Sunday and Church is at Rotherham Minster, South Yorkshire

Sunday and Church is at Rotherham Minster, South Riding of Yorkshire. We did not see this part of Yorkshire when we traveled to England any of the six times unfortunately. We may have passed it by as we did go to York but in a rather round about way through Oxford. My Gray family came from Holme on the Wolds near Cherry Burton in the East Riding of Yorkshire. We last see Robert Gray on his farm in 1831 and then he is in Canada on his farm by 1834 roughly would have to look that up - completely from memory.  He and his brother William came together and were later joined by a younger brother James. They all lived in London Township, Middlesex County. It was a daughter of Robert who married William Robert Pincombe better known as WR Pincombe. Grace was my first Canadian born ancestor in 1839, the third daughter in the Robert Gray/Mary Ann (Routledge) Gray family. Robert and Mary Ann married at St Pauls Church now St Pauls Cathedral in London, Ontario, Canada and baptized their  children there. The original Church was built in 1834 but burned down in 1844 and was rebuilt between 1844 and 1846. This is a beautiful Church having been in it a number of times since it is the mother Church of the Diocese of Huron where I grew up. I love my Anglican roots and have stayed with them in my mind all of my life although I am much closer to the Roman Catholic Church in my ideology but I always promised my Grandfather I would be Anglican. He still had the notion that doing otherwise was not being faithful to the King of England who is still the Head of the Anglican Church since we were excommunicated for supporting Queen Elizabeth I. But the Church of England is ancient to the British Isles stretching back way into the past and they came to Christianity on their own as the Christian Celtic Church was well established in England by the 2nd century long before the first Archbishop of Canterbury was appointed by Rome in the 4th century. The churches of the British Isles are ancient to those isles stretching back through time and of course there is that belief that the early inhabitants of the British Isles were one of the lost Tribes of Israel. 

But I digress. Cherry Burton is 63 miles from Rotherham so a good distance away for sure. Whilst we were standing in line in 2013 waiting for the "Who do you think you are" Conference to begin in London, England that the people ahead of us in line turned around and in a Yorkshire accent which I recognized from the deep past said "where are you from in Devon?" to me although they thought my husband was Canadian they said. That surprised me but I didn't acquire the Ottawa Valley accent that my husband and children have - I still sound a bit "English" apparently but I did grow up with people born in England and living there to adulthood and spent most of my non school time with them until I went to work. But assuredly I was born in London, Ontario at the end of the Second World War - right at the end actually. I belong to the Silent Generation as we just got along and kept quiet. Our little group was swamped by the size of the Baby Boomer Generation that followed although skipping Grade 4 I ended up two years ahead of them. So I said I am Canadian born there but my Pincombe family came from Devon and my Buller family from Birmingham and my Blake family from Andover area and my Gray/Routledge family from the East Riding of Yorkshire and Bewcastle Cumberland. It turned out the people we were talking to were from Cherry Burton - talk about a small world. So I said my Robert Gray was from Holme on the Wolds and Etton which generated a long conversation whilst we waited in line. They thought it was pretty funny to meet someone descendant of a family that had come so close from where they lived still. They have lived there for generations in Cherry Burton area. 

I shall enjoy taking part in the service today from my TV access but then I always do. The Minster Churches are absolutely fabulous in England and we went to a number of them in our travels with Insight and Trafalgar about England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales (and France and Germany and Belgium and Italy and Switzerland). the plans to go to The Netherlands and Germany were scrapped because of COVID. Edward so much wanted to go and see where his Schultz great grandparents had lived in north east Germany near Brohm and Staven Mecklenburg (his last emigrant ancestors in 1849 and 1867 he only had two sets of emigrants to Canada directly with all the rest to the New England/New York (New Amsterdam) colonies in the 1600s early 1700s for the Palatines) and also where his Kipp ancestors had lived in Amsterdam and Niewenhuys (near the German border in 1600). We traveled so much (me from 2001 on as I went to Rome and London with my oldest daughter, we actually flew to Philadelphia and then Rome the day after the plane crashed in Yonkers (New York) in 2001) from 2008 to 2016 in Europe/British Isles. I felt like I was always planning the day trips after we got back to the hotel for most of that time as we did not want to miss anything that we could manage to get to that wasn't on the tour. 

The day is flying by and I must dig out the back patio before the next storm hits. Breakfast is next.