian" label for our group and Turtle Island will be one once again. The name is beginning to grow on me! The French in Quebec could continue to flourish and a natural grouping already exists with all of the people who have migrated from Quebec to the New England States being able to be a group as well (one can belong to more than one group!). Quite fascinating the United States of America actually is and this next four years will demonstrate how their checks and balances work (it appears the Robber Barons are back perhaps but if they are benevolent then it worked well before!). Would we lose our commonwealth status? No idea on that and my English roots are very deep for sure with three grandparents and my father born and raised in England (my father was just nine when he came here with his parents in 1913). Personally I am first generation Canadian on my father's side and my tiny line running back on my mother's side has her father and his mother born in what became Canada and was Upper Canada at the time for the furtherest back Grace (Gray) Pincombe. Amazingly her first cousin was Sir John Carling (one of the early members of the government at and after Confederation) as we share my 3x great grandparents Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge (they were Sir John's and Grace's grandparents as their mothers were sisters) my first migrant ancestors coming in the late summer of 1818 (all of my migrant ancestors came from England proper). My mother grew up hearing about Sir John from her father who knew him well. Love the King and the Royal House but I think Canada would benefit greatly from such a union properly done respecting our contribution (with the consent of the First Nations as they own huge swathes of land) that would emerge as thirteen new states in the Union. The protective nature of such a venture is huge. Our provinces/territories control education, health care and many other services which is similar to many of the current States in the Union it appears and the Federal government transfers the necessary funding to them but I am not an expert (it just appears that way). Their taxes are higher than ours in the particular levels - noting 33% instead of 20.5% with which I am familiar but they properly equip their military/policing services which is important. 

I do think that the present waste by the government here is a problem and not one that is going to get solved easily (even the conservatives voted for the Block proposal to increase the OAS for the 65 to 74 year olds, it should never have been added  to the OAS for my group). There are several other reasons beside this one with the OAS:  because we are a separate country from our largest client in terms of them purchasing our goods and now at the mercy of possible tariffs; because the government does not spend enough on the military and I do not see that changing without a really different outlook and because we are becoming a welfare state. Being a welfare state which is where we are headed doesn't work especially if our largest customer has a 25% tariff on goods imported from us even with the depressed Canadian dollar. I think being a welfare state is a problem that grows as one can see in some of the European countries as they scramble to upgrade their defense. Plus it is simply not fair to put huge debt on the generations that follow - we the old, and the baby boomers and I am actually the Quiet Generation apparently as born just two weeks after VJ day, must make sure that Canada does not head too far down into that welfare state. Currently we have seen school lunch programs (should be able to find a way to fund them that doesn't cost so much - provide compulsory lunches for all and charge those who can pay a sufficient amount so that the program pays for itself (the biggest problem would be food allergies)), free dental care which simply will cost too much money (increase GIS and have receipts entered in the yearly income tax to prove the use of the money), pharmacare and I am really opposed to this one because it is too expensive unless everyone is going to use generic and we make them here (that stifles research and private drug industry). It is nice to be benevolent and we need to get the 0.1% ers to pay appropriate taxes as they are huge users of the systems here although they likely do not think so and they could support programs (donations) instead of flying their jets all over the place and polluting the air or other such wasteful practices.

The freezing rain did not really happen here yesterday. I cleared the 2 cm snowfall (sort of sleet/snow) and brought out the de-icer but it didn't get used yet. I looked out and it looks good out there but will check it out before moving on to the rest of the day as we need to get groceries at some point. I decided to do my own shoveling of the porch and patio since it actually isn't that much plus I do not do ultra which is 2 cm or so I think and stayed with 5 cm. It is the end of the laneway that attracts me to this snow removal service. Basically on a heavy snow day I can not move that snow at the end of my laneway but in actual fact I haven't driven the car out in quite a while anyway. Generally I take it out once a month at the most when I am on my own. It does tend to go out every day when I am not alone! The walking has been great actually and I have enjoyed it. I got out my clip on cleats and will wear them when it is icy or just stay home!

So finish the index today. Reread the text with the original book and then publish it. Sounds good and the 15th is probably not doable but a few days later maybe. I will be happy to have it off of my plate as interesting as it has been working out the little kinks in that Siderfin family tree. I am sure there are more records that could be interesting but for me the saga of Siderfin is now complete as I did what I wanted to do. Prove my line back to John Siderfin who lived at Luxborough around 1500. 

The newsletter I am missing is actually Pincombe/Pinkham and it will come out just after I finish the Siderfin book. I have a few ideas for it as I have acquired some new material that is interesting to share. Mostly the newsletter will detail my work on the Pincombe book for the next couple of years and any other interesting details that I acquire. We now have two known distinct yDNA lines for the Pincombe/Pinkham family and perhaps as the research continues we will learn more about both of these lines. 

Breakfast completed and Latin is next. I am late today but that is the gift of retirement; the work gets done when it gets done. 

Today, the cleaning will be complete

 Still a little left to do and then the cleaning complete for the week. Yesterday and Sunday were busy days but today perhaps a little less busy although there is some snow to remove from my porch and patio before the freezing rain begins. Then I will defreeze that with our non polluting anti-icer and heavy snow is expected on the weekend; sounds great. 

Amazing how quickly the nails grow on the fingers actually. I think I am very busy for the most part and just suddenly notice that they are long once again as they probably always grew this fast! I remember the older man I visited at the Nursing Home in my teen years that knew my grandfather. He liked his nails to be short and so I would cut them for him. He always seemed so very lonely and yet full of memories. A good way to be in one's declining years I think. I only knew him for about one year and then he passed away. I started to visit someone else whose daughter was also in the nursing home as she had multiple sclerosis. They were friends of my grandmother and as my grandmother found it harder to go and visit them I started doing that. Again wonderful historical facts emerged from that visit as this woman had traveled a great deal with her husband. I think I must have visited them for several years now and then I was off to university and time just disappeared for those extras. It was on my way home to or from high school. But they knew I would not be coming so often and then they moved to the west coast to be closer to one of her sons. That worked very well for them and my grandmother continued to correspond with her and kept me up to date. 

Watched Power and Politics last night once again and some discussion on how the government is managing. The sudden increase in support for the Liberal Party namely Justin Trudeau was discussed as he does dominate the party although a short chat with one of the cabinet members on Syria was interesting actually. I do wonder how many of the 45,000 Syrians that came will return to Syria. Probably a lot of them as they did not leave willingly but in haste and in fear for sure. It is their country after all. 

I think enough is not being made of the thought on Canada linking with the United States. There are individual groupings of States within the 50 States that have meetings and we could maintain that sort of similar grouping as 13 States with the naming including Canada in the title of the subgrouping that the individual groups have though (but not second class American citizens lumped into one state; our provinces/territories all manage their own education, health care, infrastructure, policing and other items - the feds just pass the money) and we have a lot to bring with us for sure. Canada is a wealthy country and brings a lot to the table although a great deal of it belongs to the First Nations and they too would need to agree. I even think that the French in Quebec could survive and would provide a sort of nucleus for those states just south of the Quebec border where many descendants of the present day Quebec population now live - a sort of French group.  It would certainly have an impact on the Congress. But then it was Donald Trump who hinted at union (51st State) not us. But it is interesting and I think investigation is worthwhile. Plus the herds of wild animals could still roam freely across the landscape of North America as there wouldn't need to be a fence! But I can see that this would be quite a while in discussion; long after President-Elect Donald Trump has been replaced by the next President of the United States.

But we also need to look at breaking down the barriers in trade between the provinces/territories so that the impact of such tariffs is minimized. Buy Canadian would have to be the slogan that carries us forward. I hate to see it happen as it is nice to have the fresh fruit and vegetables coming across especially in the winter; the cheeses from Wisconsin are wonderful (their very excellent milk goes mostly to the western provinces) and many many other goodies come north to us. 

The American system of policing is more advanced than ours and they have mentioned that organized crime is moving in to Canada. Although Montreal has had organized crime there for quite a while; I was forgetting that. Their experience with their federal police forces in that regard would be handy likely nonetheless  to help our local provincial police services in combating that if we are the new set of thirteen states.

If I wasn't so busy I would make a list of all the American companies known to me in Ontario as there are many of them selling to us directly here in Ontario and one does wonder is that being taken into account when one talks about trade between countries. I do remember my classes in economics discussing trade. Teaching engineering, physics and chemistry students was certainly an experience for these non math/science economics gradates working on their masters and PhD. We could dance circles around them with our knowledge of math and science for sure and did. In a way it is a pity they didn't give us one of their best scholars as a teacher so that he/she would be confident to challenge us instead of just dreading coming and glad when the year was done. But it was interesting learning the concepts of economics for sure; that was why we were there taking an arts course! Some people chose psychology and others sociology but the bulk of us took economics.

On to the day; still lots to do but less stressful. 

Another cleaning day

 There will be three cleaning days this week and then I shall be ready for my daughter's return. Chicken Stew greatly enjoyed last night and will enjoy it again for two more nights. I am really not much of a foodie and the basics of that stew are Canadian stored vegetables - onions, potatoes, carrots and brussel sprouts since they are still in season - one of my favourite vegetables but not enjoyed by my family in general. Hence they are always in my stews that I eat alone. I also add frozen peas and corn (all Canadian) and of course Canadian chicken. It is nice to have the fresh fruit and vegetables from the United States (which I buy in good quantity) but if they are going to put a 25% tariff on us then I can just eat stored vegetables and frozen Canadian fruit and our apples of course last well into the spring. It is called tit for tat and when you upset the apple cart that is what happens. The people who suffer are the producers whilst the government rakes in the money so that they can give it back to the rich by reducing their taxes which is just silly. They made all that money on the backs of the hard working Americans. How do they spend that money generally cluttering up the skies with their private airplanes and polluting the air that we breathe. 

I still think that 13 new states in the United States is an interesting proposition but not a 51st state so that we could be turned into some sort of a second class American. We would be a solid front against any aggression by aggressive peoples! But we can also do that as the United States of America and Canada standing together to take care of this part of the world as we always have been for over two centuries.

Here people create industry using the talents of Canadians and then sell it all to the United States so that they can retire in Florida and still try to call it Canadian. A weird thing. What made Canada great (and we are great) was people creating industry and then maintaining it Canadian not selling it off just so they can pollute the skies with private airplanes and hide away their money so that they do not have to pay taxes having made all that money on the backs of Canadians. I am a Canada first person but I am very fond of our wonderful neighbours and cousins (in my case) in the United States. Long live the United States - Americans are the kindest and most generous people in the world. But like here they have greedy people too who only think about jetting about in their private planes and polluting the air and fighting paying their taxes. 

On to the day, perhaps I will finish the index today for the Siderfin book and then a re-read and then publish it and be done. It will be ready for revision from day 1 and I really do not care if anyone wants to do that. Then the Blake and the Pincombe books and quiet seclusion will be mine once again for a few years whilst I work away on these books that would please my grandfather and my mother and uncle so very much I am sure. 

Lots of snow; it is nice to see and I am sure the trees are very happy and the plants are nestled deep into the ground beneath all of that protected from the severe cold that does permeate Canada through the winter. 

Teatime, I am forgetting, tariffs are blocking my thoughts. It could be the making of Canada as we tear down those barriers between the provinces and survive the four years until perhaps there will be another Reagan and another Mulroney to put together an efficient trade package that benefits both Canadians and Americans on the ground because it is those workers who daily go to work in each of our countries and create the great countries that we are. We are linked by blood, by the longest demilitarized border in the world and by politics; we are the same kind of people. We like peace and we like to help where help is needed. At fourty million we are a sizeable commodity to be lost to manufacturers south of the border. Considering the difference in population trade deficits are going to appear here and there it depends on the season of the year - we definitely buy a lot more from the United States in the winter when we are nearly and mostly 100% covered by snow so not much growing happens (and you need to include all that is sold by the American companies that sell directly inside of Canada with their stores dotted all over the landscape because it is worth their while to have a distribution centre inside of Canada). But it is a money thing - the wealthy (the 0.1%) want no taxes but they actually use far more of the system that is maintained by the United States and Canada. Their money grows on the backs of the people in these two countries and the 0.1% ers (the ultra rich) need to pay their fair share.

Plaque unveiling

My youngest daughter and I attended a wonderful ceremony remembering some of the people who have played a major role in the Ottawa Branch of Ontario Ancestors (was the Ontario Genealogical Society). Edward would have been pleased I think to be remembered in this way. Thank you very much to the current members of the group for doing this especially Mike More. Much appreciated. 

I ended up being snowed in in the west of Ottawa and did not come home until today. A lot to do as I have not yet completed the index and hope to do that today along with cleaning the basement. Unfortunately my elder daughter has not yet returned for Christmas so missed out on the ceremony but she will see the plaque. It is the plight of many Canadians unable to get jobs here when they graduated and instead being hired in the United States where they could follow their dreams. That is important and it works well for both of our countries as Americans come here also looking for work. But I still really believe that it should be Canadians students first unless of course the university feels that they have a Nobel prize winner in their sights - otherwise hire Canadian; you train these students they should be good.

Exciting news in Syria and apparently Iran has also pulled their units from Syria considerably minimizing their impact in that area of the Middle East much to the relief of all I expect as they have no regard for anyone but themselves and their syncophants in particular Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. Russia too has retreated from Syria and it would be nice if they would a big retreat from the parts of Ukraine which they hold illegally since 2014 and the areas where they have illegally attacked Ukraine and considering the population of Russia is four times greater than Ukraine, Ukraine has been able to make limited headway back into their Ukraine territory still. The Russians should go home; they are so ignorant of modern life which doesn't revolve around empire building. That has been gone for a very long time. Go Home Russia. Thank you to Turkey for enabling a much better look to that part of the Middle East and they can now encourage the Syrians to return home if it is true that Assad is gone from Syria. They have sheltered the Syrian people for a very long time. Will it help Israel; one prays so that there can be an end to war in the Middle East. And it appears that Israel is taking the credit for helping the rebels not Turkey. Turkey has simply remained as a place for the Syrians to flee to when Assad forced them out. Interesting how life flows.  It appears though that all the credit is to the rebels being well prepared  and efficient. A lesson perhaps for those who try to conquer and hold it that eventually the people will have what they want. I do pray that will be so for the Syrian people - the young deaths there have been dreadful.

All in all a different day yesterday. I was quite stressed to be honest; I really haven't been out much in the last five years and really appreciated my daughter managing all of that. I mean I have been out, I go shopping on occasion and walks but attending something planned and formal I just haven't done that that wasn't solely family. It was meaningful for both of us to see Edward being celebrated along with his comrades in the organization. 

Today is Sunday and I must see where Advent 2 is being celebrated online. I will also clean the basement as I work towards my daughter returning and having the house spick and span. Although to be honest it is hard to find any dust often enough. I am a chronic cleaner it would appear. 

Remembered to do my latin late last evening so did not miss a day on Duolingo for quite a while. I am getting towards the end of the lessons though so shall soon do remedial daily rather than new work until new lessons are planned. 

So for me a great relief that the day has moved on and I am back to my normal pre-occupation  with the Siderfin Family. Returning shortly to my Blake and Pincombe books from which I shall probably not move until likely four years hence. 

 

Perhaps half of the index left to read

I finally had to give up yesterday reading the index and will complete it perhaps tomorrow we will see. But the body of the body is read and that is good. Other than that it was just a quiet day and managed all three of my 30 minute exercise periods along with my brief early morning exercises which are primarily yoga.

I watched Power and Politics avidly last night. The discussion was excellent actually as the Premier of Nunavut was on discussing the needs of his territory for infrastructure. The threat of Russia and China in the Arctic can not be overlooked and we must be attentive to protect this land for the First Nations primarily as they mostly live there but also for Canada itself as the prosperity of Canada depends on all of her land for all of her people. 

Discussion on the threat of tariffs was really well done in the Power and Politics session yesterday. I was realizing that I am most bothered by the negative attitude with Pierre Poilivere always criticizing Justin Trudeau. It is constant and never ending. I just never hear what he, Pierre, plans to do if and when he becomes Prime Minister. I need to hear these things just being anti Justin Trudeau is meaningless. Stop getting sucked in and making it all about Justin Trudeau. The Liberals are wasting so much money throwing money at it to see if it will gain them votes. We need a fiscal conservative to rein in the spending and bring efficiency back to government departments. The attitude towards being in parliament is so wrong; it isn't about winning elections it is about giving us good government. We are not getting that. The CBC needs to spell check the headings on the television news as I am really tired of seeing mis-spelled words - what are we paying for.  Efficiency just doesn't exist for this government which has nearly twice as many employees as in 2015. The dental plan for seniors is another example - creating an entire department to manage what is a medical issue when the provinces each have their own medical system just plain waste - give the money to the provinces and let them handle it. That along with allowing so many immigrants into the country that the infrastructure is overwhelmed and the employment rate is at 6.8% is ridiculous. But do we hear that from the opposition no it is a constant attack on Justin Trudeau with the issues somewhere in the background. I do not care to hear that and find it repulsive. We do not want any surprises. The experience with former Prime Minister Harper making so many mistakes trying to balance the budget - undermining Library and Archives Canada, having foolishly reduced the GST which funded the government - he was an economist the whole idea of doing that was ridiculous. We need a fiscal conservative - where are the Brian Mulroneys when we need them. The Leader of the Opposition needs to start talking policy instead of anti-Trudeau junk. What will you do at the border; how will you approach the tariffs if they are actually put on? What are your plans for the north? I want to see the pipeline as a Crown Corporation or better yet sell it to the First Nations do not sell it outside the country. It is an asset and belongs to the people; we paid to build it and the monies can be used in the north. Do something about the CRA being caught in fraud once again in the millions - it is ridiculous. Fire the people who caused the problem; they are paid to think not read a sheet of instructions without thinking about possible problems. We pay them to be thinkers and do the best job they can at collecting taxes. We are not seeing that. Efficiency and we do need to see that in the House and not just anti-Trudeau sentiment. Drill down on how this money is being spent and what is being done about the waste!

I must pay more attention to this riding as it has been conservative in the past and ideally the more ridings that go conservative is a good thing. But we do need to hear less about Justin Trudeau and more about policies of improving government. I suspect many people find it very annoying that there is so much waste and tossing money at things without really judging the best means of putting in some services. Fine to say that so many people now have dental care but how much did it cost and could not the provinces/territories have done it much cheaper. You could have just increased the GIS stipulating that monies needed to be used for dental care and that people needed receipts to prove that in case the CRA can get themselves organized to add that to the income tax submissions.

Big storm for today and it may alter plans we will see. Other than that I hope to finish the index and then it will be my quiet day on Sunday and cleaning to follow.

Finally, Page 145 on the way to 152 + index

Yesterday was a good reading day and reaching Page 145 I just have one large chart and two small ones with their attached notes to go through and then the Index and the first read is done. I will read it again so that at least nonsensical errors are eliminated. 

Walked up to the store and got salmon for dinner which was very pleasant. Salmon salad tonight will be greatly enjoyed. The company removed the snow from the laneway including the pile the grader from the city left at the end of my laneway. I need to guage how much to clear at the top of my laneway as I am not having them shovel the porch and patio. It is the end of the laneway that I really hire them for actually but I like them to do as much of the laneway as they can. It is actually a long laneway - good for three cars carefully parked although I just have one and it is in the garage for the winter basically although it comes routinely out to pick up a large food order. Chicken stew on Sunday will be greatly enjoyed as always and last me until likely Wednesday but sometimes only Tuesday but that is good enough as my house is cleaned by then in a normal week. 

Searched out some pictures from 1968 as I was chatting with one of my brothers and he wondered about where we had taken him camping when he was about twelve. 

 

 

My youngest brother and I, he is ten years younger than I am, in 1968 when I was 22 years of age and already married for two years. Edward took the picture. We are on Lake Huron camping for the weekend. I loved camping for many years - now you could not get me to do that unless of course I had to. But we had our canoe and my youngest brother loved canoeing and still does. I gave the canoe away - a beautiful cedar strip that now has a new family in Northern Ontario to enjoy it. They last a long time those canoes. My friend, helps to manage such items for her people and I was very grateful that she found a lovely young First Nations family to take the canoe. Edward took extremely good care of it and he loved to canoe but the last time was too much for him for sure and we shouldn't have let him try but he wanted to and it is wrong not to try and help him to do what he wanted to do. 

 

I can remember my youngest brother from the day he arrived at home with my mother from the hospital. Every little detail is engraved in my mind (as are the details of my own children except for the one tiny missing two weeks in the early life of my oldest daughter - pictures unfortunately did not capture that time period so it is lost to time for me) and I loved him dearly and still do. I have not seen him for a very long time I would have to think about that. But that is the miracle of the internet; one feels like one is still very close to one's siblings although the distance between us can be thousands of miles.  The memories are strong and of course he is now almost six feet tall and much older. He is a good height in this picture for his age since I was nearly 5 foot 6 inches in those days. I believe I may have shrunk a little as standing next to my youngest I discovered she looked taller. For some reason both of my daughters were shorter than me (perhaps it was two quite short grandparents - not sure but the genes do seem to take strange paths sometimes). 

So today is a working day and I will likely finish the book and set it aside for a couple of days and then do another reading. I will not be rushed this time and then finally I can set aside all of that Siderfin material and move back to Blake and Pincombe but first I must create the Kipp Newsletter as it is late this month but I decided that my mind was just too attached to Siderfin to really think about the Y-700 results from Edward's yDNA test. It has been a while since the results came in but life has been busy and I am working on data that is not my own so have to tread slowly. His autosomal matches are totally out of control as I have not had time to work on them. I only ever produced a file extracted from the various databases (Edward tested everywhere as well except for My Heritage - I did try but it just didn't happen he had other priorities and time ran out towards the end it wasn't our concentration). So there is a lot of data and I need to collect it one of these days. But I have not actually worked on it so maybe I can persuade someone else to do that. We will see but everyone is pretty busy. 

Thank you God for another beautiful day on your earth. May the winds of time carry us towards the uplifted plain of peace when Satan is finally eliminated from our world with his greed, hatred and other sins gone. 

Tea drank, time for exercises and breakfast. Then Latin to do and I will continue Latin daily even when the lessons are complete to keep my mind attentive to declensions and the like as I slowly move towards those latin documents my fingers have been itching to work on. 

 

 

How long am I writing?

 Until the end; that is my answer. I will just keep writing as I have an enormous amount of material to put together with words to say with what I found on my trips through repositories (often on line but also on the ground) as I continue to transcribe both the the Old English/Middle English and Latin documents that I found to go with all of that later material (and I still have my son in laws' French Canadian ancestry and back into France as I have also collected at lot there). It will be fundamentally interesting likely also boring to some (although my definition of boring is a social gathering generally unless it is for a good cause) and I will go forward every step of the path that God sets before each and every one of us who live on the face of the earth. We have but to follow his commands and peace and prosperity will come to us. Not all of us think prosperity is about money; greed is the worst disease of mankind for sure. It topples governments and destroys people. It always starts out simple with wanting what everyone else seems to have but ends up in most cases with a bitter taste because things did not go precisely as desired. Too bad really as people individually and in a group have so much they could do for society especially the rich. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the exception it appears to those of us who read about him as he goaded and prodded his rich companions in the United States to build the infrastructure that made America great and it lasted a very long time. More money into the coffers of the rich is not the answer ever; Taxes are the answer and it is wonderful when you hear a "rich" person say that what is important to them is that the taxes are properly and well spent and not wasted by inefficiency that is music to my ears for sure. There are many who say that actually. Not all rich people are stingy and self caring; not all rich people hide their money away where they hope the government can not find it or if they do protect it so they do not have to pay taxes. Lots of people just pay their taxes but they want something; they want efficiency with that money. Pandering to those who are less fortunate for votes is annoying and really $250 doesn't go anywhere particularly these days.

An article today caught my attention as once again we face tariffs from our huge trading partner to the south. There are barriers between provinces (we share a lot with the States in the United States where each one considers itself its own empire!) for trade and we need to take them down and do what has to be done to protect our economy if the tariffs are placed to decimate the Free Trade that has existed between us from the Ronald Reagan days. Both of us have benefited and become stronger for that trade but most importantly we love being next to the United States; many Canadians have gone south over the generations and many Americans have come north; we are related by blood. It must be the colder weather but we are not as influenced by elected leaders after all we have our King and before that our Queen  whom we greatly admired and they do not ask us for anything; they just come and wave at us and make us feel good and do not cost us a lot of money. Prime Ministers come and go; the more efficient they are sometimes is to their determent like Brain Mulroney. I would have liked to have seen him in Canada as Prime Minister when Bill Clinton was President of the United States. Their economic beliefs would have created an even stronger powerhouse of economics here in the Northern Hemisphere. When something is healthy you do not treat it; you maintain it and improve it. 

 Anyway another day of work. I am at page 117 on my way to 154 and the index which I will also look at since it is hand done rather than using the ability of word to create. The index ended up being just sixteen pages so not too bad. I also need to do the Kipp Newsletter but it will wait until I complete this time through and then I will create it. Still my mind has not had time to fully appreciate the results of the Y-700 test that we did on Edward's y-DNA. The results most interesting since six of his matches trace back or live in Norway but not surprising given the movement of people in the Common Era (CE) that we now live in for the last 2024 years  or AD (Anno Domini - in the year of our Lord) as we learned in Church and in school years ago now. Edward did great work on the Kip genealogy back into the Netherlands and he had plans for a trip there and a trip to Germany which he was working away on when COVID struck. He was corresponding with several researchers there to help him in his quest. Someone else will pick that up hopefully one day but for the moment I am a caretaker of the study waiting for that person who is keen to follow the research where ever it takes them and not be a dream follower of what they want that ancestry to be. The real ancestry is the important one that takes one back and forth through the generations. 

Breakfast time, tea drank and first my second set of exercises that take me through the day. Cleared the snow from the porch/patio and the company did the laneway. Snow wonderful snow has finally covered the ground (the trees can heave a sigh of relief once again at the protective covering). Then Latin and the Siderfin companion charting book to bring to its conclusion so that I can get on to the Blake and Pincombe books. Interesting that my thoughts on how my retirement would go resembled my grandmothers until it didn't. All thanks to George DeKay pushing me into something I never really wanted to do I thought until I contemplated how much my grandfather would love his Blake family to be published and my mother and uncle their Pincombe family to be published. But that came much later in my widowhood for sure although I did start collecting earlier probably because the grandparents who pushed me through childhood towards adulthood are still there in my mind creating that path for me through life.

 

Some work on the Siderfin Companion Charting Book

I did make some accomplishment yesterday on the Siderfin Companion Charting Book and I am up to Page 92 so about 3/4s of the way through. More work today on that for sure. We are promised snow and I will believe it when I see it. We have had a little dusting most mornings when I get up. 

The election looks like it is nearly complete in the United States and the GOP are in place everywhere - the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court. This is a great time to introduce efficiency and I wish we would here. The government is inefficient - CRA lost millions again. We do need to get efficiency back in and in general the Conservatives are the efficient party but Pierre Poilievre is an untried leader and does not have the strength of a Brian Mulroney but I would like to be proven wrong in that regard. He gets into social conservative issues and they are just dead in the water. We do not want to hash and rehash conservative social issues. Unless people are breaking the law by abusing someone then we should stay out of it. There are enough people in the world already that we do not have to worry about that although personally I find abortion purely for personal reasons that do not extend to the safety of the mother/baby to be just sad but I believe it is the right of every woman to determine her own destiny. 

I think Canada and the United States make a great team but we need to pull our weight more by getting the military properly equipped and encouraging enlistment with a good retirement package. We basically ask for 24 hours of every day of these people's lives for a good period of time and there should be a benefit for them. The Americans give free university/college education to their military after serving. There is a lot to think about in that regard. But definitely we need to be at 2% or better up to 4% of GDP for our military spending yearly.  

More thinking on the Blake family records back in the 1300s and how I can research them in the Andover area. I need to read the Manor Books where they are available and have only glimpsed at them where I noted the surname Blake present. 

Tea time and then breakfast followed by Latin. The day precedes. 

 

51st State? There would need to be 13 more States!

 I see on the news there is a speculative toss out of information from the meeting between President-Elect Trump and our Prime Minister Trudeau that Canada becoming the 51st state would be interesting as mentioned by President-Elect Trump. First and foremost the United States would be adding thirteen new states not 1 as each of the Provincial/Territorial mandates on education, health and a number of other items are quite sacrosanct and would not be acceded (much like American states). It would certainly have an impact on Congress bringing in so many new states! Myself, I find American elections to be exciting and have watched them since the 1950s every four years and lately every two years. Mind you I watch Canadian elections most avidly as well. However, I think the United States is better protected by us as an independent country. Plus we would miss our Governor General and our King. We always have your back though for sure. That was really apparent on the 11th of September 2001 as we landed thousands and thousands of Americans (indeed thousands of planes) on Canadian soil whose planes had crossed past the point of no return and kept them until they could return home a little later. In terms of accommodating our American cousins/friends on such short notice many many Canadians took passengers into their own homes to help them. At Gander, which is pretty much in the wilderness, the greatest effort was made to land these huge planes and provide the Americans with anything that they would need. It was no small feat on the part of the people of Newfoundland and indeed in all of the Maritimes as the hotels there are small and the ability to accommodate on short notice was amazing. Our shared border which is not armed and manned by the military, is a marvel and we hope to keep it that way but we will maintain top security to help our American neighbours to feel safe. Building a wall is an option that I leave to the Americans if that is something they feel they need but we must somehow protect the many many herds of wild animals that pass over our shared borders particularly during migrations. But we are tired of people freezing to death in the winter coming across from the United States or going the other way which we do try our utmost to prevent and will continue doing so increasing our surveillance especially during these times with so many Satanic peoples in the world (Iran, Russia, North Korea and those free-lancers that are sometimes the greatest danger). So a Canada strong and right beside you is a great addition to your protection dear Americans. Plus we work so very closely with your military and your policing agencies and when the power goes out down there our crews cross over and help to bring back the miracle of electricity to all as quickly as possible (and you do the same for us). Thank you for being our neighbours. 

Cleaning accomplished yesterday I am happy to say but I will admit this 79 year old does find all that cleaning to be strenuous even if I am a exercise addict!

No work on the book but that is usual and today should see a return to the book. I try to keep my brain from wandering on to the Blake and Pincombe books but not always successfully but maybe that is a good transition. We will see. 

Basement today and then complete for the week. Breakfast completed and latin is next on the schedule once I have washed the basement floor. I leave it then to dry for a couple of hours and then go back restore everything to its correct position and vacuum the remaining stuffed chair down there. My it is much easier to clean the basement for sure. 

Advent Sunday

Advent 1 Sunday worship service was online with St Pauls St Albans, Hertfordshire and a most interesting service. I am  not sure that I was ever in Hertfordshire except perhaps one of the highways on our way here and there when we were in England. But consciously there, no I do not think so. Where I actually really met people and talked to them was in just a few specific areas other than that we were with a group on a bus tour. 

Then at 4:00 in the afternoon I attended the Readings and Carols Service at Christ Church Cathedral (my home church just because it is the Mother Church and that is how I decided to tithe my small pension in those days as Edward moved on from Dominion Chalmers (his time there followed nearly twenty years at Orleans United Church) when the then present minister retired). He really liked him; the minister took the time each service week after week to spend a few minutes with him knowing that he was in pain; spiritual pain that needed support but not a lot just a little. My spiritual background could not help Edward at that time; he found it too intensive I would have said although as COVID shut us down he found that my spiritual background became more of a solid rock for him. We spent more time talking in the last four years than we spent in the fifty years before that in some ways. We had talked a lot as he bounced ideas off of me for his genealogy once I got to thinking about genealogy and took the 42 courses at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies beginning in the latter half of 2003. I was not going to write a Pincombe Profile without some background education that looked directly at the study of surnames and I joined the Guild of one name Studies not long after that. Before that we were just busy with our children, our work and our lives. So his myriad of English Dissenters that he had drawn out of the past were a discussion point from then on; plus I knew that sort of history from my own religious education. The Archdeacon Abraham in his Confirmation Classes that lasted nearly seven months every week (one night) covered every aspect of Anglican Church History back into the depths of Anglicanism which preceded the Birth of Christ in the Celtic Church and before that the Ancient Church and he too believed in the idea that the early inhabitants were one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. It is something that descendants of the early hunter-gatherers share in common all over the British Isles - England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Isles (Hebrides, Mann, etc). How pleased I was actually to discover that my Blake line did go back into the very very distant past (thousands of years ago) as my grandfather had always said. It does give me more insight into the First Peoples of Canada actually and their path to a more meaningful life in this century.

I also put time into the Companion Charting book and I am now at Page 77 (half way plus) but this is cleaning day so not a lot will be accomplished in that regard on this the larger cleaning day. Mostly finding what I expected to find in terms of some punctuation that I wanted to change but the occasional item pops up that I need to contemplate/change or check. I am way past the spots where I postulated or created from research material a likely scenario. I am in the home stretch one might say and it is just a matter of hanging in there to the end and then publish it. I think the publishing date will be around the middle of the month giving me a breathing space and I do not feel rushed as I did publishing the revised edition of James Sanders' book. In a way this is also a revision but just of the Pedigree chart that James Sanders produced in his book. Amazing that one chart can be revised up to over 160 pages! But the notes take up a lot of room. My John Rawlins cousin who did the charts for our Rawlin[g]s family (his book was 37 pages of charts primarily and an index) did not do much text and I felt that perhaps it would be handy and electronic can really have as much in it as you want unlike the restrictions of paper publishing. John received his MBE at some point in his past for his  military service I think and living in Australia where he moved decided to research his Rawlin[g]s family. He wrote to me after I had put some material on line (I think in my blog I would have to check that) and asked me who was Ada Rawlins on the census with her grandparents William and Elizabeth (Lywood) Rawlins? He had not been able to place her because, like me, he could not find her birth registration. By then I had purchased all the certificates and other material that proved Ada was my grandmother Edith Bessie (Taylor) Blake aka Ada Bessy Cotterel on her baptismal lines in the Parish Register of St Peter and St Paul Kimpton, Hampshire, England when she was 4 months and 26 days old presented by her mother Elizabeth Rawlins and baptized by the Rector. In 1904 one finds in the same Parish Register, but 28 years later, the baptism of  my father Ernest Edward George son of Samuel George and Edith Bessie Blake of Eastleigh Hants on the 2nd October 1904 when he was just six weeks of age. Interesting to this sleuth that they could have baptized him at the Church they attended in Eastleigh or at the Upper Clatford Church where my grandfather was baptized although by then his parents were living in Goodworth Clatford and was perhaps the reason not to chose Upper Clatford - no ideas on that. Family history is always interesting but primarily to the descendant for sure. But there was John writing to ask me what I knew about Ada as he had been unable to place her in his tree (she was on the 1881 census with her grandparents as a five year old). So I placed her for him and he was pleased. We corresponded through the years and he sent me his research. I think now in retrospect he wanted me to publish what I knew about the overall Rawlin[g]s family for whom he had done an extensive tree since I seemed to be into writing. Although I decided on Blake and Pincombe first I can see that time permitting I will move likely to Buller and Rawlin[g]s when I complete the first two directly in my birth line (they are, of course, the maternal lines in my direct birth line).

Work to be done, tea all drank. Time for breakfast in a bit and then latin and cleaning. Generally I work the latin into my breaks on the big cleaning day.

Page 52

 I reached Page 52 in the Companion Book yesterday and today I should get through another 25 perhaps although it is Sunday and I tend to try not to work on Sunday. Advent Sunday is always a much loved one in the Church Year. It is full of hope and wonder as the Church Year begins once again. The birth of the baby Jesus soon to come at Christmas whilst we await the snow here in Ottawa that is still promised. It is a lovely time of the year. God bless the world and keep it safe. 

Keeping with my new lifestyle of not watching too much news for the moment and doing my Sudoku puzzles to calm my thoughts, today I shall watch the Lessons and Carols Service as is traditional in the afternoon on the first Sunday in Advent. Should I put up the Christmas Tree? Probably I will not but I will think about it. Am I still in mourning? No, I think about Edward and how much he enjoyed Christmas; it was by far his favourite season. He loved presents. 

Lots to do and the day is young. I must work on the Kipp Newsletter as well. I still have not done a lot of thinking about the Y-700 results. I need to finish this book and then my mind will be clearer and I can start to multitask once again on my many projects but for the moment Siderfin is getting my full attention but I will publish the Newsletter with promises of a longer writeup on the Y-700 DNA in the next issue. 

Minus 3 degrees celsius and feels like minus 9 so a cool day to start with a high of minus 1. Still no snow in the forecast until on into the week - Wednesday says 6 cm. The air quality is good though at 22. What a strange winter in a city that traditionally is one of the coldest capital cities in the world. 

I went for a fast walk around the large block yesterday and it took 21 minutes which is good. Edward liked to stroll so it generally took around 40 minutes but he enjoyed it. I have returned to my lifestyle of my teen years where I just read a lot, walked a lot (mostly in the house now) and worked. It has its rewards and the time with God in my prayers remains one of my most important times of the day.

Snow

It is only a sprinkling but there is white out there finally and at last. Hopefully more to come over the next couple of days. We could use the snow cover as it is going to be very cold. Even the trees need the snow cover to protect their roots. 

Yesterday I read through the first 27 pages and found a couple of things here and there, I actually am looking for most of them so good news in that regard and I am 16% of the way through the book. It may well be the middle of December before I release it but I am going to go through it carefully and then perhaps read it one more time just for the flow. I also am still working on the Preface and Acknowledgements. I have written them but want to make sure they are saying what I want them to say. 

I needed some downtime that didn't involve screen time or heavy exercise so I bought a thick book of Sudoku which I love to do. Microsoft has that on their Solitare page as I call it but there is something very comforting about sitting there with pencil and eraser and just quietly working away at a Sudoku puzzle. I do love numbers and find them soothing as I run them through my mind counting out my steps or activity during workouts or just sitting there quietly as the numbers 1 to 9 in each block get arranged carefully into their order to complete the puzzle. It is good for the mind I think; settles it. 

Well I am once again in agreement with the Prime Minister who had the good sense (and I think the Premier of Manitoba said it best we need to let the President-Elect know what we are doing to protect the border; he has asked) to go visit the President-Elect of the United States and to take our  Minister of Public Safety Dominic LeBlanc with him to discuss Canada and its border control. It was the absolutely right thing to do; it also gives Canada a chance to congratulate President-Elect Trump on his win in the election face to face. The United States of America is our wonderful neighbour and I am glad that this has occurred. I still need to see far more efficiency in our government; too much money is being wasted that could go to the military. Perhaps the military should manage CRA! 

Today, more work on the Companion Charting book and I shall try hard to keep my mind from wandering towards the Pincombe and Blake books. I am anxious to get back to them although it will probably be the first of January before I return to them. Of course the interest in them is fairly personal although I will blog items that are interesting especially when I start to transcribe some of these old documents plus I still have about a thousand wills for Blake to transcribe that I have collected through the years. I will continue doing that as well as writing the books because I find comments about the Blake family at Andover within wills that end up surprising me and gave me that connection between the Oxfordshire Blake family and the Hampshire Blake family way back in the 1500s. I need to learn more about that as well. 

I also want to have time to work on my yearly (although it is now nearly four years) re-phasing of my grandparents and great grandparents DNA. Knowing where they are buried, it does occasionally cross my mind that perhaps I could actually do DNA on them although I expect the cost would be rather high and my family would think I had perhaps lost it. So maybe not. After all it is amazing what you can come up with when you have five sets of sibling results. 

More snow hopefully this weekend and into next week and I look forward to that. 

Tea being drank and soon breakfast time and then Latin once again. I am surprised at how quickly I can read these sentences now in Latin without having to go back to my file and check. I do want to get back to my French as well but need to finish the Siderfin book first. 

Indexing and first read through completed

 A good working day and I reached the end and added in the index. It is complete but now needs a good proofreading. The editing was done along with the indexing. 

A few pictures of my line coming down from Elizabeth (Siderfin) Rew. A picture of her daughter and her husband John Pincombe and then a picture of their son William Robert Pincombe and his first wife Grace Gray and finally a picture of their son John Routledge Pincombe and Ellen Rosina (Buller) Pincombe my maternal grandparents and my parents. All in all I am pleased with the overall look but I can not say that it was my invention as one of my Rawlings cousins did his family tree about fifteen years ago and sent it to me as he felt I was interested in the family and he didn't want to do a writeup just the tree and it was in chart form the same as I had completed for the Siderfin book. I could have done far more research but I generally stuck to the principle of a one-name study and dropped the female lines after they married although generally mentioned their children which is fairly common to take it down one generation. However for my line I have taken it down considerably further as my 3x great grandmother was Elizabeth (Siderfin) Rew! 

I also went out grocery shopping and drove this time as I wanted to get an entire order and this was my first time out with the car since the 28th of October. I have walked to the store every week since then and brought back fresh vegetables and fruit was very nice. Other times I brought back fresh milk and bread. It worked out very well and was good exercise plus I do not buy very much at any one time. 

Today I will begin the proofreading and hope to complete this task in one week; I shall give myself that long as that would be just under 25 pages a day. 

Up late today and sadly no snow. However, snow is now promised on Sunday. We will see. That will be the first day of December. I am sure I can scarcely remember a time here when we did not have snow fall that at least touched the ground by the end of November.  Hopefully we soon get sufficient snow cover as last year was very hard on the plants and grasses with the minus 20 weather in December and no snow cover. 

Teatime and then breakfast (perhaps reversed today since I am late) and then latin and the day begins in earnest. I have been trying to think of one more of Edward's charities that I could support and I think I will do the Food Bank as he used to give them almost half of our garden produce as we did not eat it nor did I can or freeze anything much after I went back to work outside the home plus he always gave them a donation. I will do that in memory of him on Christmas Day. I do not usually give at the stores or on the street although I guess it would add up over time if everybody did. I will think about that but you do not get receipts for $1.00 gifts of charity at the store and they do add up over time.

COVID shot yesterday

 All up to date on my vaccinations. I do tend to take care of that as I am a great believer in vaccinations. I do know that people are afraid but in fact vaccinations have brought the human race to these huge numbers which is a blessing and does create problems of over usage of the earth because there are too many people but mother nature does look upon that and one realizes that the birth rates are declining around the world and the old people are the huge numbers in many countries but the countries where they are not do not have places to go as the world isn't open for migrants these days. You need to prove your worth to go to where the  money is. If you don't do it then you are just an illegal and have no real place. Think about it; stay where you are and make your own country great by booting out the dictators who spoil it for you. Lebanon and Gaza would be so much better off without Hezbollah and Hamas and the same with Yemen without the Houthis. The best thing is to stop hating the United States. The worst thing that can happen to the world is for the United States to become isolationist - Russia would love that and they would try to go on a conquering spree because their satanic leaders through this past century do not understand the rights of the individual (their own people are just cannon fodder) and these satanic leaders are just so greedy (Mikhail Gorbachev was bringing Russia into a much better place but greed took over and the Satanic Putin rose to power). Mind you Europe is not going to go down without a fight this time; Hitler is still in the minds of many as he was the Evil Satan of the last century. We cannot let Ukraine be absorbed/destroyed by Russia. The scenario builds that brings us once again to World War and Armageddon. Russia must be corralled until the Great Satan Putin and his adherents are put down.

I did work on the Companion Charting book yesterday but have not yet completed it. Still about half a dozen pages to go. This is heavy indexing time with so many people in each chart; the end though is definitely in sight. I will then proofread and publish it on my website. Feel free to tell me if you disagree with anything. I am comfortable with most of it but other people may have seen or read documents that I have not so more than interested in doing the best job that can be done from afar; I am thousands of miles from the record offices. Although I have copied many many items at the Archives at Kew over our five visits to England, I simply can not get inspired to travel overseas to Europe/British Isles as I saw pretty much everything that I wanted to see. Probably if I had been born there I would feel differently but I was born here and traveling to Europe showed me just how Canadian I really am. We are a different kind of people; great at compromising for sure. We listen to both sides and draw our own conclusions and have been lucky with our education system as not too many biased people until recently with these Palestinian camp-ins; definitely these people need to be re-educated or sent back if they are not permanent residents/citizens. For the most part our complaints are purely about items we do not like that the government is doing at the moment. I can think of a number of them but mostly it is their tendency to throw money at it hoping it sticks and they win the next election. But we need a counter balance; we need efficiency and we need more money for the military; the military manages our country in war and in peace and we need to fund it far better than we are.

Today more work on the Companion Charting book  and hopefully completed with the index added. It is getting to be a very long index - 15 pages in total but maybe 16 by the end - a lot of names being added in these last generations.

Tea all drank and time for breakfast. Then Latin and work on the book.

A few pages done

The cleaning all accomplished but only three pages done in the Charting Book. Today I will begin again to work  away through the day and see how much I can accomplish. I am coming to the end sort of like a ship coming in to harbor and hoping for enough wind to bring them ashore!

A quiet day otherwise with most of it spent cleaning. But I did have some thoughts on the Answer Document which had Robert, Ursula and John Siderfin as defendants and which helped to prove that the line from which I descend is indeed this Robert through his son John Siderfin. But it did give me pause to wonder why the youngest son in this case? It was 1653 and Robert, the eldest son who was mentioned in the document but just once, was 39 years of age at this time (was he still living I do wonder about that) and John, the younger son who was part of the document and mentioned a number of times, was 34 years of age. Likely it was John who baptized a son Robert in 1658 at Selworthy since Robert, the son, lived at Minehead at least on the Protestation Return. It just does make sense and I decided that given the resultant living places of the descendants it simply made more sense that John married Thomasine who left her will as a widow in 1709. More study of the documents could likely support or correct that premise. The main point though is that this is a descendant of Robert 4 (son of Robert 3, William 2, John 1). There is no sign of Robert 5 (Robert 4, Robert 3, William 2, John 1) marrying in Minehead or elsewhere. But Robert, the father, in the document has perhaps chosen to have John or because John had visited Robert Franke he was included. Interesting really given how families worked in those days where it was a top-down organization with the father, so long as he lived, being the head of the household and the determinant of how the children/grandchildren were regarded or managed. 

Interesting really and that was probably mostly what I thought about all day. I am retreating from the news for the most part these days waiting and watching to see how life flows. In my little place in the world, I have no influence on how affairs resolve or carry on; just opinions on occasion. 

Breakfast completed. Teatime is next as I ate early since I awoke early and was hungry. Latin follows.

Another Good Day

 Up to page 135 and I  have added a couple because of footnoting so 20 left to go and there are 22 pages of indexing. The end is in sight. I just need to proofread it from start to finish and then release and done. It does feel good to be nearly finished. I could hang in there and footnote here and there but someone else one of these days will pick it up and run with it as I did. It has been an interesting couple of years as I started it simply to correct the errors in James Sanders book but ended up finding that I could prove my line all the way back readily and so it seemed like I should do that and I did. 

I am a bit impatient to get at the Blake and Pincombe books that is for sure but it will probably take me a month for each to read them and contemplate them and then move forward. It is always a slow process I think. But an interesting one as both families did pass down items that were interesting and helpful. My grandfather especially in the last years of his life liked to talk about Upper Clatford and the Blake family. Perhaps it was the two World Wars with the losses in his family that make it ever more poignant to think about his family and passing on information. I am sure when he died in 1953 he never would have thought having three grandsons (my youngest brother was not yet born) and no Blake name great grandsons. It would have shocked him I think but then he could look at his own family and there was my father and one male cousin with the Blake surname (grandchildren of his father Edward Blake) whose airplane was downed in France near Marseilles in the Second World War on a Reconnaissance Mission (that was my father's cousin Edward not his grandfather!). But fortunately Edward (the grandfather) had a number of brothers who did keep the name going well into this generation that follows me - lots of male Blake name holders. 

From a DNA perspective, the Blake y-DNA ends with my generation of brothers for my grandfather's line, ends with my daughter's generation for the mt-DNA for my mother's mother's line but one of  maternal gradmother's younger sisters had several daughters so would have continued with them as far as I can tell. They live in the United States and I am not in communication with them. My mother's father's line ended with her brother who did not have any children. That is the way of it all really, in the long run there are many holders of the various y-DNA lines and mt-DNA lines but they may not have the same surnames having passed the particular haplogroup down through the centuries but they may not share the same alleles and so the y-DNA does get lost over time but the mtDNA does go on and on and it has few changes in thousands of years. Interesting really, DNA is going to be more and more important as science and medicine come together to have a better understanding of health and disease. It is all in the genes after all and life style. 

Today is the main cleaning day and most of the time is taken up with that but I will get some work done on the charting book and hopefully complete this run through tomorrow and begin reading.

Up early with lots to do today and it is a rain/snow event possibly 8 centimetres. Amazing how I do love the snow.