Sunday in God's World

Some fog today but another beautiful day in God's world. Climate Change is certainly showing in Canada this winter. Pray for the Polar Bears as they will struggle to find enough food to eat this year for sure. But a colony of Polar Bears has evolved to change their life style somewhat and hopefully that will quickly spread through all of the Polar Bears and they will survive. Prayers for that for sure. 

The Prayer for today from the Lenten Study (PWRDF):

We have become untethered
from the earth that nourishes us,
and from you, O life-giving God, Creator of all.
And untethered, we have lost our roots,
lost our connection to those creatures
that fill us with life and love.
Ground us once more, we pray.
That we may grow ever deeper
in relationship with our creaturely kin and with you.
Amen.

"Seeding Health Today" The Primate's World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF)

Worked on the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter yesterday. I am considering changing that to Pencombe Newsletter but probably not. I did write to a couple of members of the group looking at the Y-700 results where we have two distinct groups - my line of Pincombe and their line of Pinkham. The Pincombe does appear to be a later arrival to the British Isles and has likely taken their name from a place name - namely Pencombe in Herefordshire. That is still in the proofing idea. Gradually over time Pincombe has become Pinkham for some lines that descended from the North Molton group although not in my line. But also some Pinkham members have tested and their results take them back to the Hunter-Gatherer peoples of the British Isles which is rather exciting. My Blake line (my paternal line) is Hunter-Gatherer. Since there were no surnames before the arrival of the Normans to England in 1066 all surnames were acquired or simply already used in some ways which was descriptive of where they lived or a personal description or a name that was attached to a particular family. 

Since I do want to publish this book on Pencombe-Pincombe I did ask if they wanted to be included or indeed if they wanted to start up their own study separating it from my study at the Guild of one-name studies. I do not mind actually. I have maintained the study name that was created by the two earlier researchers which was Pincombe with derivatives Pinkham and a couple of others to which I will now add Pencombe. That way I do not feel that I have to then consult on the resultant book that I am producing I guess - at 78 I do have lazy moments! 

I will build the book the same as the Siderfin that I completed coming down from the initial generations. At this time I would be starting with John Pencombe/Pyncombe at North Molton and his three sons and likely one daughter and work these lines forward in time. I can not find the beginning of some of these lines coming back to North Molton but there is a record for Philip Pynkeham at Tawstock on the 1543-45 Devon Lay Subsidy Rolls. But I am unable to take this line further back to the 1524-7 Lay Subsidy Rolls unless one linked him to the Pencow family at East Buckland/Ilfracombe. For myself it is enough work doing the line coming down from North Molton but I do not wish to ignore the earlier study which was created and maintained by two earlier researchers from the late 1930s on. Anyway we will see. I am getting old and trying to do too much would delay the book as I have put a time limit of two years on my work and I think I can accomplish that with the Latin transcriptions that I need to do of records that I currently hold for the North Molton family and descendants. 

Other than that I shall go to Church online today and I wonder where it will be in England this day. Teatime. 

The service, third Sunday in Lent, will be celebrated at the Parish Church of St Mary and St Michael, Stoke Charity, Hampshire, England. Closer to Andover than Winchester and south of the road to London. I shall attend very soon. Hampshire is dear to my heart as that was where my Blake line was apparently for thousands of years. My grandfather always said that they had always lived in the Andover area. Given the number of other old Hampshire families in that area in Hampshire from Andover to Basingstoke, a lot of Hunter-Gatherers survived in England at least in that area. Life must have been hard through the centuries though and probably short thousands of years ago. Amazing really what DNA can tell you. The fourteen matches on Chromo2 do rather intrigue me. My brother Doug is proud I am sure that he took that step forward and put his y-DNA into all these databases so that Grandpa will be forever remembered (but really it is Doug also whom I miss and it is three years December past now since he passed away). I was lucky to have four brothers and two sisters as a child. 

The service today took me back to the Church of my childhood. The Book of Common Prayer Communion Service was celebrated. The homily was most interesting as the Power of God was the theme and very well illustrated. The presiding priest reminded me very much of my childhood priest except he was younger but his faith has traveled around the world this day as Jesus asked and God commanded.