Thursday, July 31, 2025

Interesting happening

I have so many bags that I have purchased from all the stores that when I was in the store the other day and did not bring one as our car was full and reaching one was just a lot of work plus we were carrying everything and it looked manageable. The clerk though said did I want a bag so said no I didn't want to buy one and could have added I have about 40 of them and just do not want to buy another one. She said she was giving me one and I just assumed would charge me as there was a lot of stuff plus it was over $100 so was surprised to see she didn't charge me after all. I guess $100 is enough for a free bag perhaps. No ideas on that.  Interesting really and the bag is just I think 35 cents not sure. But I usually have one tucked into my purse so will add that one to the purse as the other didn't get returned to it. 

Yesterday I spent the day working on my new computer and doing exercises since we still had a smoke warning. Shopping done for a bit as I am getting this new computer set up. The browsers are all installed now with their saved favourites carefully carried across. I do like Firefox and Google but I also like Microsoft Edge - each one of them fulfills a separate purpose in my day and very nicely actually. It is good to have different browser uses - one for news, one is work item and the other is any other items that I need to use. 

My arthritis in my knee kicked in yesterday (I have spurs in my knees) and I did not run as I generally do not run at that time but today after a good session of Yoga the knees are fine. But they are nearly 80 so must be gentle with them but back to running today. I miss my running especially outside as we have smoke for the moment but running in the basement of an air conditioned house with three air purifiers works very well. 

Amazing that tomorrow is the 1st of August and nice to see our government just taking their time to get the right deal (if any) as we move forward in our diversifying our trading partners and hopefully rebuilding our manufacturing lost to free trade over the past fourty years. We watched it going but life was good and who would have ever dreamed that Americans buying out our industries would be so greedy as to go offshore because they didn't want to pay decent union wages thus killing their own industries. Amazing really. But now we are on a move to recreate our lost industrial base and twice the size now we are out in the world selling the excess that doesn't get bought up here. Our first customers should be the people of Canada and there are lots of us and buying Canadian is in the air although we still buy American and from other countries as well. We do not have lots of things because we are a polar nation with a long winter.  

Another good exercise day and more setting up on my new machine as I will want to get back to the matches from Living DNA. I also need to collect any new matches on the other DNA databases as it has been several months since I dipped into them. 

Drinking my tea and soon on to the day.  

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Another smoke day

Not as bad a summer as a couple of years ago but the smoke is back with us again for a bit. The Air Quality is  69 at 7:30 a.m. Cleaning all accomplished and getting back to setting up the new computer. The desktop is uncluttered in this new Windows 11 but having to install all the apps that came with the last computer will take some time. But it is still a couple of months before Windows 10 is no longer supported and will convert that computer to Linux and just have the Windows 10 portion not connected to the Internet as I will use it as backup and my new computer does not have an active DVD drive although has a spot to add it but I do not use it a lot so will probably just use my DVDs on the old computer. Moving between computers will be good exercise and I will probably be able to get to work on the production of the material that I want to do for Edward's items as everything will be close at hand with the other computer - scanner especially as it is now hooked up permanently to the computer. 

Edward's niece's granddaughter is getting married and she was going to let us know so we could send a gift. So just waiting on that as I think it is very soon; did not know the date when she let me know last year. We sent another box of items (mostly her grandmothers) that would mean far more to her than my daughters as she grew up with her grandmother. I do not get a sense though that she is interested in genealogy and all the autosomal DNA that Edward did on his cousins and with our daughter's results as well it was interesting for him to prove the lines that he had already done the book research on. I was extracting the information for him into Excel but have not done that now for four years. There is just so much to do and it would be wonderful if at some point interest in that happens but everyone is busy with work just as he was - he did all this work after retirement. 

It is good that food is increasing into Gaza. Prayers continuing for both the children of Gaza and of Israel (both are trapped in a horrible spiral).The UN created Gaza totally dependent on them which was wrong - they should have been supplied with farming equipment so they could grow their own food three generations ago and still the UN does not do that (or if they did as I was a child then, the problem would then belong to Gaza for not proceeding as Israel did and create a country). Israel could help them with that as they have wonderful farms in Israel and it is basically the same land. Had the UN not been so apologetic towards them they would not have become so dependent on them. It was always a disaster waiting to happen in terms of setting up a country; allowing Hamas to come in and become their government was their mistake (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis having declared that they want to annihilate Israel). What happened to the Palestinians in terms of land assignment was exactly the same as what happened to the Israelis. So why the difference? Letting those children remain in Gaza was a huge mistake after Hamas as the government of that area invaded Israel and why did the Muslims here not bring thousands of them over as only their DNA was needed? Questions I shall always have in my mind. But in the meantime children are suffering. 

So today continue setting up the computer and transferring my present working files so that I can get back to work perhaps in another week or so. The H11 Newsletter is due on the first of August but it will be just a short capture of anything that I find on H11 in the news and being one of the smallest haplogroups there will not likely be very much especially as a lot of the research was coming out of Russia and other places in Europe.

Tea drank, solitaire puzzles completed on the new computer as that was already ready to go when I first booted it up which was nice. 


Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Day two cleaning

Another busy cleaning day and  the air quality is 59 which has come down nicely but still better to be inside for a lot of the day. The big overstuffed chair is in the garage and going out to the garbage this week. We took it apart as the back comes off making it possible for us to manage it which is great. I think the chair was purchased in 1977 along with a new couch. We hosted the Bible Study at Edward's Church and he wanted to have a nice set of furniture for that. Since he was paying for it I was fine with that after all he had this image of himself being like his father (he was treasurer and I have forgotten the term for people who help to manage things (in the Anglican Church they are wardens)) and being involved in his Church and bringing his children to church (and his wife and I was quite willing although I am Anglican not United Church). My maternal grandmother, uncle and aunt were United Church and I used to go to Church with them when I stayed to look after my grandmother (since I was about ten years of age) when they went away for a few days (my mother was raised United Church but became Anglican in her teen years). We would go and take care of the store but his clerks did manage a lot of that and then they generally came back Saturday late afternoon and I had Sunday with all of them before I went back home again. It was lovely actually. It was a small Bible Study group initially but eventually every chair that we possessed was in use and I mostly was sitting on the stairs. Edward loved it for sure. He only left his Church here in Orleans because he felt somewhat lost after his brother died in 1996 and his mother was very unwell (his father had died when he was just two years of age). We went to Dominion Chalmers at that time for a few years all because of a Bulletin Notice in the United Church we attended mentioned that the minister there (an excellent well known academic religious scholar who taught at St Paul University actually) was starting a series that he knew I would just love to be present at and the first service the minister sought him out and they chatted and Edward just found that that was what he needed desperately at that time. He found my religious interpretation of most things to be far too catholic and deep as he said. But he was raised United Church with all of those very protestant views and discovering his ancestry (descended from Roger Williams (founder of the Baptist Church of America)) and many many other dissenters which I have listed many times in my blogs) I was really not surprised at his thoughts towards catholicism. I did teach my children their catechism and the fundamentals of my Anglican religion but they did attend Sunday School in the United Church. But by the late 1990s our children were involved in their own happy busy lives and did not often go to Church with us so moving on to Dominion Chalmers which was supposed to be just for the period of the lectures but ended up being several years until that minister retired. We then moved to my Anglican Church as he loved their Choir music when we attended a Concert one day there and we went quite steadily to Church until Edward took ill in 2011 and then we became infrequent going just once a month so that I could put my collection in and when I discovered PAR that was it; we hardly attended after that. I would just read and celebrate the Morning Prayer going maybe a few times a year. Funny in retrospect as I would not miss attending the services online week after week now but it was a different time and I followed my vows made at our marriage very strictly being supportive first and foremost of my husband. My going to my Church was not something he wanted to do as regularly as we had and we spent his retirement years after the pacemaker was inserted pretty much just doing the things he wanted to do. I was still somewhat in this idea of mine that I would not live a long time but the years keep passing and here I am nearly 80 years of age. I never expected it; I had been extremely ill after the birth of our first child (lost a great deal of blood at that time) and Edward was working (Postdoc in Chemical Engineering) and taking his Masters in Library Science at the time so not home a lot and my recovery was definitely slow mostly because I had to do everything the way I wanted - washing the diapers and hanging all the clothes out to dry on the line outside, taking care of the baby all by myself and working in our big garden with Edward. Life did crash but here I am following the wise words of the doctors who took care of me at the time of my breakdown - the words most used were "rest and eat." Probably the two greatest care words in the English language!

I digress, I have been thinking and praying for the children of Gaza as I have these past couple of years but also I pray for the children of Israel (they have been victims of the Palestinians since I was a child). Whatever do they have to look forward to either of them. Hamas wants the total annihilation of the Jewish people (it is their manifesto) and they have come up  with this method of making it happen they think. They just keep sacrificing people - first it is the Palestinians and then they will move to Lebanon and do the same to the Lebanese people if they let them. Probably the Yemen people will be after that. Iran is dedicated to the elimination of the Jewish people all over the world. They could prove otherwise than their stated goal by simply getting out of Gaza and letting those people relearn how to properly live without hate - the other Arab nations could help them by setting up proper schools. But will it happen in time to save the people of Gaza.  They are truly disgusting Satanic people and they show it every day. 

So cleaning the main floor and the basement today and I am behind today; did not eat my breakfast until 9:00 even though I was up at 6:00. But now time to get to work. This new computer is very nice but I have a lot to set up to make it work for me but lots of time to do that. I needed a break from all of that thinking. 

God bless the world and all the people in it (may the Satanists be gone from our world all they do is cause death and destruction). I do not think Satanic individuals really rate as people any more. Their hate consumes them and they are incapable of being human. 

Monday, July 28, 2025

Cleaning day once again

The Sunday Services yesterday were both full of music - lovely music. The chorister once again a perfect addition to the service. Christ Church has wonderful choristers. The Sermon was not the type that appeals to me; I am not really interested in people's life experiences. I like a good history sermon discussing the readings and bringing together why these four readings are chosen for this particular Sunday. But that is me and I must admit it is more and more difficult to find sermons that are an academic tribute to the collections of readings that belong to the Christian faith. The problem with personal input is my lack of interest in how people interpret in this modern age (I am nearly 80) - but certainly she did bring interesting thoughts up for discussion and review. I want to hear how the Patriarchs of the Church view the readings. But personal opinions do tend to bring the younger people in I think. 

Cleaning today and I begin with the basement this week. I think the old overstuffed chair is going this week into the garage and eventually to the dump. It has had a good run over 40 years - it was Edward's chair for a number of years but it takes up a good deal of space and he most enjoyed the last years with the set of two seaters that we have in the living room and that belong to the modern era.  So I guess can be modern sometimes!

New computer and getting it set up to become the workhorse that the last one was and still is actually but it is Windows 10 and I decided to go with a new computer (the last one was nine years old and starting to show its years). So windows 11 I am into now and getting used to it. Lots of things to set up for sure but I shall work away at that and my blog posts will probably be rather short for a bit as I navigate the 21st century. 


Sunday, July 27, 2025

Smoke Day again

 Yesterday we never went outside; it was a smoke day again although we could have it was just around 100. But we were busy working away at items and the day simply flew by. 

No one wants to see children starve. On the other hand, I find I can not look at any Muslim here in this country without wondering why they did not bring thousands and thousands of the Palestinian children to Canada or other countries to keep them safe (all that was needed was their DNA so that they could be returned to their families). Children are not responsible for war; I do not think even yet the Palestinians accept that they are responsible for the attack on Israel as they allowed and cheered when their government - Hamas - committed the atrocities on the 7th of October 2023 (the Palestinians here did it as well (the cheering) and it was truly disgusting, they should have been charged with a hate crime). I abhor watching the famine in Gaza; throw out Hamas - tell them to get out they are the cause of all the grief in Gaza; they are the cause of all the death in Gaza. It is so incredibly sad to see children dying of starvation that could have been prevented. May God hold them close to his heart and prayers that God will help to sustain them through this horrible happening. Free the hostages unconditionally and now as demanded 1.5 plus years ago. Hamas are satanists.

I am of the opinion that aggressive trade deals are not really good deals. Trade should bring interesting items for sale to other countries like good Wisconsin cheese!; there shouldn't be demands on people as to just how their products will be added to the shopping carts of people in other countries. As for our selling milk products at low prices; the poor of the world have a right to food and if we can provide a good product cheaply so we should - God asks us to do that.  We do have a history of being supportive of countries that need help. We have lost enough industry here due to undercutting of prices and just simply out-competing because we are a small country in population and the companies are small.  Money isn't everything and you can not take it with you and your children will waste it in the next generation or the one to follow. The skies are polluted enough with private airplanes because the ultra-rich dance around the globe whenever they feel like it demanding special privileges at airports and creating havoc where-ever they go (they are the biggest cost in any country and use up far more government services, police services, hospital services etc than they pay for in taxes). They do not like unions and greedily take the production off shore to make even more money. Where is the respect for their country; the care and support for their people who earn/spend the money that makes them rich! 

There back to my solitary confinement for a while whilst I get some work done. I really tire of all these articles in the news. I think actually feeling sorry for the pedophile that assisted the even worse pedophile in defiling and destroying the lives of perhaps as many as thousand under-age girls in the United States is disgusting.  Never seeing his name or her name in print again would be a real treat - they are truly disgusting (satanists for sure); just refer to them as the pedophile and the pedophile's accomplice - everyone knows who they are now. The feelings of people in the United States that there probably hasn't been enough punishment for the crimes committed by these two people and those who helped them to use these young girls (it is illegal) can certainly be understood. 

 Solved the problem of Chromosome 9 and moving on from that. But I now have two chromosomes reworked with the Living DNA data on cross-overs. Just another 20 to go but not in a rush. 

Today is Sunday and I shall pray for the children of Gaza. Church online at 10:30 a.m. and also one in England to attend. The Air Quality is still 78 so smoke is still with us but rain is coming and perhaps that will wash it out of the air. One is hardly ever free of wildfire smoke as the smoke from California worked its way up here last year when our fires were not doing so (although our brave firefighters were down in California fighting that fire having to breath in the smoke on the spot). The plight of Climate Change and the less we do about it the greater the damage becomes. 

 Drinking tea and doing solitaire puzzles. God bless the world and encourage us to make it a better place. 

 

 

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Another Shredding Day

 Another hot sultry day very common in July here in Canada and we spent a good three hours shredding correspondence which stretched in many cases over a sixty year period during which Edward searched for the parents of his Isaac Kipp - known by yDNA to descend from the Kip family of New Amsterdam/New York. Isaac first appears on the 1790 census living next to or with Jonathan Mead the Cooper III in Northeast Town, Dutchess County and census records here in Canada at a later date show this family to be descendant of the New York family. Their marriage date known but not found in any records thus far other than Family Bibles. The birth dates for Isaac and his wife Hannah (Mead) Kipp also in Family Bibles but not located in any records thus far. A yDNA match with the Tillsonburg Kipp family also shows a relationship and this family also from the same area in New York. A mystery not solved in his life time sadly as we spent a good amount of time in Dutchess County going through various repositories looking for that single record. An interesting one I noted way back in the early 1970s was for a Henry Kipp living close by (a Quaker) who died young but did live long enough to have been the father of this Isaac. He lived close to Jonathan Mead and one wonders if by chance Isaac worked for Jonathan and spent his youth after the death of Henry (I thought I found a will but it is so long ago) helping at the Mead home later marrying Hannah. I tend to be a bit dreamy in my thoughts on occasion but Edward required solid proof. Interesting that one of the sons of Benjamin (Isaac's second youngest son) named one of his sons Henry but not really strong enough). To Edward's knowledge Isaac did not have any siblings. Born in 1764 we are looking at the time of the American Revolution - Isaac would have been a young child born the year before the beginning of the Revolution (Henry was a Quaker) and by the end of the War Isaac would have been 19 years of age but no history of being a Quaker or being involved in the Revolution. In 1790 the Bible Records show he married Hannah Mead  (she was six years younger than he was). Jonathan Mead, her father, was a Patriot. Edward did think that Isaac's father might be Isaac since they called his first son Isaac. The sons of Isaac (and the first five children were male) were Isaac, Jonathan, James, John, David, Richard Titus, Benjamin and Daniel with daughters Phoebe, Elizabeth and Susannah. All scanned by Edward those letters and he was shredding them himself the last year or so; that project on its way to completion. I have put it off these four years. Isaac and Hannah came to Upper Canada in 1800 with four of their five children (Jonathan Kipp stayed behind with his grandfather Jonathan Mead (most of his older children had gone west in the United States)) and Isaac and Hannah acquired land as settlers in the Oxford/Brant area of now southwestern Ontario. Many many Americans came north to Canada into what is now Ontario in that time frame. Some of Isaac's children moved to Michigan and others to what became Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. 

A smoke day today as the forest fires still rage in the west but the temperature is going to drop and there is rain coming which will help to clear the air. As a country we really need to pull together to recharge our economy and re-create industry lost by free trade. We are moving together as a unit across the country and many of the First Nations are happy but we need to convince more of them that the very existence of Canada depends on us pulling together and creating the kind of economy that will support us into the future. Still the downsizing here and gradually I will be able to sell the house and move to something smaller but I am not in a rush. The time is coming though when it will be too much for me and I can see that. The big thing is keeping it clean and managing the yard. Keeping the lawns cut this is a large property in terms of length. 

I haven't been out in the back for a bit and the dog two doors up was most excited to see someone he knew with all the change about here. There are new electrical lines going in and an upgrade to the transformers. It is going on 50 years since these lines were laid and the houses built with the block that I live in being the first and we watched all of the rest being built. 

I worked on Chromosome 9 once again and still some more to do to complete the cross over points adjustment with the Living DNA results. Removed some of the smaller matches from my Paint DNA charts. They do not add to the information and make it appear cluttered. However they are saved in my "too small" file. 

Today more work on the matches and soon to start. Drinking my lemon ginger tea and will do the solitaire puzzles shortly.  

Friday, July 25, 2025

The Match

 Continued to look at the one match that just doesn't seem to fit first thing and the actual family that this person likely descends from is on Ancestry and from the West Lorne area south west of London so somewhat interesting. It may just remain a mystery as the couple that it traces back to doesn't have parents listed on either side. Time may reveal it but at the moment it is a mystery and will remain in my file interesting but not placeable. 

I continue working on Chromosome 9 as it has a rare match missing tendency on some of the records where it is expected. I have pulled out the crossover points for Chromosome 9 and working away on them with respect to the Living DNA results. It could be that one of the siblings results for Chromosome 9 is just not working on these few results - a mystery and the first time I have encountered such a thing. 

Yesterday was the market day and we will just go a few more times. It is nice to have the lovely fresh crops but I am thinking perhaps it is time to return to growing our own as we have (Edward and I) for a very long time whilst we were raising children especially. They loved gardening when they were young and Edward just always loved gardening. We also went to the Grocery Store (two in fact) and picked up the week's groceries. Made  a lovely pork/apple/carrot/onion/potato dinner in the crock pot which was delicious. The remains we will have as hot meat and vegetable sandwiches. The meat flaked very nicely and will reheat in the lovely sauce made from the apples and broth that we added. 

That pretty well took care of the day although I had thought I might get out there and do the other half of the laneway bricks but I can see the cleared part from the windows and the car hides the uncleared part. However, I will try to get it done one of these days. Collection day today and we did a huge job of shredding so there is an extra box full of shredded paper. That will be our task today to shred even more paper. It is all scanned correspondence Edward received over 60 years of collecting material for his primarily Kipp family actually but gradually after his mother asked he did the Link family as well. So a lot of material but I decided that I would not pass on all of that original correspondence because he didn't ask me to do that and had scanned if at some time in the future someone writes and asks what their grandparents etc might have shared with him. 

So today I am working away on Chromosome 9 for the most part as I create the crossover points based on the Living DNA results just to see if there are any incongruencies with the earlier work. Thus far they have been very slight looking at Chromosome 1. I think I was just lucky getting the entire Chromsome 1 from my father intact from his father - amazing really as there are a lot of matches on Chromsome 1 and I only have two crossover points within the Buller-Pincombe chromosome and two of the lengths have good matches with close cousins so worked very well to look at those many matches. 

Praise be to God that the miners have been rescued in British Columbia and are fine. Mining is so different now as companies are able to take many precautions to protect their workers. We do a lot of mining in Canada. 

The news is escaping me these days and I am deeply into my research once again. Plus I am working on my license renewal so that I can still drive to the grocery store and get my groceries every week or so in the winter. It is just a few blocks and I barely use any gas during that long nine months but the car runs very well and that is good. It is a modern car and they have lots of features to make them more efficient and better at not creating so much pollution. Other than that I do not drive out of my area and my daughter will get the tires changed from now on when she comes for her research breaks. She can get so much done here and spends hours online with her fellow researchers and students working away at the new challenges like AI. It is fun to watch for sure. 

Weightlifting time and must get to that; the morning has flown by. Another beautiful day in God's world although it is cloudy but the rain last night was greatly needed. Mother Nature uses the rain to clean the air and the streets and water the goodness of the earth. 

 

 

 

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Washing Machine repaired and a lovely rest day

 Washing Machine all repaired and it looks like new and now runs like new which is good news. I like the machine; it has a lot of extra features that we do use so it is good that it was repairable. I look forward to washing machines being made in Canada again though as it takes time to get parts. There are so many things that we did make and could make. Free Trade did punish Canada quite a bit but we never complained. I think it should really be Friendly Trade where we sell products that we do have with the world with a reasonable exchange of costs and being a polar country with a long winter we buy things that we do not have. Time will tell how all of that goes but our Trade agreement with the EU is bringing in a lot of items that we used to buy solely from the United States. We still do buy from the United States though and may of our needed goods are produced there (or they were until the companies down there greedily took it all offshore to stop paying decent wages to Americans and hurt their economy). Time will tell on all of this; it always does. 

 Not much done on the matches but I did do a lot on preparing for my Senior Driving License appointment. I learned all about round-a-bouts although did discover I had learned just because we have so many of them now. But the rigorous rules are now part of my lifestyle. Will keep that up as the test is just a few weeks away now. I have an appointment with the optometrist and will take my form with me for my vision. Since my eyes have changed enormously since the cataract surgery (no more blank spots out of my right eye which I was always very cautious of when I was driving), I want to fill in that particular document before my license appointment to support the fact that I no longer need to wear glasses to drive. That in itself is spectacular considering I wore glasses for 78 years of my life. I still look to put them on first thing in the morning but eventually that will pass I suspect. I only wear them now pretty much when I am sitting at my computer or reading a fine print book. I can read large print easily and the TV absolutely amazing to look at the TV without glasses. 

My daughter bought a spinner to use when one hand washes clothes and it is fantastic. When one washed with the bulky cycle on the washing machine you generally have to do an extra spin but using this machine takes out about another litre of water from just the principal run and does it in just five minutes instead of the 11 minutes on the washing machine. But I only use the bulky cycle maybe once a week at the very most. But for hand washing it is great. 

Today work on the matches and I am still sitting with the one from day before yesterday. Not sure why one sibling is missing but it could be that there are two matches from two different lines of the family that just happen to fit together. It is in an area that is common to the Blake family but did not appear to be a Blake match. Will continue to look at that for a bit today and then move on. 

Lovely weather, warm days and cool nights so unusual for July really. Not too much rain this past few days though so must water the sunflowers. That is really our only crop and we are not eating it but the squirrels will! We will plant the Christmas Cactus outside today for its last summer since the winter will kill it off but it will refresh the ground where it sits. 

Grass will need cutting likely by the weekend. I moved my desk so now I can see more blue sky once again. The walnut tree though fills one side of the window pretty much completely now and the amount of blue sky is maybe 10% in the eastern exposure so lovely light in the morning with the trees blocking the too bright light of the sun. 

I may have found another place for Edward's many pictures that are not family. He took a lot of pictures when we were young still at school and before marriage and later after marriage we still went for walks on the campus in our lunch period. Another project to do although must admit I would very much rather Edward was doing it himself. He was gradually downsizing all of his material the last (as I now realize) five years before he passed away. All of the material from his tours with George Anderson has gone to the societies that sponsored the tours (George and Edward managed them) and all the lectures that he gave have been given to these societies. The last year before COVID we drove around the province (mostly me driving!) and met with many of his cousins as he continued to pass material to them or at least share it with them and I have now passed that material on to them. There was (and still is) so much family material that is original that I do not want to see lost to those family lines. There are many researchers in his various family lines so I do continue to try to manage that but I was by then into my own research and working with the material is strange to me although I have sort of a good handle on his lines but not enough really to do any true research for him although I maintain the yDNA study for Kipp and will do so for quite a while I suspect. As I look at the material it does seem sad that he is not there working away at it as he did ever since he retired in 2004 - seventeen years of concentrated research although he had been doing it in his spare time when he was not working or volunteering since I knew him way back in the mid 1960s. Reflecting on that he never actually encouraged me to do my family history as he liked to know that I could roll up my sleeves and do projects for him whenever we traveled to repositories through the years since we married. The work that he did on my parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary book was the extent of his work on my family lines; it was my mother really in her letters about her own pursuits in genealogy along with our cousin George DeKay that ended up seeing me spend my retirement years as well on our family history. 

Drinking tea and solitaire puzzles are next. Thursday already; the week has flown by.  

 

 

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Rest day and the cleaning is all accomplished

Yesterday was incredibly busy but the cleaning did all get accomplished. I also worked away on the matches although stymied by one that is a Pincombe match likely but does not include one of the siblings that it should so a bit perplexing and working on the crossover points for Chromosome 9. Chromosome 9 is interesting as it has huge lengths of Blake and Pincombe as well as Rawlings distributed amongst the five siblings. It has the matches to go with that but the individual that I am working on at the moment has not tested anywhere else in the myriad of testing sites that have been used. So a little more in depth look at the results - I have to be wary that this large match could be a product of two lines and that will be the reason for looking at the cross over points. 

The day flew by quickly and one of the large Christmas Cactus plants is going to have to go, it has some root in the stem and I already have a second one (Edward actually said to throw them out a while before he passed away but they had been here so long I did think I would try to keep them). But we will plant it in the garden for the summer and the winter will take it away as it is not meant for minus 20 or greater. We still also have the three orchids which were his pride and joy for sure. He loved getting them to flower and amazingly we have followed his method (he repeated it to me many many times) and when they flower it is a joy to us in memory of him. 

A walk and kayak at Petri Island Beach completed the day and it was a perfect day for such a walk. The kayaking was also good and it was nice for my daughter as her life is very busy with research at the moment. We chat about AI sometimes when she is not working as that has become a focus of hers; utilizing it that is so that one gets all the benefits but controls the methodology to offset the tendency towards error that exists when AI is not carefully managed. She is a professor though primarily and chats with her research partners and students on their combined research all summer long; she also does love research. She did try to get a job in Canada when she completed her PhD but it was not to be at that time but once again she will try to get a job here as I am getting much older and a fall down the stairs has perhaps alarmed her a little although I was not injured. I now wear shoes as I slipped in my socks on the stair but grabbed the railing and saved myself but I was alone. 

So another day of moving the matches into my databases as I move forward towards re-phasing my grandparents. The endogamy results have been very handy - I knew more or less where it was likely but I have found a couple of new spots which were good to find. 

I must also work on my driver's license renewal. I am totally confused by the renewing of the license plates as I did that when I renewed my license last time but did not get any paperwork on that so will check on that as it is renewal time again. My license was only renewed for two years last time as I am 80 this year. You do not pay for the car license; actually I liked to pay so that I got all the paperwork. Anyway I guess it was a nice treat for most people. 

I also want to get into the two binders of gravestone images that Edward created. They have all been scanned so it would be easy to put them into an *.pdf and publish it under a Creative Commons License but I realized that the actual pictures do not contain the information on location but the indexes where they are located probably does. Anyway we will see how I do with that. Too much to do for sure but it does keep one busy. 

Breakfast completed, two sets of exercises completed and I am waiting for the repair person as the parts for the washing machine have come in. The City is busy upgrading the hydro lines and transformers and there is one just one door down. I noticed a sign at the end of my laneway so let the repair person know. Fortunately they did not block my laneway. Apparently he/she is still coming. Nowadays one doesn't know if the person coming is male or female as so many woman have gone into the trades now. Women should construct washing machines and the like - I am sure they would do great work.

Solitaire puzzles completed. Back to work. 

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Cleaning accomplished and today the last cleaning day

A good working day yesterday and all the planned cleaning was completed. Today it is the top floor and will get started at that around 10. The washing machine parts will go in tomorrow which works very well actually. We went for a lovely walk in the late afternoon and enjoyed the end of the day at the beach. It was a great idea to create the beach at Petrie Island and it is just a drive from here to there. Quite a few people there actually. 

Some work on getting the Living DNA matches into the databases and as I noted when I was extracting them; some of them are very interesting. Areas not really covered well have good lengths due to the much greater percentage of my lines in the British Isles. Have many many second, third and four Pincombe cousins results which have provided a means to separate them quickly into MRCA shared with me likely although some lengths are obviously quite old in this family line and can not be so precisely placed and that is also good. But autosomal does not generally give you that much beyond fifth cousin unless you have endogamy. Then the relationship can be quite ancient. The Buller results are also most interesting as a number of chromosomes where I did not have a Buller match are coming through with these matches. 

We made potato salad to go with our cold chicken thighs (cooked in the oven earlier) and a lettuce salad. It was a lovely dinner. I do so like a cold dinner in the summer. Wrapped up in a round of bread really an excellent way to end the day. I had my usual peanut butter and banana sandwich for lunch and my cooked breakfast in the morning. My meals are much more varied in the summer with so much vegetable that can be purchased at the Farmer's Market. But I do not mind my chicken stew, egg and salmon meals all winter with the vegetables tending to be stored crop from late December to mid May. It is easier to manage the stored crop in the winter for sure. 

I have heard from my American cousins a few times through this past six months and life is not easy for them either through this trade crisis. It is nice that we have a new Prime Minister and parliament to work on the issue and likely we will end up with the mentioned tariff but it will encourage our native industries to flourish once again as we build our energy corridor and increase our dependence on the products of other provinces going east and west instead of buying from the south. It is a shame because it was working so very well it appeared but one cannot tell other countries how to manage their trade but must just carry on and regain our lost industries during free trade. It gives our youth lots of opportunities to create and our businesses that were province restricted the ability to sell all across Canada. We have doubled in size since I was a child and so we are a much larger purchasing unit and just have to seek new markets around the world that want to buy our goods and we will have some new items entering into our system as well. The friendship bond between the United States and Canadian peoples is not broken but the trading may well be gone forever for the most part and that is really up to American companies. 

Sad about the auto industry really as their setup was sound and worked but we will not buy cars that are made elsewhere to any great extent and so a great era in American cars may end; time will tell it really depends on the car companies in actual fact and whether they want to lose a 41 million population base. They could incorporate in Canada and break their close business ties with their American companies but it will be expensive because of the supply chains built up during the Auto Pact over the past sixty years. We always bought Dodge - my entire family and there are many other families that have had their favourite American car manufacturer. 

A beautiful day today and it was cool first thing - unusual for July actually but will not complain. We are well over half way through and our usual drought did not happen. One wonders if an Ice Age will come once again as Climate Change can be very forceful - Mother Nature will attempt to protect the earth from the abuses of modern industrialization and it is a wait and see game. 

Tea drank, solitaire puzzles completed and must do breakfast. Late today.  

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, July 21, 2025

Monday once again and it is cleaning day

Yesterday's soloist was absolutely superb once again; the wonderful choristers who provide the solos and the support for the singing at Church is greatly appreciated by this on-line church goer. I also went to the service in London, England and I do love it when the older Books of Common Prayer are utilized at Mattins.  

Yesterday was a shredding day in the afternoon outside in the fresh air. We went through four large grocery bags of correspondence and shredded 99% of it. It was all scanned and the originals are not of value once scanned. I do not know if anyone will ever read any of that correspondence regarding mostly the Kipp and the Force families but Edward has recorded everything in his online Family Tree originally on World Connect but added to his website after Ancestry purchased World Connect. It is likely also on Ancestry (and certainly is in my account) as that was their purpose in purchasing World Connect.  That was about a four hour stint shredding all of that material that we got done. There is likely another couple of days of shredding to go actually. 

Hopefully the parts for the washing machine will come in today for installation tomorrow. I do hope this works and I am sure the contractor will have told me if the actual motor was worn out after just five short years of my using it! But the washer bin did agitate and rotate after the belt was temporarily restored so we will see how that goes. The intent was to install on Tuesday. Otherwise it is off to the laundromat to wash clothes likely. 

Today is the large cleaning day so the basement and main floor. I will get started at that around 9 setting the robot vacuum to work on the basement rugs.Keeping it up week after week does seem to work very well for me. It is good exercise and with all the down sizing I can manage the cleaning not too badly although it is exhausting on the large cleaning day for sure. 

Worked on the matches and found another incongruency between Gedmatch/23 and Me/FT DNA/My Heritage and Living DNA. But really it is just the areas that are tested by these companies and not truly an incongruency. The larger number of samples of cousins testing in the British Isles makes a huge difference although the databases of these other companies are very large they do tend to be a far more mixed population than the British Isles. One particular area on Chromosome 13 I have not had a Buller match there until now and it painted a slightly altered picture in terms of crossover although just minor movement but it does explain some matches that extended past the crossover. 

My mother certainly did send me on an interesting journey with all the Pincombe matches that have arisen particularly in the Living DNA although I already had a lot of matches for the five siblings in Canada, the United States and other Commonwealth countries. Perhaps one of the greatest Citizen scientists projects in this century, the useage of DNA in family genealogy but also understanding migration around the world. 

Today another smoke day although clearing up into tomorrow. Global warming is such a problem for the polar countries like Canada. I do think though that the latest news that tariffs are here to stay on Canada is probably pretty accurate as we are not going to give up our Supply Management practices - we want to maintain our family farms and are not going to flood our market with foreign produce that we already have ourselves. We allow a certain percentage of dairy into the country because it is interesting to have really good cheeses like from Wisconsin. Plus the percentage quota on dairy has not been exceeded and resulted in tariff by us on anyone. 41 million people eat a lot of cheese and there are cheeses from many dairy countries in the world in our marketplaces. But I do not believe in uncontrolled Free Trade since it just destroys the business of smaller countries by undercutting the prices here and buying the companies out and then closing them down (and these same greedy companies then did not want to pay decent wages and took it offshore and undermined their own industrial base); we have already seen that happen here in the past century.  We need to rebuild our lost industries. 

Drinking tea and solitaire puzzles are next.  

 

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Sunday in God's world

 Raining today and are they God's tears on a world that has so much violence in it. Some Homo sapiens could do a lot better to rid the world of violence - Russia, Iran and its sycophants (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis). Other warring groups are signing truces and vowing to do better. The rain this year has been excessive as has the violence. God our Creator lives in the Heavens where order not chaos rule the day. 

Can a people maintain a lifestyle of quiet life in a modern world? That really is the question. One is left with the thought that only if you can protect what you have otherwise you are run over I suspect. Greed predominates and Canada is full of natural resources wanted/needed by many many countries of the world. We survive best by providing for sale such resources ready to go; the idea of the Energy Corridor running across Canada making it possible for us to sell on all of our coasts is a good plan but implementing it needs to satisfy everyone with 85% of Canadians voting for that very thing. Was the Bloc only voting against change because they think it protects Quebec? The greatest protection for Quebec is being part of Canada as the idea of knowing more than one language continues to be a strong part of the Canadian pattern. My daughter, as a young child, wanted to learn the First Nations language but I did tell her there are very many and you need to choose one or more if the opportunity presents itself. Life didn't present the opportunity for her to learn any in this time frame although now she has studied in English, French, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Chinese. I think our young people are much more flexible even then in my day and more than willing to take on more than one language in their life when opportunity presents itself.  

Sunday today and two Church Services to attend once again - one here and one from London, England. I thought I might pull more weeds from the laneway bricks today but the rain may curtail that. It is half done now and does always look lovely when completed. 

Thank you God for the beauty of the earth and would that mankind directed their efforts towards preserving that earth for the generations to come. 

Tea drank and solitaire puzzles next. 

I had an email looking for the Landkey Parish Register files that I published in the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter. However I was only interested in Landkey up to the mid 1700s so nothing beyond that and those registers as published in the newsletter contain   Baptisms 1602-1766, Marriages 1602-1755, Burials 1602-1763. I will try to get an email reply done but time does escape this nearly 80 year old!

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Finally, sweeping the front porch, patio and weeding down the laneway

 I finally got to sweeping the front porch and patio, weeding between the bricks and pulling weeds here and there in the front garden. I also started to work down the bricks along the laneway. It will take a bit of time to get that all done but then it will look lovely for a few days until the weeds grow again - hardy little things! A large bag of weeds and big branches that came down in the wind went out to the street for Collection Day. I just happened to walk to the back of the yard and discovered these large branches from the maple tree on the ground so that too is all cleared away. My daughter weeded the sunflowers although left enough weed that hopefully the rabbit will eat that instead of the sunflowers which are getting tougher stems and leaves now so less appealing. Next year, if we are still here, we will fence it at the beginning so that all the seeds get to grow. It was meant to be a large block of sunflowers. 

Some weeding in the back yard but not a great deal. The one side looks much as Edward last set it up but the other side, deteriorated greatly from last year, and putting in the new fences did not particularly help that. But as I approach 80 I am satisfied that I am at least keeping the grass cut with my daughter's help. I am not a gardener at the best of times but rather I just helped Edward through the 54.5 years of our marriage. All of us would have liked to have had him survive but life doesn't always flow the way we would like. 

Completed Chromosome 1 and there are a few very minor changes in the cross over points - a couple of them were very close together and the new results from Living DNA shows that these are shared crossover points for two siblings which makes it much neater. Two cross over points are somewhat ambiguous but the rest are within a couple of numbers of the original numbers obtained using 23 and Me data along with Gedmatch. I continue with just two crossover points on this longest chromosome.  I did discover that the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center states that it is typical to have 2-3 crossover points per chromosome during meiosis. It does look like 2 to 3 is the average for Homo sapiens on individual chromosomes. DNAeXplained mentions that Chromosome 1 has three crossovers 27% of the time. So that was interesting as well. With five sibling results I found that to be between 2 and 5 crossovers on Chromosome 1. In total for five siblings 40 chromosomes out of a total of 5x2x22 chromosomes were inherited without a crossover which will be verified by this work. That is 18% of the chromosomes inherited from our parents were passed unchanged from their parents. DNAeXplained mentions that 94% of offspring will inherit between 4 and 12 chromosomes that have no crossover points (i.e. inherited from a single grandparent). The 40 is an average between these two numbers 4 and 12 but slightly on the low side so that is also very interesting. Homo sapiens is refreshed each generation by the exchange of genes and it would appear that on average most meiotic events occur in an average exchange of chromosomal material at conception. 

We have much to learn about DNA and in general the best process is the natural process. However if people are willing to pay for it correction can be made for mitochondrial disease and eliminating harmful sections of DNA in order to produce a viable offspring. Do I believe in this? coming out of science background I cannot deny that benefits are perhaps available to people but we need a generation of testing to ensure that we do not upset the natural process which is always the best. What happens naturally in nature is generally the most forward way to move. Lifestyle has far more to do with a successful life than anything else but there are diseases that can curtail life for those unfortunate babies born with mitochondrial disease or other non-life supporting disabilities. But one must remember that Einstein did not speak until he was ten years of age - he had nothing to say that he valued up to that point presumably. So one must be careful how one judges the forward movement of children in learning. That is why AI is useless as a teacher but can be utilized under the control of researchers in a systematic manner to enable a much further reach into the literature in a much shorter period of time.  But skill and craftsmanship will always be better than AI which is really only a computer that we set up to serve a purpose. 

Today will be more work on the laneway perhaps; time will tell. Definitely I have plans to work on my matches and get them into the databases (chromosome 1 was just a feeler as to what might be there in this new data). Yesterday was weight lifting as the extra exercise so today is rowing for sure and whatever else comes to mind as the day flows forward. 

Drinking my tea having put away the items in the dishwasher and the first set of yoga-stretching exercises are completed. The next set just before breakfast again primarily walking and yoga along with one set of 100 jumping jacks. The day continues and I must get on with it. Solitaire puzzles are next for a bit of a brain teaser. 

One of these new style light fixtures wore out and we have four of them that are wired in (Edward loved all the new things for sure!). That is not really practical so will replace with screw in type fixtures over the next little bit. I need to go to the store and pick something out and find someone to do the work. I could do it but will do the right thing and employ someone locally if I can find someone. The washing machine will hopefully be repaired on Tuesday and today is Saturday and looks to be a lovely day. We had a good time kayaking and walking yesterday after working in the garden.  

 

 

Friday, July 18, 2025

Canada in its quest to rebuild its economic identity

When 85% of Canadians voted to support the Conservative and Liberal platforms this year which also elected the Liberal Party and Mark Carney as Prime Minister we had a purpose and that was to rebuild our economic identity lost during the long years of Free Trade. I do not think even once that Canada complained about Free trade. We should have resisted our Canadian companies being taken over and nothing being made here anymore hardly that was totally Canadian. But life was hard after the Second World War as we recovered in mind and soul. I can remember all of that and the flood of immigrants who came to Canada (and life is making itself like that again as floods of people want to come here) but gradually we entered into hum of reality after the Second World War and people prospered and the Free Trade deals were created. Was it our fault that the companies (generally American) that bought out Canadian companies then turned to Asia and produced their products there? No not really it was just finance but the punishment is huge now for us. The recovery of Canada is on the edge and needs help to move forward. Everyone pulling together but can one hang back and say no we just want it as it was. Is that even safe? the hordes are at the gates so to speak - internally there are those who would overthrow this beautiful democracy that has been created and turn it into a dictatorship run by the ultra rich it would appear. The ultra rich does not want to pay proper wages or provide care for people. They just want the profits from their companies or investments. They are selfish because they do not have a history of caring for the peoples of their land - they have no idea how that works (not part of their upbringing I guess) as they can see lots of people straining to come here and so there will always be replacements. Individually they do not need any of those who are not ultra rich because they can see replacements all over the world. Nothing is safe unless we, the public of Canada, take a stand and do what needs to be done to re-create our industries and build that energy corridor that will make us self-sufficient to the end of time. 

What prompted my thought? It was my washing machine just five years old and it needs repairs like a new belt to drive the washing drum and a hose because it leaks! I lived in a family of nine people and one washing machine ran for most of the time that I lived in that house. Now I do not abuse my washing machine - I treat it with tender loving care. It shouldn't have broken down in just five years. Well I can leave that with faulty workmanship where the belt is concerned and poor setup where the hose is concerned likely. We bought it just at the start of the COVID shutdown and it took two months to get it. The person who came to install it (and I did pay for that) did basically nothing; I had to install the dryer vent myself because he didn't like the setup. As it turned out my daughter's husband and her father in law finished the task as I was missing one item and it was perfectly installed with no effort. I paid to have it installed and I would never buy from that company again. They were irresponsible and took no care. I did have a warranty with them but it did expire a year ago. Well that is getting managed although I was tempted to just buy a new machine as I hate having all that trouble but really would I just be in the same state in five years but by then for sure I will have moved. It is just a small price a washing machine really less than one thousand dollars but the nuisance level is huge. We need to get back to where we build things and they are well built! Once this is fixed it will be a great machine once again. 

I do understand the desire to have life remain as it is without any interference; no one wanting to build roads or interfere in the forest area in order to create this energy corridor. Wab Kinew has it right though; we need to move forward as fast as possible and having a full service port on Hudson Bay is an excellent idea and would provide a means to get oil and canned gas to British Isles/European markets as well as western on a much more immediate basis.  We are limited by winter months though when Hudson Bay is frozen over. I also think the Pipeline to the eastern areas of Canada is a must so that we do not import our own oil back refined which we sold at a discount and pay far more to bring it back. Plus we can have an Atlantic Port as well for easier access during the long winter months. 

I continued yesterday working on Chromosome 1. As the longest chromosome it is a good starting point since I have already been through the angst of creating phasing diagrams. I think my chromosome one is very unusual as I inherited the entire Blake Chromosome intact from my father which he of course received from his father and it would have been a combination of his two grandparents and indeed on this chromosome I have a mixture of Known Knight and Blake. I only have two crossover points which  give me a length of Pincombe surrounded by two lengths of Buller. As chance would have it I have two know Buller cousins to collaborate on the second Buller length, no one known to collaborate on the Pincombe or the first Buller length. The Blake though is well represented with cousins descended from Ellis Knight and his wife Eleanor (Knight) Knight (likely 2nd cousins and my 3x great grandparents) covering the lengths from nearly the beginning of the chromosome to the end with some cutouts that are matching a cousin with whom I share the MRCA of Edward Blake and Maria Jane (Knight) Blake (my great grandparents). The Buller is particularly strong and all descendant of cousins with the MRCA of Henry Christopher Buller and Anne (Welch) Buller (my 2x great grandparents). It does make my chromosome 1 a rather perfect base for the five siblings. The Living DNA is giving me slightly different points of crossover but varying by very little in actual fact (the companies choose their testing point and they can vary here and there). Since this is not an exact science that I am using for the crossover but rather just the first two/three digits of the crossover point, one could perhaps one day be more precise since the actual values are known to nine digits or less for those under 100,000,000 centimorgans. It will be an interesting week working through the 22 chromosomes provided. 

Today I shall go out and fill a bag and hopefully sweep as the debris from the tree out front is collecting. Edward has a blower but I find it a bit heavy to carry about so a broom suits me well!

Tea drank and solitaire puzzles next. Beautiful out today as I put the garbage out early this morning as it is Collection Day. Time passes onward and waits for no one; we must keep running to stay caught up because not doing so exposes us to far more hazard than just keeping going as fast as we can. God the Creator made the world for all of us and we really must learn to live together and move forward together like Tecumseh and Brock all those many years ago and bring Canada to their economic might in the world. Because we will just be over run if we do not.  

Thursday, July 17, 2025

Downsizing and a couple of new tasks

 Downsizing is great but a new task emerged which I had not considered before now. In our trips to the Northern United States in particular over the last fifty years we visited a lot of graveyards deep into the woods on occasion and took pictures of the gravestones of Edward's ancestors. There are two binders of these pictures (not actually part of the 40 plus binders that are under current survey) and I have resolved to put them into a *.pdf file and publish them as ancestral photos of gravestones and I think his index tells where they are located (hopefully). A smallish project really as just two binders but it has a greater likelihood of happening. What to do with the binders when I have completed the task? I could ask the OGS Library if they want them and will probably do that but the actual images are all scanned and in the backups so do not need to keep these printed pictures at all. 

So another task to do but it could be a diversion whilst I work on the cross-over points using the Living DNA data for the five siblings. I did begin with that yesterday and have Chromosome 1 completed as coming directly from the Living DNA data. I will work with this data somewhat as it is influenced, I think, by the points that have been selected by this company as testing points for DNA matching. Where there are very small gaps in particular I can ignore those as cross-over points as they are likely just a product of the methodology used for the actual running of samples. I note that it shows up quite strongly in just one sibling. The problem areas that I found with the original phasing is showing up quite consistently in these new match results and were truly ambiguous so that was good to find as well. 

I do want to get together the journal that I still contribute to the OGS Library along with some family newsletters and get them to the library. It is hard to believe that it is a year since I last took them a box of items. What I thought was a real stack is really just a few items actually as it included a box which turns out to be a bankerbox full of back-ups that we need to review and discard if they are backed up adequately in the present. These backups go back to the last century! 

Edward was very consistent in backing up all of his material from a very early time in the life of computers but then he did work with electronic messaging systems almost from his arrival at CISTI where he worked for 30 years. When he was there, retired in 2004,  it was a busy place heavily involved in research but then Prime Minister Harper sold the library to the United States which was pretty weird at the time and remains pretty weird. Why would anyone sell or close up libraries as he did - it will be forever a black mark against him trying to destroy research and gag researchers preventing them from attending particularly foreign conferences. Life moves forward always and if you do not like the research perhaps one should examine why that is rather than suffocating research. 

The oil industry must survive the perils of research the same as all other industries have overtime. Research perfects the system to make it better, safer and more economical. It was such items that cost the Conservative Party their control of government  in Canada. A return to the Progressive Conservative fundamentals is what is needed in order for them to win again - I am after all a Conservative but a great believer in science and its value in the human sphere. Attacking the Prime Minister on a personal level continues to be a no-go for me unless he is breaking the law. I do not care what stocks he owns if they are in a blind trust. Obviously the man is not stupid and does know where his money is likely invested. I haven't seen anything yet that I do not like that he is doing. He is walking a very fine tightrope dealing with this tariff issue and I was accepting of his saying that likely there will be a tariff in the end on Canadians exports to the United States that are not covered by CUSMA but we can do a claw-back on American imports just the same to match. Farm management is never up for change because we will protect our family farms! I mean putting tariffs on us at the time was unkind (which is basically a very weak comment on my part) considering the close and honest relationship between us and stripping shelves here of American products was just a tit for tat and continues thus.  That is life and the government coffers here need money to manage projects which are huge to come in this country once acceptance is gained by all involved parties (we let our local industries go over the past fourty years but now we can re-invent them and build this country to be the great powerhouse it will be). Roll up the sleeves and lets get to work building this energy corridor that 85% of Canadians voted for. Re-invent the industries that were destroyed by free trade over the past fourty years and get our youth working at meaningful work not sitting behind a desk staring at computers. The Americans will always be our friends though and for some of us our cousins!

So today is another research day. Yesterday I completed the fifth sibling's extractions from the Living DNA site. There are 230 new files to put into my databases and I have completed the first couple of them yesterday.  I have one new folder that will include all of those files that demonstrated endogamy and have already built the file structure for that as they will primarily be part of the Knight family (my great grandmother (wife of Edward Blake) and includes a number of family lines - Knight, Arnold, Butt, Ellis, and a couple of other ones where blocks of data are composed of sticky pieces of DNA coming down from these ancestors and looking like just one grandparent but are in reality coming down from several different great great great grandparents and can be readily distinguished and separated. These particular matches will not form part of the larger system that I use looking at new matches but rather just to illustrate the areas where endogamy is occurring and lets me slot these matches into the correct family line coming down from those 3x great grandparents. 

The smoke  slowly dissipating with Air Quality now at 69 which is still above good but not too bad. It is just 23 degrees celsius but feels like 28 degrees celsius apparently and rain is coming likely as the humidity is 94%. 

Drinking tea and solitaire puzzles are next and then breakfast.  

 

 

 

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

A moment in time

 My moment in time this year was the passing of my younger brother (just 17.5 months younger actually) and we were very close as young children. I used to take his hand and we would go for walks before I went off to school (Kindergarten) and then slowly but surely the strong friendship disappeared as we grew up and went our separate ways (me primarily as I married at 20 and then we moved 700 kilometres away when I was 29). We just lost touch although I did phone him through the years but we drifted apart as well. We got back together for a bit when my older brother and I started doing the family DNA and he asked John to be part of that. He was enthusiastic at the beginning but it did wane unfortunately but it was a good joining item for us to get back together at least on the phone. However, time always moves forward in a daily eventful way and we are better for it actually. Leaving the past behind (good or bad) is better for us although the memories are lovely of the good times with my siblings. 

I did start to read the manual for driving in Ontario and it no longer is a one day read I discovered unless one kept at it all day! The booklet that I had when I learned to drive, a wonderful instructor for sure and he gave me a copy of the booklet that I needed to know (he said) from cover to cover and I did take that literally and had it memorized by the next week! For me driving was something I had wanted to do but no one dared to go anywhere in a car with me because my vision was impaired although corrected somewhat with my lenses which were very thick and imposing I suspect on anyone who actually looked at them. After all a student ophthalmologist told me I would be blind when I was 20 and I was all of six years of age at the time. I did take that seriously at the time and learned braille! But at 20 I could still see although my sight was always one of my weak points. My grandmother had taught me to read when I was three years of age because she felt that I needed something that would get me to sit down for more than a minute at a time and it was successful to the extent that I would hide away in my attic bedroom and read all summer long until my mother rooted me out to play!

Moments in time are special and I must admit I would love to go back to my hometown one of these days and visit the graves of my parents/grandparents and brothers (three of them gone now) sadly missed but yet they were ill and one must accept that illness restricts in one's old age. And so life moves on as it always does but the memories of my brothers will always be with me. 

Cleaning all accomplished yesterday I am content to say although I was pretty beat by the end of the day. But even though I could have more help I need to be able to manage these things on my own until I cannot at least that is my humble opinion. It is good exercise for sure for both the body and the mind. 

We still have smoke although it is coming down and hopefully will pass the next couple of days so that we can get out for long kayaks and walks once again. The yard needs clearing up. A huge branch came down whilst we were away and it was surprising as it was still a live branch rather than a dead one. Perhaps a big storm no ideas on that. Cleared it away partially and will get it broken up for the garbage pickup this week. The grass is starting to look like it needs cutting. There is always weeding to do but the sunflowers that survived being eaten as seeds and young plants are coming up nicely. The rabbit is mostly nibbling at the tender young shoots of weeds and leaving the thicker sunflower leaves alone which is great. 

Today some work on the matches I suspect. I have not yet gotten back to the Latin documents I was working on at the time that John passed away but will get to that as well. I generally do my Latin Duolingo lessons every day along with my French Duolingo lessons. Back to German in the fall likely. That is just sort of a maintenance thing; I learned German at University (mostly scientific) and perhaps I will use my German but probably not. Edward and I were re-learning our German in a more colloquial way in preparation for our trip to Germany in 2020 that we did not take because he was ill and COVID cancelled it anyway. Working at the German reminds me of our time spent together relearning our German. 

Up early drinking my tea and will perhaps have a nap and then breakfast and on to the matches and a day of exercise inside pretty much I expect.  

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Preparing for License Renewal

I shall start reading the  Official Ministry of Transportation Driver's Handbook today just to sharpen up my memory of the rules. I only need my license to drive to the grocery store and back in actuality as I do not go out of my area on the roads anymore. I am too busy and I hate shopping so have no need to go anywhere actually except for food which I can have delivered. However, I will go and renew my driver's license as it is handy to have. Who knows I might have to drive someone to the hospital or something like that in an emergency but for the most part at nearly 80 emergency is a word in my past for sure. 

Today is the second cleaning day and it is an all day affair for the most part although I take breaks. The main floor and the basement get the cleaning today. Yesterday went very well and was accomplished primarily in the morning. Today is another day of the heat wave and at 7:00 a.m. it was 19 degrees celsius and at 7:45 it is now 21 degrees celsius and brilliant sunshine. I have the windows all covered with drapes etc at the back where the sun shines in. The air conditioner is working well and set at 24 degrees celsius although it doesn't come on very often generally mostly the dehumidifier runs. 

Still have moving on the brain and gearing myself up to downsizing once again for this move. No idea when I will move but the where is gradually coming into view although I doubt that I will have a clear thought on that before next spring. But move I need to do as this house is too much work for me. 

No work done on the extraction of matches and probably not today either but back to that tomorrow likely. I would like to complete the last sibling's extractions so that I can start entering them into the database. I will also be paying attention to the endogamy and recording that on a separate database now that I have a clearer picture of the involved chromosomes where we all inherited from the Knight-Arnold-Butt families and how they break down into these family lines. The Routledge is actually more difficult and I may not yet have adequate information although the number of matches with Routledge has increased exponentially with the Living DNA results which is not surprising as most of those cousins are still in England with just Thomas Routledge and his wife Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge coming to Canada in the late summer/early fall of 1818 and my first Canadian colonials with their daughter (married a Gray and they are my 2x great grandparents) also born in England with them along with their other eight children (one daughter already married came with her husband and children as well). However the footprint of this family is not that large in that most of the sons never married (and had no children) with just one son marrying and he and his wife had nine children and all three daughters married where the bulk of the descendants continue into my generation although the one son who married was the father of seven sons and two daughters so quite a few descendants in the Routledge surname there. But primarily the relatives remained in England. 

I would really have liked to have seen the session in Parliament last much longer this year (surely a couple of weeks off in the summer is adequate given the present situation) and some movement towards the energy corridor right across Canada. However, I am still willing to give the Prime Minister a break (a honeymoon) so to speak and I think that the news sources should do the same after all what they write is read especially on line and we must continue our trend of support (85% of Canadians voted for the platforms put forward by the major two parties Conservative and Liberal) for the government to get the job done. Internal trade seems to be coming together with the hurdles between the provinces coming down and it is what we buy and sell everyday in our country that is most important - trade is a luxury; nice to have when it works for us but otherwise the internal sales in a country are the most important. 

The weekend plus at the cottage was good for me. Left me a bit disorganized as we had to shop more than once for groceries and with our downsizing had taken items to Salvation Army as well as mailing boxes to cousins of Edward's material so quick trips here and there in my socks and shoes with a dress. It must have looked very 1950s for sure! 

Drinking tea and solitaire puzzles are next. Then yoga and breakfast.  

 

Monday, July 14, 2025

Excellent Sermon yesterday at Church

 The Service at Christ Church Cathedral online was very interesting and the Sermon thought provoking. I like the way that the sermon flowed. We are into the quiet time of the year in the Season of Pentecost (old name Trinity). No choirs only a soloist and they have been spectacular these weeks. Thank you to them for their dedication to the service. 

Spent the afternoon, since it was a rainy one, cleaning out the large closet and reordering everything for ease in downsizing. One big box for our niece of some items which will mean more to her than us because it was part of her childhood since she lived with her grandmother (Edward's mother). There is still so much of Edward's material that we once again sorted through and made a complete box (we hope) of all the Kipp material for the family in southwestern Ontario (Oxford and Brant Counties) and then in Chilliwack British Columbia. I need to find an archives that will take the single Banker's Box as the material has been published in a book and do not want to see the original images lost.  

Two binders of gravestones as well for Edward's American Colonial ancestors. Our trips down into the Northern United States in the East were many (usually five or six times a year) to visit the various graveyards generally on the way to Family Reunions or Genealogical meetings meant that we were able to go to many graveyards that we otherwise would not have visited. There are also copies of gravestones in local cemeteries in southwestern Ontario. I need to check and see if the OGS Library will take this material along with a small package of UEL material that he collected to use for his talks. Since that is a duplicate of original material though there isn't any loss there of material if I am unable to donate it. We also gathered up another load for Salvation Army including the Christmas Tree which is too large for me and a box of decorations - I suspect they sell such things. It will be just in time for this year's Christmas for someone wanting to have that at a lower price. 

Cleaning day as well so will work on sending letters about the material in between bouts of cleaning. This is the top floor once again and with the big closet already done it will be less work this time. I will clean out my closet I think this next Sunday. I have pretty much stuck to online material for my studies so just have one big box of material that is printed. 

There is smoke out there today; the perennial hazard of living in a heavily wooded country (40% of our land area is forest and that is almost 10% of the world's forests). Nearly 40% of our land mass is Arctic and northern as well. Just under 80% of the population of Canada lives within 160 kilometres of the Canada-US border although there is still a good portion outside of that perimeter including nearly 200,000 above the Arctic Circle. But we are a fairly  mobile population with huge movements north all year long for various reasons. 

Time to make tea; I am a bit late today I guess but decided to write my blog first.  

Sunday, July 13, 2025

Do we actually need external trade; that is the question?

 Pipelines are what we need and distribution for liquid gas to sell internally ( no more importing of our own oil back refined). Building materials are needed here to house all the people. More internal production of items we actually need like refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, clothing and less importing of these items. Back to when we produced everything we needed pretty much because we can eat turnip, cabbage, carrots all winter since we store up so much and we have plenty of protein product from the fish in the waters to the meat on the land and the products of such cultivation - cheese and other protein sources. Still stored carrots in the store here; not as nice as last fall but they are edible and they are Canadian. Invest in Canada if you are Canadian; we are a powerhouse. Trade is just a luxury item and like all luxury items not really needed just interesting. But we need to concentrate on re-inventing our industries lost during free trade. Our youth has the opportunity to reinvent these many products as they look for work to do that is meaningful. 

Always interested in being in the wooded areas of Canada. One must always be on one's toes and safeguard any fires so that we minimize wildfire to storms. As always that is the main cause of wildfire. Surrounded by the bush for miles has this very ethereal effect really on one's brain as you sit out in the middle of a lake first thing in the morning and just smell the air, listen to the birds and it is a truly memorable experience that wakens the brain cells and re-energizes these old bones for sure and blisters the fingers kayaking. Kayaking all alone on an empty lake is a beautiful experience and communion with God. God put us on this earth to care for it; nurture it and not destroy it. He put us on this earth to use our brains to ensure that the best life can be obtained by all; Jesus reinforced that message when he told us the two great commandments - Love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and love (respect I read) our neighbour as ourself at all times and in all places (are you listening Russia and Hamas (the Houthis, Hezbollah and their supplier Iran)). This world can not survive given the ability to destroy it held by ignorant people (are you listening Russia) if these ignorant people do not withdraw back into their borders. God loves the world and World War II taught us that as He watches and He waits; He does not act. Peace has to come on the terms that He set and sent Jesus (His son) to tell us. When will the world wake up! Armageddon was World War II but we survive by the Grace of God and now it is our job to continue the work of all that youth that died on the battlefields of Europe in pursuit of freedom. Does mankind never learn; one wonders. 

Sunday and it is Ordinary time (the Trinity for Christians) as the summer wears itself away and already the darkness descends earlier day after day as we head towards fall. The richness of the fields as we drove to the cottage was beautiful to see. Lots of stored vegetables for the winter once again. Lots of cattle out in the fields also storing up for their consumption next winter. Still no shovels in the ground that I can see and we do need to move on this economic powerhouse idea put forward by both the Liberal and the Conservative parties - 85% of us voted for that and we all need it to happen sooner rather than later. 

Back to work on the books and the other items I continue to think about but do not accomplish to any degree. At the moment I am engrossed in the extraction of the remaining data from the last sibling as I work my way towards the rephasing of my grandparents with 100% British data which should prove interesting and already I can see where it will resolve the few conflicts that I had with the earlier data. Then on to the great grandparents and writing the books on the Pincombe family of North Molton, Devon, England and perhaps Pencombe, Herefordshire, England and Blake of Andover, Hampshire, England. When those are done then I move to the Buller family of Bermondsey, Surrey, England and Birmingham, Warwickshire, England (and are they descendant of the Buller family of Cornwall) and the Rawlin[g]s family of Pewsey, Wiltshire, England and Collingbourne Dulcis, Wiltshire, England. Along the way I am picking up my French once again to get back to my son in law's French Canadian families from various places in France although several of them concentrated in the south east near Ile de Ré where my husband's Huguenots lived before coming to Staten Island, American Colonies in the early 1700s. 

Today though will be Church online and I look forward to that. 

Then some weeding this afternoon if it does not rain when I am wanting to do that! 

Prayers for those who died in the Texas floods and continuing prayers as the hunt for survivors continues.  


Saturday, July 12, 2025

Back from the cottage

 Spent a couple of days at the cottage  and it was lovely - spent most of it kayaking and swimming. Home again and lots to do here for sure. I must get to work on the laneway border and other weeding plus sweeping the front patio and porch. The birds have been busy eating the raspberries, currants and gooseberries. I am sure they are enjoying that tremendously. 

Another busy day tomorrow and it is also Sunday so Church online.  

Prayers continuing for all the people who died in the floods in Texas and prayers continuing as they search for survivors.  

 

Friday, July 11, 2025

Hamas is at a crossroads

Hamas does not serve a useful purpose in the world at this time. They are a terrorist group with no respect for the Israeli peoples indeed they have stated they wish to destroy them. They are satanists and have held some of the original 250 plus hostages for more than 2.5 years including the deceased. They could at this time release all hostages and get out of Gaza. They do nothing for the people of Gaza and indeed use them as victims dead and alive in their ruthless  desire to eliminate the Israeli people. More people die everyday in Gaza because they do not release the hostages immediately and unconditionally. 

Thursday, July 10, 2025

Continuing with the matches

On page 8 of the matches now and they are primarily 2 segments with a few 1 segment so will be doing the entire page it does appear although half or more will likely just be placed into the grandparent line or in some cases two grandparents lines as either or or simply insufficient data. As one reaches toward the end of this project in terms of extraction, impatience does enter in just a little but squashed it and moved on. Must be patient working my way through these last 50. Then the task of assigning them into the different files and there are  225 new files. Also back to the other testing companies to check out any new matches and then on to phasing of the grandparents once again but most importantly I hope to phase the great grandparents as a result of all the work at Living DNA since this population most represents my lines going back in that I am 100% English going back many many generations until I reach my Scot lines, my Huguenot lines, my unknown lines that appear to be Scandinavian/Germanic but they are way back with the Huguenot having a known date around 1480 and my Scot around 1400 before they came to England. Is there Irish in there or is it just English lines that went to Ireland and then came back again - all five of us show some Irish as a percentage and that includes at Living DNA. 

Shopping yesterday for essentials - batteries for the smoke detectors (will install them today), lights for the rangehood over the stove (one was burned out), watermelon lozenges (this dental appliance dries out my mouth), and some food. That completed it and we were done in about 2 hours. It always takes such a long time to do everything. Lots of rain this July so not a lot of kayaking or walking outside. Unusual not to be in a drought situation actually. 

Prayers continuing for all those who died in the floods in Texas (how sad so many children) and prayers continuing as the search for survivors continues (last noted was 170 people still missing in one county alone). Our American neighbours and cousins in my case have so many natural disasters during a year. Their lives have been very difficult this year. 

Yesterday we also took four boxes of CDs and one stack of records to Salvation Army. Hope they sell well for them - Edward would like that. They were his collections and I want to keep everything but I need to move. This house is too big for me and there are so many families looking for this price range of house and so the downsizing will continue once again until I am able to move. It has been a lovely family home for us and Edward never wanted to leave it really. He loved that huge garden but his need for a pacemaker way back in 2012 meant that he could no longer maintain it as he wanted to although the pacemaker did help but my lifestyle changed rapidly from one of writing to one of gardening. I am not good at it and do not get the joy out of it that he did but I do try to keep the lawns cut and the weeds down somewhat and let his flowers continue to bloom year after year. 

Tea drank and solitaire puzzles next to do. Another day of intermittent exercise and working on the matches extraction.  

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

One's pension

The majority of one's pension (unless you never worked) is money earned by you and invested by you. The only give away amount by the federal government is the OAS (and if you worked you have helped to produce this as well since when you worked you supported the Old Age Security (OAS) for the old in your generation). But in general it is money that is surplus to what you have earned and saved for retirement through your life. The TFSA (created by the Conservative Government in 2009 and this is a really good idea) is perhaps the best tool yet in the retirement toolkit and should be utilized if you are able from the age of 18 years on - instead of buying cigarettes and other junk put it into the TFSA for your enjoyment in retirement. You can invest inside of the TFSA and one of the really good ideas that Pierre Poilievre put forward was a bonus amount on top of the current $7000 per year that you can put into the TFSA if you invest in Canadian projects. Being able to put away $10,000 a year from the age of 18 to the age of 70 (and not counting the interest accrued) is $520,000 (the interest would potentially make this much much larger over a period of 52 years giving you a nest egg that is not taxed when you take it out). So we need to ensure that our pension money is directed towards Canadian projects to really make this growing Canada aspect work. This isn't for us, the old, this is for the future and a down payment on the success of all the grandchildren and great grandchildren who live here. 

Prayers continuing for those who died in the floods in Texas and prayers continuing for the missing still the count is at 160 with over 100 dead. How incredibly sad that so many of them are children. 

Cleaning all accomplished and the Fit Bit tells you so much about how you spent your day amazingly. For instance I definitely over did it cleaning and so my sleep was somewhat disturbed as too much exercise can do that but the compromise gives me three days of cleaning which is just too time consuming and so I continue knowing that the overwork will be noted in my restless sleep and move on. 

Today continuing with the collection of matches for the final sibling and I continue on page 6 of the matches at Living DNA. I suspect that I will only do to page 7 as there are fewer matches for this sibling. A couple of interesting ones yesterday in the Blake line. There is a length on one chromosome that tends to be there for every Blake result in the Andover line. Interesting to see how far back it will go as there is a group of Americans who have tested on Living DNA with this particular length. As the knowledge of DNA grows individual lengths will become interesting and our understanding of the health and well-being of people will be greatly enhanced. DNA does not control how we live our life medically speaking but rather life-style but good genes from the beginning are also an asset so long as one has a good life-style which must include a good amount of exercise and maintaining a good weight for your age and size. 

I am dropping into 23 and Me most days to see if there will be any changes in how we can look at our results since I have access to my own and two of my brothers (I will never regret spending the money to test at so many places in particular my one brother who was my co-investigator in all of this). 

The 21st century will be exciting although at the moment it is totally clogged by financial happenings out of the control of most countries. In being benevolent following the Second World War some of our economies became warped one might say and lop-sided and we do need to restore ours to that system where we produce many things locally because external trade (although it can be a game changer for some people and even for some countries where their product level is high in valuable products) is not the most important item in a country but rather that it can produce what it needs in order to be the most productive for themselves - external trade is a bonus. 

 Tea drank and solitaire puzzles next on the list. Then breakfast. This day is beginning late for sure. 

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

On to cleaning day two

Yesterday cleaning day one all accomplished with one extra my daughter cleaned out the large closet where most of my husband's boxes are stored and so that is dust free once again. It is a large task and I am thankful that she took time out of her research to do that for me. I always mean to do it but she is stronger for sure. So the top floor all completed. 

Still in my mind this idea of moving and it is more concrete than it has been for quite a while. But still it will not be before spring likely; spring would be a nice time as that is when I am the most likely to overdo it in the garden although I noticed this year I didn't do that. I am just not a gardener but one side of the yard looks pretty much as Edward had kept it; the other side for some reason was badly eroded by the fence building and it was an area mostly used for gardening tomatoes, peppers and herbs so there was a lot of bare ground there anyway and weeds will always fill it. The spring flowers came up not quite as plentiful as they too suffered from the erosion but they did bloom; some of them. What will a new place look like? It will be smaller (one floor possibly, a bungalow) out of the city and with a small lot although woods would be fine. It will be near a waterway for kayaking. But primarily it will be smaller and hence I must continue to downsize although furniture wise I have downsized a great deal so it is the boxes and the 40 albums of pictures and more boxes. That is a process I will begin this summer as well. I will strip out all but the family pictures. I will collect up all the pictures of Edward's nieces and their families to send to them. That should reduce the size of the binders considerably and perhaps by as much as one half. I am actually aiming for ten binders of family pictures from the mid 1960s when we met to 2000 when the switch was made to digital and no more printing. So one binder for four years and since the early years have fewer pictures it will likely be one binder for every two to three years and then perhaps one binder from the mid 1960s to just before the mid 1970s when there are considerably fewer pictures.  So there is a plan in motion once again for downsizing. This house could be home to a nice sized family perhaps with the four bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. Edward maintained it very well and I helped him with painting so it could be a move-in fairly quickly and just the basement perhaps to do work on. Edward never wanted to really finish the basement and it is roughed in so easy to move forward to doing more with that. The backyard is huge and nice for children although so many spend time on their computers now. I would have put a pool in and that would be a good choice to get children outside for sure! But other than that an easy move in I suspect. That is important I think. I hope to find the same once we get looking. All my stuff fits into my one room concept that I have pretty much maintained now since I retired. I am not attached to the dishes and everything that belonged to my mother or my grandmothers is in two glass fronted bookcases but there is still a lot of Edward's collections with the coffee mugs and his mother's dishes. But I already told my daughter they are hers and do not think about them. 

Yesterday I completed page five of the matches and will work on six today starting once again with 1 segment and working my way up - gradually as I work through these matches the four or five dwindle away and some are just tagged insufficient data or nothing at all. This sibling has fewer matches so the task may be completed sooner than I think. The singleton matches with five siblings are always a surprise but sometimes one or the other of us inherits a length of chromosome that no one else does. I generally collect those matches down to a slightly smaller level just out of interest. 

The rain was heavy again yesterday which is unusual for July but the ground will not mind; the sunflowers are growing quickly now and above the weeds. But the weeds have helped to keep the rabbit from eating up all the sunflowers. If we are still here next year we will fence it again while the sunflowers grow. 

Tea still a bit hot and will move on to solitaire puzzles. Then the cleaning can begin.  

Prayers for those lost in the floods in Texas, how sad to lose so many children. Prayers for the recovery effort. I have many Buller cousins in Texas (no longer with the surname but we share 2 and 3 x great grandparents).  

God moves around the world and looks at all of it and he must be weeping for those little ones. I still think that World War II was meant to be Armageddon but by the grace of God and our determination we came through that and so now we are on our own into an unplotted future perhaps. I have no idea but the winds of God still blow through the trees, through the cities and across the oceans. Our path must always be forward as Jesus taught us loving our neighbour as ourself (I think love is respect) and finding that uplifted plain of peace where there is no war and mankind lives to make the world a better place for all. God bless the world and all who live in it. Greed, envy, and hate must disappear from our world.