Edward and I share a workaholic tendency although he is more prone to being sociable than I ever was. For me, as a child, being sociable was what my mother requested of me and as an adult I have avoided social experiences in as much as possible. I love to read and work away at things although when my children were small I couldn't always do that and didn't as they came first. Learned that from my mother as well. But as luck would have it my children were quite amenable to an organized day so that by the time they were three they would sit beside me and do "their work" as they called it. The coffee breaks were longer for them for sure and generally involved a long walk to have a look at the world and discover birds, trees, plants along the way or watch favourite movies. I did take the girls to play group and my older daughter enjoyed it more perhaps because she was an only child for such a long time but my younger daughter on her first day there quietly confided to me that she would rather be at home working and we never went back! I do think we are all workaholics in this family as Edward has many projects but he put everything together for his various projects and passed them on before and during COVID and published everything that he wanted published.
I am busy writing all of these books I have thought about since I ventured into Surname Studies back in 2003 and mostly when DNA became the driver of my genealogical pursuits around 2005 after the Pincombe Profile was completed. George DeKay would be amazed to see the result of his persuading me to write the Pincombe Profile for sure. The Siderfin book revised and published. Blake and Pencombe books in the starting phases. Buller book on the back burner. Rawlings being thought about occasionally but one of my third cousins in Australia has written up quite a bit on the Rawlings. Then I get back another generation and I have Knight (Winterbourne villages, Dorset), Cotterill (Kimpton, Hampshire it appears but not conclusive on the surname)?, Gray (Holme on the Wolds, East Riding of Yorkshire), Taylor (Birmingham family, shoe/boot maker - a small company, was contacted by a descendant which was interesting). Would I ever take up books on these four lines? The Gray is written up by my cousin George DeKay but he wanted to revise and update it and I said I would help him if he wanted but he passed away and COVID did rather get in the way of that. That would mean a revise and update of his book but I wouldn't do all the families that he did without other contributors - I do not know most of them actually. For me it would be a Gray-Routledge book perhaps looking at the descendants of the Routledge family here plus my research back in Bewcastle. My cousin though has a lot of work on line for the family beyond Bewcastle back into the Highlands of Scotland. There have been books on the various Knight families and I rather think I would need to be on the spot to do that one as there are a lot of Knight families and the same goes for Taylor I expect. The next generation (2x great grandparents - would be Farmer (Collingbourne Kingston, Wiltshire), Butt (Winterbourne villages, Dorset), Sherwood (Cotterill married Sherwood at Kimpton)??, Lywood (there is a one name study for Lywood and Warwick Lywood has done great work for sure), Rew (same areas as Siderfin, have done some work on this line because of the Siderfin book and just interest), Routledge (my cousin (perhaps 7th) Thomas Routledge is doing a wonderful job with this family in England), Welch (huge family although I have traced my line back into Rugley Staffordshire several generations) and Roberts (Bickenhill, Warwickshire for a couple of generations before Birmingham).
Perhaps one can go to far back! I think at this point (3x great grandparents) I would become selective and pick some of the unusual 4th great grandparents and further back surnames and work on them - Cheatle (Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire), Croxall (Bickenhill, Warwickshire), Lawley (Wellington, Shropshire), Hemsley (Southwark, Surrey), Sproxton (Hutton Cranswick, East Riding of Yorkshire), Charlie/Charly (Combe Martin, Devon) and the list keeps going back! But there is just one lifetime for each of us and we do what we get done for sure. I did learn that from Edward who enjoyed the OGS now Ontario Ancestors Ottawa Branch so very much. He never really missed a meeting all those years before COVID taking me along after he got tired and his friend became ill and he found the drive home long. He loved being able to go and do the things he wanted to do anytime that he wanted knowing I was quite content that he enjoy his life. I loved all that precious time at home after I retired working away on Surname Studies which in itself is rather amazing being very late to arrive at an interest in such things. His greatest regret was not traveling across the ocean much much earlier - like when I proposed we backpack around the British Isles and Europe after he finished his PhD in 1970. It would have been fun for sure.
On to the day. This is basement cleaning day and today work on the Blake book - looking at Andover and area.
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