A busy Sunday

 I did attend Church online and as always a lovely Service and the organ music was perfect. I do love to listen to the organ. My father could play the organ and occasionally when I was at the Church on a weekday when he was repairing something I would hear him play on the organ. He had a soft gentle touch which was so like my daughter playing the piano years later. I can remember being struck with the similarity in their approach to managing the keys. The Sermon was interesting as all Sermons in Advent are I think. There is that waiting time whilst Christmastide works its way once again into our lives with the memory of the birth of the Baby Jesus. It is the centrepoint of the Christian Life welcoming new life but especially the son of God. God waits for us to catch up and assimilate the words of Jesus given to us two thousand years ago. Will we ever make it to that plain of peace; can greed be overcome and the prosperity of the world be the more important aspect of earning money?

Got right into planning the methodology behind doing the phasing of the great grandparents in a rigorous fashion. I am preparing yet another excel document which will, by chromosome, denote the known areas for each of the eight lines. It is in a way a simple task because I am just stepping back one generation from the phasing already done. So each coloured length belonging to a grandparent is going to be divided into two or more some are very long or it could stay as one but the gradation runs from 0% to 100% and strict thoughts would say 50%/50% but seldom does Mother Nature obey such archaic thoughts as a perfect transmission of 50% from each (I inherited an unbalanced Blake/Rawlings which shows up strongly in my numbers although I did inherit a single Blake gene on Chromosome one which is the longest and contains matches that I share with many Colonial Americans having family trees back into the 1600s and earlier for some back into the British Isles. Given my three only Canadian ancestors (my mother, her father and his mother) and all the rest born in England back into the 1600s and before as far as I can determine; the American cousins do mystify me somewhat but I do have Joanna Blake married to Roberte Sedgewicke in the 1600s and their children were born in the Royal Colony of Massachusetts and remained in this part of the world up to the present it would appear!  The power of meiosis is Mother Nature determining which genes will be chosen from the two sets that appear at Crossover and nature says do no harm so what passes will be the successful gene length with the less successful being discarded. That is how Homo sapiens developed to where it is now. So in each case the weaker falls to the wayside but it is Mother Nature that determines that. But we have much to learn about DNA. I see there are experiments with harnessing the ability of the cell to repair itself which is exciting especially for a child for whom the choice still did not give that child the best chance in life simply because the choices were not excellent. Interesting really. 

That took up just a part of my day as I want to annotate my file for the 23 Chromosomes which will take some time. I see probably a good six months to do an adequate job of that. I must treat it as a submission to a journal article so that I do not miss anything significant that makes it a complete tool. But it is a family document; nothing more nothing less and of no value to anyone outside of a family unit. Our DNA may set us on a path in life but how we live that life is so much more important - avoiding the pitfalls like excessive drinking is really important as I can see that with my maternal grandfather although he died from chronic endocarditis  following a serious flu at that time. My mother always thought he died from excessive drinking and perhaps that was part of the reason but it was an unlucky set of circumstances that took away her beloved father when she was only eight years of age. His father had lived to be 80 years of age and his father had lived to be 86 but Robert Pincombe, my 3x great grandfather also died a young death at the age of 52. For the most part these Pincombe men lived very long lives actually; their genes strong I guess. Life did not record why but Robert's death was sudden as his will was written right at the time of his death. But for John the alcohol was draining for him as she mentioned he had sick days when she was young and her mother learned to drive a tractor to help him out - my grandmother was truly amazing and also fourteen years younger than he was. He always represented the epitome of sadness of the times with his younger brother dying at the age of six months when he was just seven years of age and then his mother died when he was fourteen years of age and his sister a year later when he was fifteen. He and his father did not get along very well which was unfortunate but the farm had belonged to his mother and was left to him and instead of following his dream of being an Engineer and building the Trans Canada Railway he had to leave school at the end of High School instead of going on and becoming an Engineer like his great grandfather Thomas Routledge. His father remarried and had a young daughter and preferred to travel instead of managing the farm. That is a long time ago but the paperwork tells the story and for John Routledge Pincombe I can have only the greatest sympathy for his life was sad; so sad. The book is a tribute to John really thanking him for being the grandfather I never knew but whom I would have loved as much as I loved my paternal grandfather. When I was young most people had four grandparents as I recall but I only ever had two known to me although I must say both of them gave me a picture of the missing grandparents when I was young so that I felt as if I knew them. Their pictures firmly in my mind and one night very recently now I dreamed that my Grandmother Blake came to me and stood beside me and touched my shoulder whilst I was working on the DNA. What did it mean? Was it support? It has taken me a bit of time to assimilate that event. I think it was now and I am finding myself more willing to go forward with the eighth great grandparent and settle on a "likely" name for this individual. My dreams can be very illuminating at times for me as my grandparents slide back into my life briefly whilst I sleep and the memory of things said becomes much clearer moving out of that subconscious where wonderful moments lie and back into main stream. I feel blessed to have such dreams actually. Her youth was so much with her when I saw her in my dream wearing the same clothes as the picture of this family when my father was about six years of age and she would have been 34 years old and my grandfather was 35. The picture was taken in England and Grandpa I think told me what occasion it was but the memory is frail and I can not exactly recall it but the picture I have inserted into this blog. I never noticed before that he is wearing the normal short pants of his age group in this picture. One needs to blow it up to see that.  Perhaps it was his entry into school at that time. Who would have guessed that in just another three years they would all be in Canada. The set of pictures for my father in his youthful days are all reminiscent of time periods that were important (I think many people copied the Royal House presenting the child when they could sit up, then as a toddler, their first school, their passage from Infant School to Regular School and so on by then my father was in Canada arriving just after his ninth birthday). There are still pictures of him as he moved through adolescence and into adulthood but I haven't really thought them through at this time. Each one seemed to be carefully planned. He was an only child. 

Ada Bessie Cotteril (Rawlings) Blake, Ernest Edward George Blake, and Samuel George Blake circa 1910, Eastleigh, Hampshire, England

Tea all drank and must do my solitaire puzzles; soon time for breakfast and it is cleaning day so another busy day in this household.  

 

 

 

Another beautiful Sunday in the Creator's World

 Looking out on the fresh blanket of snow protecting those tender roots under ground is absolutely marvelous first thing this morning. It is cold out there but the plants are protected this year from the savagery of the Polar vortex. Mother Nature was ahead of the game this year with a thick blanket of snow. Global warming is here but in Canada the polar vortex rules the day and it is very cold here. I love the winter for its isolation and lots of time to work on projects because there simply isn't anything I can do about the outdoors. It just survives through each winter by the Grace of God and Mother Nature to spring up again once the cold winds depart and the summer sun works its way north once again. I am  left to wonder many times is the calming Mother Nature stronger than the Polar Vortex? The strength is in her gentleness as each tiny flower erupts from the ground in the spring. That is so much stronger than the cruel polar wind. It blows and blows but in the long run the protections that Mother Nature creates can outlast any polar wind. But why is that? Because, I think, the Creator determines the eventual outcome in the long run and He has told us how to live - love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself. When that is happening then the world lives in peace and we want peace. Prime Minister Modi of India wants peace; he was very clear about that with the Russian dictator. Freedom is gone from Russia but it probably still exists in the quiet corners hidden away waiting to break through once again and flower. Then Russia can return once again to that glory they achieved which the world acknowledged at the end of the last vicious World War. So many deaths; so many of our youth buried in the battlefields of France. The heart mourns for them and their aim which was Peace in our time has been trampled on. I was born into that desire for peace in our time; when the United Nations formed and we tried to set it up so that aggression would be punished. But the greed crept in once again and it is greed that will destroy our world if we do not learn to love our neighbour as ourself. 

The rephasing of the Grandparents is complete and thoughts of working on the great grandparents swirl in my brain. I can basically use the same setup and simply choose a bolder or lighter colour for the pair and as that stands I would be looking at dark grey for Blake and a lighter grey for Knight, then dark green for Buller and a lighter green for Taylor, dark orange for Pincombe and a light orange for Gray and finally dark purple for Rawlings and a lighter purple and I will have to decide ultimately if that is Cotterill/Cotterell or unknown. The matches will take me there and at the moment I am still ambivalent; there is so much Cotterell/Cotterill already available in the line as matches from the past that are abnormally large because of two marriages two generations apart and close enough at 4x great aunt marrying a Cotterell and a second cousin 4xr Cotterell marrying a Rawlins and some of us have inherited entire lengths of the Rawlings/unknown chromosome amongst the other three which we also inherited as singletons which is apparently not that unusual. Mother Nature is in charge of how all of that genetic material passes and normally chooses the best matchup. It is in this matching that the less desirable genetic code is eliminated and the better is passed (generations that become stagnant lead to disease and so a constant flow of different DNA works better in the long run in the general case - that isn't to say I do not agree with eliminating genetic disease if one can but the better way is to probably marry someone outside of your close family circle which has always been the verdict of the Christian Church for time immemorial). The creation of children is perhaps the most important thing that we do as Homo sapiens along with the nurturing given to offspring (and children do deserve the best that we can provide them although it doesn't have to be the most expensive toy for sure - whatever works best in a family). It is the love that a family has for each other that is really important to their survival as a lasting entity through time. That does make it more interesting to pursue from a scientific viewpoint. The name shifts occurred through time but my cousin in Australia (William Rawlins, MBE) did an excellent job on the family tree for Rawlings/Rawlins. He had taken it back to William Rawlins and Mary Ford whom I believe married 30 Sep 1741 at Wylye Wiltshire and I took it further back to a William Rawlings baptized in Steeple Ashton, Wiltshire 16 May 1669 and the son of a William Rawlings. He did send me all his research and other Rawlins.Rawlings cousins in Australia have continued the search and so far we appear to all agree on this traceback. I am ready through for new research to come up and the advent of DNA does make for even more interesting possibilities.

The morning is passing and tea is drank; solitaire puzzles complete and Church today online if that is possible or I will read the service on my own (already in my reading list).  

What will I work on today? I will continue contemplating the phasing of the great grandparents but I do believe I have come up with a plan that will work. I need to annotate my charts just a little more before I share them with family. I am going to reread the Blake book today as I have latin items that I am translating and will insert into that book. It is time to get back to writing although the year of wading through the DNA matches has been interesting and will continue as I will regularly check the databases - Ancestry has been checked and a few new matches to examine. Living DNA is next and then FT DNA, My Heritage, Gedmatch and 23 and Me although I am not going to write people so it will simply be a look at the match from the viewpoint of whom do they have in common. Perhaps one day 23 and Me will return to their setup as it was absolutely excellent. 

 

 

Beautiful white snow

 What a beautiful sight out of the window - everything covered in white snow. Another snow fall in December to protect the roots of the plants for the spring growth. It is a good thing; last year's December was cruel cold with no ground cover of snow to protect the roots. It showed in the spring. More snow is promised and the skis are waiting to be tried out once again. At 80 I will go cross country skiing once again. Amazing really to my mind but I am thinking of my two grandparents whom I knew so well in their declining years. But they were both very active until they suddenly were not; that is how life goes sometimes. 

A lovely walk yesterday with my cleats on my boots and I really enjoyed the fresh air. It was cold though, still minus 27 degrees celsius with the wind chill but I was dressed for it and just that little bit of my face that I covered with my enormous gloves that I used for clearing snow to warm it up as I walked. It was very invigorating and when I got home I made a cup of hot tea which was thoroughly enjoyed. Although I was not cold except perhaps my lungs were cooler than usual as they sucked in the cold air. The hot liquid quickly warmed the lungs up as it traveled down my esophagus to my stomach and it has always fascinated me when one is cold to feel the hot liquid traveling down one's throat and spreading its warmth through the body. 

I did complete all of the chromosomes but still doing some work on Chromosome 23 with regard to the crossover points since I do not have them from Living DNA. I have those points from Gedmatch and from 23 and Me and created a third set that looked at all the information in the nearly 100 matches I have in Chromosome 23. I am still reviewing that although there were no changes in the placement of the crossovers in this Chromosome. With one brother inheriting 100% Buller in his X chromosome from our mother who received it from her mother and is a mixture of  Cheatle (marriage of William Welch and Sarah (Cheatle) Welch) from her father's mother and Taylor/Roberts from her mother. The portion which is included in the entire first section of this chromosome which my brother inherited  and passed to my great grandmother Ann (Welch) Buller  is Cheatle and was inherited as well by myself and a number of cousins. Chunks inherited by other siblings is also part of this Cheatle bundle that has traveled through time from Sarah baptized in 1795 at Ashby de la Zouch to Canada now in the 2000s. The next section of that chromosome in my brother is labeled Taylor which I also share. The last section of this chromosome is shared by two siblings including my brother and appears to be Cheatle as well; we will see. I have inherited Pincombe referring solely to the four grandparent line at this point. There isn't any Pincombe though it is all Gray-Routledge as inherited by my maternal grandfather from his mother my first born Canadian whose parents were Robert Gray and Mary (Routledge) Gray. I do know that some of it is Routledge as I have matches with Routledge and both of Mary's grandparents were Routledge on her mother's side (Thomas Routledge married Elizabeth Routledge at Bewcastle 23 Jun 1785 coming to Canada in the late summer/early fall of 1818 and my first colonial emigrants (Mary was just 14 years of age at that time). Chromosome 23 will likely occupy me for a few days as I have always meant to have a good look at the matches. It does seem like a misnomer to label sections as Pincombe as no Pincombe Chromosome 23 is inherited by my siblings or myself since my maternal grandfather does not inherit an X chromosome from his father. However my maternal grandfather did have a surviving half sister who would have inherited Pincombe from her father (my great grandfather) but the X chromosome would be passed from Elizabeth (Rew) Pincombe to her son William Robert Pincombe (my great grandfather) and hence also not Pincombe. Fascinating to learn all of this and the learning continues - I have always had a fascination with learning. The other 22 chromosomes though are full of Pincombe DNA passed from my mother (received from her father) to all of us. 

Slept in today; all of that fresh air but everything is done now that needed to be done to prepare for winter which is very much upon us. 

It was good to see our Prime Minister and the President of the United States on good terms at the FIFA event. Our countries have been best friends for over 200 years and some snowbirds have had enough of the cold and will travel, they say, to the southern United States to enjoy the heat once again. It will take a while to get the numbers up to where they were I suspect but gradually we are finding our feet with unemployment now at just 6.5% coming down from 7.1% a couple of months ago. The GDP has also come up but it will take time to rework our trade around the world for sure. 

Time to make tea. 

Twenty chromosomes completed now for the re-phasing of my grandparents

 Just three chromosomes to go and I will have completed this project of re-phasing my grandparents. The changes were except for one chromosome and just one side of it were minimal just a little adjustment here and there to compliment all the testing centres. One small blip discovered on Chromosome 7 in one length only and I will check that out again one of these days; mostly waiting for a match in that area for that one individual. 

The phasing of my great grandparents will begin and lots of data for that especially for Blake, Knight, Pincombe, Rew, Buller and Taylor. There is a fair amount for Rawlings and the last one I still have to be sure I am not seeing the matches of my earlier marriages in the Rawlings line with Cotterill/Cotterell (spelling varies). I did trace the two lines of interest back to a common parent with my Rawlings line having married into the Cotterell line in the mid 1700s and again in the 1800s. A brother of this early Cotterell was the ancestor of the line at Kimpton where my great grandmother was working. The priest recording the surname as one of the middle names of my Grandmother did point in this direction and the matches are coming with the companies suggesting a possible connection. I would say that in general I will look at the data and see where it leads me for sure although in my mind is a young girl and woman who loved her family and really it was never mentioned as far as I know until I was helping to put together the family tree for my parent's 60th wedding anniversary and couldn't find her birth registration or baptism. At this time it continued not being mentioned but the answer was soon found in the paperwork and about 100 British pounds later and a number of documents I had the answer. Myself I loved this grandmother that I never knew and really it does not matter to me; I love her anyway just because she sounds like a lovely grandmother to have had but missed because she died when she was 64 five years before I was born. But my grandpa said she loved the two grandchildren that she knew and that is wonderful that she got to know two of us. The young man of interest in the projected position of being my great grandfather died at just 54 years of age and his cause of death was mentioned somewhere and I made note of it because I have made a medical history of the family. We were blessed with really good genes actually but an inadequate exercise routine life style has taken its toll in the past and one hopes that it stays in the past. They say the youth of today is much more inclined to a good life style and that is excellent news actually. Other than arthritis which both of our parents had and the two grandparents I knew meant that perhaps we would all have arthritis. My answer is to run and walk a lot. It does help. Staying out of the frigid is helpful as well but the walking is definitely good for an individual I think with arthritis. 

Back to the writing of the books to a certain extent now and I did spend a bit of time extracting any new matches but I shall be rather picky these days and just select matches that give me extra and new information.  The days of collecting vast amounts are in the past I believe. I will get my entire genome done once it is set up and I already have a kit that I want to buy but it waits for that. Other than that the DNA is just going to compliment the books where it is valuable. There are some sections of Blake that have passed down through the centuries and I am always alert for Americans with deep Colonial ancestry who match but the matches are so far in the past but they are large and in what is generally referred to as a common area or pile-up area in the chromosomes. I may get into tiny studies on that we will see. 

I have missed doing the Pincombe Newsletter and the H11 Newsletter and will get that done in the next couple of days. All my concentration was into those matches for sure. I learned quite a bit in tiny ways as the changes were, surprisingly except for one chromosome where I knew there were problems and just on the one length, very minimal which I hoped for but was prepared to be corrected if changes emerged. Collecting over 2000 matches during the past decade plus did pay off for sure in terms of a good phasing of our grandparents. 

Today the car goes in for its snow tires and I take it in soon. The radials are good tires and until 2012 we never owned snow tires. I shall be very cautious and the walk home will be lovely. Although it is pretty cold but I will be dressed for it. I had the flu and couldn't take it in two weeks ago I was too sick but someone else desperate for their snow tires would have gotten that appointment so worked out for everybody. I started it yesterday and ran it for about five minutes until is was part way warmed up so hopefully at minus 20 it is going to do the same today. I also have to pump the tire probably we will see if the light goes on. 

Tea drank and solitaire puzzles to do and then the day of research (and taking the car in) begins.  Still avoiding the news in terms of my thinking about it a great deal. We need to become tariff proof and that is the aim. I still think that we need to give some space to the car companies that are afflicted by tariff to do what they have suggested they will do - Canada is a huge market in terms of car buying and I suspect no company really wants to lose it and will try to work around the difficulties that exist and might just be solved when CUSMA comes up for renewal - really everything is a bargaining point. We have a great deal to offer for sure but we must be a more independent country but still every bit of best friend and neighbour to the United States. One cannot share the huge border that we do and be any other than best friends. We have a lot to offer each other for sure (during any cold spell any one in Canada does think about the warmth of the Florida beaches or so many other warm places in the United States). We can outlive the cold but the warmth is nice on occasion! Our two hundred plus year friendship has been something that God wanted to see between His people; I am very sure of that. They are a larger country and like a big brother really but big brothers want to see us be as successful as they are in order to have this continuous land mass stable and efficient and prosperous and best friends. 

First ten chromosomes re-phased for the grandparents

Nearly half way through re-phasing my grandparents and some review of Chromosome 23 matches. So far they tend towards Buller proving that line quite early on to likely be as I had thought it; one entire Buller chromosome passed to one of my brothers intact from his mother and unchanged from her mother who received from her father and it came to Edwin Denner Buller from his mother Anne (Welch) Buller whose twin sister Sarah married to Edwin Withers had a huge family now found all over the world. Anne of course received it from her mother Sarah (Cheatle) Welch giving me a large length of Cheatle that is shared by many around the world. Quite fascinating DNA as it travels from parents to child through the generations. 

Other than the small glitch at the beginning of one sibling's chromosome in Chromosome 7 the re-phasing has been extremely smooth. I marvel at how close I came with that first phasing actually which I have updated a number of times over the past decade plus. The problem is one match that appears to be Blake but really not information to alter anything already in place. It waits for confirmation and perhaps will come one of these days. 

The basement cleaning all accomplished and everything back in place. The basement looks empty; it needs to look empty as it had been full to the rafters on occasion. More downsizing could be seen as I surveyed what is left. I remember telling my husband to be then and later husband that I never wanted to be left a widow; please do not leave me a widow I said to him after he asked me to marry him. It is a sad task to be a widow; to have to manage and be a caretaker of another person's dreams and possessions is the hardest thing in the world really. When a person is unwell you do not like to ask them how they want to manage items and he knew that about me and told me many things that he wanted me to do and they have been done for quite a while now. But the possessions he created that meant a lot to him are just massive in content and will not survive intact because so much of the material in them is about Edward's life. I would say that a comfort in his period of illness was that memory he created of his life from the early days of our marriage right up to the present at the time. He carefully preserved it all and regularly would collect one of those large binders and bring it up to his office and enjoy it all once again (including reviewing all the trip brochures collected and items purchased). Sometimes he would ask me to join him and I would but lots of times he just wanted to enjoy it all by himself. But the children and the grandchildren do not know all those people and the places are not something that mean anything to them and will not because he isn't here to make them live for them (Edward did do a lot of things on his own away from us). They belong to the moving generation these children and grandchildren. They will not create the kind of memories that my generation and those before me created. It will be different because recall is different. You can have it all just on a tablet with a big memory card. Life is and will change rapidly over the next century for sure. All of these pictures are scanned and in files and will never be lost in that way but the originals will have to go through the shredder because they are other people's memories and one just doesn't dump the originals for sure. They need to be shredded and that is another huge task. I am glad that Edward spent all those hours scanning and when he tired of it I scanned a great deal of material for him so all stored away just in case there is that inquisitive child in the future like Edward who wants to know everything about his ancestors. Edward is still very much in his grandson's minds; they loved him dearly.

 Today snow clearing as there is just a couple of centimetres. I will put on my cleats although I did put a mixture on the ice it is safer to wear the cleats for sure. The car in the garage so I do not have to clear it off or de-ice the windows which is a treat. Soon time to ski; the snow looks good and it will be perhaps a white christmas which we are used to having here in Canada. Soon all of Canada will be covered by snow. It is beautiful actually but it is also cold and there is a polar vortex. We are going through that period of shift when the polar vortex covers our area for weeks on end. 

 Tea drank and solitaire puzzles worked. It is early today as the puzzles went very quickly. Eyes a little tired today so will not do a lot of work but I will do some planning as it is time to return to the books. I will work on the phasing of the great-grandparents over the next few months. I am not in a rush but I have not yet pulled all the census material to aid me in my quest from Find My Past, Ancestry and My Heritage. I tend to a look at all of the databases and accompanying material just to see what has been collected by the companies. This is my pleasure for sure; subscriptions to all of these companies. 

The sky is lightening but no wind in the trees. God is watching over His world as always. His creation still intact in spite of the Satans in our midst. We learn so slowly we humans and it is time to move to that peaceful uplifted plain where war is no more; greed disappears and the world will prosper. 

The return of the Indigenous articles from the Vatican ensures that the memory of this great land mass will always be visible in this country and part of its heritage. Thanks to the Pope for making this happen.  Thank you to the Thomson and  Weston families for their winning bid to purchase the original charter of the Hudson's Bay Company with plans to donate it to  four museums here in Canada. This document from 1670 will be part of the historical background of colonial North America. 

 

Finally Chromosome 1 completed

 I did complete Chromosome 1 yesterday and I knew I couldn't resist working on the re-phasing of my grandparents. I did the first three chromosomes. I set up a slightly different set up using Excel instead of Powerpoint. Powerpoint really isn't set up to do this type of table although I liked it early on but gradually could see the advantage of using Excel so I did start that. I still have to work on Chromosome 23 and will probably do some of that today. When this is all completed and I have recorded everything I will give it to my siblings in case they have a descendant that is interested but my daughter will also maintain the files in her lifetime just with regard to actually making sure the files still work! She has her own items to work on. Once I have finished that will be all that I will do likely. I am more interested in constructing these books and will use all of this information as I prepare the family trees. 

Continued today working on the chromosomes and I have discovered a slight blip in Chromosome 7 as I rephase. I will have to re-look at it but the matches do not appear to be there to truly reveal the slight blip. We will see how that goes. I have three sets of crossover data and will see whether there is a blip or not since I can compare the five siblings (thus far nothing points to a change but I have only checked one sibling whose crossover point just didn't quite strike me as correct - fussy old woman I guess. Sometimes it is perhaps how the test flowed for one sibling as occasionally I will see a slight difference between companies in how they interpret the data primarily because they use different points. When whole genome becomes universal then these blips will disappear as there is really only one result that is correct. But as I said this is not yet pure science it remains as citizen science where the proof relies on incomplete information in some cases simply because not all the companies choose the same testing regimen. 

This is also basement cleaning day and I shall go and start the robot to do its chore on the rugs. They are old rugs now although considering I have run on them for years and they had a family of four and their friends on occasion moving around on those rugs they barely look worn. But they were good rugs and I will take them with me when we move. It was one of the first items I bought when I went to work proofreading at home in the early 80s. My a long time ago now and wages were significantly smaller in those days. I never drove the car anywhere that did not involve my work and my husband biked to work and our children walked to school or took a bus. Although I eventually did have two trips a day to take my oldest daughter to Middle School and back in her last year there. It was quite simply a better idea and we could stop and shop at stores and so two trips a day were not part of my working regimen. I used to record all those things; amazing really. But I am that sort of a person and completely converted my husband who did not keep accounts at all when I first knew him. I taught him to do bookkeeping and he was Treasurer at his United Church for around ten years. He loved doing that as his father had done that at his Church. It was sort of a memory thing for him as he went through life since he did not get to have his father after two years of age when his father died in a farming mishap. 

Tea drank and must go and start the Robot; checking to make sure it is fully charged although I do glance at it through the week these days as it does slow me down to have to charge before I use it.  

 

Accomplishment yesterday

Yesterday was a good working day as I accomplished all of the cleaning in my schedule and worked on the matches. I am now down to just  22 matches to do and then Chromosome 1 is complete. When I checked the total in the "too small" category for this chromosome I was surprised to see it was just slightly over 20; I thought I had eliminated more than that. So still a large number in that particular chromosome but more rigorously placed into, in this case, Blake or Buller and primarily Buller which is not really a surprise given the size of the families in the mid to late 1800s. Occasionally Rawlings or Pincombe was a challenge but mostly the matches tend towards Pincombe for whatever reason - a lot of Pincombe have tested worldwide. 

Today the main floor is the designated cleaning area today. It will take all of the morning likely although I have already begun moving furniture to get it out of my way. I like open spaces when I am cleaning. The exercise doesn't hurt either. Laneway all nicely cleaned out for the next storm and a good layer of snow on the ground which will help to protect the plants that have survived my guardianship. Last year we had such a cold spell and no snow cover in December that a number of plants simply did not make it this past summer. The roots may still be strong and they might come up next year; time will tell. 

A couple of discoveries with the matches that were helpful and all the cross over points have been proven so I can start anytime now on the re-phasing of the grandparents which could well begin today. Twenty two matches is not a large number unless I need to sort them out. I do recognize a number of the names as known so maybe a quick trip through these twenty two matches and they are all S, T and W nearing the end of the alphabet. I do love the logic of all of our learning that began so young and stays with us all our lives. Some of us think alphabetically others are more numerical - I like both systems depends on what I am doing and perhaps that is the case with most people. 

Staying away from the news again; it does tend to dominate my mind on occasion and at 80 one can just watch and pray really for the best outcome. It does surprise me somewhat, although it is possibly logical if you are a satanist bent on control and destruction, that the world has not moved beyond the barbarism of a thousand years and more ago. It is done to frighten people but we should not be frightened; God handled the barbarians of the past and He will handle the present ones I am sure. The sight of Russia breaking up and bankrupt saddened us in the early 90s but  now we would just watch and pray that there are good sensible people in Russia (if Putin hasn't removed them all) who will eventually lead that country to the glory that should be theirs but is constantly undermined and stolen by gluttons - gluttons for money and land who care nothing about the people of Russia. Gluttony another one of those great sins of the Christian Church and possibly others - I am not that knowledgeable on religions other than my Anglican for sure.  

 Nose to the grindstone and on to breakfast. The workday begins once again; the traditions of our youth weigh in in our old age as we just do the work that needs to be done and carry on. It is Giving Tuesday today and sometimes you can make your money multiply where generous donors offer to match or even double or triple the donation. Good time to donate where you can find that in your set of donations. 

Why following the commandments Jesus brought us are the best answer

It is all about respect for our fellow man; loving our neighbour as ourself. Without it we are just like the animals in the wild protecting their territory and expanding it whenever they felt they could when the other side was weaker. That is really what NATO is all about; creating a line of respect and fighting back when the respect isn't returned. It was a beautiful aim when it was created at the beginning of the Cold War and has served Europe and the members who support the belief that this world can be a better place where wars no longer happen. It was so simple those words when Jesus brought them to us and created the foundation stone of the Christian Church. But two thousand years has seen viscous wars fought and so many deaths; it is time to move to that uplifted plain of peace. One prays for that every day. 

The sermon yesterday at Church was very very interesting and I thank the priest for his delivery of it. It was especially a really excellent Advent I sermon I think. Advent is the time of watching and waiting for the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ; the memory of his birth comes to us on Christmas Eve year in and year out as we celebrate God's gift to mankind. A gift that keeps on giving through the centuries as we slowly adjusted our societies to a more equitable system but it does take so much time and respect has to be learned by all for all around them. Just because you think everything should go as you want it to go doesn't mean that that would be the way God wants it to go. God wants peace for us and we have to move in a way that creates that peaceful society in this world. The rhetoric has to be for peace not for ownership especially not ownership of people which includes telling them what they can and cannot belong to or how they have to speak; or who their friends are. Peace in our time was the motto that carried our young men and women into a battle where too many laid down their lives for that very peace. We must have it in this century; too many have died trying to give it to us.  Prayers for peace as always. 

Mostly yesterday was a working day - washing clothes and working on matches (just a little, Sunday is a rest day and that includes my eyes which had had three days of research). The day passed quickly and I also cleared the snow from my porch and patio and the top of the laneway so that the company could clear the rest of the laneway and especially the end of the laneway; I am getting too old to move that for sure. It was heavy snow absolutely made for snowman building although I do not see any out the window. The children are mostly all grown around this house although there are a few. Most of the matches going into the "too small" folder because I can not really be sure whether they are Rawlings or Pincombe/Blake or Buller. They are all in that very long length (20 to 40 cM) with either two siblings matching or three siblings matching but without any other match to help or a match in common (and I like there to be a couple of those matches in common) they are probably very ancient in our Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA). They are still interesting and mostly American colonial descendants actually so no more than 10th to 11th great grandparent for the MRCA but that makes us 11th or 12th cousin and who would expect to share DNA that far back that one could actually see as a reasonable length. It is simply a common area shared by many with ancestry back to the British Isles likely and before that to the European Continent and before that to Africa thousands of years ago. We are still learning very much about all of that. So into the "too small" folder but still painted on DNA Painter in each sibling file. 

I read an article published by Nature Communications on the five stages of homo sapiens' brains in terms of age - Infant lasts to 9 years and adolescent from 10 years to 32 years, adult from 33 years to 66 years when early aging begins around 67 and then late ageing begins around 83 years.An interesting compilation by the scholar Dr Alexa  Mousley who led the research. It does reinforce the idea that living with one's parents well into one's 20s is a good idea. I was thrilled to have our children stay with us so long for many reasons; I thought it helped them by not forcing home ownership on them so young and just having to worry about their studies whilst time passed. Then there were the surprises which blessed us as well as we grew in family size (of course I grew up in a house with nine people in it so space was not a big deal with me (plus I lived in the attic all on my own until my baby sister joined me when she was two years of age and I was ten and it does strike me that assigning adolescence to ten seems very logical in my opinion as I became somewhat of a little mother to her). The traveling that Edward wanted to do fitted so well into all of that as he was always conflicted leaving everything behind like that but the house was always full so he happily traveled about the world (when I finally got him to cross the ocean) and enjoyed every moment of that travel. He couldn't get enough of it finally and wanted to travel to Europe every year but I needed time to prepare for each trip so that we saw and did the absolutely maximum we were capable of seeing and doing. Did we miss anything? Well he wanted to go to the opera in Budapest I think it was and we didn't do that but if time had been on his side we would have. But we did do all of the items that he had on his original check list. My only aim was to go to England for the most part and meet with my cousin but I am a bit like that; I do not have a long list of things that I need to see. A picture is good; I am really not much of a spender in that way; neither of my time nor of my monetary expenditures. But having lived through a bankruptcy as a young child it formed different ideas in my mind I rather think. As a young child I was not bothered that I wore my brother's shoes or even clothes on occasion and I rather liked all of that family time when we would sit and listen to my father read a story. New clothes were not something that I missed at all; after all I was the fourth child with an older sister whose hand me downs I wore until I was six inches taller! By then I was babysitting and making my own clothes or buying them. Once  his business was back up and running we would scarcely see him again as he was busy from dawn to dusk so the memory of that short period of time stayed with me as more of a fun time than the slightly perilous time that it actually was. People are definitely a product of their upbringing in many ways but life shapes how we live it I think. 

Cleaning day today and it begins around 9 as that seems to work very well for me. The top floor is the beginning as that is where the vacuum is. I am still using the shop vac and it works very well; actually the suction is great but it does sound like a rocket taking off for sure. The morning will mostly complete it and I will have some time to work on the matches and other projects. I have a meeting at 1 which I will try to remember; I have written a note to myself. 

I am more than 2/3rds of the way through Chromosome 1 matches. Possibly there will be just around 200 matches for this chromosome when I have completed this review. Then Chromosome 23 still to do just for a cleanup as there are  96 there and some are quite small - generally I can work them into grandparent readily especially with two of us so clearly separated into one with an entire Buller length and mine which is 60% Buller and 40% Pincombe with just the one crossover point. The other three are more varied but also easily work into their result. Cleaning that file up will be handy when I move to the great grandparents. The Pincombe comes intact from my great grandmother Grace Gray (blended Routledge/Gray) to my paternal grandfather and then to my mother who blends it with Buller or doesn't as it turns out as it came intact to one of my brothers; the Rawlings comes intact from my Paternal Grandmother Ada Bessie Cotteril Rawlings (aka Edith Bessie (Taylor) Blake) to my father who then passes it to his daughters (it is a mixture of Rawlings and the unknown Cotterill it would appear to my mind still; having Cotterell already in the family with two repeats in the cousin lines at the 4x level and 2x level does lead one to be cautious in how one regards the matches (however there are a number of Rawlings matches in the Chromosome file). It may never be solved; who knows but I am feeling less like I am intruding on my grandmother's life (she was very happy in her Taylor family and grew up with her mother as her mother and her three half siblings as her siblings and especially the bond with her step father was very strong - nice that all of that passed to me as a child from my grandfather) which I didn't want to do but life doesn't always flow the way you think it might. Buller is a mixture of Welch coming from my 2x great grandmother Anne (Welch) Buller who passed a blended (Welch/Cheatle chromosome) to my great grandfather Edwin Denner Buller who passed it unchanged to my maternal grandmother Ellen (Buller) Pincombe and the other part of the Buller passed by Ellen to her daughter Helen (Pincombe) Blake is mixed with Taylor passed to Ellen (Taylor) Buller from her father Samuel Taylor and her mother Ellen (Roberts) Taylor. I must check all of that but the gist is that the chromosome passed from a father to a daughter comes directly from that paternal grandmother without change whereas the chromosome passed from a mother to her child is blended but in significant way which gives matches with a 3x great grandmother of a good length on occasion as I can see the 23rd chromosome portions from Sarah (Cheatle) Welch in my 3rd cousins where our 2x great grandmothers were twins as rather a good length in that Buller line as they are in the Withers line. Interesting really all of this chromosome passing. So one can see the necessity of maintaining this 23rd chromosome as well although it is not used by all of the testing companies in their matching. 

Tea completed and solitaire puzzles to do. November all completed and December begins. A very orderly brain workout each day as it begins.  

Conrad Black has it right once again in today's editorial

The Ring of Fire in Ontario is finally being seen for its huge value to Canada and to our friends and neighbours who, like us, are democracies which aim to be economically stable and militarily sufficient. Interesting that we now share a border with the European Union with Hans Island which is jointly managed by Denmark and Canada. A very small border one might say but it gives one the feel that there is this huge circle of countries that are part of NATO which is a defensive organization created during the Cold War. It has never been an offensive organization and there are no plans that it ever will be but defend we will do. 

But back to the Ring of Fire and its potential for rare minerals finally being recognized in one of the major projects put forward by the Prime Minister as a project much desired and moving ahead. We do need the road though and I will keep saying it until it has four lanes from the Quebec border to the Manitoba border. It is important because the traffic level on it is constantly increasing these days as especially truckers are making the huge journey through Northern Ontario to the west and back again. We need it just like we needed the railway way back in the 1800s. We built that against enormous odds and we can build a road. Toronto doesn't need a whole lot of money spent on roads right now other than maintenance but the North of Ontario needs that road. We can do better than ten years to take it from Arnprior to Renfrew (and it doesn't quite reach Renfrew!). Lets put our backs to the shovel and get that road completed along with the needed railway lines to open up the Ring of Fire. 

Thank you to Conrad Black for selecting this subject for his editorial. The Conservative Party is in power for a few more years here in Ontario and it is their time to shine; you do not have to buy votes all the time with expenditures. We know that we need to move along; become tariff proof here in Canada and we can do it. So "Elbows Up" and get the work done. No work gets done with arms hanging down at our sides. 

Yesterday I managed to finally come to 2/3rds of the way through the matches. I have removed a few because I am unable to really place them into one or the other grandparent line. There are so many it truly doesn't matter but they are still in the "too small" file and painted on DNA Painter so not lost to sight just not cluttering up the file. Two hundred and eighty two matches was always too many in that file and what is in there now is neatly organized and ready to put AI to work to do some items that I want to look at. The time is approaching for re-phasing the grandparents and working on phasing the great grandparents. Probably not earth shattering in general but in my world it is of interest to me along with some other items but it has dominated as it required a few months of intensive work on my part to get the files in shape to use AI. 

Sunday once again in God's world. It is Advent 1 and my Advent message was in my mailbox and I read it first thing. It is exceedingly beautiful and I read it over word for word beginning to end. Alongside Hope (formerly PWRDF) is my prayer group which I try to manage every month although sometimes it just does not happen but I can listen to it later. I missed the session on the Advent messages given by the author but it is now in my inbox and I will listen to that perhaps this afternoon actually. Church on YouTube today as always (providing no glitches) but I have the bulletin in my inbox and will read it if the service does not transmit. 

The days are passing quickly at the moment as there is much to be done on my part. Seldom do I have a no-work time that isn't spent on exercise. The second most important part of my day is the exercise to keep myself active and capable. One must do that when one is over 80 absolutely for sure. 

Another good idea is vaccination for measles. I never had red measles apparently as a child (hard to believe in a family of seven children but there you are) and I did check that with my mother when my youngest was being vaccinated as it was in my baby book which she carefully maintained for each and every child and I got vaccinated for measles at the same time as my daughter. I am glad that I did as measles returns to haunt us. The effect on the unborn child is enormous for a mother who is not vaccinated and has not had measles. The effect on infants is huge; get vaccinated. The world was rid of measles for the most part in many countries. Lets not forget that; the scourge of measles is dreadful. 

Time to make tea and start the day.  

A sad Thanksgiving

The most greatly celebrated secular holiday in the United States was marred by the murder of the young national guard (a young woman just 20 years of age) standing guard in the capital city of her country)and the other soldier with her (a young man) still fighting for his life in the hospital. Prayers for the soul of the young woman and for the young man in the hospital. Why do people do such things in a country that took them in? so hard to understand. It brought back the memories of the invasion of Israel by Hamas in my mind and how it was received by supporters of Hamas around the world. How can one support people who attack other people? Hard to understand; very hard. They are truly satanists and deserve the full weight of the law thrown at them; not support. They must lay down their arms and stop their rhetoric against people. It is their rhetoric that is the problem; if you do not agree with how people live in their own country then you shouldn't be there; go back to what you had and perhaps then you can appreciate the freedom that exists in our countries which you undermine when you support attackers like Hamas. 

Another good working day on the matches although again I move barely forward but now into the K's and will continue today. But I am straightening out matches that were quasi placed way back a decade ago and not really looked at since they had this question mark in them. They do not really help me with my quest because there isn't enough information but they do verify the crossover points often enough as these common areas tend to get passed as lumps; huge lumps on occasion as on this Chromosome 1 they are passed as large 20's or even into the 30's and 40's centimorgans (and their relationship to me in many cases is very distant (23 and Me shows them as 5th or 6th or even 7th cousins!). I have done a little study on this length from a medical viewpoint looking at 23 and Me results and it is interesting for sure. Our way forward in some ways lies in the knowledge gleaned from looking at our DNA and knowing from a young age what you should not do in your life - for instance heavy drinking in your youth is not practical for some people; it immediately limits their health in ways that others are not so affected. Knowing that is a good thing I think but it does require a certain level of discipline that doesn't necessarily exist in our present life-style. The advantage to military service (compulsory) does continue to be an interesting idea for any country I suspect. The regimentation is something that is lacking unless you go into something that is very regimented to build up your ability to use this characteristic of humanity that has brought it along these many thousands of years. But that is my personal opinion for sure. 

 However one shouldn't assume that I think consumption of alcohol is a bad thing. I certainly do, on occasion, have a glass of wine and as an Anglican we have wine at our Eucharist in memory of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. I seldom drink other liquors although again I do like Cherry Brandy on rare occasions and in limited amounts. I am just a limited drinker of alcoholic beverages usually in the company of my family and never alone as like drugs it does cloud one's judgement and should be avoided if judgement is something that you are going to need going about your daily life. My knowledge of mood-affecting drugs is very limited to a short period of my life when they appeared to be the path forward but left behind when my mind once again returned to me. Was I lucky? probably but it isn't easy for sure. The discipline again plays a role in our life - the need to be alert at all times. 

 My new file has proven to be a useful expenditure of my time and I will construct one for the other three grandparent lines - Buller, Pincombe and Rawlings - when the need arises. It is always a process that grows as I aim towards the actual goal of all of this which is to phase my great grandparents in a meaningful way that supports my tree work for the books. Then I can link the census into my thought process as all of these great grandparents were on those census from birth to death in the British Isles other than my Pincombe-Routledge and Gray great grandparents who died here but appear on the appropriate census here in Canada and I have all the records for them here as there are only so very few of them (my 3x great grandparents Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge (2nd cousins once removed), my 2x great grandparents Mary (Routledge) Gray and Robert Gray and that is it - Grace (Gray) Pincombe was my first Canadian born ancestor and her son John Routledge Pincombe was my second Canadian born ancestor and my mother Helen (Pincombe) Blake was my third. Interesting really to have such a small footprint but fourth generation Canadian on my mother's side and first generation Canadian on my father's side as I was born a British Subject (my father was born in England at Eastleigh, Hampshire) and I was grandfathered to Canadian Citizen along with everyone else born here by the 1st of January 1947. 

I always felt very British until I traveled and discovered how Canadian I really am. It is good to travel; you learn so much about yourself really in that traveling. I especially loved being in the British Isles where I learned how Canadian I really am and France where my attempts at speaking French were so keenly welcomed and also in Italy where we (my oldest daughter and I) had spent four months learning to speak Italian; she was very good and easily spoke to the taxi driver although did have to ask him to go a little slower because the language was new to her but my few words spoken along with French when I couldn't remember the Italian did work very well also. When I was in Germany and Switzerland my few words of German also came in handy at the time although when the language of English was chosen for the European Parliament I think English has become much more frequent in Europe. But that is what Canadians are; we are very flexible people who try to compromise our way to success as a country  taking the differences and trying to blend which includes being best friends to the First Nations in my opinion. They were here first and have huge knowledge of this country and how life flows here. But they too compromise and one appreciates that as well because they know the way forward is to love the earth and the seas of Canada and help Canada to take care of all of us.

  Another research day and exercise day as I work my way back to the level of exercise that I was at before the flu struck. Do get your flu shot as it does slow down the old for sure and the young. 

Tea all drank; solitaire puzzles completed and time to think about breakfast.  

 

New file

 I decided to create a file of the matches of known cousins just to aid in placing some of these matches that I have; with so much data it just simplifies the lookups that are needed to place some sets of matches where the only match is a common area without any extra matches to aid in placement. That file ended up being 332 lines although there are repeats but it has simplified assigning matches with limited knowledge about the individual. This file was for Blake and I will do files for each of the other three grandparents' matches but no rush on that although Pincombe will be next but generally I can place Pincombe as I have probably three times as many known Pincombe cousins as known Blake. My grandfather loved to talk about his cousins but he was born in 1875 and the cousins that are testing were born mostly from the 1920s on although there are fewer of the 1920s and 1930s these days. So that means the people that he mentioned were mostly born before 1900 as he moved to Eastleigh from Upper Clatford in the late 1890s to work on the Railway as a Blacksmith. Hence I do not know my cousins that well in England or elsewhere although I do correspond with a number of them on occasion. My closest known cousins are 2nd cousins (and they are all known to me by name) since we do not have any first cousins and there are just seven siblings although sometimes people claim my parents as their parents. Probably seven children were enough for them!

Most of my day was spent on the matches for Chromosome 1 although I also used the rowing machine and I ran for 20 minutes as well as my regular 5 min walk every hour and my other smaller exercise periods that compliment my sitting at a desk for eight hours a day broken up by these exercise periods. Somehow I think that my days will always be like this and I find a great deal of contentment in my work although I am a person who can adjust to change very rapidly - lucky that way I guess.  

Lovely dinner of salmon last night with freshly boiled potatoes, broccoli and a little fresh salad. The same tonight as there was enough for two meals. I noticed that I am back to just $75 per week for groceries - not sure why but I do not buy a lot of extras and make everything pretty much from scratch. I finally found a bottle of red wine vinegar for my salads so that was nice. 

Continuing today with the matches for Chromosome 1. I have a couple that are perplexing and I suspect they have both Blake and Buller in their background. I will continue sorting them out today and it was part of the inclination to build this new file set which worked very well actually as I did a quick run through to the end of the matches looking at the named ones to ensure they had been labelled as Blake. All correct amazingly as I do find changes on occasion. I downloaded a great many of those matches way back a decade ago and really didn't look at them a lot because I knew they were in that common area on Chromosome 1. 

Next Chromosome 23 to sort through and eliminate any very small matches. It is a fairly straight forward chromosome now that I have so many known matches there. When I first discovered that one of my brothers had received Buller intact from my maternal grandmother and not blended with the X chromosome my mother received from her father which was the X chromosome that his mother passed to him so Gray/Routledge family it mystified me for a bit that it would be without crossovers as the other brother had several Pincombe/Buller crossovers.  But the Buller singleton did mean that he and I matched on most of the Chromosome 23 matches since I received the first 60% as Buller and 40% Pincombe for the other half but Gray/Routledge family are the matches for this designated Pincombe since my maternal grandfather only receives an X chromosome from his mother Grace (Gray) Pincombe. Fascinating stuff all this DNA. 

Time to make tea and work on my solitaire puzzles.  

 

Finally a research day once again

I did continue working on the matches whilst I cleaned yesterday and I am into the J's (first name) which is maybe 1/3rd of the way through the matches for Chromosome 1. Many of these matches date back to the early days of collection and were not clearly separated into the grandparent because I didn't need them to phase the grandparents so it is taking a little longer checking to make sure that they are for Chromosome 1 either Rawlings or Pincombe in the very long common area for the one sibling set or Blake or Buller for the second sibling set. Since many of these were on 23 and Me that is accomplished checking the list of relatives in 23 and Me that remains accessible. 23 and Me did produce very good results for this common area as in some cases it was not tested by other companies. The changes mostly just a few and they do not affect overall any results but it is good to have them updated with this completing information. 

Cleaning all accomplished including a good scrubbing of the cupboard under the sink in the bathroom. I generally do it a few times a year and this was that time. I also threw out some items as they were out-dated. So a nice empty cupboard more or less once again. My list of items that need to be repaired has grown this past couple of months and will get done over the Christmas research period likely with a few trips here and there. 

Getting back into more difficult exercises once again as I took my time after the bout of flu. I was surprised to be slowed down by the flu but I am 80 so should not be. I am feeling very well once again and my COVID shot I never even noticed it actually. The switch was back to Moderna this time for a second time (two shots ago was also Moderna). But all the rest were  Pfizer. I think it is good to mix them up actually from a chemical point of view. Challenging the system is what keeps it active and efficient. But that is my personal opinion others may well differ but it works for me. 

I like this Prime Minister more and more; he said he would apologize if he was wrong and he does. The process he is looking for will be hard work ahead for all of us but we want to have a country that can withstand tariff and we have been tariffed a good deal when one looks at say soft wood lumber it is almost constantly under some sort of tariff. So we must build up our economy in different ways that were not followed in the past and increase the number of trade deals we have with countries around the world. We have three ocean fronts that are useable although one is restricted to warmer weather to put it mildly but still useable as lots of products are stockpiled by the buyers around the world and that can be done in the spring/summer/fall period which works very well for both of us. So "Elbows up" and into the heavy work ahead that will take us to a more diversified economy but we will still have our good relationship with our friends and neighbours in the United States (and who are also my cousins hundreds of them and thousands of them are cousins to my children). Attending Family Reunions in the United States with a number of the families that my husband was related to was a fascinating experience to be honest. They welcomed Edward as one of their own which was something he really appreciated. They loved to have their Canadians cousins come which was quite frankly very beautiful of them. On his Kipp side they were settlers who came between 1800 and the early 1830s to southwestern Ontario. There were many many Patriots who came to Ontario and other areas of the country but principally Ontario in this time frame. 

My only really strong wish is to get the Trans Canada highway widened - it is so busy going on that highway where it has been widened to four lanes so one can imagine how busy it is where it is still two lanes with a passing lane every so many kilometres. This is the time to do that for sure; no more wasting money in Ontario on idle things or unnecessary things. 

Time to make tea and then work on the solitaire puzzles.  

 

Cleaning day two accomplished

 The cleaning went very smoothly yesterday and I also went and bought groceries. I bought one cleaning liquid which had HST on it so a first for me for a bit as I generally do not pay any HST on my groceries.  I do think the setup for GST is excellent as it is a wealth tax in many ways and those who can afford luxury items pay the government for the privilege. I would like to see it go back up to 7% or even 10% as it keeps the government funded and as a  person first coming into the work force from my University days and into a Federal government job at that time my first pay cheque was delayed for a couple of months I recall because of supply bills. It is much more efficient to have regular money going in to pay the government bills each month. 

I really do not have an opinion on the announcement coming about the MOU between Ottawa and Alberta; that is all it is really to put on paper that a potential exists for a pipeline (no private funding has appeared in the wings thus far) between Alberta and tidewater which has been suggested to be in the northern British Columbia area. This is a long way off for sure and a lot of chatting to be done with First Nations in particular who prefer to protect that area of the ocean and the lands that drain into it and feed from it. Myself I still prefer an eastern pipeline to save the cost of buying back our own oil (refined which we could do ourselves) from the oil we sell at a discount to the United States and buy back from them at three times what they paid for it. Ontario is a huge user of gasoline in cars (as is Quebec) and we would see jobs return to Canada and in particular Ontario since we tend to be the big loser in all of this tariff business. But it does require buy-in from private enterprise. At the moment they are enjoying their profits from the existing system and will be hard to shift for sure. 

But tariff proof is our aim in all of this attention to what we are buying; where we are traveling and it will pretty much remain that way until the tariff is not affecting our economy in a huge way. The projects in mind are all fantastic but in need of private funding many of them and given the nature of the projects it is highly likely that private funding will be found and we will become the great economic country we were always meant to be but hindered the last ten years by a globe-trotting environmentalist who dreamed of his empire being the most environmentally conscious in the world. But he has moved on and the new Prime Minister, wearing the same party stripe has moved the party along to an attitude that supports economic growth but also regards the environment but not to its exclusion of potential to advance economically. We will make them walk hand in hand over time as our ingenuity is directed in that direction. It will work because we are hard diligent workers who live through long snowy winters trudging back and forth to work every day in spite of the weather. Go Canada Go; Elbows Up  (one can not be nearly as efficient with our arms down by our sides) and get the work done that needs to be done to make us an economic powerhouse next door to our friend and neighbour the United States already a massive power house. 

Every time one gets a sense that Peace in our time might be in our grasp; the breath shortens and one wonders is this the time that God told us would come one day to our world. Peace beautiful peace; we as a country have paid a huge price for peace in this past century and our youth buried in the battlefields of Europe deserve that peace that they bought with their lives. One prays for peace but always getting ready in case we need to be. One of the trips to France we made visited both the First World War and the Second World War battlefields and accompanying grave sites all beautifully maintained by the French people. It was a stark reminder of that loss of our youth that was mentioned very very often when I was a child in school. Our principal at Elementary School had served in the British Armed Forces and flag raising each day was a precise memory moment every school day. May God bless our military. 

So today the last cleaning day and it is the top floor. I also will continue working on the matches and contending with that section of the chromosome with so many matches and the choice is always between Rawlings and Pincombe for one set of siblings and Buller and Blake for the other set. Sometimes, with the Living DNA results, I am getting people who match in particular Buller and Blake just because the frequency of my cousins is so much higher in England than anywhere else in the world. I must be cautious as I work my way through them making sure I am capturing the correct relationship although overall one wrong is not a problem or even several but I like to be precise and want this pass-on ready in case some one in the future becomes intrigued by this fascinating study of family descent DNA in their line that extends down from my grandparents (my six siblings and myself are their only descendants so one looks all the way back to them at all times actually because there are no first cousins and their lines to complicate the passage back to the grandparents  - we are it). The great grandchildren of these four is large enough but it will be the great great grandchildren who likely look back and are perhaps curious about the DNA that came to them from their grandparent and it will all be there for my parents when their times come to be the ones that everyone is curious about. I have written both of their stories (300 plus pages each) and will likely add to them as time passes once I get through this DNA phasing. I think about their stories and as I age I realize I am missing some things that probably they would have wanted in their stories so adding to them is certainly in my thoughts. 

Tea all drank and must do my solitaire puzzles and soon breakfast and then cleaning begins once again. A routine that was drilled into me by my grandmother and my mother and it just does make life much easier to always have done the cleaning each and every week of my life.  

 

 

 

An excellent working day

 Yesterday the cleaning of the basement was accomplished in good time and I also worked on the matches. Although progress forward is slow that is generally the case at the beginning of each new set of Chromosome matches. In this case I do not have a lot of known matches in the central part of Chromosome 1 but I have an enormous number of matches because there is a large common area on this particular chromosome. Sorting through them and using the relative finder on 23 and Me (many of these matches are on there) let me ensure that I had carefully and correctly assigned the matches either to Pincombe or Rawlings which is the split for one set of siblings and between Buller and Blake for the other set of siblings. There is a distinct divide between the siblings on this chromosome. It is a lengthy one (likely 70% of the chromosome has thus been inherited by the siblings from the parents and by relation to the grandparents). I tend to refer to all matches by their grandparent line rather than the parent line. It is interesting that parents become less important when one looks at the DNA - it all points back to the grandparents and further back. That slows me down just a little doing all those checks and making sure I did not make a mistake because some of these matches have not been looked at for years and I have been collecting them for well over a decade and a half. I started early and extracted every piece/detail that was available at the time just to keep the file complete for future investigation because in 2012 one really could not predict what one would like in the future so I, following my scientific training, collected everything. Funny really how much use I make of that scientific training now in my old age although when I worked and the opportunity presented itself I was there to do anything that needed to be done - research the literature, whatever, just for the pure joy of dawdling about in science once again. I do love the scientific method which has evolved even in my lifetime. It is such a wondrous way to look at the world which too has evolved along the lines that science takes us but history sometimes intervenes and prevents the natural course of events whether it be because of jealousy/greed/hatred all the satanistic tendencies that exist in the frailty of humanity. God warned us/ordered us to put Satan behind us and ignore Satan; cast Satan into the darkness where such ignorance belongs. Perhaps in that darkness the satanists (in this case the Russians) can find their humanity and stop committing crimes against their neighbour. May God's will be done. The Creator as always is on the side of humanity that follows the rules that He set eons ago. 

So today cleaning the main floor and vacuuming up the stairs. Another big day of cleaning but soon done and back to the matches. I have only accomplished eighteen of the 181 (one has now been placed in the "Too small" file. But six of the cross over points are proven out of 18 which is really great actually. The sooner they are proven the easier the work flows for sure. Once completed I will then do Chromosome 23 matches which have also not been observed for quite a while. I can eliminate the "too small" entries into their own folder and use just the larger results. Now that I have enough proofs on that chromosome as well it makes for a very tidy set of chromosome results for the five siblings. Once I have re-phased the grandparents then I move to the great grandparents and back to writing. That process will be slow although as I have moved through these matches I have made note where I actually know the great grandparent line for matches by the descent of cousins. 

I also must get back to the photo books. They tug at my heart strings and so I only work at them when I am feeling that downsizing moment in my life as anything else I just find it too difficult to do that. I remember my mother as she sorted through my Great-Uncle's belongings and I saw expressions on her face I had never seen in my entire life. A softness for this uncle she had known all of her life and the items that he had kept from her childhood as his life long memories. He did not have children of his own and the Buller line of that family died with him at the age of 84. He served in the Royal Highlanders from London, Ontario in the First World War. Was injured and sent back to England from France and rejoined his regiment sometime in 1918 and was there for the end of the war. Edwin Denner Buller was born 10 Mar 1888 at Aston nr Birmingham, Warwickshire, England the son of a soldier from the First Boer War also named Edwin Denner Buller. Sent to Canada by the Birmingham Union (he was orphaned when he was just 11 years of age) when he was 16 to work on one of the farms in New Brunswick. He loved it there and asked if they would ask for his sister who had a heart condition as she could help in their kitchen. They obliged and when the inspector from the Birmingham Union came by the next year to check on him the family asked for his younger sister. Although it was unusual it did happen and Ada Gertrude Buller was sent to New Brunswick that summer. It was the beginning of the transition of this group of five siblings from the Marston Green Cottage Homes where they were sent to live after their father died in 1899. By 1908 they were all here in Canada and met their half-sister that they did not know they had. Interesting really how people arrived here in Canada in that time period. So remembering my mother that day as she sorted through all of that material all at once (I volunteered to come and help her) and the pain on her face I thought to myself that day I will take my time if ever this occasion rises for me. The memory comes back and if I find the work heavy going I go back to my matches which are more of a futuristic thing that I am building but the material is there ready for anyone to do it in the future so long as the databases last. But I do not really think beyond the moment to be honest. It is just interesting and it is always nice to have interesting projects. Although I would have also enjoyed the knitting, sewing, crocheting that I had planned for my retirement! That is sort of the amusing thing in all of this; I am easily contented working away at projects. 

Solitaire games all played and tea completed. Time to get some work done.  

Amazing that I can miss items I sign up for

 Time flows so quickly even in retirement and a loss of internet meant I missed out on a webinar I wanted to attend. The phone just didn't seem to want to do it. However I will be receiving the Advent messages anyway as one could sign up for that without attending the webinar. They sound like a treasure to receive this Advent. 

The Reign of Christ service yesterday online was lovely; many of my favourite hymns were sung and the sermon was quite interesting. I do like receiving the Church Service every Sunday on my television. At 80 I have less and less desire to be out and about. It takes too much time out of the day. Even yesterday I went and got my COVID shot (I have never missed one actually) and as it was a fairly nice day I put on my snow boots and walked up to get my shot and two litres of milk as I was running out of milk. Grocery shopping one of these days but for the moment I can make do with what is in my refrigerator and cupboards. I am not a big eater but have managed to gain back the four pounds that I lost when I had the flu. So no more doubling up of meals - just three meals a day and that is nice and eating extra meals uses up my work time. 

Chromosome 1 was the source of my working yesterday and I got maybe a dozen matches completed. This chromosome does have a number of known matches so that I can pretty much rely on them to place the grandparents but there aren't many Pincombe matches known to me and the Blake matches seem quite ancient as I can only locate a couple of them. My largest match actually is on this chromosome and occupies a good couple of lengths but it is obscured somewhat by endogamy which means it is Blake mostly Knight-Butt-Arnold but nothing in the Blake line itself other than a couple of known cousins but they are not really large lengths. There are smaller known Blake matches with cousins. It is the ancient Blake that catches my eye so will put some concentration into that as earlier matching in Ancestry pulled up some ancient results with the Sedgwick family of Massachusetts. Joanne Blake (daughter of William Blake and  Dorothy Madgwick married 6 Feb 1606 at Andover, Hampshire, England) married Roberte Sedgwicke 6 Jan 1634 at Andover, Hampshire, England. He died in Jamaica, she returned to England and died in London but their five children remained in Massachusetts where they lived and their first known son was baptized 31 Mar 1639 at Charlestown. The matches were small and eventually disappeared from Ancestry. But there are a number of American descendants in the area of those matches on Chromosome 1. So I shall pursue this chromosome looking for possibly ancient Blake autosomal DNA. With a couple of Blake-Blake marriages in this line the chances exist but they will be very small and somewhat encumbered with other possibilities for sure; one does realize that. But 281 matches are a lot of matches and it will take me a bit to get through all of them in a meaningful way. 

Cleaning day today and it is the basement and the robot will soon do its work with me checking to make sure it is fully charged. The first robot in the house for sure. 

Time to make my tea and do my solitaire puzzles. Dawn is just breaking across the eastern sky.  

 

A lovely weekend

I spent a couple of days with my family which was fun - hockey game and time together was great. It took my nose out of my work which is always good for me; I do know that but I also really enjoy my work. It is fascinating, mind stimulating and keeps my thoughts young I think. It is a danger when you are old to let yourself dwell on items that are simply a natural aging process that everyone will go through because that is what it is to be human in actual fact. I feel lucky to have been around my grandparents when they aged and I was a child because I spent a lot of time with them and very little as my parents aged because we lived so far away and I was working full time when both of them passed away. One of my brothers asked if I would have my mother live with me the last couple of years of her life. First off when I did ask her she said no she could  not live in my house as it had too many stairs and she didn't even go into her basement by that time as one of my brothers lived with her fulltime and she didn't want to miss out on her grandchildren who mostly lived there. So I was glad I asked her although I already knew her likely answer. She knew I wasn't going to move at that point my husband loved this house. So I did miss out except for visits although I did spend entire days with my father and my mother when we were there. My father was in a nursing home and after a short while he would recognize me again mostly as the child who "could get lost going around the block" which wasn't true in my memory but that was how he remembered me and I accepted it because I wanted to still sit and chat with him until I couldn't. Once he got talking it was like being a child again as he had completely forgotten everything about me really. My daughters he greeted as absolute strangers which was sad but they knew him and called him Grandpa and said goodbye especially that last time when he was so very unwell. So I do think family is important both for the old and for the young. 

But back to work today and it is Chromosome 1 which hasn't been touched in terms of looking at the matches in this run through but it is organized and ready to go so will be my concentration on this day especially as I have done nothing for two days - a two day holiday from work. Chromosome 1 is interesting in that it is the longest but I am rather lucky with it because large lengths were passed to us and I in particular have only two cross over points and one chromosome passed intact from the Blake side and the Buller side is very long with just a small amount of Pincombe (actually only 14% is Pincombe).  In reverse one of my brothers has an almost intact Rawlings chromosome with tiny sections at each end (amounting to 10% only). The rest have a more shared look although a second brother has an almost complete Blake chromosome as well with just 4% Rawlings on one end. Interesting how it all goes really. Chromosome 1 with its longest length has many many known genes on it actually. I have not really looked at the "normal" look of Chromosome 1 with regard to inheritance and probably will not I just find it quite fascinating compared to a much more divided Chromosome 2. The studies on Chromosomes are ongoing and we have much to learn about the passage of material from parent to child. Personally I see a world where natural flow of chromosomes from parent to child is the best as Mother Nature does the best job of maintaining health in a community but there are occasions when mitochondrial disease can completely limit the ability of a successful creation and one does wonder why not improve that potential so long as it does no harm. That is always the interesting question - is it doing harm? We do have to go with the science until proven wrong really. But I do not extend that beyond incurable mitochondrial disease to be honest. Life style plays a huge role in how our health goes for the most part. 

Snowing today and I must blow up the tire unless I decide to walk to my appointment which I might. It is a pleasant minus 2 degrees celsius and walking is the best exercise for sure. We will see. I am thinking more and more about  moving these days as all of the work is too much for me outside and it is probably time to give up this property to a young family with all the schools close by and the shopping at your fingertips especially once the train is actually running!

Church also today and it is the last Sunday of the Christian Church Year - Christ the King Sunday or Reign of Christ. I am used to the former name but like everything names move about a little through ones life. Next Sunday Advent Lessons and Carols and we begin anew the Christian Church Year. The candlelight procession reminiscent of earlier times. It will be lovely. 

Breakfast eaten and drinking tea a bit out of order but my weekend changes my usual routine for sure.  

In the Creators World

Gazing out on the forest and wondering what I might see, perhaps nothing but perhaps something. God gave us this world to do good things; to create a life where everyone is treated properly. For many of us that is the way that life should flow but it does not and why not. Because some people are greedy and always want more. Doing good deeds was always a highly credited item and we really do need to follow the commandments which God gave us. One does wonder when that will happen. My lifetime has stretched from the end of World War II to now and it has been an eventful one for me but mostly I have managed to stay below the radar and lived my own hermit life style albeit as a wife and mother along the way as well as a daughter and a sibling before marriage. I am a watcher for the most part  but did work for most of my life at one item or another. Now in old age I continue working but on personal projects rather than in the commercial-business-government of time that I spent working. 

I have watched my own country grow from 20 million to 41 million now on a huge land mass with two names Canada on the one hand most frequently used but to our First Nations Turtle Island. I do find that to be a fascinating name especially now that I have time to think about it. The choice of Canada as a name was basically a mistake on the part of Jacques Cartier (he asked the name of this land with a wave of the hand apparently and the First Na tions guide told him a word he took to be Canada but which was actually Kanata which meant village and interpreting the hand wave as a directional prompt which brought into view a local village). Life can be remarkably simple on occasion and so Canada was born out of a conversation between an individual who had lived on the land for thousands of years and a newcomer on a journey of exploration. That truly has always fascinated me how something comes to be.

Busy day yesterday and today is another busy one so not a lot of my personal projects will be accomplished but a lot of other good items accomplished. Which brings me to the travels of our Prime Minister and the deals in the making.  It is for sure music to my ears as we work at the main task of growing Canada and making us tariff proof in as much as we are able. The signposts are in place now we just have to fill in the details and make it all work. 

But definitely something has to be done about the widening of the Trans Canada Highway in Ontario. I do hope not to see anymore money spent by the Ontario government unless it is on the widening of this road to four lanes. The traffic is enormous on this road night and day. Toronto doesnˋt need an expensive underpass; put the money where it is needed to help Ontario and Canada grow. Toronto does not need to grow. It is large enough already.

Another exciting day in Canada land and I shall grab hold of it and enjoy it. I hope everyone else will do the same as it is Saturday and a beautiful day promised. 

That all being said

 But in reality this DNA work has involved me 24/7 ever since we did our first tests at Sorenson way back in 2005 I think it was. The path to FT DNA was so easy to follow from Sorenson and here I am having tested at all the great companies up into the mid 2010s and there are some new ones but I have tested there yet. What did I gain? An interesting project first of all and very family oriented. Secondly I am achieving thoughts I haven't had since childhood when my grandfather wanted a book written about his Blake family. My mother did chat about her own family which included the lines that she knew from childhood when her father was still living and they lived closeby them - the Routledges, the Grays, the Pincombes (and there were others but they are not as mentioned by her perhaps but a few more). It was fun for her going to school with her cousins. Sad that her father died when she was only eight years of age. That always sunk into my brain because I would lose my grandfather when I was eight years old and his loss was huge. At that point in my life I thought I shared something with my mother as the pain of loss seeped through me. But I was not a great talker and I was one of seven after all; there are only so many hours in a day and I would say that I talked more to my mother after I was an adult than before. My desire to be alone far outweighed my seeking out time with her for sure. So there is also this sort of union of thoughts that we shared that last day together when she talked about the Family DNA and my own interest in childhood of DNA which was true actually. 

Yesterday I completed the matches for Chromosome 2 in spite of no internet (gone for about a few hours). What I didn't have was access to the actual record if I decided I wanted to check it out. As it turned the last twenty records did not really have any queries on my part and fitted well into the schedule that I was producing. All of the crossover points are proven adequately and ready to proceed to Chromosome 1. I have set up Chromosome 1 now and there are just 18 points compared to 24 with the 2nd but it is still a very long chromosome - indeed the longest of all of them. But it has one individual with one chromosome unbroken (me, it is Blake) and I  have only two crossovers. There are 281 matches though and it will take a while to work my way through all of them for sure. The DNA Painter charts are very interesting and at the time I first decided to do the phasing of the grandparents I actually started with Chromosome 1 and was rewarded with a fairly straight chromosome given the length and the number of matches at that time. 

Another busy day and have a few things I want to get done besides the matches. So must begin. Tea soon and then solitaire puzzles.  

  

What do I really feel about genealogy?

In reality, although I took 43 courses in genealogy over a four to five year period, I do not really have a lot of interest in name collecting although I do like the tree to be accurate. My interest lies solely in the DNA and I do not even need to know the people as I can see who they are by their DNA if they have decided, as I did, to reveal it. They probably would not want a lot of emails either really as they probably did it for a similar reason depending on where they tested. There are only so many people that I can answer in one day so generally I seldom answer anyone. It depends entirely on the question actually. I do answer all of my Guild mail as that is one requirement of being a member but that is not huge even with the surname Blake as one of my studies. Mostly I refer them to someone else or give them ideas on where to look depends on the Blake line. My research is principally in England although I have done work on the Irish Blake lines (they are the usual Blake in Canada (and they are the Galway Blake family)). I had my grandfather telling me we were not related to the Irish Blake family but my older brother who did the DNA with me initially said he had said we were. It was sort of funny as not long after that lovely meeting over breakfast and then dinner (my treat at the restaurant) I had a dream. Grandpa was telling me once again about this book in the library about the Irish Blake family but said we are not related to the Irish Blake family which was cute. Imagine my surprise when the best match on the Blake yDNA test site at FT DNA was someone living in Dublin. He never expanded his test although the first markers were significant for this line taking us back to the ancient British Isles and this group has the name Deer-Hunters. But the only Irish Blake that I have found that added somewhat to that mystery was a Richard Blake from Ireland in the Calendar of Patent Rolls arriving at Salisbury in the 1440s (I would need to look that up and will do and try to remember to correct this to the exact year plus he could have been English returning to England as the rolls do not show any information beyond the basic). The Robert Blake who left the first will of record in Andover in 1521 (known to me thus far) as a very elderly person named his eldest son Richard. But I have also found records of Blake at Andover prior to this date and that certainly introduced an interesting scenario into the subject that remains somewhat to this day although I am, given the results of the Chromo 2 test with 14 matches, I am inclined to think this Blake line was in England for a long time prior to the 1440s. I continue to work on the records and that was the object of the book and the parts of it that deal with subject matter that does need academic scrutiny I will only donate to the Guild Library. 

I was a sort of history buff in my elementary and high school years so coming back to history with genealogy certainly I had a good start looking at all the data that was available and the courses taught me the record sets, where to find them and how they could fit into one's family history at any level of association. So I highly recommend doing courses in genealogy. But does that mean that I am in this as a typical genealogist. Probably not, I am pursuing the DNA of my grandparents, great grandparents and we will see where that takes me. Along the way I will write the books that my grandfather wanted and my mother although she never stated that I would write a book on the Pincombe family but her strong interest in the history of her family does lead one to that thought. The only thing she asked me to do was the Family DNA but she was mostly just touching on the surface of what that would mean and the necessity of buy-in by my siblings which they did. I am only missing two siblings but wouldn't want them to think (one is deceased but has a daughter) that I wanted them to test - I have so much data that their contribution, although wonderful if that was something they decided to do, would just fit neatly into what I already have. I believe the thought is that three siblings results are enough along with the matches. Myself I think the more you have the better as you end up with no holes in the lines but on the other hand the vast amount of data is overwhelming so no rush if anyone is thinking time to test. Incorporating it at this stage would be huge for sure. 

What happens to all of this? I will burn it all to archival CDs and will also likely put in the Guild Library where it has a lot of supervisory protection permitting academics to pursue this information as that is really where this entire field will ultimately end up and once again arts and science will join hands together working on people and data. The combination is huge as we stretch forward into the future which holds lots of exciting happenings. I do not see anyone jumping up to grab this work in the family at this time. One never knows the future really. It is hidden behind a veil held by God Himself. 

Had to take a break from the matches. I am three quarters of the way through the Chromosome 2 matches and must do some exercise or my arthritis will kick in in my knees (each knee has a spur which one must be sure to exercise around every day so as not to be bothered by them. One can not sit for too long and I do miss my swing as the rocking motion does help the knees!