Cleaning the two main floors is a lot of work but worthwhile. I never have to rush around cleaning because it is always done on either Monday or Tuesday every week. Boring perhaps but it is a time of thinking and the newsletters need a lot of thinking. The Kip-Kipp Newsletters seem to have a number of readers and I know my husband corresponded with many members of his family in the United States and Canada. It is just one of those things where the possibility of land drew settlers and they moved all over the continent. We had that sort of relationship here in this part of North America. The H11 also has a lot of readers but the members of this group are heavily Eastern European surprisingly although there is a lot of H11 all over the world but I would say my little group of 300 or so is primarily Eastern European at least in their mtDNA line. Many of them now live in the United States. I generally just publish the H11 Newsletter once a year on the 1st of February these days. Four newsletters is a lot of newsletters. It didn't start out that way. Initially I started the Blake Newsletter in hopes of encouraging more Blake yDNA testers to join the project at FT DNA. That was way back in 2011 I think, would have to check. At least I decided to do it in 2011. I also wanted to publish my transcriptions of the Parish Registers that I had done since I was enjoying all that material especially Upper Clatford where I am related to many of the people who lived there in the latter part of the 1800s into the 1900s. A beautiful village which we visited with my second cousin Ivan Kent back in 2008 on my second trip to England (my husband's first as he didn't want to fly over the ocean but finally decided to do that). My first trip was in London primarily although we did get a train ride to Gatcombe to catch our flight home. My oldest daughter came with me on this pilgrimage to Rome (I had been invited to attend the Consecration of the Bishop of Europe for ECUSA (Episcopalian Church of the United States of America). He was on our Anglican Listserv and just threw the invitation out to the 400 members or so. I think there were ten or twelve of us staying at the Monastery near to the Vatican (we were the only ones from Canada, a number from the United States, some from Australia and the rest from the United Kingdom). Although at that point in time I had never been on an airplane to go anywhere, I said I am going and that was May 2001. Bought the tickets in July/August 2001 and it was for the third week in November that we would be gone. It was so exciting, we were in this small airplane flying to Philadelphia and this very kind American pointed out the various cities as we passed over them (it was nighttime and I just always like to know what is there and he also pointed out the Five Lakes in upper New York that looked like a hand and in my mind I saw us as in God's hand flying over those lakes). I think he was surprised to see us taking the trip and asked where we were going. That was of course just two months after 9/11. In Philadelphia there were soldiers in the airport and we were short for time to transfer to the transcontinental flight to Rome. But we made it and off we went. I actually slept over the ocean for a few hours but awoke to the sun and the beautiful sight of the Alps beneath with their snow caps as we crossed from France into Italy on our way to Rome. Being the kind of person I am we already had our train tickets (the airport is outside the city) and subway tickets to get to the Monastery. One of the priests at the monastery helped me with that which was most kind of him. When we arrived and we were coming down the passageway from the plane we were greeted by a line of Italian soldiers with guns placed neatly across their chest as they welcomed us to Italy (they thought we were all Americans). Apparently it had never occurred to me to cancel the flight which was barely one third full (my husband did try to get us to cancel). The train ride was uneventful and quick actually. When we arrived in Rome there was a strike on the subway so we took a taxi. We had spent four months learning Italian - that is a Canadian thing one just naturally assumes that you need to learn the language when you go to a country that doesn't speak English. My daughter (already fluent in French and a couple of other languages) quickly got us into the taxi, gave the address and we were off. The taxi driver quickly started to carry on a conversation and I could tell my daughter was saying "slower, I am just learning Italian" so he asked where we were from and we said Ottawa, Canada and he said oh my brother lives in Toronto all in Italian. I was getting bits and pieces but with the exuberance of youth my daughter was chatting back and forth all the way to the monastery as he pointed out the sights along the way. Memory memory. On our way home we were flying to Pittsburgh from London, England (we had flown a British flight to London from Rome and that was fabulous flying over Europe like that). As we stood in line to be cleared an American in uniform although I do not know what kind that was asked why we were flying on an American plane so I explained quickly (and I had taken a copy of our ticket purchase) that Air Canada didn't do two stops like that in those days or something like that; I cannot remember and so we had flown American Airlines. I was in my late fifties then and he just sort of looked at us and said enjoy the flight. And we did; it was lovely flying this time the northern route and so quickly we saw Newfoundland below us as we headed towards Pittsburgh to catch our flight back to Ottawa. It was a marvelous trip and having a pilgrimage to Rome when I was still young enough to walk every where (I may still be actually) and see everything was absolutely stupendous. I did try to persuade my husband to go but he was not flying across the ocean - a boat was fine. I ponder that now in retrospect. For myself I was sort of used to people flying I guess but Edward's many American colonial lines had come to America in the 1600s from Germany, from The Netherlands, from France and dissenters from England all to the American colonies. Most of the descendants are still there although Isaac Kipp in October of 1800 arrived in southwestern Ontario to take up land that had been advertised - we have his actual application where he applied for land as a settler. You had to pay a fee which he did and he settled with his wife and four of their five children. One son, Jonathon named after his grandfather Jonathon Mead (the Cooper III of Northeast Town, Dutchess County) remained with his grandfather as you could tell by the census his older sons had moved on into the west and only a couple of daughters remained. He came later to the Oxford/Brant County area when his grandfather had passed away. He was maybe eight years old. Interesting really how interconnected the peoples of North America are. There is a deep sense of brotherhood amongst these related people I noticed when Edward got me to read some of the letters. At this time there was no thought in my mind of doing genealogy; none at all. Amazing what three years can do!
Well must get some work done. Perish the thought that I might have to garden in the summer and freeze food for the winter. I hate gardening but time will tell. I watched the Premier of Manitoba on the TV yesterday whilst he explained how the border was being maintained between Manitoba and North Dakota/Minnesota. Along with the normal border patrol the Conservation Officers will also do double duty ensuring that nothing crosses the border that they do not know about. Premier Wab Kinew is a very effective speaker and manager of Manitoba. He has really good ideas as we are getting to know him over this past period that he has been Premier. It is wonderful having people to manage who know the land and the peoples really well with his deep ancestral heritage as one of the First Nations. Too many times people have frozen to death crossing from the United States into Canada so that prevents that happening as well.
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