Personally I am in favour of bringing the GST back up to 7% or even 10%

 The real answer to methods of austerity is increasing the GST back up to 7% or even higher to 10%. There are lots of safeguards in the GST thaat kept it from impacting on people's ability to buy the basic ingredients (I pay almost no GST at the grocery store; it is rare). When I go to the grocery store all you can see on so many shelves is prepared foods - boxes, cans, plastic containers and the basics that are the building blocks of all that food are there ready to buy and at a fairly reasonable price but they occupy such a small portion of the stores these days - the prepared foods are too expensive and many are imported. If your grocery bills are too high then buy the basics as they are not taxed. 

Reducing the GST was the stupidest thing that was ever done.  Guaranteed money coming into the coffers of the government on a daily basis helps to support the government workforce especially the military. Waiting for the budget and hoping for a much stricter accounting of the government spending particularly in the CRA. I continue to think utilizing the power of the internet to handle queries would be so much better than having to explain each and every time that you speak to anyone at CRA when they could just pull up your account and look at what has transpired. The year we spent talking to them every six weeks was pure agony and finally settled by the Head of Department after we paid the $20,000.00 which was promptly returned to us less than a week later with interest. That was ridiculous. Having to pay interest as well is absolutely ludicrous. It should never have been requested in the first place if the proper job was being done. The answer was so incredibly simple. 

I have been avoiding the news but cleaning means I run the TV while I am cleaning and so I am back into listening to all these things. I really like the new Gaza peace proposal prepared by President Trump and the world awaits decisions but it is excellent. As I said President Trump really should receive the Nobel Peace Prize if the Abraham Accords can become universal in the Middle East and there is peace there - it would be so wonderful. 

 

 

Basement completed and today the main floor

Yesterday spent a couple of hours working on the matches. I have this large group of matches (in Ancestry so TIMBER has been utilized before publication of the results) between 30 and 20 cM (about twenty) so is a pileup so to speak but not labeled as a common pileup area but all the members that have a tree have early American colonial ancestry and it appears to be Blake but that also includes Knight, Arnold, Butt, Farmer, King and a few other surnames back into the past. The matches in common do include mostly what I call Blake so it has been an interesting look at all of those matches. Will complete the 191 matches today that were assigned to the group Blake perhaps. We will see. I do have one in particular that was transferred to Gedmatch and the difference is significant. The match shows up for two of my siblings tested on Ancestry that are not listed because they are too small (9.8 cM and 11.2 cM before TIMBER) and the amounts for my other sibling who does match as well as myself is a decrease of 7 cM when TIMBER is applied so part of this length is considered ethnicity matching. Do they stretch back to the Sedgewick family of Massachusetts with Maj Gen Robert Sedgwicke having married Joanna Blake at Andover, Hampshire, England. That would be incredibly amazing. Their grandmother Jone (Blake) Blake was likely a second cousin to Richard Blake her husband and back just two generations Richard's grandparents were Nicholas Blake and his wife Margaret (likely Blake) Blake and they would have been second cousins as well. DNA does pass in sticky segments on occasion as this appears to be a known ethnicity area (at least part of the length) that does make sense. Anyway will wait and see. Earlier there were small matches (later removed when they upgraded) to the Sedgwicke family of Massachusetts. I did download those particular items way back as I tested very very early on at Ancestry and have been a continuing member of Ancestry from 2003 on. But one has to consider that Richard was my 10 x great grandfather so his descendants would be my 11th cousins and it is considered pretty remote to have a match. I do have known 7th and 8th cousins where the endogamy really shows up. But that endogamy is much more recent. But a sticky piece of Chromosomal DNA has the potential to travel through the generations but it will take very intense study to identify them for sure as belonging to a family rather than a genus. 

Basement though is done and time to move to the first floor for cleaning and that is today. Routine is the basis of all things and I love routine although I easily change it up to suit the day. The tiny little leaf is upon us once again as the tree out front looses its lovely tiny yellow leaves. It will soon be past and when is the hard frost coming we have waited a while for that. That is the nice part of being old is remembering the just under fifty years that that tree has been there shedding all over the front yard. There are a lot of nice parts of being over 80; being a hermit for sure is one of them but I was always pretty much a hermit so not a big change there. Edward did influence that to a great extent getting me out there doing stuff that he wanted to be involved in with him like the OGS and Church and of course our mutual love of astronomy but he was also into things like amateur radio - his life was full of happenings and that was when he was happiest for sure. I love going to Church; it is my most favourite outing to be absolutely honest. I love the music and the singing and the prayers that bring out all of those wonderful thoughts about our world. But I can do that at home now with YouTube and my Church online. It is great really. It is like being isolated in one's own little spot in the world just going out for sustenance on occasion when the food runs out.  

So I can see the books starting to draw me back in as winter approaches but also I want to set aside an hour or even two every day to work on the photo albums. They need to be ready for this new time and easier to manage and fewer of them - seven or eight sounds good. The first one is complete and I am tempted to pass it on as I complete them and must investigate that with my children one of these days. We chat every day and that is marvelous when you consider that my father left his grandparents in England and never saw them again; not even once. It was one of his sorrows for sure losing that piece of himself. 

Cloudy today so no views of Venus sad to say as it is wonderful to welcome the day with Venus above us sparkling just before dawn I notice it generally. 

Already completed the solitaire puzzles; brain woke up very refreshed and now it is teatime and then yoga and then breakfast once again. The cleaning will follow probably beginning around 9 a.m. 

 

Garden Shed cleaned and filled

 A beautiful Sunday and went to Church in the morning (on You-Tube). A lovely service as always and the music absolutely superb. God is waiting and watching for us to do the right thing and preserve this world He has given to us. We must do our best to follow the two commandments that Jesus brought to us - Love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and love (respect) our neighbour as ourself. The world would be a much better place. 

The afternoon saw us cleaning out the garden shed and getting it ready for winter. Then we repacked it, the lawns were cut and everything put away including the kayak. Rakes are easy to reach when that time comes and so the garage is now empty and ready for the car for the winter. There is still a lot of cleanup to do and will get that done over the next few weeks. Still really waiting for a heavy frost to cut down the plants and do lots of weeding. 

The file for the Matches in Common in Ancestry is begun. I looked at the Pro tools and when I do use them I just want it to be for one month as I do not need that kind of access for most of my work. There would be a benefit looking at some of the matches and particularly one strong match that I am gradually showing to myself is Blake on the one side with MRCA of John Blake and Ann Farmer. A recent addition to one record shows that the best match between the three of us takes us back to John Blake and Ann Farmer (that is a new addition). I think the rest of the match is on his mother's side (with the Blake/Farmer being on his father's side) through the Knight family for some and through the Horlock family for the remainder. This is interesting as the Knight family is from my great grandmother Maria Jane Knight married to Edward Blake  (the youngest son of John Blake and Ann Farmer). The Horlock family is on the Rawlings side and a bit more distant and still establishing that connection. So three MRCAs between this match and myself and my siblings. But coming from the Dorset south Wiltshire area probably not surprising. 

I also moved more files from my old computer to the new one as I ready myself for returning to the Blake and Pincombe books with winter approaching. This is a wonderful opportunity for changing some of my methods of storage of material. Some of it I will seldom look at but it is mixed in with items that I will use considerably more often. The files grew as I acquired material and are in a logical systematic filing system but I need to have some files quickly at hand as I write individual books and I will work at that now as I move items over for my use as I write. 

Just nine degrees celsius this morning at 6:00 a.m. Definitely it is fall although it does warm up quite a bit in the day a high of 26 degrees celsius predicted today but only 18 degrees celsius tomorrow and cooling trends are heading us into October. I need to book the winter tire change today sometime as there was a message on my phone mentioning that. Mid November I think perhaps. I need to book my COVID 19 shot and then my flu shot two weeks later and that will also be November sometime. Then that lovely long winter when I shall just hibernate emerging for groceries and to clear the snow from the porch and patio as the company will clear the laneway as usual. 

Time for breakfast and then tea and solitaire puzzles. Today is basement cleaning day and the half week of cleaning begins once again.  I will work on the photo books as well as I want to accomplish that by Christmas. 

An outing and not too much work

 A lovely outing; a perfect day with family and this 80 year old enjoyed the day. That is what one should do when one is 80 I suspect when the opportunity presents itself in my small orbit. I keep my orbit small on purpose because I want to write my books over this next couple of years on the Blake Family of Andover and the Pencombe family of North Devon. I want then to move to the Buller family of Bermondsey and Birmingham (and possibly earlier from Somerset/Cornwall) and the Rawlings family of Collingburne Dulcis and Enford. Along the way I am thinking of revising the Gray family of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England and London North Township, Middlesex County, Canada. The possibilities are legion actually and it is a good aim in life I think over 80. I would never have done it in my youth because there were other interesting leads some of which I was permitted to follow and then as an adult even more paths opened up that I was able to follow mostly the result of chance. Chance is truly an amazing thing sometimes - the paths can sometimes be not so pleasant but one quickly moves away from the path as one realizes it is not a good path for them. 

Some work yesterday on Ancestry as I examined the possibilities of creating this second database and noting at this point in time I only need Blake and Pincombe in that database and can just expand it as needed. I do routinely create the match list in Ancestry and can just continue with that work in a general way and extracting as needed into my second database for Ancestry. What I need for the book is significant pointers taking me back to the early 1700s where in the case of both of these families there is significant written record to help me with the quest including wills, land records and other written material.  Such markers already with the current matches. 

Today I will likely create the database and get that into motion but along with that I want to work with FT DNA and My Heritage where there are also significant testers in both of these lines. This brings me back to the author who wrote me from somewhere in Australia to ask to use my great grandfather's picture to illustrate her book on another Pincombe. I said no of course not; they were second cousins but that doesn't make them look alikes nor would one do that. Fortunately an honest publisher refused to print the picture without my explicit permission which I did not give plus I did alert other members of the Pincombe family to this fraud. She was exploiting a case of mental illness and that is really unnecessary but actually supporting her book by saying members of the family wanted her to write it. People do amazing things for money sometimes I think. Sad really in God's world; you can not take it with you for sure. 

Another beautiful Sunday and when I looked out the window at 6:00 a.m. I could see Venus shining in the sky although not quite as bright as it can be because it was somewhat cloudy and the cloud remains with some breaks - fortunately for me one of the breaks allowed Venus to shine through. God's star I often think as He is the one who talks about love - Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love (respect) our neighbour as ourself. The two commandments that God sent His son Jesus to bring to the world and the foundation of the Christian Faith. 

Church today in a few hours but now breakfast is eaten, tea is cooling and solitaire puzzles to do.  

Building the Ancestry Database

I did spend some time working on the other Ancestry Database - I have one of all the matches for four siblings down to 22 cM but I also want to have one for the Common Ancestry and bringing that to fruition has been the aim of the last few days. I wanted to do that with the fewest number of keystrokes on my part although I do still type at probably 100 words per minute or more. But the data is now all organized for such a build. I shall concentrate on that for a bit to get the information organized - each sibling has between 200 and 250 records with common ancestry and of course there is a great deal of overlap and I am beginning to visualize the look of this database so that I can use it in my book. I really only need to look at Blake and Pincombe so indeed just 20 to 25% of the entries in total and the overlap probably will produce approximately 50 records that are of value to me at this moment in time. That becomes practical to hand input into the database as I will want to note particular items as I build the database. 

I have not yet upgraded to Legacy 10 for my Family Tree but decided to move ahead with that today and I have now installed the latest version. My first file will be the Blake Family of Andover, Hampshire, England. I will copy the files I want to work with at the moment to this computer probably sometime today. I maintained Legacy 9 whilst I completed the Siderfin books just for continuity at that time. But it is a while since that was done now and I must send Family Search the updated first book and the second book. Must keep that on the front burner to get it done!

I think my work will generally be on Blake and Pincombe as it has been and any information I acquire on the books to come I will create a file system on this new computer for storing anything. I need to think about George DeKay's book on the Gray family of North Middlesex in Ontario that he published in 1976. We had chatted about it and it is hard to believe that is more than a decade ago now as he wanted to do a second edition and I did say I would help if he wanted me to do that. Time and my husband's illness over that ten year plus period basically from the end of 2010 until his death in April 2021 meant that I did not follow through on some items including discussion with George who passed away 26 Oct 2016. Our last email was perhaps two years before that I would need to check. I would do it somewhat differently bringing the trees in the book up to Census 1921 only (I prefer the 100 year gap that tends to be pretty normal here as Canada as information after that date on births tends to be unavailable except to family members, marriages at 75 years and deaths at 20 years. I had acquired more information on the Gray family in England as well as the Routledge working with my cousin (7th likely) Thomas Routledge who ran with my small Routledge database and has created a huge group of Routledge around the world. My correspondence with him has also fallen away somewhat. I have been concentrating this past year on Blake and Pincombe. It is my Pincombe line that intersects with the Gray as William Robert Pincombe first married Grace Gray in 1865 (my great grandparents) although I do need to check that date but it was a good length of time (seven years before my grandfather John Routledge Pincombe was born, their first child died as an infant in 1867 I think and would also need to check that). So do I just incorporate what I know into this new book on Pincombe or do I actually revise George DeKay's book. I do need to contact family members of George to see if they are looking at that as well. George wanted to include more information on the Carling family  but I would still stick to my 100 year rule and perhaps include some of the information that I located in the East Riding of Yorkshire on my mutual Carling family (my great grandmother Grace Gray was the daughter of Mary (Elizabeth Ann) Routledge was who 14 years of age when she came to Canada with her family in 1818 (likely early Fall) and it was her oldest sister Margaret that married Thomas Carling (Sir John Carling, their son was very involved in both local, provincial (Ontario) and federal governments throughout his lengthy career and he was Grace (Gray) Pincombe's first cousin). There was a good chunk of information in the book on the Carling family and I will probably reprint all of that in a newer book but do I want it as part of the Pincombe book. Not really sure about that as it probably should be a stand alone book if it is going to include more information on the Carling family. I did have communication with descendants of Isaac Carling a while ago where I mentioned the idea of a new book. It would be the same as the Siderfin books - Creative Commons license permitting free access and download with credit to the author (authors) in any use of the book. I think I may have resolved that idea now with this writeup and will stick with the original thought of just revising George's book at some point in the next couple of years as I could work on it jointly with the Pincombe book as there is some limited overlap. 

Busy days as always and staying away from the news has been good for me. I tend to get quite passionate about some items (certainly my support for Israel's right to exist is unwavering and my agreement that Hamas must go from Gaza (all of this trouble in Gaza would be over if Hamas simply leaves releasing the hostages and stops threatening Israel which they have not done)). I do like the idea proposed by Egypt that they provide interim governance in the rebuilding in Gaza (they have eliminated Hamas as an evil in their country). It is important mostly to maintain God in our lives at all times and respect the earth that He gave to us so willingly eons ago eliminating the Satanic peoples like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and satanic people in Iran itself as well as Russia. The UN can not be involved in Gaza as they do not appear to be able to manage that from a distance (four generations of time have passed under UN governance and it has been ineffective at best and detrimental in a number of incidences proof provided by Israel); Egypt is right next door. The Abraham Accords may well be the best reason for President Trump to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize as it has lasted for all of these years since being introduced and could be the way forward for even further acceptance of Israel in the Middle East (it is their homeland as well after all). But Hamas must go, Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the PLO, has stated that clearly at the UN meeting and willingly as he demands Hamas lay down arms and remove themselves from any governance in Gaza. 

Tea drank and must do my solitaire games to wake up the brain.  

Another good day on Ancestry yesterday

 I continued working on the four siblings on Ancestry and completed all but one - myself. I will complete that today. I just have to extract them now by family line into files for use eventually although they will probably get overwritten many times into the future as I generally extract Ancestry matches three to four times a year and hence an always growing file. 

It was a lovely restful day as it was wet and dreary looking so the day was spent entirely inside working away broken by exercise routines periodically throughout the day. I try not to sit longer than 45 minutes at any one time but do not always succeed as I become absorbed in the topic I am working on most times but the FitBit comes to the rescue by buzzing my arm to let me know there are 250 steps to do and I have just ten minutes left to do that bit of exercise. 

Some thinking on FT DNA matches - My Heritage matches and the use of My Heritage trees by linking the FT DNA account to one's My Heritage tree. I have not explored it literally yet but it has interesting possibilities. I extracted FT DNA matches and My Heritage matches in March and April so has been a few months since I looked at either of them really. Generally I have a lot of new ones as there are a lot of matches in the United States on FT DNA which relate to the endogamy in my Arnold-Knight-Ellis-Butt lines and to a certain extent in my Routledge lines although considerably less so. Some endogamy in my Blake lines there that occasionally shows up. Finding these matches that link back to the 1600s/1700s is intriguing and they are of course very small. My New Zealand and Australian matches which often show up on My Heritage are legion as the colonials in these two countries were primarily from the British Isles. 

Still continuing to move files over to my new computer as I work towards making this my main computer and the other computer will be like one big backup drive. It is already backed up to a storage backup as well. 

Today another day on Ancestry, groceries at some point as we did not do the market yesterday - forgot actually. We are making a meatloaf today; one of my most favourite meals except it is beef and pork and it is seldom that I eat red meat. I eat primarily chicken and fish. 

Tea ready and working on solitaire puzzles.

Prayers continuing for the hostages still held in Gaza as Israel tries to get them released by simply overwhelming Gaza until they can be found. Prayers continuing for the children of Israel, for the children of Gaza and for the children of Ukraine (I would also pray for the children of Russia but they are in no danger as Ukraine does not deliberately target homes but rather military targets). Hopefully Russia will soon go bankrupt and this time we will not do so much for them to help them along so that they steep in bankruptcy for a bit and it might keep them within their borders for a longer period this time. I listened carefully yesterday to the Leader of the PLO Mahmoud Abbas speaking remotely at the United Nations and his repeat of the promises that he made to Prime Minister Carney with regard to the removal of Hamas from the governing of Gaza permanently and the laying down of arms. We will await that happening and the release of the hostages which continues almost to two years. His comments with regard to the attack on Israel on the 7th of October were very welcomed and one prays for that sincerity on his part in that regard condemning the barbaric acts of Hamas against the Israeli people on the 7th of October 2023.  

Continuing to work on the DNA matches on Ancestry

 I did spend quite a bit of time on the DNA matches on Ancestry just organizing them by family where the match has identified Common Ancestry. For the most part these results fit quite closely to my own settling into the various family lines. There is the occasional one that does not although the match is clearly there but just not the right ancestor. I suppose in 100 samples I might find one or two seldom more than that and sometimes I do not find any at all. This time I noticed that many of the Siderfin hits now include a lot more detail in the family trees so possibly the Companion Charting Book has assisted people. Whether it does or not it is available although I must send it to Family Search. I keep forgetting to update the first book that I did send to them and add the second book. Life has been very very busy. Who would have ever guessed that I would end up doing all this work in my old age. I had planned to smock dresses, make knitted sweaters, crochet baby blankets to send to the North as my grandmother had done for many many years through Salvation Army. I have not done so because I did not retire until 2007 and by then I was deep into DNA and genealogical research. My mother would certainly not be disappointed although my grandmother had little interest she still supplied me with a great deal of information on the Pincombe family (her husband's family) but not a great deal on her own. Occasionally she would tell me items on her Buller - Taylor line but for the most part I am not at all sure she was that knowledgeable on her family lines. Her mother died when she was eleven and her father when she was fourteen. She was offered a home with her father's sisters but declined when they would not take all the children (there were five (four girls and one boy)) and hence went into the Children's Home at Soho in Birmingham where she was Head girl and able to keep her younger sisters with her. I suspect that was part of the inducement for going with them as she did not want to part with her siblings. Sad really but she said it was a good home and a lot of the other children had had a father who was in the army (Edwin Denner Buller was a Medic in the First Boer War and pensioned out after he was injured and sent back to Birmingham for care).  She did know some information on that and I was able to find his enlistment papers and discharge and return to hospital care in Birmingham. 

Lovely walk on the beach yesterday and not too busy given that it was a Wednesday perhaps and school is back in. There was a wind in the trees which is always welcomed I think and it is true they are turning a little earlier this year (said to be partly because of the drought). The water looks very clear these days and in spite of the drought looks quite high which is also a good sign I think. 

Today more work on the matches and likely still with Ancestry to really set that material up for usage in the near future. I will also plan how I am going to work with FT DNA and My Heritage simultaneously. Now that the trees can be linked between the two it will be helpful perhaps with the FT DNA results. 

I think it must be coming into my 80s that I am sometimes absorbed in looking back and contemplating events in my life but today I am more interested in getting as much done as possible on the matches and perhaps a little work on the photo books since the cleaning is now completely done and I have four days ahead of me to pretty much just work on my projects in my working time. I like to avoid too much useless reminiscing unless it is remembering my children or the times that Edward and I spent discovering in our various trips hither and yon. I will always remember how thrilled he was as he discovered yet another ancestor particularly in our trips into the New England States and New York where most of his ancestors lived right up into the early 1800s and up to the 1820s having come to the American Colonies in the 1600s. 

Making my tea and then solitaire puzzles.  

Prayers continuing for the children of Israel, the children of Gaza and the children of Ukraine and I continue to avoid the news except briefly first thing each morning.  

 

The final day of cleaning and it is the basement

 Dragging cleaning out to three days seems excessive and yet it does work well. It means I am not exhausted on any of the three days and there is time for other things which is always pleasant. 

Again some thoughts on Ancestry and Shared Recent Common ancestors and the value of that particular information along with trees when they are present. Sharing DNA in Ancestry is rather interesting as the common DNA shared by particular ethnic groups is stripped out of their results so that you are basically looking at "real" matching although you can not actually see the chromosomes on which you are matching but it isn't really necessary because you are sharing this common ancestor. But I also like it when I have the information as it gives me a picture of my grandparents that I can not readily have otherwise. The possibility of generating the DNA of my great grandparents (eight individuals) is also very very tempting to pursue. That though is mostly made possible because of endogamy rather than anything else. These closely knit families where siblings married into the same other family yielding interesting results for sure. All living in this case in the Winterbourne Valley of Dorset which is a cluster of small villages many carrying the name Winterbourne as part of the name of their village - Winterbourne Clenstone, Winterbourne Stickland etc etc. 

Today perhaps some more work on the matches from the other databases that I have not collected for a couple of months although there are not that many probably. Ancestry had twenty new matches over four siblings in a four month period. There are actually far more matches than that but those are the ones that I collect generally down to 22 cM matching. I do however look at all of the matches that carry a Shared Most Recent Common Ancestor right down to the smallest one - in general I only do not record a couple in any of these large groups for the four siblings where I know that the ancestral line chosen is incorrect. Likely there is a match and occasionally I will solve that mystery but mostly they remain unclaimed by me because they do not match the ancestor they are selecting. For instance, my father was an only child and did not have any siblings. I do not have any extra great aunts and uncles in any of my lines although occasionally there is an attempt to give me one. I do agree that we are matching somewhere but do not accept full siblings for my father and extra full siblings for my great aunts and uncles. I only have one uncle and they did not have any children. With that history the matches are pretty clear in the close matching frame. 

If anyone had told me back in the early 1980s that I would eventually spend all of my time on genealogy I would have denied the very idea (indeed when my husband's cousin Gordon Riddle (and our family doctor although I did prefer the French speaking Doctor with whom he shared a double office which I did mention when he told me he was related to Edward at the first visit (personally I think he should have referred me back to the one I asked for initially whilst looking for a new doctor but that is life)) invited Edward to go to the Ontario Genealogical Meetings (now Ontario Ancestors) Ottawa Branch I had absolutely nil interest and avoided them when they were chatting about their Kipp ancestry and attending these meetings. Really I just wanted to go to Church as my favourite personal external non work activity (I had agreed to go to Edward's United Church as a family and did follow through with that although once finished with volunteer secretary I did return to early service at the local Anglican Church (it didn't seem quite appropriate when I was volunteer secretary at the United Church) along with attending the later service at Edward's United Church); have good sermons (Anglican sermons tend to be more Bible oriented which I admit I prefer but then I have been Anglican all my life) and lots of good singing. My other recreational activities were centered around my child/children with helping at their school one day a week all school year long week in and week out - I am consistent, Brownies (I was Brown Owl at the nearby Roman Catholic School whilst my children were Brownies), music lessons and dancing. I was proofreading and copyediting for a private printer and a volunteer secretary at Edward's United Church (I did not volunteer, I was volunteered but doing God's work is always a good thing for sure and I have no regrets on doing the work although my concept of the United Church was to be radically altered). My Uncle and maternal grandmother (and mother) were United Church or in mother's case raised United Church but became Anglican in her teens and certainly there was no drinking of alcohol so was shocked at one of the Camp Bitobi Church weekends (which Edward planned and set up (I was treasurer for Camp Bitobi actually at that time)) to find the one refrigerator full of beer and there were children there however I did keep it to myself mostly although did mention to the minister and he didn't seem to see a problem with that - I mean I am Anglican and have no problem with having alcohol occasionally as a celebration/memorial but a United Church was based on alcohol free ideas!  I had no interest in genealogy really at all as I could not see how one would prove the relationships. Enter DNA in the latter part of the 1990s when a spark of interest was being generated in my mother's thoughts. Transferred to me on several occasions I didn't bite although did listen to all that my mother said and wrote to me about DNA. When she asked me about working with the family DNA I paid good attention although I was still ambivalent as we were only looking at yDNA and mtDNA in those days  and that was just a look at the deep past really (and of course personal matches). Enter autosomal DNA and my thoughts were aroused as I could see the potential of matching but still another decade would pass before it became mainstream. Now a genealogy really is not complete without DNA matching which I am happy to see as wandering through parish registers is very interesting but not conclusive like a DNA match (although land records can be more conclusive). Trips down memory lane are common in old people  I guess. Our then doctor's wife told me back in the 90s that my husband and I were going to die in our mid 60s way back when I was working at the hospital in my early 50s. What a strange thing to have said to somebody really I think in retrospect at the age of 80 plus; sometimes it is very difficult to understand people's thoughts and probably better to just ignore them unless they are experts in something that involves you! 

So today back to likely My Heritage or FT DNA although these days FT DNA is linked to My Heritage trees making that particular database more interesting perhaps along with My Heritage data as well. 23 and Me did not yield anything really interesting other than a couple of new larger matches (over 100 cM) but no details although I recognize the surnames for several of them and know they are Blake or Pincombe in all cases. I still  hope that eventually we will get back to the original setup as it was quite valuable but I did extract all of the information whenever I was working on that database into particular files so still have all of the information. But it does begin to look realistic to think that I will begin rephasing my grandparent's DNA sooner rather than later which is great. 

Tea brewing and time to do my solitaire puzzles. Still avoiding the news but praying  for the children of Israel, the children of Gaza and the children of Ukraine that their lives will be radically improved over the next few months.  

 

 

 

Second day of cleaning

 Top floor completed yesterday and today the main floor. It is foggy this morning and the rain yesterday was excellent and greatly appreciated. It has been a very very dry summer. It will not save the lawn likely for this year but might help in the spring if we have good snow cover to bring on the grass in the spring. 

Not too much work on the matches although did spend some time thinking about the Shared MRCA in Ancestry. This is a good set of data to work with as well especially given the size of their database and the trees that accompany many of the results. Although Ancestry doesn't reveal areas of matching the other reveals are equally interesting and helpful. I tend to have about 150 MRCA hits for each of the four siblings although only half of them are of any large size. With TIMBER being used to take out the common areas the actual size of the match remains unknown and does vary from as much as 50% down to 5% or less depending of course on which chromosome the match is occurring. 

Perhaps I will look at FT DNA today. I do have some new matches there that I have noticed and do have quite a few in my database. This one also has trees these days with people linking their accounts to My Heritage. 

Other than that it will be a cleaning day once again although I will leave the basement until tomorrow as that works very well and doesn't really occupy much of my day. The robot does all the work for the most part although it does take a few minutes to wash the concrete floor but I like to keep the dust down. 

Still absent from the television pretty much although do nip into Question Period in the House of Commons. I do dislike the show for the voters though but occasionally there are glimpses of the government at work. The tariffs have resulted in more Canadians staying home and touring Canada which has increased our tourism trade rather well actually. It has encouraged Ontario (my home province) in particular to think about twinning the Trans Canada in Northern Ontario and does sound like a go these days. It could have been done years and years ago. We took our first trip in Northern Ontario in 1968 with our canoe and almost to Lake of the Woods but we needed to be back so it was a quick look and on our way home again. But Kakabeka Falls was well worth the trip and we spent some time in various Provincial Parks along the way which was a great treat.  

Drinking tea and working on the solitaire puzzles.  

 

 

Rain anticipated today

It would be good if we actually have the rain that is anticipated today. It has been a long time since we had a good rain. The drought has really settled in. Yesterday\s Sunday Service recorded nicely to YouTube and I attended. The organ music was superb as always. The congregation did not look overly large and likely a lot of them were there for the introduction of the Girl's Choir for the year. The singing as always was quite perfect. 

We were off for a kayak and walk once again late in the afternoon hoping to miss the busy period earlier in the day but it was busy. I did my usual walk about several times quite successfully slowing down for the little ones who run hither and yon as my own did the same fourty years and more ago. 

More contemplating on the results from ancestry and still pulling out interesting items as I work on the individuals now with whom I share Most Recent Common Ancestors. I tend to look at all of them down to the smallest amounts of shared cM of data. I use colour coding so that I can pull them up ancestor by ancestor. I will use that material especially on the Blake and Pincombe books. I have completed that part now. With the Pincombe the furtherest back I usually find a sufficient DNA match is to John Pincombe and Mary (Charly) Pincombe with good trees but there are others that take me further back as John and Mary (Charly) Pincombe were my 4x great grandparents.  Land records are what I generally use as I move back in time and then of course the Parish Records and wills. I also had a look at Gedmatch and one of the Ancestry matches had taken his results into Gedmatch and verified that this was a Blake match but his tree was somewhat remarkable and I think I am a bit ambivalent on it actually. The tree that I have in this Arnold-Molton-Knight-Butt line is less dramatic and I think fits the picture as I understand it somewhat better but it will be a long time before I write up anything on this family that does come into my Blake line but is not of Andover rather coming from the Winterbourne Valley area of Dorset including over to Milton Abbas. It was the marriage of Maria Jane Knight of Turnworth to Edward Blake of Upper Clatford that brought all of this large family into my line and endogamy in particular in the Knight family making it so much easier to go back in time with the grandparents of Maria Jane being Ellis Knight and Eleanor (Knight) Knight. But I extract the information for a future time and book if time permits. I am into writing books that is for sure but at 80 years of age and considering the times the length of life one lives is not really predictable as it was with some of my ancestors living on their small farms to ancient ages. Although writing up my life story isn't part of that process as that is already long done and not very exciting really as I only wrote about my small orbit omitting the parts that I find boring in remembrance. God in His wisdom gave us a brain to work with and as always I know that revenge belongs to God. He knows all, watches all and resolves all eventually in His own time and in His own way. It may not seem like it at times but in general that does seem to be His way. I pray that He can see a future for humankind that He created as there is much good in the world. When one learns the history of a family and sees their accomplishments and changes through the eyes of a grandparent the world takes on a different sort of look I think. 

One disconnect noted by me is Cancer Care Ontario sending out letters to people telling them to get a test and booking an appointment mentioning such test and then arriving and being told oh we do not do that test. Medicine is publicly funded here (Cancer Care is part of all of that) so do find that to be strange but then so many people do not actually have a physician and I wonder if the lack of information coming from mine at the moment (still no information on the blood smear which required a pathologist to read it) means I am being terminated from the clinic because I do not come often enough perhaps no ideas on that. Once a year seems adequate especially as I only used to go every four or five years except when I was pregnant. I did receive a letter thirty years ago from our then doctor saying he was downsizing and I didn't come often enough so we had to find a new doctor and I actually worked at the hospital at that time. It wasn't a big deal as every time I did go he complained to me that it took too long to get results from the lab I worked at; seemed strange to go to your health appointment and hear that actually and what did he think I was supposed to do about that; everyone had to wait for results! One does wonder. On another side I have been trying to get a followup to my bone density done when I was 72 years of age and no method in the world seems to generate that appointment. The clinic said they tried to book it; I have tried to book it and now I have almost decided not to donate the usual amount to Montfort because they are supposed to be booking it. Why would I donate money to them when they do not book my test? Is it because I am old I do find it unsatisfactory that healthy old people have a problem getting a medical test done actually. I seldom use the medical service or any other and I pay enough taxes provincially and federally to cover anything they would ever do for me. I am not a very pushy person though unless you attack me and then I can be quite merciless. 

Mind you Service Ontario is certainly a very efficient group of people as I discovered renewing my driver's license so they get a thumbs up for doing a great job with my tax money. 

Perhaps they think my daughter should look after me - she lives 40 km away and that is not really a very practical plus one doesn't usually do that. She has lots of patients as a country physician and certainly doesn't need to come all this way to look after me on those occasions that I actually go to a doctor. 

I remember when we first moved here and I had to leave our wonderful physician and dentist in South Ottawa as it was just too far to go with a small child in school. I asked the druggist in the Medical Clinic if any of the doctors/dentists upstairs were taking patients (they usually know that) and he recommended a particular suite for both actually. I went up and checked out the doctor first and there were two in the suite one was French speaking and the other English but I had had a French speaking doctor in the South end of the city so opted for that one but the person at the desk of the English speaking doctor said I should be their patient because I spoke English. I must say the person working for the French speaking doctor that I spoke to initially was not really pleased but they must have had some sort of an agreement so that they would get patients no ideas on that (this is a French speaking area). When we went to the appointment with the new doctor  (English speaking) he said he was my husband's third cousin or something like that so I said I should have had the other doctor but he said oh he didn't really know us so it was fine. Interesting in retrospect.

Cleaning day and must accomplish that but first tea, then breakfast and solitaire games. I am late today.  

 

 

 

Another lovely walk

A lovely walk at the beach again late last afternoon. This time of year the parking fees are waived at the beach but some confusion exists because the sign is still there (easy to remove the pay machine) so a polite young man (the couple was Muslim) asked if they had to pay (I guess we looked like seasoned regulars with a kayak) and we replied no the pay machine is gone; free parking for the  moment. Glad to be of help of course. The walk around the beach was lovely although I do walk very fast and must pass people who are strolling. The one item that Edward and I seldom agreed on was walking - he liked to stroll and fast walking did not appeal to him. So when we walked we strolled and when I walk I am moving very quickly but I had brothers to keep up with and most of my time spent with them as a child was running behind them keeping up! Thinking back on our days before marriage I can never remember Edward complaining at the pace; funny in retrospect. Perhaps he thought he could convert me and when I was with him I was converted one might think but the desire to walk fast flowed quickly in the veins for sure. 

No work on the databases yesterday; the day simply flowed by very quickly. In retrospect it was a thinking day partially. Contemplating the good match at ancestry and a 2nd cousin once removed since he is just ten years younger than I am but has an extra generation to me. The amount of Blake/Knight that passed to us on Ancestry is regulated by TIMBER so any area that is considered to be consistent with region would have been stripped out so the 140 and 150 cM of my brothers in their matching could be as much as only 50% of the actual with my sister and I being in the range of 43 and 57. But generally when these matches move to Gedmatch as they do on occasion one can see the entire match. But a tree put up by one of his first cousins on Family Search traces the Blake back to Nicholas correctly but further back with the errors committed by Horatio Gates Somerby and hence back to the Calne Blake family. But no one has actually tested who is a known traceable descendant of the Calne Blake family as far as I can tell at the moment but judging by the likely Norman ancestry of this Blake line one would expect to see I1 rather than I2 as the haplogroup. With I2 being the ancient Deer Hunter (Western Gatherer) predicted to be in the British Isles 8,000 to 12,000 years ago. Whereas the first signs of I1 followed the Norman invasion of England. How different Europe was right up to the mid 1900s and now it is a unified group with a military arm of NATO (purely self defense as they prove time and again as Russia gnaws away at Ukraine in a barbaric way). 

Along with some really good exercise yesterday including weightlifting, walking and running, the day passed quickly. 

Sunday today and I am hoping that the Church Service works well on YouTube today; I did listen to the sermon on the recorded version of the Service later in the day but attended the Church of England Service in England for the Anglican Church which was most interesting and informative. 

Slight frost again last night as the hostas are slowly getting touched by frost but some of the weeds I would like gone are still hardy and will need a much deeper frost to kill them off and let me get to work clearing them away. Looking forward to winter and all those work days. 

Drinking Tea and soon the Solitaire Puzzles for the day.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

New match on ancestry rather interesting

 Yesterday I did something I do not usually do I wrote one of our matches descending in the Blake Family of Andover line on Ancestry. His great grandmother was Louisa Mary (Blake) Hall and she was the eldest daughter and child of Edward Blake and Maria Jane (Knight) Blake. This family has a tree on Family Search which I discovered years and years ago way back when I was first into genealogy in 2003. It does take one back to the Blake family of Calne which I do consider to be incorrect given the wills of the 1500s/1400s for the Blake family at Andover. It does trace back correctly to Nicholas Blake but his father is named as a descendant of Robert Blake and Avice Wallop in the second generation from a son William who simply doesn't exist in any of the available material thus far. The dates do not work very well either so curiosity sent me to the keyboard and I sent off a note to this descendant. He has the absolute advantage of living in England and perhaps close to Winchester where all the land records are held. If he had an interest I would love to combine our mutual interest and discover more about these land records showing this Blake Family at Knights Enham from fairly early days. Because the families of England did not have surnames prior to the arrival of the Normans in England, the Domesday Book does not help in this regard. Blake is an acquired surname in this family likely although a record which I noted from the early 1300s did mention a John Blake in the Andover Manor Books. Given the yDNA result for my Blake line it does point to an ancient line in England known as the Deer Hunters and arriving in the British Isles 8,000 to 12,000 years ago. But I do need to clarify that item in the Andover Manor book and carry it forward for that plot of land at Knights Enham shown to be held by them in wills from the early 1500s on. I have used other records to try to do so but the actual Manor Books would do a better job. Time will tell on this and I may or may not hear back. His match is a good size to my brothers who match the Blake line much better than myself (two of them on Ancestry and my sister on Ancestry has a match similar to mine). So a lead perhaps or not; depends on his interest in publishing a book on the Blake family of Andover. His surname is not Blake and it was his great grandmother who was a Blake (Louisa Mary Blake), and his grandmother was the eldest daughter of Charles Hall and Louisa Mary (Blake) Hall. This was a family that my father visited as a child when they lived in the New Forest (my father and his parents lived at Eastleigh near Southampton). At that time the grandfather of my grandfather (Samuel Knight) was still living and a widower with his grandaughter's family (Louisa Mary (Blake) Hall and Charles Blake) in New Forest having lived at Turnworth prior to that time. My grandfather had been named after his grandfather Samuel Knight. Having known my grandfather very well as a child, he lived with us. I learned a great deal about the Blake family of Andover from him as a child.

 Saturday and I have a few plans for the day. It is just 8 degrees celsius and not sure if we had frost last night but tonight it is going down to 2 degrees celsius so one hopes for frost; its effect on turnip is wonderful giving it that sharp taste that is so good in a chicken stew. Plus I can start to clear away all the weeds of the summer. It has been a poor year for rain this summer with very few really good soaks and the garden shows it as I did not water. 

 Just put out our donation for the Food Drive in the paper bag that they left in the mailbox for the Food Bank. Usually I just give food at the Metro but thought I would try this as they are picking up this morning and have a much clearer idea of what is needed by those out of work needing to feed their families. It is fairly hidden behind our large round bush so one has to actually come up the laneway to the porch to see it. They did not come so will just drop it off at Metro as usual. 

Last night the sky was again so clear with the stars showing visibly in spite of all the lights around us. I do yearn sometimes for wide open spaces looking through the telescope and perhaps a different place like the Prairies where I could see the parts of Canada that I have not visited like the west past Manitoba and the north above the 60th parallel. I have spent a lot of time in the Eastern part of Canada including Labrador on one trip. I have seen a good deal of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec and of course Ontario and quite a bit of southern Manitoba but would like to go to Port Churchill one day. So I did say to my daughter I would love to live in the west if that is where she could be heading when she returns to Canada (that is of course always dependent on jobs). She did apply to every Library School in Canada before she took a job outside of the country as she really did want to stay in Canada which is understandable considering she spent the first 32 years of her life in Canada and was born here. But she has enjoyed working with all of her students these eighteen years and has a number of researchers that she works with many of whom are her students now moving on to Faculty positions in their own country which is nice I think to be able to do that. Plus a country loses a great deal of talent when the students that graduate from our universities can not find a job in their own country.  Universities/Colleges especially should be very careful about whom they hire and Canadians should always come first. If hiring outsiders is a benefit then where are all of the Nobel Prizes for these extraordinary people that are hired that are not Canadian. I do not think that Nobel Prizes define a university but are just an extra that is interesting when they occur; a university is defined by having people who totally understand the people of this country and one does need to be of the country for the most part although I agree over a long period of time it can be learned but that doesn't always happen (the cheering in the streets here and there in Canada for Hamas nearly two years ago now (and less as the support is still here it would appear) still ring in my ears for their absolute horror and disregard of the Israeli people who had been butchered, defiled and taken hostage (including children two of whom were murdered in captivity it appears)). In reality that need goes for all professions/trades/work in any country. I would also agree that to some extent one does need different types of material in a university setting but that is only a very tiny portion needed really as far as I am concerned (hence non Canadians should be rare). In particular one should be able to clearly understand what a professor is saying to you so the command of English/French/First Nations languages where needed is essential.

The day moves onward and I have drank my tea and must do my solitaire puzzles and then have a number of things to do as the day passes including my exercise breaks. I am not watching television once again as it has become a show rather than a true pulse on the world. I like what Prime Minister Carney is doing for the most part although I do have a few thoughts but not really that important. I hate it that in so many countries the children live in fear in particular Israel, Gaza and the Ukraine. It still annoys me that the Muslims here did not bring the children of Gaza to Canada to protect them in particular the Palestinians; that would have been a much better use of their time (those children deserve to be with people that understand them). But I am 80 and one cannot solve the problems of the world so must just live in it. This gift of God must be protected and we are moving in that direction hopefully fast enough. For myself the exercises I do consider to be very important, as important really as the food that I eat. Especially at my age of 80 years when one's health is very dependent on how well one exercises every day of your life.  

Whilst out walking yesterday we happened to be passed by three Muslim men and one could feel their dislike as one passed; why should I wear a hijab this is Canada - wear what you are legally permitted to wear. To be disliked for no reason is really unsatisfactory in Canada and I am perhaps too sensitive but that is me. In this country we do not see you as other than a Canadian if you are; our respect is there for you unless you break the law but still your right to a hearing in court is always there and I respect that.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

A quick check and only two more matches on Living DNA

 Another busy day as it was marketing day and grocery day and both accomplished. The days of buying vegetables from the local farmers are decreasing rapidly but took advantage of that this week. Nice to have the fresh fall vegetables. We made a lovely pork salad with fresh leek, peppers, onions, carrots, lime, and of course fresh Canadian pork. It was delicious on Jasmine Rice although I would have had a baked potato also but rice is also nice. 

Finished off the matches on Living DNA including two new ones. One interesting match that came up has sharing with our most recent common ancestor John Blake and Ann Farmer (2x great grandparents) making us third cousins (?x removed as age is unknown except on my side) and interesting (although I did not check the smaller length) the 34 cM length was only matched by one sibling as the other four did not match Blake in that length. This is a Blake/Farmer length although does appear to be Blake and when found is always a descendant of the Blake line at Andover coming down from at least the father of John who was Thomas Blake married to Sarah Coleman. The length of the Blake/Farmer chromosome in this sibling is 120 cM and has just one of the five siblings expressing this particular length. In total there are 19 matches (that I have accumulated; there are indeed many more smaller ones) on this chromosome with this sibling found in the five different databases (23 and Me, Ancestry (via Gedmatch), FT DNA, Living DNA and My Heritage). Seven of them are known cousin matches. Two of the matches take us back to Thomas Blake and Sarah Coleman and five of them to John Blake and Ann Farmer so is rather interesting and I have concluded   Blake. A couple of ancient Blake matches in the United States takes this interesting length back to Richard Blake in Andover in the early 1600s. Endogamy has created this event with Nicholas Blake likely marrying his first cousin Margaret Blake (his Uncle Thomas' daughter) and Richard Blake (grandson of Nicholas) also marrying into this same likely Blake line descendant of Nicholas' brother Robert Blake. The occurrence in the 1530s and then again in the early 1600s did make Blake genetic material more available in two incidences and this one length is possibly from that although still very much in the thought stages. Nicholas Blake is the interesting individual that Horatio Gates Somerby decided to give different parents than the actual wills show for him and a sibling that lived in Somerset and said to be the furtherest back traced Blake in the Somerset Blake line at Plainfield. That this was still being mentioned by my grandfather in the 1950s is phenomenal really given that the internet on a personal level was still in the future. That I remember it is a feature of my memory and my grandfather mentioning it again and again. I was pretty young as I was eight years of age when he passed. However, on rare occasions my father would mention that thus reinforcing it through my childhood and then my late arrival to genealogy in 2003 to pick up those traces of thoughts long after my grandfather had passed on and my father who died in 1998. It was a book that Edward, my husband, purchased to give me for Christmas 2005 that really sparked that memory as it included in the history of that American Blake family this story about Nicholas. 

I have in total nine second cousins (although I do know that three of them are deceased, sons of my Great Aunt Sarah, my grandmother's sister) in the United States although I have only ever corresponded with one of them. I have quite a few third cousins including several that I correspond with and many many fourth cousins and greater some with whom I have corresponded and continue to do so. I like to think of Americans as our cousins and friends and we have been for over two hundred years sharing our common border. In my case I am first generation Canadian on my father's side as he was born in England coming to Canada with his parents in 1913. I am fourth generation on my mother's side as her paternal grandmother and father were both born in Canada (as was she in 1916) in 1839 and 1872 respectively and they are my first Canadian ancestors. I think the friendship is still in our minds but economically Canada has to grow differently at this time and it has been a difficult period in our relationship. I actually do not notice that anyone is particularly anti anything but definitely when we shop and where we go has been determined greatly by this need to help our economy especially we old people as that is really all that we can do is support by our purchasing power and our traveling power. We also love our country as do they and we love our system of government and our independence but yet we prefer to be best friends with our American neighbours. I think the news makes too much of some items. But one cannot control the news; it is free speech unless it is hate speech which is illegal here.  

My first actual visit to the United States was a school trip to Detroit to see a couple of items there. At that time immigration was heavy coming from Eastern Europe to Canada and one of my classmates was from Hungary. She was fairly new and her landed immigrant status saw us tied up at the border for several hours as we did not want to leave her behind and the American Border Patrol was simply following the rules but did decide to give her limited entry and we were on our way. I did understand that at the time as it was not that long since the war in Europe ended really and rules are rules although they can be stretched on occasion and it was decided that this particular Grade 8 student would be permitted to enter this one time on our school trip. We were grateful, all of the children, and clapped for the agent who informed us and thanked him for his kindness.  That is the sort of relationship that we have with the United States. We follow the rules there as they do here. 

Marketing/Grocery shopping all done and today will be a work day. Still waiting for the first frost to get out there and do some yard work. We had a lovely walk yesterday afternoon before dinner (about four kilometres). Hopefully a few more walks like that and it keeps my gait in line as walking around the house is good for one but a good stride in the fresh woods air is even better. But the ice is coming and that does slow me down in terms of walking outside. 

Time to make tea, I am late today as we did not have dinner until 7:30 p.m. last evening. Then solitaire puzzles and the day begins once again.  

 

Living DNA matches completed although must check to see if there are any new ones

A perfect sight as I looked out the window this morning Venus so bright and twinkling and just above it a slipper moon. God looks down on us and wonders with so much perfection given to us so freely why can we not follow His two commandments to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love (respect) our neighbour as ourself. That is all that He asks and in return we have a beautiful world which we have damaged with our greediness. We must do better. When we are doing better our world is a more peaceful place (the magic wall of NATO is a big help). The children of Israel, the children of Gaza and the children of Ukraine deserve to sleep in peace and not fear all the time. 

Yesterday was a successful day working through the remaining matches that I had already collected. However I do have to check and see if there are any recent ones that I might like to look at. So today that will be my aim to check out the databases to see if there are any new matches to utilize. I also started working on the cross over points utilizing the Living DNA results. Given that my heritage at least for the last six hundred years is English with Huguenot, Scot creeping in before that but again likely primarily English, I correctly anticipated that I would find a lot of matches and that some of them would be doubled up because the chances of two of my relatives marrying is high in England. I covered some chromosomes that were not represented overly or well represented in the other databases simply because most of my relatives are in England or Commonwealth countries. That being said I do have quite a few cousins in the United States beginning with second cousins now my age and many third to sixth cousins who match me and show up as matches in the various databases.  Endogamy present in two of my lines has given me some quite ancient matches with people in the United States who have been there for hundreds of years and married only American. Surprising really but again a huge number of those original settlers in New England were from England itself. 

Completed my fall cleaning satisfactorily to me and waiting now on the weather to bring forth the frost to help me to clear away the weeds out there. They simply overwhelmed me this year as it ended up being a very very busy summer. 

Moving onto the other databases but first checking Living DNA for new matches. It begins to look like I may just be working on re-phasing the grandparents by the end of the month. 

Tea cooling and solitaire puzzles to work on.  

 

9 degrees celsius

A cold  morning to begin the day although it is predicted to go up to 27 degrees celsius. But the weather for Friday suggests that we will have frost on Friday night/Saturday morning with 1 degree celsius predicted. Finally I have waited a while as I do want to work on the grounds outside and clear away for the winter. This year I shall cut everything back once it is frost struck and let it rot on the ground to enrich the earth. 

Cleaning accomplished yesterday and just one more set of things to do to complete my Fall housecleaning. That I will complete today. 

No work on the matches at all actually although I did think about the other databases that I now need to search for the latest entries. I have extracted Ancestry thus far and will do a quick followup as that was a week ago now. 

Already Wednesday the week is flowing by rapidly as we watch the colours come in the maple tree at the back - some nice colour at the apex of the tree. The view completely blocked now out of the right side of the window in my work room and perhaps half blocked or more on the left side of the window (primarily the black walnut tree which grew from a squirrel burying a seed and now it is enormous sucking up all the moisture and filling the yard with roots so much so that a shovel can barely break in. But trees we need as they are carbon catchers. 

Another dreadful fire season in Canada as summer has turned into that. Being a polar nation we will suffer a good deal from wildfire and extreme heat unusual in this part of the world. This summer was no exception in that regard for sure and some fires still burn or smoulder but less apparent now that the cooler rainier weather is coming. We will soon be into the wet season culminating with snowfall which covers the fires and helps to put them out or control them. 

Perhaps some work on the matches today as there are only  nine left. It has been a long trek through them but the setup at Living DNA is absolutely excellent letting you flip from one sibling to another that shares a common match. 

Drinking tea and solitaire puzzles to do.  

Another Cleaning Day

 Yesterday I did finish early afternoon so spent some time watching Question Period and I think I feel very much as the Premiers of Alberta and Ontario (who are both Conservative) that the Prime Minister is doing a good job and we just have to work through all the details of getting our new trade setup. Once there we will look back and review but right now all of our thoughts need to be directed towards how to change our trade so that we become more independent once again just as we were when I was a child. Charlie Kirk was remembered in our House of Commons; assassination of political leaders is wrong and two small children must go through life without their father - how cruel to have forced those children to be fatherless. 

Top floor all cleaned and that is satisfying to have completed the cleaning once again. I have a few more chores to do tomorrow and then my time will be dedicated to working on the matches to complete them and then back to look at the other DNA databases and pick up anything new that might be helpful and then on to the re-phasing of my grandparent's DNA. But also the phasing of my eight great grandparents as it does look very possible to do that with all the data that has arrived in my various databases. That means looking at the DNA of people who were born between the 1830s and the 1850s for the most part. They are all on the census and I have a lot of information on them as individual people having listened to my two grandparents talk about their ancestors and amazingly they had a lot of knowledge on their spouse's parents. Perhaps my grandmother less so because her husband was my second born Canadian ancestor (his mother was first) and everything that she knew about his family was from him. He liked to talk about his relatives apparently and did spend a lot of time with relatives because he was basically an only child as an adult as his baby brother died when he was five years of age and his sister died at 13 years of age when he was 15 years old. My grandfather's father married a second time and he did have a half sister who had three sons and I met one of those sons and corresponded occasionally with a grandson (I must send another picture of their grandmother which I found in my cache of photos). 

My time, until a good frost, will be mostly spent on my writing and preparing to write. This morning one could see  Venus sparkling in the heavens first thing when I looked out. It always reminds me that God is waiting and watching for us to do the right thing. The right thing is to love God with all our soul, heart, mind and strength and love (respect) our neighbour as ourself. The two commandments brought to us by Jesus as Christians. That is not yet happening in our world. We, the United Nations, must be much firmer in how we regard war - to attack another country is to declare war against that country - and we must stop it. If we leave the attacked country dangling in the wind then they must act for themselves. NATO stands on guard with Russia constantly trying to bait us but we will wait our time and just keep Russia behind that magic NATO wall that protects all the countries that are part of NATO. They are sick and evil people the Russians who support this war against Ukraine but at some point they will go bankrupt as they did when they attacked Afghanistan and we will have peace once again in our world. We actually do not want to attack Russia but want them to come to their senses and get out of Ukraine.  Hamas too are sick in the mind and evil and they must release the hostages immediately and without conditions as ordered over a year and a half ago by the International Court. Hamas has caused all the death and destruction in Gaza but then that was their plan as they seek to turn the world against Israel. They do not care about the people of Gaza or anywhere else except the Great Satan Iran it would appear. Hamas must get out of Gaza both literally and figuratively. Gaza can not arise as a Nation State unless Hamas is gone - Hamas will not let them as their only purpose is the destruction of the Israeli State. The Satanic Iranians are murderers of young girls for not wearing a hijab as suits their view. Children should be free to run and play and not be judged by Satanic people. A young woman is still a child. Iran is disgusting and add to that the unarmed civilian airplane they shot down in Tehran as it was returning home to Canada - all dead, children, women and men slaughtered by these ignorant Satanists.

The last day of cleaning is today and it is the top floor and I will begin after breakfast. Tea is ready and cooling and time to do the solitaire puzzles.  

 

Cleaning day on the main floor once again

A Memorial Service yesterday for the little boy in Toronto; the only child and the only grandchild the relative of the family mentioned on TV. Prayers continuing for the souls of the two people (the youngest only 18 months and the older one just 31 years of age with two very young children who must move forward in life without their father) lost this week now past - the tragedy of the deaths I have been mentioning still freshly in the minds of so many. They will be grieved for a very long time because they were the centers of their spheres and their losses so huge in their spheres. 

Sunny today and slightly warmer until Friday.  The Online Service yesterday did not happen at the Cathedral but I did attend Education Sunday with the Online Service from England. It was a shame to miss Holy Cross Sunday although I will check and see if it was just a glitch in sending and perhaps it recorded well enough to put up on YouTube. My day ended up being very successful completing the entire basement although it did take me about four hours in chunks through the day.

A small amount of work on matches and now there are 14 to do. Perhaps in between cleaning the main floor I will work in a few more; time will tell. I am working on the Ts now and only three more and then the Vs and the Ws and one Z. Then work on the Ancestry matches already set up to work on although will check once again as it is nearly a week since I did that. Then FT DNA, 23 and Me and My Heritage. The matches abound although I only do perhaps 10% or less of the new ones in total because my cutoff is rather high at above 20 cM on one length of chromosome. 

Today Question Period will be watched by many I think as we work towards a more independent trading policy than we have had for two generations. It is wondrous to see the desire to work together so strong in this country. But it will be progress forward for everyone to move together to make this country the economic powerhouse of which it is capable of being. 

Tea to drink whilst I do my solitaire puzzles.  

 

Sunny today

Sunday once again and two Church services to attend online. No wind in the trees and it is sunny and actually 13 degrees celsius. A sort of normal September day and it is going to be slightly warmer than usual for a few days apparently. I am definitely waiting for the cooler weather and a good frost to start working in the yard. I need the frost to kill off the weeds so that when I pull them they do not re-root as I want them to rot away and build up the ground which is definitely needing nutrition. 

A good accomplishment day yesterday as I now have only 17 matches left to file away in my databases. Another couple of good entries in yesterday's work and this trek through the Living DNA matches has been very useful. Time consuming but useful. Probably this week I will look at the other testing companies and see if there is anything new so perhaps I may yet complete this project by the end of the month and even be into working on the re-phasing of my Grandparent's DNA passed to our parents. In general I have four complete sets of DNA as I have five siblings DNA to work with but there were a couple of inconsistencies which I noted on the particular chromosomes and I think perhaps this Living DNA data will help to quell those thoughts simply because the chances of my being related to individuals in the British Isles is much higher than anywhere else in the world. 

A new week and new happenings and we in Canada are pretty much concentrated on where we are headed with regard to changes in our style of trade for some of our natural resources. We, the entire country, are working together in a way that hasn't been seen since before Confederation back in the days when our biggest worry was being invaded by the new young United States as we rework our trade between provinces and territories making the best decisions with regard to purchasing Canadian first if we have it. That is always the big if though as we are a polar country and even with the global warming our winters are long and cold and snowy. 

I watch the news a little once again and being a conservative have those views but I guess I can see the arguments on the left and in the centre most of the time. I seldom agree with the left; it is really rare but one thing I know if you force people to hide something those people are dangerous because they are protecting themselves from that something. Myself I do not care about people's orientation (nor do I understand it but then I do not need to as I will agree with this one thing our Prime Minister Eliot Trudeau used to say back in his time as Prime Minister - the government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation). About that he was incredibly right and intervening is only when someone is being harmed but consenting adults are going to do what they want to do and one just has to move on and ignore it really as it isn't anyone's business but their own unless someone else is being injured or killed. I lived through that knife attack in my late teens emerging only with mental damage for sure (and all I did was help someone to move out of a situation that they were uncomfortable in and I would recommend to anyone that you just tell them to call the police). I would not like to see anyone else go through that to be honest. As it turns out I am a hermit and relish my quiet time in my old age just as I did as a child in a family of nine people. The quiet times in solitude are a wonderful gift for reading or working on projects although I would have preferred to have my husband live much longer; live to 92 like he wanted to but one cannot control how illness works in all cases for sure. The reality is that I blame the person who asked me to help her not the apparently "stoned" couple as she mentioned later when she attempted to speak to me. It was her responsibility to protect me or warn me as I would not have entered if I had known they were there in that condition and in my naive young state I would have had no idea what "stoned" meant anyway. Moving on as one might say. 

Today is a busy day as it is cleaning the basement day and it is a full cleaning of that basement which will include unloading the shelves and dusting. Like a Fall housecleaning sort of thing. Except I do not climb as I am strong enough to tilt the cases and wash them that way! Breakfast soon but tea and solitaire puzzles first. 

 

 

Only 32 matches left to sort

Good day of accomplishment yesterday as I am now down to just 32 matches to sort and the index for the first Photo Album is growing steadily with the location of the early pictures of Edward discovered and placed into this first book. It will be the smallest book as I am using our original binder for this particular set. The rest will be the larger photo books of which there are about 25 which will be reduced to around seven or eight or less if that works out. They do hold a lot of pictures. We have a lot of pictures. There will be a lot of shredding for sure. But then it all ended suddenly early in 2001 when Edward decided to only have electronic sets of family pictures. 

We have two lovely binders of the two major trips that were taken one by my daughter in the early 90s (a school trip) and one by the two of us (my eldest daughter and I) to Rome and London in 2001. We will likely keep those intact for a bit but they are also all electronic as well and the printed copies will be shredded probably sooner rather than later as once again there are a lot of pictures. Interesting that my daughter took 24 rolls of pictures and I barely took three some of which were pictures my daughter took of me on my camera. I just really like to remember in my mind the items that mean a lot to me. 

Still good news on the project front as discussion is ongoing on the next set of projects that will be in preparation whilst these other five are completed and then on we go. The ride has begun towards a new energy grid across the country and up into the Territories to bring us all online and ensure a very productive country for the children born today and adults to come. New mines, new ports and an increase in oil production to speed us on our way. There is the will and the desire to protect the environment will ride right along with us as we do the best we can do for both. Carbon capture being very much on the top of the list as well. 

Prayers continuing for the soul of Charlie Kirk and for his wife and children as they move forward without him.  Prayers continuing for the soul of the little toddler who lost his life when a car crashed through the window of his daycare and for his family grieving his loss. Prayers for the children injured and still recovering in hospital. God be with them all. 

Monday will see me glued to the television set watching Question Period. These discussions are the most important that our parliament has seen for a very long time; they are about the future of Canada and its peoples managing their economy. I remember when we built the St Lawrence Seaway all by ourselves and the good feeling of having created such a waterway. People drove to see it from all over Canada; to marvel at what we had done. Now we will create an equally wondrous water system in the north utilizing our access to the Arctic and from there to both the Atlantic and Pacific with Hudson Bay as our huge harbour and ports of call at various places. All of this on the drawing board as we move forward. Trade will flow from Canada to the entire world. Premier Ford mentioned that the First Nations have the Ring of Fire in hand we just need to help with getting that project sitting on the drawing board for much too long to fruition. The Premiers are all excited at the work ahead and it is wondrous to see Provinces and Nation moving in tandem together and forward. 

Another work day and a good exercise day and today is rowing, yoga and running along with my two calisthenic/yoga exercises to wake me up in the morning. The Fitbit is certainly a wonderful extra since it entered the market. I have had one for a very long time and find it to be a very useful item in my life. 

Drinking tea and on to the solitaire puzzles - my brain exercise to begin the day.  

 

 

Continuing to file the matches

Yesterday I continued my work on the matches and there are now  45 items to sort into my various databases. Working on the S's now and this is the first name not the last. There are 24 of them and that will likely be all that I do today if I can accomplish all of them which is unlikely. It takes time. Although I worked through a likely descent in common grandparent wise I do do this more intently now. I am watching for inconsistencies in my original phasing of the grandparents as I know there are a couple of spots that I was hesitant about committing to one grandparent or another. This data for Living DNA is quite helpful in that there is a huge concentration of my relatives still living in the British Isles and some have tested. But the end is definitely in sight and surely the end of this month will also see this project completed and perhaps the rerun of the other testing companies will also have been completed although of that I am doubtful. 

The great reveal of the five projects was yesterday and they are all very excellent for sure. They are all in various stages of work and this faster approval system will jettison them into completion quickly. That is the purpose of all of this work. Another group of projects is up for review and pretty much guaranteed to be the next set to be fast tracked to keep us on course increasing our trade with other countries around the world. The Ports I find most exciting because they are the conduit through which we pass goods to countries to the west and to the east. Although we had no complaint with our earlier trading practice the change that has been wrought by others has made us aware of our fragility with regard to external trade and so we are on that path of diversification. Our outlook does appear to be a positive one and we just all need to push towards that diversification; investing in Canada where we are able particularly the old as we can not do much else to help our youth to excel as they always do but this time it is to increase our production of goods in a way that best suits Canada. 

Prayers continuing for the families stricken by sadness over the last couple of days both here in our own country and around the world. The loss of family members is so painful especially when they are so young or when the family members have lost a beloved parent. One thinks of the family of Charlie Kirk and the pain that they will have to endure growing up without him. One thinks of the little boy who died when a car crashed through the window of his daycare. For his family the loss is so huge. The other children, injured physically or mentally, have their own battles to face in their future. 

Up early today and outside getting everything ready for the Collection of the garbage. I put the cleaned mats back into the car and it is ready for winter; just need the snow tires a little later along with the oil change and Peace of Mind checkup. I will only drive it a couple of times before that actually. Not yet at 31,000 kilometres and unlikely to come to that before the spring tire change. Soon the car into the garage for the winter. 

An interesting meal yesterday as I took scallops and browned them slightly and then put them into a baking dish with a sauce made from first onion, garlic and peppers saute in olive oil and then added freshly cut tomatoes and broccoli and red wine vinegar and cooked that for five minutes and put that on top of the scallops and dotted the top of the contents with feta cheese. Cooked it all at 450 degrees for 18 minutes and it was quite delicious. I do love fish. But I think one could do the same with a can of fish as scallops are a bit expensive but I only rarely treat myself to such meals. I never eat out so having such a meal is cheap in comparison. Sometimes I go out with my family but that too is rare; they are all busy with their lives. I always said I gave them life but I do not own them and want them to pursue the things they want to do. I am busy with writing my books and working away on my many projects. I can do that any where though and when my daughter returns one of these days (when there is a job or she retires) then I will live with her because we are so much alike with our projects and working away on them. She has research partners around the world as well as close at home. My other daughter has many patients and her life is always very busy. I try very  hard not to be a drain on either of them. 

Tea all drank and time to do my solitaire puzzles. 

 

 

 

 

The loss of one little toddler boy weighs heavy on the mind

 Prayers for the children at the daycare as their lives at such a young age have been altered so suddenly. One toddler (a little boy) has died when a car crashed through the window of a Daycare in Toronto area. Prayers for the soul of the little toddler who will never get to do anything in his life; the hole in his parents/families life will be enormous. The missing one will always be missing; you can not replace a child that you have carried for nine months and held for eighteen months and watched and guarded and done everything that was possible in this life to protect your little one. Prayers for his family. Prayers for the other injured child still in intensive care and for their family. 

I found myself unable to write about this accident as I had to go out for groceries today. At 80, my constant thoughts as I turn that key in the ignition is of my surroundings and my need to be extra cautious because I am old. It does mean that I do not drive other than to the store on my own. I try to go when the children are all in school although I discovered today that perhaps the school arrival time has changed a little at one of the local schools as there were just a few children still walking towards the High School. It has also changed the lunch hour as I went shopping last week when generally I would  not see any students. That type of change makes me so aware of how careful one must be if one is older driving. One's mind must be acutely aware of everything that is around them at all times as for everyone who drives. I think as my cataract surgery came closer and closer I worried that my sight was adequate and certainly after the first eye was operated on and I opened my eyes in my living room looking at the ceiling I discovered that the eye not yet operated on saw a yellowish ceiling whilst the other eye could see the bright white ceiling. In my case I was about to gain a leap in sight with depth of vision and no astigmatism but I did not know at that time what I was missing to be honest. I had driven for 59 years by then with no tickets, no demerit points and no reported accidents. Those last few months  before cataract surgery, although I did  not really notice any change, I was extra cautious the few times that I did go to the store. 

 

Another good day of work

The plan was to get through more matches and I am now at  60 left to sort into my databases. Most of them were pretty straight forward and another interesting one on Chromosome 9 where there is somewhat of a conflict although this latest match does give me thought to pause and look again at the small group of matches that were conflicting. I think perhaps I have let my thoughts on geographic positioning take a bit of a hold which I can not really do with British Isles matches. The chances of names belonging anywhere in particular is confounded by the simple fact that there is a greater chance of individuals marrying someone that I am related to in the British Isles than here with its abundance of many other countries feeding into the population. That being said I am being more cautious at how I look at the matches. 

I also worked on the picture albums as I have been looking for this small set of pictures of Edward that I scanned for him a couple of years before he passed away. I was thinking they would just be in a little pile but in actuality I checked the graph we made of the boxes in the storage area and discovered there were actually two boxes labelled family photos. Inside that box was a family album I do not really remember ever seeing (yet another binder of pictures) and there they were. I suspect by the look of the binder that it belonged to his mother and that makes sense that those early pictures would have been in that binder. I could almost sense him saying you really shouldn't take my mother's binder apart but gradually for the sake of preservation I did do that and will actually send a good portion of this binder to his nieces as most of the pictures are of those two children. They belong to them really as time passes this growing family will want to have their history in their own hands. 

So now those pictures have a new home in the first binder of the set of Family Albums that will reside with our children. I think he would be happy to know that a little line coming down from him will look at his pictures on into the future and say that is Grandpa Edward because that always bothered him that his father appeared to be forgotten. 

The day moved fast and I did my weightlifting after several hours of working on the matches and then in the afternoon I did my yoga and running after working on the Family Albums. I watched the television for a bit and discovered that another shooting had occurred in the United States of a well known Conservative Charlie Kirk. How sad that his children will not know their father in life any longer; how sad for America that another shooting has occurred. Prayers for his soul. Remembering that today is 24 years since 9/11 and the sadness of that day. For me up here in Canada working at the hospital we listened and watched all day as we had gone on disaster footing in case anyone needed to be airlifted to here. But it was quiet all day as we waited for news on the downing of the Twin Towers, the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of the hijacked airplane in a Pennsylvania field. So sad for our American cousins and neighbours. Then as the day passed our airports filled with planes headed to the United States but landing here in Canada. Not in Ottawa as the Americans asked us not to do that since their   Embassy is here; quite understandable. It was a long day; it was a long week for those Americans as they waited for the border to open to let them come home.  

The decision has been made that no new pipeline starts will occur for this first approach at the new energy grid across Canada. The private sector has not yet expressed an interest in doing so and the Federal government will not build another pipeline. It is not the same priority as other items. Not disappointed as I rather expected that since there was no news forthcoming on a company taking up this project in the private sector. It would not likely be popular for an American company as they prefer the oil flow directly to the United States and not to a tidewater port since there is a huge benefit in that we sell the oil to them at a discount. That is why we built the Trans Mountain pipeline ourselves when we purchased that particular item. We wanted to get a pipeline to tidewater in that case it was through British Columbia. But this new proposal involves a port on the Atlantic side of Canada so a good amount of land to pass over (unless one chooses Port Churchill in which case the length is considerably shorter). There are advantages and disadvantages since Hudson Bay is icebound in the winter months in Canada and that can be a long period. However I also see an advantage as it is a protected port with a similarly protected passage to the Atlantic and a much smaller crossing to the east with the current to Europe with lots of ports of call along the way.  Time will tell on that and there does need to be consultation which is probably ongoing as time passes. 

Today more matches and more work on the Family Albums which will be more or less the direction of my work until the matches are done. Then I will check the other companies once again for any new matches (at Ancestry there are twenty new ones already which I did do in a quiet moment of just wanting to do something else). 23 and Me does  not let me look at the matches in terms of chromosomes which I will check to see if that has changed. FT DNA and My Heritage I have not looked at for a while. Once I have done that then I move towards rephasing the grandparents DNA as I am working concurrently on the cross over points using the data from Living DNA. There were some subtle changes but nothing earth shattering but good clarification on a couple of queries in my mind. I am working on the third chromosome at this time - chromosome 7. Then of course the generational charts for the two books - Pincombe and Blake. But these two projects have a number of Latin documents that I will be transcribing this fall. There is a course on Mango languages on the Gallic Wars which I shall start doing shortly. That will also help my Latin. 

Time to go and make my tea and then do my solitaire puzzles.  I always have this sad twinge when I finish the daily solitaire puzzles as they seem to go so quickly and I enjoy them so very much. 

Finally the cleaning is all done

 I ended up doing both floors yesterday so today I can get back to work. I did spend a little time on the earliest photo book and it is ready to start filling. I found quite a few of the old pictures of Edward; most of mine are electronic as my sister scanned them. They are in my First story book that I wrote. The Picture Book begins with a title page and already has its ending as the first book which is four pictures from our wedding. There will not be any difficult with filling the book as there are a lot of pictures of Edward and finally me when I arrive on the scene. 

Today I shall do some work on the matches as well as that task is coming along with just  76 matches left to enter into my databases. You can feel it moving along as I am now most of the way through the Ms. I love the sort alphabetical or numerical; it suits my temperament. My old computer is now doing all of this work and set up for that. I have a large working area that I can just leave day after day as I sort. 

My mind is clearly centered on the work ahead although I know that Question Period when we begin next Monday will see me watching. I will organize my day so that I am doing weight lifting or rowing or yoga at that time. Just so that I am not just sitting there like a couch potato. 

I found it fascinating that the largest Canadian mining company is merging with a very large British mining company. Conglomerates of like minded individuals can get things done that might not happen as their liquidity is so great. It will take time for these ventures to move us forward independently and not see our economy destroyed by tariff. Those words still reach deep down into my soul; they tear at the very cloth of my being that someone would say that - no need to invade can just destroy them economically. Does one actually do that to one's cousin/one's neighbour/one's friend. I shake my head and move on; letting the words sink deep into the abyss of my brain knowing that the Canadian spirit is strong and willing. You can not really fight that; you just carry forward and rework the system. Prime Minister Carney is right about that. But I am still tempted to think we should move to a war footing in terms of our economy making it easier to get things done. Not quickly bypassing the consent of the people but with a good motion forward and Premier Wab Kinew always comes to mind with his big smile and his we can do this attitude.  I love that for sure. The port and the electrical grid to Nunavut - both excellent ideas and you can feel the strength in  his words as he describes these projects. His thousands of years of ancestry in this land give one hope for the future. Yet I admire and appreciate Premier Ford for his bluntness; he captures the Canadian essence of Don't Trample on Me which came to us with the many Patriots who came to Canada in the early 1800s from the United States and form part of the web of Ontario. Premier Ford will go down in the history books of this time when it is written. 

FIFA ticket buying has begun and this great enterprise managed by Mexico, the United States and Canada will burst on the scene and heal some of that hurt that came with huge tariffs against one's trading partners - the largest trading group in the world.  

So a busy day ahead. Drinking my tea and soon my solitaire puzzles will fire themselves across my computer as I wake this brain for its day's work.