Page 90

I am up to Page 90 with the Companion Book doing cross reference and generally cleaning up the text (it does come out of my Notes in Legacy so sometimes a bit wordy). Yesterday was a lazy day after all that fresh outdoor walking which I do really enjoy. I reread part of "My Story" which has now taken on a life of its own as it now includes all of these blogs that I have written from the beginning of COVID to the present happily without COVID as part of our daily routine although it is cropping up again here and there. I must get my next COVID shot which is due in November to December. I generally go for six months apart and the new shot is apparently available now. I have been lucky not to have COVID for sure. My Flu Shot is booked and will likely do that one first and then a couple of weeks later will do the COVID shot. 

Never went out the door yesterday actually; one of those days. The part of My Story that I read was from birth to five years. There are a couple of thousand of pages now in My Story although it is mostly about my close family - husband and children and myself. I meandered through life but all those met along the way for the most part are not in my story; primarily they were friends of Edward in adulthood on my part and as a child I avoided people for the most part since I already had wall to wall people at home! Just some of my thoughts and Part 1 takes me right through to our marriage day which is quite short actually at 100 pages with pictures. I tried to get Edward to write His Story for the children and finally we did sit together (which was the only way he said it was getting written) and did that. I did blog that just after Edward died telling his story as I knew it up to our marriage. The rest of My Story does include Edward so is in a way Our Story with a lot of pictures. Now it is back to My Story and all that is in there is what is written in my blog as it turns out. 

Today work on the Companion Book will continue. I may start scanning Edward's thesis and doing OCR page by page. That way I can insert the charts and graphs as *.TIFF images for longevity. All the work that he did on the Tours he gave back to the groups that took the tours. I have electronic data for all of that. Then of course he did the Story of Our Marriage in Picture Albums which I am slowly putting into Powerpoint Presentations. Never a dull moment in time ever throughout our marriage actually. There was always something that Edward wanted to do. The calm and restful period has actually been good for me as I have slowly moved from wifehood to widowhood. 

There is a scam by the way where you receive what looks like an e-transfer and quite accurate in its rendition but I am not receiving an e-transfer (I would know if I was) and so I deleted it. One must watch these days for the scum of the earth as they appear in your mailbox. Too bad they do not get out there and do proper work instead of trying to scam people. I seldom answer the phone unless I recognize the number or am expecting a call. Email works as I do read everything including the Spam - my Sewer and Water Bill was in the Spam yesterday. One must check. 

Solitaire games are next and then Breakfast and followed by Latin as always. Thank you God for another beautiful day in your world. Would that we take better care of it and protect it from those who threaten us with nuclear weapons. All my life that threat has hung over the Western Hemisphere. It is so childish and ignorant. 

Snow Tires on

 I am ready for the snow with my snow tires on yesterday. The walk home from the car facility was great although a bit different in that my way is controlled by a lot of construction. However, I managed it very well and had a good brisk 2 kilometre walk and then back again later to pick up the car. Again my vision is so much clearer now that the cataracts are gone. But you do not really notice that it is somewhat less clear because it is a gradual thing. Mind you I hardly ever drive on my own; it is rare and becoming rarer. I could drive all the time but I prefer to have a second person with me. As I approach 80 and my driving test whatever that will mean, I do wonder whether a decision will be made in my favour. We will see and I will accept whatever the decision as it does not affect me that much really in the long run. I seldom drive. 

Cleaning all accomplished except for one room which I will complete today. Other than that the week is open for work which is great. Yesterday the high school children collected canned food for those in need at this time of the year. They bring a note to the mailbox and have a fixed date and time which works very well for me. 

Since COVID I have not participated in Hallowe'en and that will continue this year. I do not know any of the children and really I wonder at the value of this custom as we didn't do it when I was a young child. I can remember it later as I used to walk with my youngest siblings whilst they went to the door but it wasn't something that I liked doing and we used to go to a party at school as I recall when I was young all dressed up in our costumes. I went with my older siblings. I did consider just putting out a bowl of wrapped candies but decided that probably wouldn't work well either so will just stay dark. 

Working on the charting book today once I get things done that didn't get finished yesterday. I am up to Page 75 now so over half way. Then back to indexing and perhaps one can see the light at the end of the tunnel for this book. Time will tell. 

I need to rake up the leaves and stems from the walnut tree next door as they poison the yard over time. It will likely be two bags I think and will try to get that done once the sun comes out and drys that up as we had a heavy rain last night. I am looking forward to grass all over the middle of the yard instead of the large garden area. It will be so much easier to manage grass than a garden. We can still garden along the one side although the new fence is quite dense so probably not in that area. We will see what comes up as when the fence went in my yard took the beating with most of the plants gone from that area. However there were bulbs there. It does seem like I am corralled in to the yard now although I do not mind but it is the lack of sun in the morning that I would have liked to have had but I am not staying and I am sure other people will prefer the privacy that it affords. 

Working on the solitaire games and then breakfast time and the day continues into exercise periods and work periods. I love this routine; it suits me at this time of my life. Do I miss all the people that Edward brought into my life? No, I am not really a people person as he was although it was interesting meeting all of those people that he enjoyed being with for sure. I did recognize quite a few names when I was at the Conference although did not attend the social times. The closer I get to 80 the more I cling to my time as I  have many things I want to get done.

The Before and After of Cataract Surgery is truly amazing

I had no idea that my sight was that affected by my cataracts to be honest. Had I realized I never would have published the book before surgery. I just thought I needed to get it done and really had no idea that my eye sight was not as good as I thought it was. But when the first eye was operated on (my weak eye actually) all of sudden to my shock my living room ceiling was pure white with the operated eye once it cleared. But if I covered that eye my other eye saw just yellow and it was not sharp at all like the other eye which was my weaker eye. The weaker eye still is weaker but it never ceases to amaze me just how much it improved by the cataract surgery. I would not say the stronger eye is that different except I can read signs without my glasses because my strabismus appears to be gone. 

But back to the book. As I work my way through the companion charting book I am finding all sorts of little things in the already published book. I will republish it at the same time as this Companion Book is published. They belong together and if the one book wasn't already 412 pages I would put them together but it is really  nicer to have the two books side by side and I have put in the reference page number to go back to the earlier book as you work through the charts. 

Still waiting for comments on the original book because I am making a few assertions that create a slightly different descent than James Sanders had. Indeed James simply skipped over the descent and just started a new line although at first glance it looks like he is fitting them together but in actual fact he does not. Plus I disagreed with the middle section coming down from Robert 3 (William 2, John 1) to his sons William 4 and Robert 4. Indeed none of Robert 4's children appear on the chart and the one that does appear as a son of Robert 4 belongs to William 4. But no disagreements at all; I did expect a few comments questioning what I wrote but I did have documents to back it up every time so perhaps that is why. 

Working away on the book yesterday and will continue through the week. Not sure when I will finish it because I will republish the earlier one as well so it could be on into November before they see the light of day in publication. It is giving me lots of thinking time when I am not working on Siderfin for the Blake and Pincombe families. Plus I do have latin material that I need to work through for both of these books and it is not yet in the earlier parts of the book mostly because I do not at this time know what they say and whether they pertain to what is written in the book or are just miscellaneous material that could be interesting. Once I get into the generations I do have lots of wills to put in to verify my movement forward through the generations. 

Beautiful views of the moon this month and we are now into the ever dwindling slipper moon as it slowly works it way to the new moon and then back again. Should get the big telescope out but probably not happening. Although the tree cover is disappearing and the early mornings have been really beautiful. 

The day begins. Breakfast awaits. Cleaning day two and then back to the working week. 

A very interesting weekend

The Church Service was at Nelson Street Church in Rochdale near Manchester in Lancashire. On one of our tours we did go through the suburbs of Manchester as we headed for Wales, or it was off in the distance. A number of the Knight families moved to Lancashire during the latter part of the 1800s for work likely. My own did not remaining in the south of England. My father did remember some of his uncles moving away in particular his grandmother Blake's brother who moved first to that area I think he said and then to Canada and he lived out west with his family. I have been in touch with a descendant. I must write to her again. The Service was very musical and modern I would say but that is the magic of these online services; the variety is huge and welcomed. I fitted that in when the Conference finished for the day. Another bonus of online Church. You never miss a service. 

The Conference was really good. When I saw it was on Irish research I thought I really must try to remember to go (should be easy it is online) but somehow I forgot last year in the busyness so I printed out the Conference Schedule (rare for me to print anything) and put it on my desk to keep it front and centre in my mind. The last talk did generate a question on my part from a purely scientific point of view I was curious if there was any data on the frequency of Palatine (i.e. German/French) ethnicity in the Irish population. I hadn't quite anticipated his answer but it said to me that this group has maintained a sort of distinctiveness through the three hundred years since they arrived. It sort of fitted it to my thoughts on my great grandmother from whom I inherited my mtDNA which is mentioned on the Blood of the Isles database so thought to be ancient to the British Isles and located primarily in Argyllshire/Ayrshire. But I have this percentage of French/German that I simply can not really account for such a large amount if my Huguenots arrived in the 1400s (which they did into Devon) I would not see 20% for them; even my Charley family in Devon in the latter part of the 1700s did not really yield me an ancestress that would carry that much French/German to pass on to me. I inherited rather well from my great grandmother just because of the way that DNA splits. My siblings inherited Irish but I inherited French/German. So do I have a Palatinate ancestor? one wonders and will keep it on my plate to keep looking at. I have a sort of family line for Ellen Taylor and her husband has her born in Birmingham on the census. My grandmother said she was 37 when she died and that fits in with the birth of an Ellen Taylor to the Thomas Taylor and Ellen (Roberts) Taylor family in Birmingham. It has sat on the back burner for a very long time but matches have been coming in that are interesting and that led to my looking once again at that elusive Irish ancestry that my siblings have (mine is around 2% so not significant really). I bought eight certificates for Ellen Taylor born in Birmingham in that time period giving her an age between 32 and 43. Unless she was not registered in which case no ideas on that. Anyway an interesting pursuit ahead for me to follow up on in my spare time. 

Lovely walk to the drug store and back; the fresh air is wonderful on a crisp October day; it was minus 4 degrees celsius. No snow yet but time will tell. The markers are in my laneway now to clear the snow when it does come.

Breakfast done and must do my Latin. Cleaning day, the basement is first. 

BIFHSGO Conference 2024 - Day Two

 The Breakout Rooms are quite interesting mostly listening to what the experts are saying. I have some work that needs to be done in Ireland and these individuals are excellent and will contact them to do the work. I just had that thought yesterday. Hopefully they are in the business of doing such things. 

I was going to ask a question in Galway breakout group but it was busy and I am not really in much of a rush - it involves the Blake yDNA group at FT DNA - a curiosity. Will investigate that. The yDNA study for Blake at FT DNA is quite interesting and I have a couple of investigative thoughts for them. There are two results for Big Y for my line and both are known to be ancient to the British Isles. Going before the early 1300s is unlikely in this name grouping as I think my line acquired that surname in this time period possibly in a marriage as there are likely candidates - a John Blake in the Manor Records. There is continued correspondence within the wills of the Andover Blake family with the Blake family first in Oxford and later in Wiltshire. Must get into those Manor Books. My latin has improved considerably this last year as I made it my concentration during the time of lessening sight and then cataract surgery and recovery. Making it a priority was a really good idea. I think it made the recovery time much smoother as I still had something to work at and my daughter helped me until I could easily spend time on the computer again. She is also learning latin with me. She has so many languages now that she is either fluent in or could become fluent in readily so Latin didn't seem like a big addition. It only takes a few minutes a day really to stay with the course but to become good one needs to do more than that perhaps up to one hour a day as a minimum for this 79 year old and sometimes I put in more time. 

I then headed into Antrim Breakout Room and the two people there were excellent and knowledgeable. I do not actually have a question. I have not really looked at the Irish research possibilities; I just have family lore in that regard. Now I am in the Dublin Breakout Room and again the people are excellent. Dublin interests me because the close match (he has only tested a few markers though but the first few are quite distinctive for my line) to my brothers' yDNA is there; at least when  he tested at FT DNA. So continuing with the Breakout Room in Dublin but once again no questions on my part.

This has been an excellent Conference. I do find these Conferences to be really good and the online feature is perfect. Stirring myself out and about is something I mostly do in my hunter/gatherer process of acquiring food although I could order it as well but I am enjoying the walk up to the Grocery Store and Drug Store as needed. 

Back to the Siderfin Books tomorrow. I am actually pleased to find the errors in the published book (not pleased that I made them of course) and will correct those errors and put an errata page into the front of the corrected copy for those who do not want to download it again. The computer is such a lovely addition to our lives in that I got into computers in the mid 1960s and have been more or less attached to one ever since as we bought a home computer in the early 80s so just a six year break for me from computers. 

Spending this time on Irish genealogy has been a really good idea. I have family lore that my maternal great grandmother (mother of my maternal grandmother) was of Irish descent. She was born in Birmingham though likely as her husband identified Birmingham as her birthplace. I have been looking at the ethnicity as the percentage of Irish is surprisingly high in my siblings (not so much in my case) but also French/German which is where my higher level occurs. I had never thought of the Palatines in Ireland but this talk now on (which is excellent actually) is talking about My Ancestors were Irish - or were they? It is something that has often been in my mind whenever I chanced to think about it actually. Her favourite song was "Donny Boy" and well remembered by my maternal grandmother as her mother died when she was only 11 years of age. Her hair was black as a raven my grandmother said and her eyes blue and she had the white skin of the Irish apparently. So was she Irish? are only the Irish black haired, blue eyed and white skinned? I wonder now about the Palatine which would account for my large enough percentage of French/German although by far English predominates with these others 20% or less). The surname was Lawley (Lawler is found in Ireland but Joseph Lawley was likely in Shropshire for more than his own generation) in the 1700s but I can not tell very much about Joseph's wife (Joseph was the father of Ellen Lawley who married Thomas Roberts whose daughter Ellen married Thomas Taylor the likely parents of my great grandmother Ellen Taylor). I am now learning that the Huguenots also came to Ireland and I definitely have Huguenot ancestry. So very very interesting this talk. I need to look at this Irish percentage though carefully as my Charley family was also said to be Charley and coming down on the maternal side as well with Mary Charly marrying John Pincombe in 1767. the combination of these two lines could account for Irish perhaps since they both occur in my mother's lines. Still looking for Joseph Lawley's marriage. Back to the talk. Quite fascinating actually. I must extract the ethnicity information as it is a changing item through the years as more and more blocks of individuals who have lived in areas for a long time are available for comparison. 

The last talk was actually quite fascinating. I did ask a question finally whether the speaker had looked at the % German ethnicity and % Irish ethnicity within the Palatine community still living in Ireland. He had not and that more or less answered my question; this is possibly an isolated population within another country that has maintained their cultural and ethnic heritage for long enough to have given me a great grandmother who passed my mtDNA to me likely from a planter family (original location Ayrshire/Argyllshire) coming to Ireland in the time of Cromwell and then much later marrying into a Palatine family in the late 1700s with a grandaughter that was mother to my grandmother. I may yet solve the ancestry of my maternal great grandmother's line and that of her grandfather Joseph Lawley in Shropshire England. I have inherited quite a bit from this particular ancestor (my grandmother's mother) by comparing the flow within five siblings of the DNA from our ancestors. I have a large portion of German/French ancestry that I really cannot account for (still it is in the 20% range) which means it isn't that far back. But a population that retains its German ethnicity within Ireland could have produced an ancestor for me that appears Irish (but I have only a small percentage of Irish, but my siblings have more) but actually carries German ancestry from the Palatines. Interesting thought actually and I would not have come to that without the discussions this weekend. Now I just need to find time to look at that. I am busy writing books it would appear.

BIFHSGO Conference 2024

 Watching the BIFHSGO Conference. Most interesting. I did misinterpret the titles a little. The "Using DNA in the North of Ireland" I anticipated a discussion on projects and indeed more than half of the time was on their projects. I should realize that it really is necessary to review DNA and the particular value of each type of DNA to a project in most presentations. The speaker Martin McDowell did an excellent job. I have family lore on an Irish ancestor and two of my siblings show up with a large portion of Irish origin sufficient that one would think a great grandparent/2xgreat grandparent. That is basically the family lore that my great grandmother was Irish. However she was born in Birmingham, Midlands, England and it does look like her mother was born there as well and her mother. But it is this mother (the grandmother of the great grandmother) who has a possible Irish surname Lawley. That is what makes maternal  DNA so interesting. Since I have five siblings tested I have collected up all of their matches at all of the databases but have not really looked at these matches in terms of ethnicity. Perhaps time will come to me to do that one of these days. The next speaker has the title "how to use Hints, ...." I almost never follow hints and I was thinking family lore with this one but has also proven to be very interesting and is ongoing now. I am finding the process she is using to be quite interesting. 

The first lecture was also very interesting and entirely what I thought he would cover. My mysterious mtDNA line which has both Irish and Scot ancestry and is ancient to the British Isles according to the Blood of the Isles database. I manage the FT DNA project for the H11 haplogroup where this mtDNA is found. Generally the members are in Eastern Europe for the most part or descend from Eastern European ancestors so has proven to be quite fascinating. My line (two of my siblings are tested including me) arrived in Scotland very early. Perhaps significantly the commoner line that is almost identical but has one extra mutation not shared by my matches or my sibling and it is at least thirty times more frequent in the British Isles than ours. Possibly our line reverted back to the original value. Most members of the study with the extra mutation are in southern England whereas those without the mutation are in Scotland or Ireland. The North in Ireland project is interesting in this regard as they are looking at autosomal DNA. I have not done that with the mtDNA project that I manage although occasionally I do take a peak at the results by looking at some of the results using the tools to do so. 

Next session is the Conference Connect where questions can be posed to the speakers. I actually do not have any questions but will likely head into that portal as well to have a listen. I will prepare a query to see if it would be of any value to the project to pass in what I have on my mtDNA line eventually. Family lore is always interesting I think but no real facts yet so will probably continue to investigate but think about the North in Ireland project. 

First Genealogy Conference, outside of the involvement that I had with some medical projects, for the last few years that I have attended. It has proven to be most interesting. It is always informative to hear how other people work through information. Last year I did register but forgot to attend as I was working on my Siderfin revision book. Tomorrow looks equally interesting.

There is nothing like reliving your work as you produce charts

I made a consistent error right through the descendants of Thomas 9, Robert 8, Augustine 7, Robert 6, John 5, Robert 4, Robert 3, William 2, John 1 to the end. I am always consistent unfortunately. There is a John 7 in this line of succession with the children of Thomas 9 that should be Augustine 7 right through. I will I think republish the book with that correction. I was probably a little bit eye strained by then and simply did not notice it. Apologies to one and all. I did set my timeline and tried to keep to it and that was a mistake so will not repeat that with this book. There is plenty of time and my other books will just wait. I will do that right away and then alter the *.pdf that is up on the blog eventually. Given that the Thomas line is very large I should never have missed that but I am 79 now and mistakes get made. The nice thing about electronic is that you can correct them (using search and replace (although I did check each one before replacing - replaced 100)) especially if you notice them.  I actually have it right on page 118 where Thomas first occurs but I did Thomas differently as I was using someone else's work (the error is all mine though) also right on page 188 where Thomas is mentioned as an adult; the first reference page 118 he is as a child of Robert and Grace (Kent) Siderfin and then on page 188 he is an adult married first to Sibble and later Dorothy. 

I did have this sort of nagging notion that I should delay the publication until I did the Charting book as it is a good check back and forth throughout the book. But I didn't do it. I had thought I would have comments on the changes that I made to James Sanders' flow of people in his Pedigree Chart but so far  no comments. Several of my siblings have strong matches with the Farmer family descendant of Thomas as well as very strong matches with the descendants of Charlotte Rew Griffith but my ancestor Elizabeth Rew Pincombe was her twin so not surprising. One would expect fifth cousin but their matches were more in the area of third cousin. The Farmer matches are fifth cousin (strong actually a couple of them more like fourth). A number of Siderfin descendants have tested on all of the different companies. 

So continuing with my checking the charting book although at a conference today.

 

Continuing work on the Charting book for the Siderfin Family

It is slow work though, working through the charting book and I am on page 41 so just a little under one third of the way through. I am putting in references back to the revised book and sometimes to James Sanders original book.  It does not look like I will be finished by the end of October though. But my eyes continue to be the slowing down aspect of the work as they were last year before cataract surgery. They are getting old and must have rest periods. 

I was thinking about all the likely hundreds of different people who have actually been driven by me over the years (aside from my husband and children) but I have been in a lot of volunteer organizations through the years mostly volunteered by Edward but some of them I volunteered to be in because it interested me - like helping out in the classroom of both of my children's classes and helping out with book fairs and things like that in the school which I consider to be really valuable. Children can buy books at cheap prices although since COVID one does wonder at that sort of thing but we are moving along and less susceptible to diseases once again. Time will tell on that.

So today is another work day and we will see how much I accomplish. I am also working on OCRing my husband's thesis which is a good not eye straining project, at least not the scanning of the pages. 

Breakfast time and then Latin. 

More accomplishment yesterday

 Slowly moving ahead and I got started working on Edward's thesis to put it up on line. Although the work was done from 1966 to 1970 when he completed his PhD, he continued to be cited years and years later around the world. It was exciting for him and helped to make the change much more amenable to him as the years passed. My daughter suggested I OCR the text which is actually a good idea and then I can scan the images as *TIFFs without being concerned about the size. I will convert it to an *.pdf for easy upload. I actually typed this thesis so we have a clean still relatively new looking original copy.

I also worked on the Charting book and this is the more difficult part when I took the available data and added a John to the family of John and Mary (Chapman) Siderfin born circa 1684 and the information in the second wife's will (Maria (Winter) Siderfin) provided me with a granddaughter for this John Siderfin - Joanna accounting for that interesting birth and removing it from the Robert Siderfin/Joanna (Kittner) Siderfin family as I do not believe they had any children. It certainly gave it credence and having a Robert Siderfin as a witness to the marriage contract and marriage for John certainly made the case for this being the William line and not the Robert line as shown on James Sanders' Pedigree Chart. It is not really a big deal but it prevented the actual flow from Robert 4 (Robert 3, William 2, John 1) second son of Robert from having descendants that were actually his and live still into this century carrying the Siderfin surname. 

A little attention to my Powerpoint projects as well. This does help to break up my day and to give me more space to make sure I get all my exercise in as well in a timely and spread out fashion. 

I was contemplating the comment made by an Australian Senator to King Charles in Australia. He said "not my King" and I am left to wonder why people get so hung up on this. Charles is a figurehead; he has very good intentions with regard to the world and represents one of the earliest adopters to organic farming on a commercial scale, one of the earliest voices concerned about the environment and has an enormous love for the people of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. He does not interfere in any country including his own which is a democratic monarchy. So why the comment? Is it a bit outdated to make these comments; he is after all only a figure head. Where else would we get a figurehead who has no interest in their own advancement - he is already at the pinnacle of his position in life and probably desires nothing more. He is non-opinionated as the King despite his having opinions as a lesser royal. Personally I thought he was entitled to them and make good points throughout his life. I found it interesting that he did not interfere in his son's choice of wives and has been a wonderful father in law to both. He loves his grandchildren but his time appears to belong to the people of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth although he does get involved in worldly happenings on occasion when his health permits. Although I would not carry signs and become opinionated verbally if a decision was made to turn us into a republic but I would wonder at the value in that and the cost of change over and the chances that we would actually benefit from an elected head of state personally. But then I am of 100% British heritage and do realize that I see all of this from that standpoint. 

Breakfast done, Latin completed and next the Charting book before weightlifting. 

Any accomplishment yesterday?

Yesterday was a slow day; I developed a headache part way through the afternoon which simply slowed me down for the remainder of the day. I mostly kept away from the computer and watched the TV although not a lot of that either. It is gone today which is nice and prior to the cataract surgery it would have lingered interestingly enough through the next day somewhat. I am being careful again today not to strain my eyes overly but for the most part my eyes seem somewhat back to normal. Migraines plagued me ever since I was a teenager and to have escaped them is quite amazing actually. I had my own "old wives' tales" methodologies for dealing with them as I had tried medications but did not really find them to be a solution in the long run. Adjustment of life style was actually the solution; total adjustment of life style. I simply rested for two or three days; did not try to do anything that was straining on my eyes and that was the solution that worked best in the long run. Avoiding the triggers for the migraines was really the answer and gradually I did manage to separate the triggers out and avoided those particular situations which set my nerves on edge. In a way it was returning to the days of my youth when I was very much a hermit. 

So today, I shall do all my exercises which I do really enjoy. I believe I am an exercise fanatic actually. Edward did think so but he did not mind and would join me in some of the exercises. I think he would have liked to have run and did try way back when we were first married. But he simply was not able to run. Strange really but he said that even during his high school days he could not take part in that type of physical activity. I had that in mind when our children were young and was always prepared to run after them never letting them out of my sight since I knew he could not run. Children move quickly and do do things on occasion that one needs to be prepared for; that is for certain. 

Not too much time today on the computer so will move on to my next task. Breakfast completed and it is 9:00 a.m. already. I am late today. 

Cleaning day accomplished

First time since the cataract surgeries I have managed to do both floors in the one day with time to spare actually I was finished at 4:00 in the afternoon. Today the basement will be cleaned and then back to work. I will investigate getting into that paint can towards the end of the week to work on the blue paint in between working on the book. 

I completed the second year of Ancient Apocalypse with Graham Hancock and it was certainly interesting. Brought back all of my older daughter's discussion in her early teens on the peoples of South America, Central America and Mexico. She found all of that history and known artifacts to be fascinating. I sort of thought she might become an archaeologist but she chose words with her PhD in Library and Information Science. She is definitely a linguist; loves languages and speaks several fluently and has a knowledge of others that could be rekindled quickly. We brought back a reproduction of the Mayan Calendar when we visited Tulum in Mexico nearly a decade ago now. Fascinating ruins and we took many pictures for our daughter as it was not possible for her to come. I had never thought to go to Mexico but I am glad that we did as Edward loved the floral displays in the resort and spent quite a bit of time looking at all the plants. The Gulf of Mexico is a beautiful colour and the beach sparkling white. It was really quite beautiful.

Graham Hancock's discoveries and introductions into the world of forensic archaeology have been quite fascinating with their relation to the God of the Universe in my mind. That we are a third or fourth peopling of the earth is equally fascinating and understanding given the times we live in with the recklessness of the Satanistic peoples of the world - namely Putin and his enablers with their invasion of the sovereign country Ukraine and Iran and their sycophants Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis attempting to commit genocide against the Jewish people and steal their land from them (the ancient lands of their ancestors).  

Today will be a return to the Charting Book and I am on page 19 of what will be a more or less final run through although will read it one more time after this. It is only 136 pages minus indexes thus far and just a pleasant couple of hours read. I am better satisfied with the result and can not think why I skipped a generation in my charting. Possibly I was tired still and just wanted to be finished but the short cut is usually the wrong idea for sure as the full story brings out a better solution. 

Solitaire games played and the spider was especially interesting today. Breakfast, then set up the Robot to clean the rugs and then Latin whilst the Robot does the work vacuuming today. It is 10 degrees celsius and a cold front moving in again after a few days in the 20s (and I was never outside at all, really I have returned to my hermit days in the year which tends to extend right into next April). In and out a bit but not much; it is my working time on the various projects that I have plus working on my husband's papers and things whilst I try to get them all published. It is a much slower process then I thought it would be. I was realizing the last few days that I never really appreciated that Edward was creating a lifetime in pictures from our marriage onwards with the albums. We looked at them often enough especially right after he created the then new one but through the years I had never really thought about them very deeply possibly because life was too busy and now I have time to think about all of these things. Well sort of; life is still really busy.

 

FitBit has given up

My FitBit no longer syncs with my phone; I can pair it with the phone but it doesn't stay paired. Perhaps bluetooth is  no longer working on the Fitbit; it lost eight minutes yesterday in time. So I need to think about a new Fitbit as I do like the idea of wearing one. It does still do the number of steps and some other automatic items that are not dependent on syncing with the app. That gives me lots of time to think about the type of Fitbit I would like to buy. I am not in a rush. It was interesting being able to look at the effect on my system when I ran or walked or did weightlifting or yoga/calisthenics but not absolutely necessary; just interesting. The sleep pattern was interesting too; I learned a great deal about sleep actually. So I probably can see what I want in a Fitbit and will look around to see what is new now. This was a Charge 5 and I think I have had it for three years nearly. The one before that was more basic and it is still working actually. The more complicated the system; the shorter its time span perhaps. There is simply more that can go wrong.

Did some work on the Siderfin Charting book and I am more or less into the final run through in terms of making changes; reorganizing although none of that will happen in the first 58 pages as I have been through that already once. I am at Page 19 and it is cleaning day. I may go back to doing the two floors in one day once again now that I am organized for that. I just had a lot of little items to do on each floor so doing just one floor a day worked well. But now I do not want to spend half of the week with cleaning days. 

The Church Service out in the fields primarily was very welcomed. The fields of Cornwall are quite lovely having been there twice. We walked around the golf resort that we stayed at the last time; we skipped going into the city to just have a breather before the last couple of days in England. It was fun; we both enjoyed the lovely walk. It was our last trip to Europe and also our 50th Wedding Anniversary back in 2016. We celebrated that on the flight home as it was the same day. We had already been to where the group was going that day and although it was fun we hadn't really walked around for hours just enjoying the fresh air and the singing of the birds in England. Everything was totally planned for us by the touring companies except for the extras close to the hotels that we added in in the various cities where ever we ended up for the evening. The children sang a beautiful song that reminded me of my childhood when we did such things in school where a list of items was created and then the song collected the list by the end. The older children of course did it very well but the younger ones were still learning that idea of rote learning. We memorized everything when we were children; that was the way we learned. Having it at your fingertips is nice as an adult but memorizing is very important when you are a child even yet. 

Graham Hancock has added a second year to Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix and I watched four of the chapters yesterday. The subtitle is The Americas and we spent most of our time in South America and then over to the Easter Islands. The discoveries have been amazing in the last ten years. 

The loss of peoples because of the introduction of communicable diseases by the Spanish was horrific for this culture in the Western Hemisphere. It was always likely to happen; preventing it is something we can do now. That is perhaps the gain in our society since I was a child; but it doesn't always happen unfortunately because there are evil satanic people who are greedy. At the moment the ones suffering are the Israelis and the Ukrainians amongst others but their trials are the most visible. The depth of the evil displayed by Hamas is huge; preparing the Palestinian people for this huge sacrifice cruel and indifferent on the part of Hamas. I am not familiar with Palestinians but I assume they actually did want and do want to have a country; their choice of Hamas was made freely by them but ridding themselves of Hamas will be difficult - they are extremely sick satanic people who would use and did use the children and women of that country to try to influence the world in an empathetic way which has not worked because we can see that Hamas is evil. Hamas is the problem and of course their leader/supporter/contributor is Iran. There is really no end in sight as Hamas will use the Palestinians right down to the last person. Then Hamas will try to escape at the end and join up with Hezbollah and do the same to the Lebanese people again thinking that people will hate Israel if they do that. The minds of Hamas are so corrupt that they can not see that they are driven by Satan and this evil they commit is wrong. It is sad really. It reminds me of the story of the Aztecs who were evil and the other peoples in that part of the Americas asked the conquistadors to help them defeat the Aztecs. That was smart of them although the diseases brought by the Spanish conquistadors possibly wiped out 90% of the people in this hemisphere they got to survive and live on today.

Today the cleaning, first the solitaire games and then breakfast. It is ten degrees celsius and although it says it is clear; the city lights are too bright to really see much in the heavens. God Bless the world and we need to follow His teachings in order to reach that plain of peace and brotherly love.

Task accomplished and back on track

I have completed the charting for the Siderfin Book. I will not include the last set that I produced - nearly 50 charts actually but they bring the book into the 1900s a bit too far I think. I wanted to stay before 1920 for the most part. Back to what I was doing before I discovered the omission. Still on track but eleven days might not see me complete the project. However I am happier with the product thus far. 

Back into revising and indexing and I was at page 58 and there are now 134 pages.  I am trying to decide (as I initially had this idea) whether to put the corresponding page number in for the beginning of each chapter in the main book for the generations as I begin each set of charts in that generation. It is just a footnote so not really a large amount of work. 

Yesterday I trimmed the raspberry bushes (about half of them) chopped some tree limbs out of the chain link fence carefully! and put a bag out to the street along with the recycling. That will need to be done a second time just to clear all the limbs from the fence as they will wreck it eventually. People should pay attention to trees that are permitted to grow up close to the fence really; I shouldn't have to do all the work of cutting them out as it is difficult when I am on my side! However, Edward used to say people do not really need yards unless they have a pool or something like that. They do not know how to take care of them. I am one of those people who do not really want to take care of a big yard but I do have one and so must do that although there is going to be a lot more grass for sure!

Other than that the day was busy with the book and my exercise routine. I had a lovely rice, broccoli, salmon hot salad one might say with a lemon butter sauce. It was quite delicious and today is chicken stew by far my favourite now. It probably wasn't before but I enjoy it plus it lasts for three meals which is great. I cooked so much all those years it is nice to just cook a few days a week. The chicken stew and a good sized piece of salmon certainly make that possible although a little variety in fish is nice and have a meal of eggs sometimes with toast or a favourite of mine is beans on cheese and toast. 

Breakfast in a bit and then latin and another day of working on the book. I am starting to think about the next newsletter which is the Kip-Kipp Newsletter and will just be on yDNA. My fingers are itching to get back to the Blake and Pincombe books and hopefully next month will see that happen. I last worked on them in late May so about six months. That has given time to let that early history settle in my mind and I will reread both of them and then get back to work. The moon has been lovely - the Harvest Moon I call it and others the Hunter Moon.

Sunday and Church online with the Harvest Festival Service and it looks like Cornwall so must check that out. Yes it is Trelawny Benefice in Cornwall. I really like this priest. He is standing on a combine harvester in a Cornwall field. Will join the service a little later. 

Prayers for the world and may we be rid of the Satanists who plague the world at this time trying to drive us to World War III. We are resistant but Satan (Putin and his enablers and Iran and its sycophants Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis amongst others probably) as always is persistent in his greed. We can not back down and we must not let Satan win; God would not want Satan to win it is our Christian duty to block him at all times. 

Looking at the sizes of these families

These families in the Siderfin book were huge in many cases. Finished the John line that I was missing the tenth generation charts and moved to the Robert line and I needed to do that one as well. I debated this a great deal with myself as the first go through I felt it would be adequate but rereading I wondered whether a jump of three was too much so I went back and changed it to two. Coming from a large family (seven children) I am used to thinking in terms of a large family. I am sure some of these families completely lost touch after the parents passed away and especially when the siblings are gone I suspect. It does take effort to maintain the lines of communication if you want to do that. Certainly James was unsure where to place his great grandfather and he chose the John line but actually he was Robert line - I did agree with my cousin who wanted the Siderfin Study at the Guild on that. 

Another good working day yesterday and also I put in two lesson times on my Latin. All of my exercise routines were completed throughout the the day but I never went outside. I will in the morning sometimes because I need to put the garbage out to the curb. I will also do some cutting down I think. I keep thinking I will do it but never quite make it out the door. I am enjoying all this quiet time for sure. Of course for me it only lasts for a month here and there as I have company the rest of the time. We are always very busy though on our various work projects. 

Today continuing to complete the Robert Line which is by far the largest coming down from Augustine especially with the Thomas Line (his youngest son). Should I publish the 11th generation charts already completed? That is the question; it only really adds the one generation beyond the 10th and most of these lines are into the latter part of the 1800s. Probably these days most people can find their ancestor in the late 1800s with all the census data available. Since they are complete I could do that but on the other hand I do not want this book to be that much longer in length. I have already added another 30 pages. 

Fabulous full moon images night after night. I do miss my time outside with the universe as I am an early to bed person but the early morning sky is gorgeous. 

Some work to do, solitaire games to play and then breakfast and latin to follow. 

 

Just two children of John Siderfin and Joan (Adams) Siderfin to complete

 Nearly caught up again and will complete John Siderfin married to Joan Adams today and move into the descendants of Robert and see if I committed the same error there. I sort of jump from the 9th to the 11th generation and the gap is too large I think although I could follow it through it becomes difficult if you are working your way backwards and want to have a smooth transition. The time span to add in the missing level is short but does add to the page count for sure. 

Walked to the grocery store yesterday and rather think I will do that more often. I just picked up perhaps a half dozen items including two apples and a sweet potato along with three tomatoes, dried cranberries, frozen wild blueberries  and a piece of salmon. I could have done self-check as I was going to pack my own freezer bag and will likely do that so as not to create a slowdown in the line. The clerks are much faster packing. I picked my stuff up and put it back into the cart and packed it over by the wall. There is a new card at Metro I did not know about and have signed up for that one now. You can just get a digital one. I do like digital. But I seldom walk up so perhaps a waste of words somewhat! A lovely salmon, sweet potato and broccoli salad last night. The salmon was large so will be eating it again tonight with leftover sweet potato and broccoli salad.

Another working day and mostly on the Siderfin Charting book I suspect. I do want to complete it before the end of the month so that I can proofread it. Although the proofreading should be fairly quick as there isn't that much text in it and the charts I can just verify quickly. 

Breakfast and then Latin. The moon was brilliant again last and is just bright in the sky this morning. The fall moon is always so very large - the harvest moon so that one can work long hours gathering in the harvest even if the day is shorter. My mother would have been 108 years of age today if she had lived this long. I always thought she would live for ever actually when I was a child. But like me she just gradually receded from our world into the world where everyone that she loved as a child lived; a lot of her happiness laid in God's world where her relatives lived. All the ones that I knew were wonderful people; I can understand her love of the long lost people in her childhood life. Perhaps that made me understand much better my husband's quest wanting to know more about his father who died when he was two. It wasn't an all encompassing need by any means, Edward led a very active life in many different facets but he did always yearn to be like and know more about his father. Edward's older brother never talked about their father in my memory and his mother was the same but fortunately his father's brothers were as helpful as they could be along with many of the farmers that had known Lorne through the years. Edward actually worked for some of them in his summers before going to university. Before we moved here, Edward had no knowledge of Gordon Riddle as his cousin; it was Gordon who mentioned it. They shared a mutual interest in the Kipp family which I assume led Gordon to the Ottawa Branch and he invited Edward to come to a meeting years and years ago before our youngest was born as I vaguely recall. It was a friendship which Edward valued. He was a good friend to his friends for sure.

And I discovered I missed one set of charts which I will have to do

 I can remember a bit of confusion in this section and I was right that I was overlooking one set of charts for the tenth generation. The notes will be shorter though and I am thinking of not having notes for that because they are all in the census. However, I know my grandparents in the 1870s on but perhaps the jump back to pre-census is difficult so I should bring the notes up to the 1890s because I am 79 and the people at this may not be old like I am. Contemplating as I work my way through the thought. So yes I will do notes for the 10th generation but did not do them for the 11th. I purposely did not produce charts that begin with the 9th generation as it was just too repetitive and the charts that I have are fairly easy to follow.

Yesterday a good working day and the time spent was entirely on the Siderfin Book. Today I will spread the time out around the photo albums creating powerpoint presentations and the Siderfin Book. Time is there for me to use it and I shouldn't feel rushed. 

Minus 2 degrees celsius today and feels like minus 5 degrees celsius. Winter is coming for sure, the full moon last night was spectacular. Air quality 35 though today so must be some smoke in the air perhaps. 

Work days now to the end of the week with the cleaning all accomplished. With this cold weather I can soon cut everything down and bundle it up and out in bags to the street. Next summer the entire middle in grass sounds good to me. Grass is much easier to manage for sure. 

My fingers are itching to get back to the Blake and Pincombe books. But I do feel that I need to do this charting to complete the task on the Siderfin family. I never actually had any intention to write up the Siderfin family but James Sanders book did need updating and so a task was born. 

Breakfast and then Latin, the day begins. 

The Siderfin Charting book continues

 I now have 112 pages as I continue revising the notes text but I have also added a couple of new charts as I felt the ones that were there were just a little small. I am on Page 48 now which is not quite half way but getting there. The Notes stop at the end of the 10th generation but there are a lot of charts in the 11th generation. The index is nine pages now so I can see that I am looking still at around 140 pages probably. The end of the month is still in my thoughts for completion and that appears to be possible. Then I can get back to the Blake and Pincombe books and the conversion of the photo albums to powerpoint presentations. Once I have completed one of the books (aside from the building of the Church) then I can share it around and see what everyone thinks (it is September 1985 to September 1986). I had wanted to start with a thinner one (this is one of the largest ones) but I needed to find one that exactly fitted the index and this one did as I worked my way through the binders. 

Cleaning of the main floor accomplished and the top floor is today. I will try again to get the paint lid off the blue paint tin once I find the gadget to use on it. It is in one of the tool boxes. When I think of all the tools that we gave to the tool library and neighbours, I can hardly believe I still have multiple tool boxes. Edward did like to have everything at hand that he needed for any project. He had already given a number of items to the Tool Library as well. 

Just three degrees centigrade this morning but feels like minus 2 apparently. Air quality is 19 which is usual for this time of the year. Well into Fall now but I think it is meant to warm up a little - time will tell. Breakfast is in my thoughts at the moment and then Latin and then cleaning. 

More work on the Siderfin Book today and the photo albums. I like to have a couple of projects on the go as I find that more productive - like working!

One's life in pictures

An interesting discussion yesterday in my blog about the photo albums - interesting for me at least. When we returned from our trips overseas I would create a powerpoint presentation to show our children what we had seen and where we had been. I didn't really notice at the time until much later in our traveling sprees that Edward was going over those presentations time and again enjoying them. He had asked me to put all of the pictures into the presentation and give them to him (I just did a short version to present to the children) and I had done that and accidentally one day whilst I was working away on his DNA extractions from Ancestry I found something really interesting and went in to his man cave and told him. I discovered he had out one of the boxes we had put together of items we purchased (mostly him I am not really a buyer) and was looking at one of the slide sets and bringing out what had been purchased and reliving in essence the trip once again. He would have liked to have gone every year I think to Europe after our first trip. But I found a trip every couple of years was more doable so that I could still get my own work done. It was a lot of work to prepare to go (I wanted to see everything around the hotels where we stayed) and then a lot of work to do when we got home again with preparing the slide presentation and putting together the box to remind us of the trip (and I thought I was doing that for our children actually). Anyway he did really enjoy those trips overseas even more than his trips across Canada and the United States. As it turned out going to Mexico proved to be a real highlight as well although initially he didn't really want to go there ever but our children were going for a wedding of a sibling and he just wanted to be there with them. 

More work on the photo albums today and the Siderfin book. I did not hear back as to whether or not the Church would like the presentations for their 50th but I am like a ghost from the past likely and the future does determine how things flow. I sent it to the person (via the church as I did not know his email - he retired) who had done our wills years ago and then I had him do mine again (twice actually as I felt the first was too specific) so twice the cost but one must be organized. Since it was Edward's work the children will enjoy having the portability of that presentation as well so I would have done it anyway.

Thanksgiving Dinner was most enjoyable, my eldest and I spent perhaps four hours during the preparation time for the meal, the actual meal and then our usual evening chat and so the celebration went on separated by a couple of thousand miles. Interesting what modern technology gives to you. My father would have loved to have spent a Christmas with his relatives in England via such a method. Crossing the Atlantic was enough for him as a child; he never really wanted to do a return trip and he never flew. It just wasn't something he wanted to do. But the marvels of modern technology are a treat for old people really. 

Cleaning day again today and it is the main floor. Yesterday I finished off the red paint that I wanted to do. I painted the post at the bottom of the stairs. I just have to touch up the banister with  stain as it has worn over the years. I could paint the basement floor once again as we did going on 47 years ago but I suspect I will not do that. I will leave it clean and mostly painted within the last few years but other than that changes are not something I do. It doesn't really interest me and Edward had a lot of fun putting in the extra details that interested him. 

Last night the moon was bright but did not see the second moon (the first was probably too bright plus the view is obscured by the trees). As it turns out I do love the trees and the tradeoff is not that great - one does get the shade they offer in the summer. In the winter the viewing is better and perhaps we will get the telescope out again to have a look at the universe through the winter when the trees are bare and the visibility considerably better except for the bright lights of the city. 

It is early; just before 6 a.m. and 4 degrees celsius. The day begins and lots to do as always. Breakfast and then latin and then cleaning for this day in God's world. Blessed for the God of Creation and may we always remember that He is the Judge of all; not ourselves. We must judge in order to protect society from those who would do ill but the final judgement is made by God.

I see Russia has opened Pandora's Box - North Korean soldiers fighting in Ukraine

 Not surprising but sad really as wars heat up in our world; Russia is using North Korean soldiers (not mercenaries, actually military of another belligerent country) to fight in Ukraine. To me a line is crossed, anything goes now and it is Russia, as usual, in their greedy land stealing way trying to commit genocide against the Ukrainian people because they do not want to be Russian; they already have a citizenship that suits them. But it is all one person, a dictator, the psychopathic Nazi Putin and his enablers and how did he become a dictator? One might ask. People let him do it; they gradually gave up their freedoms for his smiles and promises of a better life. All the while he turned the police services of the country against their own people which  is unbelievable that anyone would think it was okay to beat the youth of a country just for disagreeing. He did it with his smiles and promises of a better life. He failed Russia; dictators always do that look at what Hitler did to Germany. At the end Hitler hated the Germans for not winning the war for him and he put the German children on the walls of Berlin to defend the city - what a sick coward.

As for Iran, they deserve anything that Israel hits them with but I agree Israel should not attack the nuclear facilities or the oil facilities because of the environmental damage not because I feel any sympathy for Iran. They are a Satanist country dedicated to the eradication of everyone that isn't born Muslim in this world. Are you listening Russia? Eventually evil turns on everything that doesn't do exactly what it wants.

This is secular thanksgiving celebrated every year in Canada on the second Monday in October. Generally the trees have all changed colour and it is beautiful out there but this year the trees are still green somewhat; starting to change but  not nearly as far along as usual. The seasons have definitely changed. Is it forever or will we return to our usual succession of the seasons? Hard to say I guess; life has changed drastically since I was a young child but in some ways the weakness of man has returned as they take to the battlefield attacking their neighbours. The sickness that seems to be part of the makeup of some of the world population once again brings the world to the brink of annihilation. Russia threatening with nuclear weapons knowing the use of them is their own demise but it is called a bully standoff here (interesting really). Retaliation is swift and sweet and for those who wait for the Apocalypse a hint of seeing God and Jesus and the Holy Word incarnate in one God once again. That idea dominates part of the American culture and is seen in movies and music time and time again. 

Yesterday the second powerpoint project was started and consists of converting the family photo albums into presentations. These albums represent our life as a family starting back in the mid 1960s and continuing right up until the early 2000s. You can tell when we went anywhere and any special family activities that occurred throughout that time frame. I know that Edward loving putting them together and the girls when they were young would sit with him whilst he did that. But they are cumbersome and the way we live nowadays doesn't really make it practical to maintain the storage area that they require. That was why, of course, Edward stopped making them around 2002. Or perhaps he was sad that his eldest had gone off to do her PhD and his youngest was half way through university. They weren't his adoring little daughters who worshiped his every move at least it probably didn't feel like that. When they were here they were very attentive to him which he loved but that was not quite so frequent these days and when he retired his best friend became the bunny that he actually didn't really want us to buy. But after I went off to work each day they would spend the day together and he rather got attached to that bunny - Peter Rabbit. Finally after eight years the bunny attached himself to Edward as well having during the preceding time mostly avoided him but would jump on his papers just to annoy him I think. 

So today is a special day and a special meal usually in my youth. It was always a family gathering with so many people there when I was young and until I married and after as we came with our food donation to spend the day with my parents and siblings and their offspring (and ours). It will be Chicken Stew, my favourite, and I shall share the dinner time on Skype with my daughter. 

No work on the Siderfin book yesterday but will do that this afternoon likely. This morning cleaning day and it is the basement. I want to continue moving the summer shoes over to the rack that I brought in for that purpose. Today I shall clean the wooden bookcases of stuff just to keep the dust down. Must get outside and do some work; a little more frost perhaps and then the cutting down can begin.

Thanksgiving Sunday

Yesterday's post was really rambling I noticed through the day when I did some editing. Generally I am a one topic person but a whole lot of ideas are running around in my brain at the moment as I try to make decisions on these binders and other items. The binders occupy a large section of a couple of bookcases and eventually those bookcases will have other items to store as I continue to downsize. Perhaps it is my 79 years and that is why I was rambling. Interesting really. 

Thanksgiving Sunday and another bountiful harvest year. We are blessed with this earth by God. Although I do not really consider myself a gardener I do like to see the growing cycle which is part of the normal life around me. If needed I do help to work the ground because that is an important task in our life to help mother earth to produce the best that she is able.

 The theme of this Sunday's Service Church of England at the Church of St Peter in the Parish of St Helier in Jersey is "What do you Treasure?" I shall attend shortly. I think that my own Church Christ Church Cathedral is no longer having online Sunday services when I look at the website. It was nice that the services kept up after COVID but I can understand that it was a huge commitment to keep it going. I have attended two PWRDF services this past couple of weeks which have been most interesting and prayerful. When I do move I want to be close enough to walk to my Church. There are a lot of Anglican Churches in the area. Edward loved going to the Cathedral; I think it was the anonymity that appealed to me most but gradually he joined me in that experience of just thanking God for all that he does and praying that we would work harder to repair the world from climate change. 

Breakfast completed and Latin will be next. 

The Siderfin Book now 121 pages and I am on Page 41 indexing and revising. Not quite half way but coming along. When I finish the tenth generation I do not have any notes just charts and that will be much quicker following that.

What a beautiful service. I had forgotten that the Church Army is part of the Church of England in England. As a child I used to go to Salvation Army services with my maternal grandmother. She knitted outfits for newborns to go in packages for northern communities and that was prepared by the Salvation Army. Although I am Anglican I do love the music of the various other denominations. I especially love the Latin hymns mostly sung in the Roman Catholic Church but as a child in the choir we did learn a few that we sang. But the theme was discussed in a beautiful homily - What do you Treasure? For me it is my friendship with God. I love my family but my friendship with God has always come first in my mind from childhood; once my children were grown (as they came first as children and I felt commanded to put them first at all times). But I do not own my children; I want them to be free to be themselves to go where ever they want and do whatever works for them in their lives. But for me the day begins loving God and ends loving God and all through the day. He has given the world so much and we must help Him to do His work in the world. There are many different ways that God is worshiped by many different theologies including the Christian to which I belong as an Anglican, and Islam, Judaism, Creationists. I do  know there are many other theologies but I do not know if they are centred on God. I will be honest about that; I do lack knowledge of other theologies than the ones that I mentioned. What I know of Islam I learned from some residents that I worked with at the hospital. I have not read the Koran in its entirety. God reaches out in His own way through the centuries and we have to be but willing to hear what He has to say. What a wonderful way to have spent this part of Sunday for sure.

What we need is

 What we need is a doorbell that can be shut off whenever you want it shut off. Now a days who buys anything at the door? Who wants to have people shopping their wares at the door? I suspect pretty much no one. You just go on line discover where the product is you want and go and buy it. You can always drop brochures in the mailbox. I sort them out and put the junk in the recycling pretty much immediately. Unless I want something I am not going to read all of that literature but then I am old and really how much input do I have into society other than my surname studies which still generate 100 emails a day mostly thanking me for what I have put up on line. So far no one disagrees with my thoughts which in some ways is a disappointment as it means they have not looked at more documents than I have. However, the future lies ahead for others to do exactly what I did, revise the existing information if it needs it; I suspect it will always need updating over time. 

Of course the other input is that I do vote; I pay taxes and I am vocal on my blog if anyone reads it (and I do know some do as I receive emails from them but mostly this is for my family one day if they want to read it). I watched as the Fire Department had to break into a house a few doors away in order to make sure the firewall had held against the fire next door to it. So I did the obvious thing and made sure that at least one neighbour knew if I was away and they have my contact phone number which works. I can do the same when they are away.

My latest realization about Edward was that he wanted to be remembered into the future and we are trying to do that with our memorial donations for him. For me it is a sort of vague thing as slipping into anonymity has always been my aim in life and I continue to pursue that. But Edward liked to be known for what he could do and perhaps the reason was the loss of his father at the age of two and no one really talking about him as he grew up. It was something that he felt a bit sad about that this man who had cared for him; loved him was completely and totally gone in his memory and so he took on all sorts of things to let him feel what his father felt in life which is a good aim I think in one's life. Because I grew up with both parents and many siblings I never had those kinds of feelings of loss although two of my grandparents were deceased long before I was born but the two remaining grandparents talked about their spouses to me a great deal in my young childhood and in the case of my grandmother way into my teenage years so I had a concrete picture of these people although having it I never really thought about it until my cousin wanted this profile of the Pincombe family. And so I set my mind to the task of remembering all those things from childhood and it worked; sometimes I still dream about my grandparents and talking to me which is sort of funny but shows the strength of the subconscious mind I think. That is the strength of civilization; this remembering from one generation to the next particularly the goodness of that generation.

My newest venture is putting all those images (thousands and thousands of them) into powerpoint presentations instead of having  all those family binders from the mid 1960s (when we married) until Edward stopped making binders of printed family pictures in the early 2000s. That is a lot of binders and the indexes are absolutely superb and complete. Who would of thought one might get rid of the binders; probably not me I am a bit reluctant in that area as it was something that still lives and breathes Edward and when I took my vows all those years ago at our marriage it included taking care of him the rest of my days and somehow his items that he cherished have taken on that sort of a vow. So it is hard to pry them out of my hands in actuality. But I have begun that task and will regretfully let them go in order to make it possible for me to move sometime in the future. I can see now that I have the same reaction every time when my health is somewhat affected like by cataract surgery. Really it was a simple surgery but there is always a recovery time and like the recovery time after Edward passed, my first thought was I need to downsize and move to a smaller place. I do need to do that eventually but next summer not likely more likely the summer after or perhaps the summer after that. More grass  will help; grass is definitely easier to manage.

Some work on the Siderfin book yesterday and will continue that venture and I am on Page 32 which is a good sign and the book remains at 123 pages but the indexes will need to be added to that eventually and some of the charts may extend to two in order to improve their legibility. 

I am also working on the album from the mid 1983s to early 1984. I have found all the pictures and just setting up the template to put these pictures into a powerpoint presentation so that they can be viewed and a decision made on whether that is the way to go. The binder weighs perhaps 2 kilos give or take whereas the file that I create has pretty much zero weight and occupies a spot on the hard drive. It does mean over time eventually it could disappear but on the other hand the files that were created will eventually decay and if one enjoys these powerpoint presentations than the tendency to upgrade them regularly to newer systems does exist and somewhere down the line if indeed my line extends into the future there will be descendants who could enjoy looking at their ancient relatives. I have pictures as far back as my 2x great grandparents and Edward managed to find pictures for his going back to the third great grandparents level as well as paintings of some of them in colonial times. I do not think any paintings exist of any of my ancestors; they were basically small farmers  way back in time and any pictures back in time have disappeared from view plus I tend to be descendant of younger sons in most lines (the spares and I think it significant that it is in this past fifty years or so that all families haven't thought of their younger children as spares in reality). But smaller families have that result now a days and it is only in royal lines that a "spare" really becomes apparent and noticeable. That in itself is an interesting thought. 

On to the day it is nearly 7:00 a.m. and I have been up since about 6:10 a.m. as I overslept (usually I am awake just before six.

An interesting experience

 I was standing in line checking out my groceries (I prefer to use the cashier) when a woman came along and sort of pushed her cart at me implying she wanted to go before me. I consider that very rude and I said sorry but not doing that but the woman behind let her in (which was nice of her and she was quite chatty and would have enjoyed the conversation). Although this person had just a couple of things in their cart I could have done it but really there were five check out counters in the self checkout available and myself I would have just used one of them instead of inconveniencing someone who has stood in line waiting. I had waited through several large grocery orders and mine  was not actually that large. I was done in less than four minutes.  Really one shouldn't assume that you will be let in as everyone has schedules and is busy. I would always go to the end of the line myself; I am not one to ask for favours especially not in a busy grocery store. Mind you I would always let a young woman or man with young children go before me for sure. We old people need to be able to fend for ourselves really.  Interesting really dealing with people since the pandemic.

Siderfin Book now 123 pages

 Probably as short as it is going to get with the indexes still to add. Not a lot of forward motion more rereading, rewriting the preface and thinking about some of the charts perhaps still being a bit too large (so small to read). I will do some indexing today along with proofreading and titling. 

I do want to get this off my plate sooner rather than later but also I want it to be complete and something that I will not feel I need to look at again unless new documents come to my view. 

The file for the OUC Church building is rather large at 350 MB so will likely make the split soon. Now into some of the people in the congregation working on the building. Amazing really I thought at the time. A picture of me at the building site (this is not in the basic slides of the building that I am creating; just the actual slides showing the building site during that time period which might interest people):

A rare appearance as Edward and our oldest daughter were usually the ones at the site. Our youngest daughter was just that - only four years of age so generally she was not there and I was usually at home proofreading and editing and spending time with my daughter. I am still thin like that but definitely 36 years older - I was 43 in the picture and smiling at the cameraman (Edward). I am no longer Volunteer Secretary instead at this time I am the Volunteer Supplies Co-ordinator picking up items at the Church store and also a member on the area World Day of Prayer Committee (I also led Bible Studies and was back to being active at the local Anglican Church); an individual was hired to be secretary (I was offered the job but explained that I was already working and very relieved they had decided to hire someone as my time was sparse in those days since I also helped at my daughter's school once a week).

 So another working day today but I will keep up with my three different projects as my eyes only stand so much intensive work. When I proofread/copyedited I took breaks every hour just to walk around/run around the house (probably block in that time frame after my little one went to school). It was a walk when she was small. 

Running is great exercise. It must be done carefully so as not to put undue strain on the knees; a good warmup is important. I had to learn to manage the arthritis in my ankles/knees and the warmup does that so that I am ready to run after a few minutes without causing any arthritic flareup. You have to keep it up though as just two days away from an active exercise cycle can set you back quite a bit at my age. You lose that muscle fitness very quickly. 

Solitaire games completed - an interesting spider today for the Hard one. Yoga is next with jumping jacks and then Breakfast followed by Latin. Thank you God for the wonderful world which you have given us; we need to do better taking care of it. Climate Change has caused so much damage in the United States this past week - two hurricanes in the same area and prayers for all those still in harm's way with flooding. 

The United Nations Peace Keeping Force in Lebanon should be withdrawn. They did not report Hezbollah's attacks on Israel particularly from the 8th of October 2023 on and before that as it has continued since the last war twenty years ago and they do not serve a useful purpose at this time. The decisions meant to protect Israel from Hezbollah (since Hezbollah are always the aggressors) following the war twenty years ago have never been enforced. The UN does not belong in a war zone and can return when the cleanup is needed although they need to ensure that Hezbollah follows the rules which has not happened in the last twenty years. Prayers for the deceased peacekeepers and for those peacekeepers injured, go home, take a break.

Continuing with the Siderfin Book

I do not appear to have gone very far in the Siderfin book but it is now 130 pages instead of 136 and I am at page 29 so looks like progress. I wouldn't mind if it was just around 100 pages but I do not think there is much extra to remove other than the wills that take up a lot of room often enough. They are in my Family Tree database and come out when I download the notes for particular individuals lines. I need to reach Robert Siderfin and Elizabeth Question and then I just have the line coming down from Robert to deal with and that will make it somewhat easier although the families coming down from this point tend to be very very large. 

I really only made a couple of premises that do appear to still hold water ten months later and I do have some data that helps to justify the premise. Plus it works very well so I am still going with all that I said in the revision of James Sanders book. We are lucky that James took the time to write it; gathering together all that information prior to the Second World War when a lot of it would have been destroyed since he lived in Devon and a lot of the Church Records for Somerset and Devon were held at Exeter Cathedral and then deposited in the Registry Office prior to World War II unfortunately as it turned out. 

Basement all completed and I watched the storm approaching the coast of Florida on and off. It is huge. I guess you maybe get used to having hurricanes although I actually doubt that. This one looks very very large. I do hope that these newer buildings stand up well to this hurricane. People were definitely moving away from Tampa and the roads looked packed. 

I have been thinking about all of these extras for seniors and I guess I agree with the thought why not just increase the GIS for people who are below a particular income and let that cover dental care and everything else. Although I did think at the time increasing OAS only for those 75 and over was a mistake. Just make it smaller I thought and give it to everyone receiving OAS. I do find that the Liberal party does tend towards throwing money at anything without using really sound fiscal practice. They generally mean well but keeping the books as balanced as possible is very important although that will not be happening for a while I suspect. Putting the debt on the young people in society with families, huge mortgages into the future doesn't seem like a good idea. 

The rest of the week is all for me working away on these projects. I have quite a few but will try to keep just two or maybe three ongoing for the best efficiency. I would like to get the Charting book done by the end of the month and published and off my desk. That will be it for Siderfin. I will have done everything that I wanted to do and will just leave it to others to find what I didn't and correct any mistakes I made and publish a revision sometime in the future as I am sure more material is out there slowly emerging from the archival collections as more and more is scanned and put online in a basic form so that you can order it. Helpful I am sure to have people order investigation of items and then pay for the scanning of those items. 

Eyes a little tired today; they did a lot of work yesterday so will have some down times to rest them. 

Florida clearing up after the storm as it moves away from the peninsula. Climate Change is a real problem in our time frame. Unfortunately dictators have taken it into their minds to cause wars and so we have less to spend time and money on Climate Change as we once again face the Satanic forces of evil. 

Breakfast soon and a day of work ahead. If the rain stops then I will do some work outside - I definitely do not get enough outside time but that has never been a top priority of mine. I can remember my mother finding me holed away reading and taking away my glasses and sending me outside to play. Play was not a big thing with me; once I could ride my bicycle to my grandmothers then I was off to see her and read "The books of Knowledge" that had belonged to my maternal grandfather who died when my mother was just eight years of age. I loved those books; they were old but so very interesting. 

On to breakfast shortly and then Latin and then perhaps watch some of that storm footage on the Television. 

 

Up to page 23 in the Charting Book for Siderfin

 Yesterday the main floor cleaning completed and just the basement left for today. I also managed another eight pages in the Siderfin Charting book which brings me about 1/6 of the way through this shorter book. Perhaps more done today. I am indexing and proofreading as I go along with doing the headings into the Table of Contents. 

I also worked on the powerpoint presentation for the Construction of Orleans United Church from my husband's images. Even if they do not want to use it then my daughters will have that memory in electronic form to look at whenever they want; it is their father's work after all and they were so very close to him. They still miss him a great deal but they are moving on as their lives are very busy but bringing  him along with them in their hearts. Mostly I have kept his work for them but thought about the 50th anniversary of that Church. Hard to believe really that is just a little over three years away since the beginning of that Church 50 years ago. Since I married at 20 and moved away such significant things were not part of my life. I have kept mostly to myself all of these years except for helping out with my children's activities and my husband's activities (he often volunteered me for items that he wanted to have present when he was involved with things) and working at home initially before I went back to work in the workplace. That was Edward's way and taking on volunteer secretary for him at his United Church was doing God's work as I do not think the denomination matters really it is all service to God (although I am back to my Anglican Church once again and happier I would say; one is always happier in familiar surroundings) and demonstrating different items like scanning initially of images at his Gene-O-Rama conferences that he chaired. Funny really; I did have a life of my own but it was a quiet one at home smocking dresses for my daughters and cleaning the house and just meandering through life. Until I didn't but I did work at  home for about 1.5 decades actually but I do not really think people realized that I worked. I just didn't answer the door if it wasn't the times of the day when I had my Block Parent sign in the window or when I knew the mailman was coming or that sort of thing like the items that I needed to deal with as volunteer secretary for Edward's Church. I just worked whether it was house work or proofreading and copyediting. Then I went out to work and I really enjoyed that first at the Medical School working for a wonderful person (Dr. Sattar) in microbiology and immunology and then for the Chair (Joanne (her surname escapes me) working on PAHO activities for her. I did contemplate once again doing my masters but instead I worked for Dr. Nimrod in Perinatology, an absolutely superb person and boss. He did some really great work and I was lucky to be there to be part of that accumulating of data for presentations and publications. And I could go on and on as I worked for nearly twelve years at the medical school/ottawa hospital and I have my tiny pension to show for that!

Then my cousin wanted his profile for my Pincombe family in 2003 for his history book on Westminster/Delaware Townships and finally after watching Edward do genealogy for as long as I knew him really (he was always interested in his Kipp family) I was into surname studies and here I still am. Writing books and newsletters on the various families that I work on. 

Prayers for the people of Florida as they await Hurricane Milton - prayers continuing for the people in south eastern United States still recovering from Hurricane Helene. We must do more to combat climate change. In my lifetime storms have become much more frequent and much worse. 

Solitaire games all played. Breakfast is next. Then start the Robot for the basement rugs and Latin to do.

Opening a can of paint

 Cleaning all accomplished for the top floor and today is the main floor. I was defeated though by a paint can. Opening it was an impossibility as it turned out although my daughter said I just needed the right tool and checking on line that does appear to be the case. Perhaps today I will find that tool and open the paint can. I just needed a little of that paint to complete that project but not to be I guess unless I do find the little tool to open the paint can or it can wait until my daughter comes. Either way the paint will land on the walls and do the task it was meant to do. 

Edward created a photo album for the building of the Orleans United Church Building proper whilst we were still worshiping at Garneau High School. It was one of the things that he wanted to do; follow in his father's footsteps and be Treasurer at the Church and sing in the Choir. It was important to him and he did it like everything else very well. I decided to create a powerpoint file of the slides and started that yesterday and did offer it to the Church if they would like it for their 50th Anniversary (this church began as Convent Glen United back in January of 1978 although we did not go until the Fall of 1979 as I was busy at my Anglican Church and although I had said I would go to his Church and did go in London, Ontario and we went in the Fall of that year). Edward also suggested we go to Dominion Chalmers downtown instead but I really wanted the girls to grow up like I had going to Church near where they lived (and Edward preferred the idea of helping to create a Church congregation plus he grew up in a small town and large city churches were not exactly something he was used to for sure although we did go to one of the largest United Churches in London, Ontario (Metropolitan United) after we were married for a while). Anyway I am creating the powerpoint presentation for the many slides. It seemed like hundreds but I suspect is less. Every facet of the building was photographed by him. After work he would go over to the building site and take pictures it seemed at the time. Plus some of the work was actually done by the congregation and I can remember Edward and our eldest daughter on the roof working away at that. He was Church Treasurer at that time but there was also a Building Treasurer which I was pleased to see as just being the Church Treasurer was a lot of work (for me as much as Edward as I ended up doing all the banking and I had taught him how to do bookkeeping in the first place as I studied Business Practice as an extra course at High School). I also discovered sets of pictures for the Church Camping Weekends at Lac Bitobi so mentioned those as well if they want them. When I have finished I will offer the photo album to the City Archives probably the Ottawa Branch/BIFHSGO section as all the rest of Edward's material is there. 

I did not do any work on the Siderfin Charting Book yesterday but will today. My eyes needed a rest from the close work. I also spent some of the day listening to memorials remembering the people who lost their lives and who are still hostages from the 7th October attack against Israel by Hamas and beginning the very next day by Hezbollah bombing Israel as well. The tragedy for all those families who lost loved ones or whose loved ones are still held as hostages a year later was clearly visible during the interviews. Comments made by Palestinians were also listened to by me respectfully but I fail to see any connection between people attacking Israeli peoples and being put into jail for that (and throwing stones at Israelis is unacceptable and a crime) and the hostages barbarically torn from their homes and subjected to inhumane treatment for the last year. I do see in the Palestinians a people that celebrate in the streets when the Twin Towers were attacked back in 2001 and when Hamas attacked Israel on the 7 Oct last year and many other times in between. Their lack of empathy for the Israeli people is palpable and unacceptable as was their lack of empathy for the people who lost their lives in those towers and were from more than 80 different countries of the world. The Palestinians ask for our empathy and one does try especially for the children who do not ask to live in a war zone but it is difficult to feel empathy for a people who do nothing for themselves and constantly have their hands out for help from the United Nations when so many others are in need but do not use those same hands to till the soil and grow their own food. There was even a comment that nearly 200,000 Palestinians lost their jobs in Israel following the events of the 7 October last.  The Rohingya peoples are an example of a threatened and cast away people who just want to have their own land, till the soil and take care of themselves. For them I do have a great deal of empathy. 

The day begins. Solitaire games to do and then breakfast and then Latin and then cleaning. The path is laid out for the day.

Free the Hostages

 As the families of the more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas (and others Hamas says) having been stolen from their country and their homes during the barbaric attack by Hamas on the peoples of Israel last October 7th 2023 wait for their release, I pray that their release will come immediately and without condition as demanded by the International Court of Justice. There is no freedom yet for these hostages held in inhuman conditions for a year now. Babies, children, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, old women, old men were taken from their homes and the music festival mercilessly along with a number of the people killed whose bodies are also not returned for proper burial by their families. Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis should be condemned forever for their actions on that day and the days now an entire year following as the Israelis tried to bring their people home. There is not justice unless the borders of Israel are protected from such heathenish attacks. A twenty mile dead zone around the borders would be a fitting recompense for all that the Israeli people have suffered. Perhaps extreme but there would need to be solid guarantees by the barbaric Iran and its sycophants Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis for less than twenty miles in order for Gaza to exist. Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis need to be gone from the countries that they have infiltrated and destroyed. Then the peoples of the world and especially Israel can go on with their lives but we will be ever watchful of these groups wherever they may be. If you want to be a country than there are rules to follow on how one deals with a neighbour. Gaza yearns to be a country but first they need responsible adults who will manage the country in accordance with the non-aggression rules laid down by the United Nations Charter.

Hard to believe in a modern world where we pride ourselves on our level of education and knowledge that such trash can happen. Especially I also condemn those peoples who paraded on the streets of Canada in support of these vicious barbaric people known as Hamas who stole away the peace that Israel was finally finding after the Holocaust that they suffered during the Second World War with more than 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis. We, the peoples of the world, are not complete until those hostages are returned and the borders of Israel secure. 

We also, the peoples of the world, need Russia out of Ukraine as defined in the 1990s. Russia is equally barbaric for attacking Ukraine its neighbour. 

Free the Hostages; all of them. 

First draft of the Charting Book is completed for the Siderfin Family Book

It was good to make that last chart for sure in the Siderfin Book. Now back to the beginning as there is work to do. I have chosen the name of the sections as Chart #? with the details following and that I think works well. I really hadn't thought about it before beginning. I need to create the table of contents and footnotes to make references back to my published revision of James Sanders initial book on the Siderfin Family as well as footnotes back to James Sanders' book. I need to make a name index and I believe I have come up with a neat way to do that. I need to proofread and then I will be finished. Publication date I would love it to be the end of October but time will tell. It is 135 pages long which may shorten a little as I work my way through the notes that were in my Legacy Family Tree program.

Today I am going to take one of the family picture binders and convert it to a powerpoint presentation (probably from the mid 1980s as that includes all of us before any of us went off into the world so to speak). It will be a lovely way to spend Sunday afternoon. 

Church today  and it is at St Barnabas in Ealing in the Diocese of London (west side). The Theme of this Sunday's service "What do we mean by belonging?" and as one of those who belongs (in terms of tithing to the work of the Church) to Christ Church Cathedral but attends these wonderful Sunday Services online in various Churches/Chapels in mostly England I think though this is more about "belonging" in an area. For instance as a first generation Canadian on my father's side and fourth generation Canadian on my mother's father's side I still have a lot of England in me. It is sort of interesting to have the services in London because that is where we spent a good deal of walking time when we made our various trips to the British Isles and Europe. Is there anywhere I would like to visit? Occasionally my daughters will ask me that and actually there is not. I am actually tired of traveling. We traveled a great deal during our 54.5 year marriage Edward and I and then the girls with us. Just being here quiet day after day; year after year has been wonderful actually. I have enjoyed all the days; missed Edward of course but I have re-found the Elizabeth of my youth and I am content. The young Elizabeth, that teenager who carried on the thoughts of the child Elizabeth with dreams of going into outer space still exists but much older. I spent a lot of my free time babysitting my younger siblings in those teen years. Otherwise I was busy working in my summers in my teen years and helping my mother when she asked and attending university studying Chemistry primarily along with Physics and Mathematics. I loved to walk and would often take very long walks on the weekends by myself enjoying the sounds of the birds and the fresh scent of the flowers. Generally those walks ended up at my grandmother's house where I would spend several hours in her wonderful company. So finding Elizabeth once again I have changed the routine somewhat - I just walk around the house; or run around it and do my weightlifting and rowing exercises along with all the work on the computer that I enjoy. I met Edward when I was eighteen and we married when I was twenty. We had a lot in common for sure and we spent most of our early years of marriage enjoying all the things mostly that Edward did not get to do as a child; all that traveling and camping out in the provincial parks throughout the summer was quite lovely. The canoe, we bought that quite early on after the car, took us all over Northern Ontario and Eastern Ontario. The memories are lovely. Thank you God for the beauty of our world. Help the people of the world who create wars namely Russia and Iran with their sycophants Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis to come to your table and make amends for their wrongdoings and stop their war making. 

Sad to see so many children have died in these wars created by Russia and Iran and they must pay penitence for their demise because they are the fruit of the earth; they are responsible for all the deaths because they  have created the wars.

Breakfast, as I am hungry as usual, and then Latin and then Church. Another Sunday in God's world and we are blessed as a people to have such a beautiful world. But we must take better care of it.