A little done on Chromosome 8 and a work day today

 Yesterday cleaning all accomplished and the shop vac worked very well I must say but I will be watching for a new vacuum for sure. The old one certainly did a good job for over 40 years; I can not complain about that one. It was starting to show its age though for sure. 

Worked on the 8th Chromosome and already a couple of the cross over points verified. There are a lot on this chromosome. One day, if my mind ever returns to medicine and since I am over 80 it interests me less and less to be honest, I may just look at the genes that are on each chromosome. But that is a project far into the future one must say.  

I think that I can really thank my good health on the psychiatrist that looked after me when I was ill a few months after my first child was born (about five months actually). He gave me words to live with for the rest of my days and he made them meaningful to me. It remains some of the clearest parts of that illness; what he had to say for sure. It was a while before I was myself again - I would say as much as eight or nine years. Mental illness, as I discovered when I took the course for setting up Encounter Groups, at St Paul's University, is an illness of the mind which ends up affecting the rest of you if it becomes prominent. 

When you actually accept that you are ill then I think the recovery can begin but it has a lot of pitfalls because your mind is weak. You tend to have trusts that need to be the kind that looks to your best future actually. I was pretty hidden within the family when we first moved here which was just a short time later really (six months) and for the next three years except for belonging to groups my husband had selected I really did not have very much to do with anyone other than my husband and child and visits back to my family which were fairly regular. That was good for me but I was still in a weakened state moving to our new home as I had to acquire all these new people - dentist, doctor, and neighbours for sure. 

Luckily the Roman Catholic Elementary School (which had four year old kindergarten) was able to take on our daughter as a tuition student which I greatly appreciated. I then took on helping one day a week in her classroom and the teacher was quite marvelous with the children. It was a great year for sure especially for my mental health in retrospect. So far so good. 

Then moving on to select the necessary clinicians in our life I consulted the druggist which my last doctor had recommended. He did not know the doctors where I moved particularly and suggested that I just start over and not concern myself with forwarding my records (there actually weren't as I barely saw him although he was great) and his associate was a part-time pediatrician and she forwarded the records once I found a new doctor (of course I saw her a great deal since my daughter wasn't one when we moved here but she didn't have records for me - I wasn't a child!). So I did that and I already related how we ended up with the doctor that we did. My daughter liked him although when the allergy needles (to calm her asthma) started perhaps three months later she lost that liking very quickly and I still remember when we went to Edward's United Church and she saw him; she ran to the other end of the room where I joined her. 

Myself I have really always just taken care of myself with occasional visits to a doctor which I must admit he did not like particularly and asked what I was doing to help in the community. I said I had been very ill and was still recovering and he said they needed someone to welcome people to my street because it was growing and there wasn't anyone. I wasn't interested I said but eventually he did persuade me to get involved with that although it didn't last very long as it just wasn't me. Edward did like his cousin for sure so I did make an effort with this visiting but in the long run I would say that we were not particularly a good patient doctor relationship (I accept the blame for that because I do tend to want to look after myself) especially when he did not refer me to an obstetrician as I felt that a C-section would be better for the second child when I became pregnant. 

But that is a long time ago now and I mostly forget about it. But for a while, whilst my second child was little, every little thing that went wrong I blamed on not being referred to be honest (to myself actually; I never commented on it again to the physician after asking for the referral). I barely remember her birth (I had been in labour for 30 hours and I was exhausted)  just when she didn't cry right away at birth - that is pretty much the memory and I think I might have blacked out because my next memory is of her crying before I fell asleep again or blacked out no idea. The nurses who looked after me in recovery were marvelous actually and took excellent care of me. I kept asking them about the baby and they kept me up to date on her which I greatly appreciated  I had been to an obstetrician (he was fairly old I think, vague memory as I only saw him once (and I was only 30) and then in for the procedure and it is possible he was no longer practising I never checked) here after my miscarriage when my eldest was just two but the nurses had said some things about him in my hearing (which is unfortunately very good but I think they didn't realize I could hear them) and I was nervous to have him again plus  he was at the far end of the city from where I lived now. That is a problem with a huge memory! Interesting reflecting on that again; I do get distracted. 

 Anyway I worked away at the matches on Chromosome 8 and then did Yoga with my eldest on the WII (online obviously) and that was a great workout for sure. I never lack for contact as I speak to my daughters every day either by keyboard or online speaking to each other. Then the emails that I get from around the world into my inbox every day, most of them are thankyous for work I have blogged in the past so no effort on my part. It is plenty of contact for me as I have a huge amount of work to do in the next decade. I promised myself that I would step back from anything that involved me taking on a commitment by 80 years of age and that has happened. So all this time is available for my work although that plan had included Edward and his huge desire to travel which I said I would do every two years so that we could plan the trip and get the most out of every place we visited. It worked really well from 2008 to 2018 which was the last time we traveled before COVID where we had to cancel our planned trip in 2020 to Germany. 

 

The need to be well educated

 It is really important to be well educated; it doesn't mean that everyone has to go to university although has its good points. You learn a lot at university and after you are done there you can pick whatever you want to do and then go and train to do it. I am not criticizing universities for not making you job-ready as I believe that all the students should go to university and learn as much as they can. There is no benefit to them not to do so really. Most live at home into their late 20s studying and preparing for the job they want to do. I think it is a good thing; no need to rush out the door into life until you are completely equipped and ready to go. In the past people certainly studied whatever was the exciting topic of the moment and then went on to work at what they wanted to do and it didn't always follow what they had spent perhaps as many as eight years like my husband in undergraduate Chemistry and then graduate school still in Chemistry graduating with his PhD. No jobs so he was back again to become a Librarian (a Masters Program). He was a librarian technically although most of his time was spent on knowledge organization in a big way which is very important (and shouldn't have been sold to balance a budget! however no more on that). I used an expression a couple of days (or it could be weeks ago as I haven't looked it up) where I said our youth had "fire in their bellies." If one just takes the time to look that expression up in the Oxford dictionary (and it is online) one discovers it means: a powerful sense of ambition or determination. I always thought it grew out of the building of the railway from sea to sea here in Canada because it was mostly the youth who were out there sleeping on the hard ground and getting up every day to lay more track (I remember my uncle saying that his father said that about these young men). John Pincombe wanted to do so many things and it especially included going to university and becoming a Civil Engineer like his mother's grandfather Thomas Routledge. He was thrilled by the railway and wanted to be part of it but he had to run the farm; it was his inheritance.All that youth of Canada worked hard on the railway and they did it (that railway went from ocean to ocean). I found the comment  that life was hard for our youth to be undermining their independence; their abilities and their desire to strive and be ahead. They can do it all we just need to provide is our investments to help produce jobs for them. I do not like to see anyone think they need a crutch; they are strong and they can do this. But back to the expression it was referring I thought to the trains with their huge furnaces burning coal all across the country dragging those trains up and down through the Rockies and across the plains and then Northern Ontario wasn't exactly a treat either. 

Finished the cleaning and it gave me a Cardio Load of 467 which was right on target apparently. Then on to Chromosome 8 and looking at the matches and working on the cross over points. Life is busy. 

Total Cardio Load for the day 728 which was slightly above target (target was 689 but it was cleaning day and that is a lot of work for sure).  

 

Chromosome 9 completed and on to Chromsome 8 and the rest of the cleaning

 I am fairly content with the completion of Chromosome 9; it took quite a while really but I am getting into the longer chromosomes as I approach number one. Chromosome 8 has a number of known cousins but rather a lot of crossovers unusually - a very put together set of chromosomes for all of us with some having really solid known areas and others like myself very little. I just have one known cousin matching me - that is usual as I am the most different from all of them. I generally inherited where they did  not and the reverse is also true. It does mean that we have good coverage of the grandparents DNA that was handed to their children. Certainly in the Blake-Knight great grandparent cross both lines show up quite strongly in us and that is the case with all of the inherited DNA. 

I have now set up Chromosome 8 and there are 68 matches with ten of them being known matches. I will work away at them as I clean the top floor. Yesterday my vacuum of fourty plus years shorted out but I have a shop vacuum in the basement which did the job and actually a marvelous job on the rug on the stairs - the long hose made it easy to do most of the stairs all the way up and then put the vacuum at the top behind a wall so that I didn't have it come down on me and complete the task. However I shall look for a new vacuum although I was hoping to buy maybe the first off the line of a new Canadian company to be honest. We will see - no rush the shop vac does a good job not quite as user friendly but efficient. It was such a good vacuum actually that 40 plus year old one (my husband was incredibly good at repairing any equipment that we owned). Quiet running; the shop vac sounds like a jet engine taking off. Powerful though for sure. 

Looking ahead to the budget coming down next week and very curious on its contents - Liberal budgets have not in general been very much to my liking these past ten years and before but then I didn't like what the Conservatives did after 2010 either so I just wait and see. I do remember back in the early 90s when Free Trade somewhat decimated southwestern Ontario. I wanted to see more independence on their part creating new industry since we had this much larger purchasing group with the Free Trade. This time the opportunity presents itself again and I do hope that new ideas come forward instead of clinging to the past. The future is progress; moving forward to new ideas and new ways and that is the Conservative way where industrial growth is concerned. So our wealthy citizens who benefit from this wonderful friendly and sharing climate in Canada really do need to consider how they are investing their money - Canada needs help from her citizens to move forward and encourage foreign investment to go along with their own. The Canadian who bought Toys R Us Canada just because he wanted Canada's children to have a Toys R Us should be applauded and that is our way forward more than anything else.  No more thinking about that though as at 80 I can do nothing about any of that except think but I need my sleep and do not want to continue contemplating our place on the world stage economically. Definitely I want to see a pipeline coming east and soon. If it has a two pronged approach - oil to the south and oil to the east even better (more investors!). But we need to refine our oil here in Ontario that is sold here because the loss of jobs needs to be offset in whatever way works. I noted one article where some people in Quebec are interested in an eastern pipeline (when you consider the area that is affected it is tiny compared to the size of these two provinces (Ontario and Quebec and since it would have to pass through Saskatchewan and Manitoba there is a lot to do where that is concerned but a lot has already been done for the Keystone XL pipeline now being reconsidered). We need to find paths that will work for the First Nations (and that is also true of the passage through the United States to the Gulf) and they are right there at the table ready to work on what is best for Canada. 

Tea drank and banana bread eaten and must do my solitaire puzzles. A trifle late today but the day is open; no bus to catch to get to work. Just work at home like when my children were small and the proofreading/copyediting just fitted right in with what my employers wanted. As that changed so did I returning to work in house initially but again the last run on the printer was at 2 so that saw me at home in time for the school return until it didn't. Then I just went back to work outside the home (I did consider once again doing my Masters but decided not to; I get so into such things and I did not want to miss that time with my children and my husband who was so into so many things) and my elder daughter rushed home from school to be with her younger sibling for which I paid her that is how the world works. I did consider at that time refreshing my COBOL skills as the main frames were starting to need to be connected to the smart terminals - there was a need and opportunity and I did think about it. But research has always been my interest and so I went into the world of medicine and there I stayed for 12 plus years in various jobs but always there was that bit of research which involved me and I was content as I also wanted time with my children with my mind uncluttered to work on their projects when they asked me - it was a privilege for my children to include me in their projects and I wasn't going to pass up on that.  

 

Another good day on matches with just a dozen left to do in Chromosome 9

 Cleaning accomplished and I did the four mile walk today - one of my DVDs for exercise. I quite enjoyed it and have not done it for awhile. Usually I have been running but this time of year with the change in weather my osteoarthritis in my knees generally kicks up a little fuss and it is better just to go with it and do exercise that doesn't antagonize the bone spurs in my knees when they are susceptible due to weather change. Then of course I have been out gardening and on my knees on the cold ground which is why I only work for one hour these days. The DVD is great and keeps me in shape to run once again when true winter comes and I am in a warm house most of the time. I do love to run; there is something about that relaxation that comes with just running whether it just be around a small track in the house. It still feels quite wonderful. 

The matches and gradually I have resolved the difficulty I was having with Chromosome 9 - a few of the problem matches are simply two of my lines marrying and breaking the matches apart amongst the siblings who match differently is now a good solution and quite amazing really how DNA passes from one person to another. Then there were all those Blake matches; so many with 53 grandchildren belonging to my 2x great grandparents John Blake and Ann Farmer who married in 1823. How they ever remembered all of their names? it amazes me. Edward, my great grandfather, was the second youngest child and the fifth son.  He was 22 years younger than his oldest brother who was born five days after the marriage of John and Ann. I found that very interesting especially as it was four years later that the second child and son John was born.  The Buller matches though have been terrific on this chromosome. As it turned out I was the only one with Buller in the middle of this chromosome and the matches are a good length (25 cM or greater). Good Pincombe matches as well and Rawlings. 

Today cleaning the main floor and will begin that in a couple of hours. Yesterday went very smoothly cleaning but the basement is now pretty straight forward and the Robot does the rugs down there. 

 Chatting with my daughter and the sadness of all this trade war actually. The 36 states that trade with Canada as their largest customer (and for some it is practically everything they export) are suffering and one can feel their pain. If you do not count the oil that we ship south then the amount that we sell to the United States is far less than the exports that come up here. Plus we used to spend all of that vacation money in the United States yearly (in the billions) especially during the winter. One can also feel their pain for sure. Once we have balanced off the jobs lost with the jobs gained as we again manufacture our own stoves, refrigerators, washers, dryers, dish washers and all the other small electric appliances that we buy from the United States then our pain will lessen here very quickly. Plus we have all these new projects under way and more to be announced. I do hope that the road widening of the Trans Canada Highway is amongst them. Once that is in place we will really be on the way. It kept me awake thinking about all of these wondrous projects and the employment of our unemployed youth at the moment. One has to go where the jobs are for sure. 

Soon the Prime Minister will meet with the President of China to discuss trade and I look forward to that. It was the United States that originally met with China on trade way back in the 60s I think and it was President Nixon. The object was to bring China into trade with them and it went very well. China is a powerhouse of production and they need a lot of raw materials and we produce them so looking forward to good discussions there. I still think that we should agree to remove the tariff if they build their cars here with Canadian materials and Canadian employees. That would restore some of the car jobs lost as the three American companies withdraw from some of their plants. It is sad as the Auto Pact goes back to 1965 but we are being blamed for building too many cars (although I do think that the companies themselves decide how many cars they will build and we have no idea in that regard (we do not count them as they go back and forth across the border) and so we must look elsewhere (perhaps someone here wants to start up a car company - we did have them but they were bought out years ago by American companies).  But certainly having China build and sell their EVs here would be an interesting idea I think. As a country we buy an enormous number of cars simply because we have so much land and the public transportation is limited mostly to the large cities near the border with the United States. You need a car and it is a right of passage here - you can count the number of teenagers/young adults with cars (they still live with their parents here right up to their 30s very often) in the laneways (plus two for the parents!). My Dodge Caravan barely has 31,000 kilometres (six years old now) on it so will likely be running for a while yet but that is dependent on servicing for sure. My family has always driven Dodge now Stellantis and when my father and brothers had their businesses there were all those Dodge trucks as well. 

 Premier Ford gets very upset about the people of his province suffering and tries to help them every way that he can. That is the role of politicians although I prefer to see 75 million dollars go to startups personally. It is the thing that bugs me about the Liberals; throwing money at things. Careful spending is important to me and always, where the government is particularly concerned, spent here in Canada given the present situation. 

Twelve matches to go and Chromosome 9 will be complete (this chromosome has a lot of crossovers compared to the others). I just have three crossover points that are not verified by the new data (verified by the old and mostly they remain pretty much the same). Three, 104 and 84 belonging to two siblings only. The three doesn't really trouble me as it will just be one match suddenly appearing with that tiny length from 0 to three. The 104 is interesting as it looks to be a shared crossover point but unused until the last match as I just happened to look at it so solved at the end. The 84 is a challenge but will just remain as 84 unless there is a change in the next 11 matches!

Banana Bread all eaten, tea drank and solitaire puzzles to do.  

 

 

Cleaning day once again and it is the basement

 The cyclical nature of our lives can either be very apparent or just part of the stream as we flow through life. Yesterday\s sermon reminded me once again that God is always in our lives but seldom are we so lucky to sense His direction in how our life flows. Perhaps it is because we do not always listen; no ideas on that. A religious person but certainly  not a scholar but to the depth of my soul I believe that God is always with us but seldom interferes in the flow of our lives. When He sent Jesus to those of us who are Christians; His intent was clear; He gave us clear concise rules to live by and here we are two thousand years later still working on those concise rules for the most part as we survive one potential armageddon after another. Amazing really. 

Today the basement and so the cleaning routine goes on but I am never in a state where I have to rush about cleaning. Not my thing that for sure. Time is there for us to use for what we want to do mostly although we are also driven by what needs to be done. 

Continuing to work on Chromosome 9 and this time through I am solving all the queries that caused me to look at it a month or so ago and I am satisfied with the outcome. Just a couple more cross over points to feel satisfied with and on to the next chromosome to work on namely chromosome 8. The frequency of two of my cousins marrying in England is considerably higher than anywhere else in the world except Australia and New Zealand although it is lower there than in England itself. This chromosome displays that happening a number of times but not unexpected as I do know of several such marriages there. 

The Prime Minister continues doing the sort of job that we need done as he is at these Conferences in Asia. He carries Canada's banner high and circumstances are fortunate in that our goods are available at a time when people are wanting them. Myself I was never much interested in being involved in politics and so keep most of my comments to myself although I think supporting the current government if you approve is a good vocalization. Perhaps some funding should be available with the opposition party (Conservative) to support our trade around the world. How this might be done is perhaps a mystery; not really sure but I feel that not having world experience does make one conscious of the limitations of these leaders which is perhaps the biggest problem with career politicians. It is always better I suspect to go into this job with contacts and experience (and that is what has hurt the Conservative party at the polls these past elections) although I supported youth with my vote and do continue doing so because the weight of this recovery will be on their shoulders but definitely the old has to be there - buying Canadian, spending in Canada to help us along this path (and there are a lot of retired Baby Boomers for sure and more will flood into that state as AI enters into the fray just like the computer age sent people retiring early). That really has to be our mantra for a bit because we are a huge group (the old, I am a member of the Silent Generation born right at the end of World War II and there are still a lot of the War and pre-war  Generations (everyone older than me and those born before the Second World War and during the Recession and also during the Roaring Twenties and even some from the First World War and then the Spanish Flu days!)) - buy Canadian when it is available. Concentrating so much on Canada from a viewpoint of criticism is part of their job as the Opposition I realize that but they also need to have more world experience.That was something I learned from my uncle and my grandmother and they learned it from my grandfather who loved to talk politics having learned it from the best his mother's first cousin Sir John Carling.  

Up early and the first set of exercises completed. Reading the email is next. Then drinking my tea and doing my solitaire puzzles.  

 

Wow, our little world blew up whilst I didn't watch the news

Did it all start because it was expressed that the United States did not want Canada to make cars for them. We actually had nothing to do with that; the car manufacturers are independent companies that decided to produce more cars here than they sold in order to make a bigger profit on the cars when they sold them in the United States because our dollar has been lower since the Stock Market Crash of 2008 and the car company cost of supporting the medical care for their workers is less here (so they built more here it was said to make a larger profit when they sold them in the United States I guess). Not sure that we benefited other than the jobs perhaps since the money was made on the cars in the United States plus the car companies cost us a lot of money in subsidies and the first $1000 a month of the pension of their pensioned employees I believe is paid by the province - so an expensive proposition car companies although I guess the loss of the jobs will be felt quite strongly. Suddenly we have car plants closing and jobs lost in Ontario because of that is a huge number. But that was just the beginning of the week it appears whilst I hid away from the news for the most part. 

What we need to do is to restore our lost industries; don't lose sight of what we need to do (washing machine, dryers, dish washers all sorts of small appliances are no longer made in Canada - we import them from the United States (Detroit I think for some)). We need to regrow our industries that were here when I was younger before free trade (on the one side free trade made us better friends for a very long time; travel to the United States from Canada for vacations became the normal thing to do (it is much warmer there when the cold winter descends here). We spent billions down there (not us particularly we probably spent in the thousands over time although we spent hundreds of thousands here for sure since we both worked and paid huge taxes it seemed!). But back to the car companies, if they want to sell cars here they will  have to build them here. Really we just need to knuckle down and get building what we need to buy. 

Our youth are a powerful working force and they have the ability to transition quickly to other types of work like my husband at 30 moving from Scientist to Engineering Scientist to Librarian all over less than a two year period (actually 18 months) which took him from graduation with his PhD in Chemistry to a Post Doc in Chemical Engineering then working at CISTI as a Librarian. It only took that long because he had to make decisions and then spend a year at school once again (no one supported him except me but I think the government has start up funds at least that was what I thought I heard). This is taking much too long; it is nine months since the tariff came into view. We should have birthed a few new industries by now and indeed we have some rapidly growing industries that have enlarged enormously over the last nine months. But we need to do more of that; concentrate on what we need to do. 

Then there is the separatist march in Alberta (read the Constitution and know that you are welcomed to emigrate anywhere in the world; the world is a friendly place isn't it?). Speak to the First Nations you are on their land. If you do not like it here and your stated preference is to be in the United States they are about to have a whole lot of jobs in the car industry down there! Best of luck we would have been in the United States ourselves (Edward and I many many years ago) but for a quirk of fate (Edward took the job in Ottawa rather than the one in Washington). Myself I am a happy first generation Canadian on my father's side and fourth generation on my mother's side - that is just the way it goes sometimes but I was quite willing to go or stay - it was Edward's choice although, to be honest I seldom make decisions of such magnitude, I did tend towards going south way back then (already my chronic arthritis was making itself felt in the winter and there was so much to see; I did love to see new places in my youth!); when you are just 28 years old the world is at your fingertips. Ontario has been a giving province to Canada for more than a century except for a short time during the time of the Harper administration when we had deficits. That is what provinces do who make a lot of money (the Founding Fathers made sure of that in the Articles of Confederation); the provinces/territories help each other when needed. The oil belongs to Canada (the company that mines it makes a good profit and pays the people who work for them) - it is in the purchase package for Rupert's Land including protection for the First Nations. You are Alberta by the act of the Canadian Parliament and really we should have just extended Manitoba's borders for sure and had just one big province there plus the First Nations have guaranteed rights as said. 

 Worked in the garden for an hour and completed another length of the fence line (not bad for an 80 year old). Gardening is a lot of work. It just isn't my thing to garden out there I guess although after Edward took ill I went out every morning and worked for four hours (I was only 65 then and used to doing a lot of exercise - hiking, canoeing, biking, running, walking) every day week after week whilst he got better that first time that he had problems. I kept that up actually, although after he had the pacemaker inserted he started to work in the garden again but not quite like he used to. So for a few years we worked together out there which was nice and I enjoyed it. But my knowledge of gardening is pretty weak and I haven't retained it all so just find that it is an enormous amount of work. So it is becoming more and more basic which works very well actually. 

Continued working on Chromosome 9 and there are 129 matches in the folder.  I am about half way through all the matches. These are interesting as there are many matches to Blake with an average length of 30 to 50 cM and I can tell the line that they come from with all of them pretty much sharing a known common ancestor and some further back (John Blake and Ann Farmer (married at Andover, Hampshire, England and lived at Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England  (my two times great grandparents) had 53 grandchildren so not surprising there are so many (how would you ever remember them individually!; the great grandchildren are in the hundreds and hundreds and the great great grandchildren in the thousands and a lot of them still live in England)). 

I also spent time on the index for the photo books. So a good day all around and today is Sunday. Another beautiful Sunday in God's world and it is 2 degrees celsius. I woke up to something banging I thought so will check the siding to see if a racoon has tried to break in upstairs. I do not hear anything like that though so probably not; was perhaps just the wind and that huge walnut tree in the neighbour's yard.  It was time to get up anyway I have a busy day planned - going to Church online, washing clothes, carting them up two flights and drying them on racks to increase the moisture in the air. Already there is lower humidity in the house. Then there is my research and the photo books. I got an email from Family Search to say they are already going to upload the two books I submitted last week. I submitted the revised Siderfin book (revision of my revision) along with the Companion Charting book and the email was asking if the one they had online was correct and I said no this was the corrected version. Just small corrections except for that one extensive correction replacing John 7 in the descent list with Augustine 7. Not sure how I missed that one actually but my cousin had given me the descent of her ancestor Thomas (brother to my Elizabeth) and I missed that correction. My eyes were starting to feel the strain before my cataract surgery and I noticed it when I started working on the Companion Book so made the changes and uploaded the new version to my server and mentioned in my blog amazingly over a year ago now. So the new version should be up. I just happened to see that they had put it up and quickly submitted the new one. I should have done it sooner but life runs away on me sometime and I am 80. Before I submit any more books I will take the time to read it entirely line by line after I finish and about one month later and then I will publish it. I actually never heard from anyone that there was a correction! I found the ones that I located all by myself. Enjoy the Charting book - it was fun but a lot of work. Since it is on my server and I have a link from my website it is always available but Family Search does collect family books so I thought I would send it to them. I also blogged that original book and no one but me spotted that error. Next time a second full read before publishing a month after I complete it! When I used to help publish there was always a second pair of eyes on everything; I just have one set!

Thank you God for another day in your World. Hopefully we can all learn to live together in this world and be friends. One more amazing thing with my eyes. I am suddenly seeing a more varied set of shades for each colour. Amazing really that my eyes continue to adjust to their new ability.  It always comes with a slight headache - amazing the brain is such a wondrous tool and we alone amongst all the world's creatures have such an advanced one. AI is meant to mimic the brain but it lacks human ingenuity/ability to move easily in different thought patterns making links based on our ingenuity which is the source of all the great solutions made in this world, which is why we must always be in charge. Can one duplicate that in a robot? I really doubt it; I think we can come up with, over time, ways to try to do that but the final control will always need to be a human brain which is more functional so long as we keep on using our brains and expanding their capacity. Having the ability to do that is very very important or we become just simple uneducated workers and that would be a disaster. 

 

 

 

Little accomplishment on the gardening side; more on the research side

Perhaps today the weather will accommodate and I will get a little outside work done; the entire week has passed with my accomplishing absolutely nothing outside but that is not really a strong interest of mine. Now research, reading, writing all strong interests of mine and occupy 100% of my waking hours most days except for doing my CDs, WII exercises and talking to my daughters although that is also texts as they are both very very busy. 

Yesterday saw Chromosome 10 completed and I am a little happier with the coverage adding in the Living DNA results but this chromosome does lack some areas with good coverage of matches. I set up Chromosome 9 to work on with this newer system and we will see how that goes today but if the weather clears I will try to get a little more done in the garden before the snow falls!

The Olympics tend to be the time that I follow sports activities but the Toronto Blue Jays certainly scored for their home town with a win in the first game of the World Series. Canada needed an uplift and this appears to be it. Even being there is a great accomplishment not seen by the Blue Jays since 1993. Congratulations to them. 

I think being a hermit suits me. Years and years of accompanying Edward everywhere was not really me. I was just along to keep him company, help to carry everything and film it if he wanted that. But now working away on my books is where I want to be - basically undisturbed (I do not consider my family to be a disturbance) and gathering it all up and putting it altogether as I move along on this process of creating the generational family tree up to the early 1920s. Anything beyond that people know or if they do not they can ask their families. I am a great believer in privacy and I think Canada has it just about right for us; everybody is different.  

 Today I shall also try to finish the index for the first Photo Book as it is probably the hardest that I will have to do. Then it is into the easier books of our first house we bought, our first child and our move to Ottawa and then that period up to the birth of our second child. I am stripping out anything that isn't family (our families, those people to whom we are closely related unless of course they were friends). I will include the life long friends that our children knew (in my case that is zero because I hate to admit it  in a world that lives on friendship, I never made a life long friend other than my husband and family and it is that I eschew friendship although my mother placed great value on friendship but I just never came to that perhaps it was having six siblings who knows; I am just a workaholic hermit really that was drawn out of my self-imposed cage by Edward all those years ago when I was 18). My grandfather once told me that God was his best friend and I think in the depth of my heart I feel that as well. That is why I find going to Church on Sundays to be that special time when I am truly in unison with God as my concentration is all there in as much as is possible. I do feel that God is there in all the Churches, all the Synagogues, all the Mosques as He wanted us to be the best we could be as humans and so as we multiplied so did our adherence to God in different ways. My knowledge of religion doesn't extend past these three Great Religions and I apologize for overlooking them but they know if God is there and perhaps one day I will learn more about the other religions of the world. That could be my aim when I am older and the books are done. 

I find working on the photo books to be difficult because Edward wanted to live to 92 and I wanted that for him for sure (I think that was the age of his maternal grandfather whom he knew very well actually he was 89, just checked, and his mother was 94 so no idea on why - he never said) but as I look back I think in his mid 60s (and my own) we were both very healthy or appeared to be and that was due to all the walking, biking, hiking that we did in those days. He was nearly 78 when he passed and if COVID had not come our way he would have lived longer I feel that for sure because his activity level pretty much dropped to zero which was very bad for him. He liked to be always on the move, especially shopping or meetings but all of that was gone sadly and ill health crept in. He acquired a hernia along the way in 2016 and for reasons unknown to me really he did not want to get it operated on, he kept putting it off; I have no idea why but it so hindered his movement; walking became difficult because he stopped being active during COVID. He had had the surgery on the other side years before in his early 50s with  no problems. It was strange really but just one of those many health difficulties that came his way through that decade plus from 2010 on. Life has the strangest quirks sometimes as we pass through the days. What did God think as he looked down on us through COVID? I have no idea  but the skies cleared and the view was so much clearer around the world. Being religious I often wonder if God was telling us something from the far reaches of the universe when COVID happened. 

A busy day planned and now drinking my tea and about to do the solitaire puzzles.  

Another day of Research

 I enjoy the last part of the week especially as that is free research time. Although I did not complete the 10th chromosome I did spend quite a bit of time looking at the matches. This particular chromosome has a large empty (no known matches) area through the middle. One sibling in particular matches Buller but which line and that was sort of the direction I was pointed in for part of the day. The matches are commonest on Living DNA so possibly people still living in the British Isles. Both Anne Welch and Sarah Welch (twins) had large families with Sarah's descendants being likely 3 to 4 times larger than my line coming down from Anne. Anne's husband Henry Christopher Buller died 28 Jun 1862 in a hospital in St Margaret Westminster, London and was buried in London when the youngest child was just 1 year of age; my great grandfather would have been 12 and happened to be on the 1861 census with his grandmother Sarah (Cheatle) Welch and younger sister Ellen (8 years of age). An interesting family for sure and did rather occupy my mind yesterday somewhat as I sorted through a pile of Buller matches. 

A good exercise day as I did a Walk/Jog CD in the morning and then Yoga on the WII in the afternoon along with taking a break every hour to walk for about 5 to 10 minutes. I am varying up my running a little as my arthritis generally kicks in as Fall deepens and then lets us somewhat in the winter if I keep very active. The change of seasons seem to be a flare up time for arthritis for me. 

Staying away from the news again but I am supportive of the government as it moves ahead with new ideas on expanding trade. I think that youth in a lot of generations has had a struggle as they enter the work force. Certainly as the draft dodgers flooded into Canada at the end of the 1960s and into the early 1970s jobs completely disappeared for new graduates and in my husband's case that included his entire year graduating with their PhD in Chemistry (all of the tenure-track university positions went to Americans fleeing the draft) and his classmates, many of them, taught High School. Their work was still valuable of course; we need to have our best teaching future graduates at whatever level - mediocre is not good enough. My husband did a Post-Doc in Chemical Engineering and completed yet another degree this time his Masters in Library Science and that got him a job here in Ottawa at the National Research Council in the Library. Mind you he had been offered a job at the Library of Congress in the United States (I was most willing to go actually) and amazingly he did much much later wonder if he had made the wrong choice (given his growing interest in  his family research now that he had more time to pursue that plus money of course (students do not have a lot of money), one can thank Gordon Riddle (a member I guess) because it was he who invited Edward to go with him to the initial meetings that he attended at the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society back in the early 1980s (we did not get involved in that when we lived in London, I had absolutely no interest and we were busy working/studying and spent our spare time in Astronomy (RASC) which I preferred over anything other than Chemistry which was my favourite subject). 

Edward's work at NRC involved being part of setting up the entire retrieval system for articles (selling these articles made money by the way for the Canadian tax payer) at the Library (CISTI) which ended up being sold by Prime Minister Harper to the United States (such things should not be permitted and he lost my vote when he did that - money coming in regularly is so much better than a lump sum to balance the budget (absolutely disgraceful)). By then Edward had been retired for I think five years or more but his colleagues whom he still met with on occasion felt very sidelined by that action. Then our daughter applying for tenure track positions in her generation at all of the Canadian Universities was not hired and those positions she applied for primarily went to Americans. When she was offered a tenure-track position in the United States she accepted all those years ago now. Strange to think that it continues generation after generation.  All of the graduated American PhD students with whom she has worked have tenure track positions in the United States which is wonderful; her graduated Masters students are working all over the United States; I am glad that she was able to follow her career and make a difference where she is helping our friends and neighbours in the United States (and cousins in  our case; my daughters have far more American relatives than I do and they are like their father related to over a dozen United States Presidents as Gary Boyd Roberts and Edward determined in a couple of working sessions at NEHGS in Boston along with so many other Americans of all walks of life). But like my husband who chose to stay in Canada because he felt he should; Canada educated him and my daughter too wanted to teach in Canada, her home, and did try every university which advertised but with Americans coming  north to take the  jobs she was applying for it just sort of seemed natural to go south and take the job she was offered working in her field. She did work initially in New York State just to give her some experience (should help getting jobs, right?) whilst she wrote up her thesis completed while she was there working in New York. At 80, I do miss her but she will retire in the near future one thinks and she is my far away caretaker so to speak although does her research in the months available to her here and it has been very productive for her with many publications with her former students around the world but mostly in the United States now well employed with their own tenure-track positions or in industry or in libraries. My other daughter, of course, is busy with many patients, her family and 60 kilometres away from me. But we talk every day  my daughters and I just for a bit (they are making sure that I am still living; they know I am a tough old codger wanting to work on these books). 

Youth having to struggle at the beginning is not really a bad thing I can say honestly (the old depend on the youth very much to show us how well they can do in spite of it all although being parents/grandparents we do wish it was easier for sure); that struggle brings out ingenuity and willingness to go the extra length to make things work better and stronger in spite of roadblocks thrown at you along the way (and there will be for whatever reason). Do not under estimate the youth. They are the most powerful resource in any country. Their years are all ahead of them and their minds young and fresh as they face the continuing hard grind to get ahead.  The old expression they have "fire in their belly" still rings true again and again. They can do anything like my husband moving from Scientist to Engineering Scientist to Librarian (over a two year period) - it was a totally unexpected movement (and our first child arrived).  In the end a great job whilst he was still working but retired in 2004 (the enterprise was sold off much too cheaply and I would say to Prime Minister Carney (although being a working economist/banker he probably already knows) do not balance the budget because you think you must to look good just let it flow in over time to support the economy). It was something that Prime Minister Mulroney knew very well as he instituted the GST at 7% where it should be at least; during hard times 10% works well too. Although the reaction at that time was very negative (the Conservatives won only 2 seats!) but time proved that the GST could carry us through  hard times and reducing to 5% was absolutely wrong and should never have happened. Trying to look good to win elections does not work well for the Canadian people. 

There was great happiness in his retirement as Edward pursued full time those relatives of his past (I will one day count up all those trips to the United States looking for graves, records and just enjoying seeing the country where those relative were born, grew up, played in the fields and married and  had their families). I suspect even I will be amazed how many times and how many days we spent in the United States over the course of a 54.5 year marriage. That also included visiting our daughter as well and many many family reunions (the American relatives hold great family reunions). Mind you we put in thousands and thousands of kilometres in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes whilst Edward searched out ancestors.  

 Well another day on the research wheel as I will complete Chromosome 10 and maybe not get quite so distracted. I have proven perhaps half of the cross over points and there were again a couple of changes (anticipated just because of matches coming in but none the less good to see that proven and available to re-phase the grandparents). I continue moving ahead with my thinking on the Photo Books in between times and must settle myself in perhaps tomorrow for a few hours and complete the index for the first book and then move on to the second book which will be primarily the birth of our first child and her early years as an only child for eight years of her life. 

Drinking tea, eating my banana bread (lightly buttered) and must do my solitaire puzzles. Yesterday's tripeaks was interesting and took a bit to complete (I enjoy a good brain workout for sure).  

 

 

 

 

 

Henry VIII did not create the Church of England; it evolved many many years before

 The Churches of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales are ancient to the British Isles going back to the Christian Church of each of these areas preceded by the Celtic Church of each of these areas and back through the centuries preceding.  Bishops of the Christian Church of England met at the Council of Arles in 314 and the Council of Rimini in 359 duly recorded in history much prior to the arrival in 597  of St Augustine of Canterbury (First Archbishop of the Church of England sent by Pope Gregory the Great) during the time of the Roman occupation of Britain. I have mentioned in other blogs the belief by some that Joseph of Arimathea (a Jewish man from Judea who provided the tomb in which Jesus Christ laid) came to England (and some believe he brought Jesus as a youth) and was the first person to bring Christianity to Britain. Many believe he brought the Holy Grail to England and hid it at Glastonbury in what is now called the Chalice Well. But the heading said that Henry VIII did not create the Church of England, nor did he. He simply separated the Church from the Holy See as it had been prior to 597. It was during the reign of his daughter Elizabeth I that the Church of England was excommunicated along with all the people of England who did not swear fealty to the Pope as Head of the Church; they chose Queen Elizabeth. 

Watching the service in the Vatican brought back all the memories of being in the Sistine Chapel in November of 2001. We (my eldest daughter and I (and my husband in later years regretted  not going with me as I asked him first if he would like to go to Rome for the Consecration of the American Bishop of Europe as he had invited the entire listserv to go - I accepted right away as I felt he was serious and indeed he approached the Monastery where we all stayed and asked if they would be able to accommodate the group (there was quite a few of us from England, United States, Australia and myself and my daughter from Canada)).  It was wondrous; my first plane trip. So we caught the plane to Philadelphia and then on to Rome; one week later on to London, England and then a few days later back to Pittsburgh and then to Ottawa. It was fabulous. I loved every minute. I would have been 56 years old then and a very kind American pointed out to us from the window (it was night) the different cities that we crossed from Ottawa to Philadelphia. It was a small plane but the stars were so bright in the sky and as we passed over the Finger Lakes in New York State (I looked down and thought yes it does look like the hand of God). I have written about my trip much earlier in my blog. 

As I watched the service I experienced once again the thrill of being in the Sistine Chapel where we spent at least two hours (my daughter was literally pulling me along through the room and eventually the Swiss Guards cleared the room and we were on our way through the rest of the Vatican Museum). When Edward and I were there in 2010 we did go to the Sistine Chapel but did not see very much of the Vatican Museum; for the first time he said I should have gone with you and always wanted to go back for another trip in Rome. It just didn't happen as COVID got in the way of the trip to Germany which was to be followed by a trip to Rome. That was the beginning of his visible illness when we returned from that trip but he still traveled and enjoyed it all but was more careful of what he ate and drank whilst we were away.  At that time we did not know that he had a hidden liver disease. When I hear that our youth now is not so much into alcohol it is a good thing as Edward did drink perhaps too much as a youth; no ideas on that I wasn't there. I have only drank alcohol in memory and at celebrations and have always been like that. The industry would not survive on me as a purchaser for sure!

Yesterday I cleaned the basement and all done by 11:30 a.m. I worked on the matches for Chromosome 10 and there are  64 matches and I am just half way through so will perhaps complete that one today. The five of us have a good part of that set of chromosomes covered by known matches and I am just firming up the numbers for the cross over points. All four of the lines are well represented although the visible gaps in Rawlings continue telling me that I have not done sufficient research on these lines but the Rawlings are all over the world and many of them went to Australia and I am not really prone to writing all those matches. My cousin William Rawlings in Australia did give me his research and I wonder sometimes if he thought I would write it all up. I do have a DVD from another Australian researcher that I match very well on DNA and her research also helpful - she did it while home with her newborn (a really smart idea). I suppose I should be more intent on finding my paternal grandmother's actual father but the stories of her love for her step father and all her family tells me that they were her people and she really did not think beyond that. My father was baptized in her village of Kimpton rather than Upper Clatford where his father grew up or even Eastleigh where my father was born. However for completeness I should pay a little more attention and have noted the Sherwood family and others now. It was Willian Cotterill who married Rose Sherwood 21 Feb 1852 at Kimpton and within the collections of data I have Cotterill, Alderman, Sherwood and Happerfield (William's parents were Charles Cotterill and Hannah Alderman who married 23 Oct 1824 at Kimpton and Jane's parents were John Sherwood and Sarah Happerfield who married 10 Jul 1821 at South Tidworth (near Kimpton). Fascinating really that one can do that. 

Moving on and will work away at the matches today and perhaps complete Chromosome 10. I do not really have much on the go other than the Photo Books. I do think about the write up of the Blake and Pincombe books and I am coming up to the H11 Newsletter on the 1st of November. It is just a short two pager generally with the main issue 1st of February working on the subgroups in H11 (I am a volunteer co-ordinator for this study) which I do list on the FT DNA website in the H11 study (a link takes the reader to the  newsletter which sits on my website) but there isn't any information that identifies any of the members of the group. It is simply a list of the individual subclades that are created by these members and in fact represent just a small portion of the much larger group of individuals that belong who are on the FT DNA website (although the study group is over 400 now). That isn't to say it is not meaningful; it is fascinating how this very small relatively speaking haplogroup subclade of H (a very large group) has evolved through time immemorial and on the other hand how it has remained very much as it was thousands of years ago when my ancestral mother first stepped on the British Isles likely having made the trek from Ukraina up through the  now Scandinavian Peninsula across to Scotland and eventually settling in the Ayrshire/Argyllshire area where they lived possibly as long as 8000 years ago as they appear in the Blood of the Isles database. 

When I first tested my brothers for yDNA and myself (and my brothers) for mtDNA I was amazed to discover that these two individuals (my parents) each had an ancient British ancestor. I have not researched particularly my paternal grandmother; still need to see a direct female line going back from her but I haven't looked particularly yet and again I have not overly researched my paternal grandfather although do have quite a bit of information on his yDNA line which leads me back to Europe (likely The Netherlands/Belgium at least in England possibly since the early 1100s) in their lines going back through time in the British Isles. Who would have guessed that in my generation the yDNA for our Blake line would go extinct and that the mtDNA for my mother's maternal line would go extinct in the grandchildren's generation (we are seven siblings (four boys, three girls!) but of course I did not realize that until my children had children. However, nothing is lost; there are many descendants of this man and this woman who trekked through the wildernesses of Europe to reach the British Isles eons ago (one from Ukraina and one from the Balkans where both haplogroups are known to have wintered during the Last Glacial Maximum). In 2007 this did tell me though that I needed to do this; this study of my family. It needed to be me; it needed to be now because it will be lost in another generation; all that knowledge. Being a computer driven person (first programmed in 1965 with Fortran, moved to COBOL and then we bought a home computer in 1984)  I dived right in and twenty two years later I am still there. Collecting, writing and blogging on my experiences in Family History. My blog begins with our trip (Edward and I) to Salt Lake City in Oct/Nov 2008 and the Family History Library where I practically never left the British floor as everything you could possibly want was there and the only other place that has more in the original form is Kew in London, England where I have also been a number of times (2010, 2013, 2016) and as Edward once said it was very difficult to get me to leave before closing.  But I can honestly say it was not really me that started me on this DNA path; it was my mother's interest in doing the DNA of the family. Looking back through her twenty five years of letters (all scanned now) she visited the Family History Library a number of times and definitely wanted me to do the same. Initially in the mid to late 1980s as my parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary (1988) approached she asked my husband Edward to do a family book for their anniversary and he promptly set me to the task of extracting the information and eventually it was me that wrote it up although he directed the project for sure. But his own family consumed him for sure and I knew that it was my responsibility to do that project. But I found it so difficult to really feel positive about the connections and so I drifted away from any involvement with genealogy (it was pretty short at that time; just five or six trips to the Family History library here). It would take a much stronger push to get my mind into genealogy and then DNA entered into the scene and the world changed and we will never go back to life before knowledge of DNA. It is seeping slowly but surely into our very being. It tells us who we are, who begat us and perhaps for some more importantly our health. As AI advances it will move into the health field for sure but it does always need to have a human touch in there; AI is like a dumb computer; we feed it and we direct it and how we do that is very very important in order to have results that are reasonable, anticipated and understandable. There must never be blind acceptance of AI results. But AI is fast; it can read and remember vast amounts of information and it is always changing and staying young. The human touch though is what makes it complete; it is not complete without that. 

Tea drank and a slice of banana bread thinly buttered eaten so time for breakfast.  

Basement cleaning today and that is the lightest cleaning day and the shortest

 Completed the main floor yesterday and worked on the Chromosome 11 matches. Again reviewing the crossover points already established for the five siblings against the Living DNA data. A few changes (never more than 1 or maybe 2 but usually pretty much the same) based on the matches and the visuals provided in Living DNA. Every company has their own set of markers that they test and that can also create slight differences between their results. This is not an exact science for sure although a time may come when it will be. My Heritage is going into a more complete genetic scan and I may yet do that and store it there. I never know if someone might want to take this on as a project in their retirement years and want to have everything in condition to pass it on. It has been fun. I was sorry my mother wasn't here to enjoy the Pincombe results; as she would have very much. She would have also enjoyed the Buller results as they have been fantastic. I  have no idea what my father might have thought as he passed in 1998 and really I visited him and spent entire days but he was not really that interested in anything specific. He had been to a certain extent when I was a child because I can remember him mentioning items. Not like my Grandfather Blake who was a veritable book of information on his Blake family and for that matter he knew a great deal about his Knight family (his mother) but again my father did talk about visiting his grandparents in Goodworth Clatford where they moved when Edward Blake retired, his great grandfather Samuel Knight in the New Forest as a child and visiting with the Rawlings as well. Grandpa had a solid interest in history and especially in Nicholas Blake who had this lovely small farm at Knights Enham in the period after his father died in 1522 until he died in 1547. It was his son William who became somewhat prosperous one is left to think although not hugely wealthy I would say having transcribed his will and those that preceded and followed him. William had a huge family. 

It was the American genealogist Horatio Gates Somerby who grabbed hold of Nicholas out of the past in the mid 1800s; gave him a new brother from Somerset and all sorts of made up stories (a marriage into a wealthy family (beware of that one)). It resulted likely in letters from America to Blake names in Andover; no idea on that actually (but the timing would be right and I have a vague  memory of that actually). I did find it somewhat astounding that a person from the 1500s would actually be remembered in the late 1800s when I recalled that in my 60s! What I remember is that he would say that what they were asking and saying about Nicholas was incorrect. The reality is also very interesting actually - this Blake family is fascinating to follow. And so I am doing what he wanted to do but didn't time was not on his side once he thought about doing it. Perhaps it was because he found the book too late on the Blake family of Galway, Ireland (he was probably in his mid 70s then (I just turned 8 when he passed at 78)). But then writing a family book did not come to me until I decided to revise the Siderfin Book during COVID! I  was involved in producing books/articles during my career. But he did have time to fill my head with all his stories (he didn't want us to think we were part of the Irish Blake family since we were not). Which brings me back to my older brother that I tested at all the DNA companies. He thought Grandpa had said the reverse about the Irish Blake family but I was sure I was right. That came out in our discussions about mother wanting us to do the DNA of the family. I think it was planned on Grandpa's part as he started out teaching me in my memory to recite the Kings and Queens of England which really has nothing to do with the story of the Blake family. But it was something that I knew about - that we had a King at that time (King George VI) and I knew there had been Kings and Queens in England for a very very long time. I can actually still sort of rhyme them off if I get myself started! (later I added in their dates of reign as I did love to memorize). But then we moved on to memorizing other things although I was never really aware that I was doing that with our family history. I was too young. I just thought I was listening to my Grandpa whom I loved dearly. He could tell me the same story many times and I would listen to it like it was the first time he told me. Grandpa himself had been born during the reign of Queen Victoria, continuing to live through the reigns of King Edward VII, King George V, King Edward VIII, King George VI and lived to see the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on the television which absolutely thrilled him. Perhaps because he worked on the railway he did visit London where one of his sisters lived and was familiar with the central part (my father spent time in London as a child and when my eldest daughter and I toured Windsor Castle that did bring back some of the things my father had said when he was in London. When first my eldest daughter and I went in 2001 I had a sort of picture in my mind of that central part and later when Edward and I were there in 2008, 2010, 2013, 2016 we walked the streets of the City of London (and Westminster to a certain extent as well as Bermondsey on the southside of the Thames where my Buller/Beard families lived)) seeing the entire inner city (and putting in 18,000 to 20,000 steps per day). Edward was excited to tour Buckingham Palace and I sort of felt like I was intruding on someone's family home to be honest. I am not into touring people's houses; I prefer to tour the great churches and we did do a lot of that I am very happy to say in our tours. 

I am more than half way through the Chromosome 11 matches. Again I have picked up a few that I had not entered into the Known file for the chromosome matches. In this case there are Rawlings matches known to me along with the other three grandparents.  About the same coverage as Chromosome 12 except an increase in Rawlings and a slight decrease in Buller. Pincombe generally covers the entire set of 5 siblings and Blake about the same perhaps 2/3rds. But I still have quite a few matches left to look at so we will see. All of the cross over points have been verified. Only one significant change from 76 to 79. It doesn't really alter anything but finding that large a difference is interesting. In general any changes tend to be just 1 and is generally an increase because I am looking at the entire number so past the 500 mark becomes the higher number and it works very well actually when it does occur. I could have looked at that earlier but did stick to a general review but this has been more specific with the Living DNA results (the discrepancies that I noted whilst collecting matches after phasing my grandparents have all been reviewed thus far in my run through the chromosomes from 22 to 11 and corrected as per my thoughts at those times when I noted the inconsistency. 

I appear to be on schedule although I am behind with the Photo Books but my only schedule is to have them complete by Christmas so I will just one of these days sit myself down and tell myself to work on the Photo Books and dedicate a few days in a row for a few weeks on end and get that done. Once I am into the indexes that Edward prepared which is perhaps in one more photo book's time then it will be a much easier task. It is very difficult to take apart some one else's work that meant a lot to them. But to save the idea of this set of Photo Books (presently at 40 books and these are large books) to tell the story of Edward's family I need to downsize it and remove the pictures that are part of Edward's enjoyment of his time being more public in family history but do not mean anything to the family that was closest to him since they were not there (well I was but I too have a time stamp for sure!). 

Moving on and I have eaten a slice of my banana bread once again (thinly buttered) and drank my tea so time for solitaire puzzles before breakfast at 8:00 it is nearly 7:00. Then set the robot going to vacuum the rugs and the cleaning of the basement will begin. Still avoiding the news; we need to re-establish the lost industry from the years of free trade (our youth will eventually do that but they need help with it). Spending 75 million dollars on ads in the United States could set up one of those industries but I keep it to myself except perhaps for my blog obviously. We need to build the road, build a pipeline to the east (principally to Ontario since Quebec will likely never want a pipeline (they do have the St Lawrence that can be used to ship oil to the Maritimes (not the fastest way and not even the safest but it can be done))). Plus the Maritimes has it own oil which they could refine and use. We need to restore industries and move ahead in order to keep ourselves afloat in this world. We can do it; stop wasting money; throwing money at it never works (that is usually a Liberal habit!). Starting out small never hurts; companies grow but do not sell them off to foreign countries, keep them Canadian! 

 

 

 

On to the second day of cleaning

I  believe I am going to enjoy the cleaning done over three days. Two days just wasn't quite long enough for this 80 year old; it was just a bit exhausting on the one day. No reason for that so will refrain from doing it. The  main floor today and it is the smallest area which sounds strange but the garage has a room over it. 

I completed Chromosome 12 yesterday and other than the Rawlings matches there are sufficient other matches (Blake, Pincombe and Buller) that I can assign known  matches to most of the chromosomal areas for the five siblings. I may go back and do this little display with lengths on the other chromosomes as it is enlightening although can also be seen looking at DNA Painter. 

I also set up Chromosome 11 to work on today and there are 80 matches in this particular folder to review. Cross over points vary from 2 to 4 for each sibling with most having two, one with three and one with four. Interestingly entire length of Rawlings chromosomes are passed (17  over 22 chromosomes are complete for the entire picture of five siblings excluding Chromosome 23 where 3 are Rawlings inherited as one length from our father). That is also true in  Chromosome 11 which has two  (one is to me). I inherited the most Rawlings at 33% (if one had a perfect world than perhaps each grandparent would pass 25% to each grandchild and it often is quite close to that but also different like my 33% which yields just 17% Blake for me). The crossover points have been selected on the basis of the Living DNA results and they compare fairly closely with the existing points created from the 23 and Me data along with FT DNA, Ancestry (Gedmatch) and My Heritage. But my principal guide was the 23 and Me results. I have just two crossover points in Living DNA that I can not place and that is the first time. I will have to review this as I move through the matches. I will also pull up the visuals in Living DNA and have a look at them to see where the match that affected that is occurring. 

No work on the Photo Books and I must get back to that. Generally I need to have long periods for any project and the Cross over points have me in tow at the moment. I have the first Photo Book completed and I am just entering the information into the index for that one. The others will take less time as they have an existing index. These pictures distract me as they are from long ago when Edward and I first knew each other at school as fellow students (he was one year ahead of me). 

An interesting finding with my Ellis sixth cousin as a Susan Courage (lived in the 1800s not currently) came up in the search path on a Blake ancestor. So checking with my cousin indeed she was in her tree and so another Ellis-Wellspring line has been uncovered and Ellis Ellis and Sarah Wellspring were our mutual 5x great grandparents marrying 7 Mar 1738 at Winterbourne Stickland in Dorset. Their descendants of their five surviving children (one died young and I have not found descendants for one) are now all over the world.  Their youngest Sarah married William Knight 7 Aug 1775 at Winterbourne Stickland and their 9 children are definitely all over the world with a lot remaining in both cases in England to match me on these databases. 

All of Canada is so excited at the Blue Jays going on to the World Series. It has been a long hard year in Canada and this little bright spot will bring a lot of happiness to Canadians. I am definitely staying away from the television a great deal these days. Myself I think we have to dig in and get industries growing again, get a pipeline built to Ontario from Alberta so that we can refine the oil and offset the loss of the car industry by refining our own; we burn a lot of gas in Ontario; we are the largest population province wise and we have a huge land area. The other item is to get the Trans Canada Highway widened to four lanes right across the province and not take forever to do it. Just build build build next spring and get it going. Already the road is probably twice as busy or more than a year ago. We also need to link to Port Churchill and the train going up to  Port Churchill so as to use that natural harbour as a shipping point for the Northern Ontario rare earth minerals (this project is to be First Nations) unless we are going to build a port on James Bay. But it does seem like duplication in some ways since there isn't an existing one. All of this needs to be done with the support of the First Nations who dominate Northern Ontario and also the Manitoba First Nations. When we went to Moosonee on a trip in 2012 we took a boat ride on the Moosonee River out to James Bay and it was marvelous. We stayed at an eco lodge on Moosonee Factory Island and our oldest daughter had come with us on that trip. Edward was having some ill health at that time and I suggested to her that she might like a holiday away from all her work and it was her research time so she agreed and was there to help as Edward had wanted to go there for years (as did I actually). It was a marvelous trip on the train up from Cochrane to Moosonee. During our free time on the island we walked on the paths suggested by the Lodge to see some of the island. What a marvelous place it was and so very much enjoyed by us. But especially that trip out to James Bay was spectacular. On the way back we saw a huge white wolf watching us from the shore. Lots of bird life whilst we were there as well and we had taken our binoculars so certainly saw a lot on that trip that we normally would not have in Eastern Ontario except at migration time as there is a flyway across the St Lawrence River not far from here. No more on the current situation just work on my writing and stay away from the TV for sure. 

 Tea drank and a thin piece of my thinly buttered banana bread eaten. Soon breakfast time and cleaning. 

 

Fascinating the little items you pick up at a conference

 I did listen to all the talks at the BIFHSGO Conference Saturday and Sunday and had two questions which I asked at the Breakout Rooms. The first was concerning the imprisonment of women who had illegitimate children; apparently that was not just in general but I did not pick that up at the time of the talk. I always found it fascinating that Elizabeth Rawlins is on the 1881 census far from home whilst her illegitimate child was living with her parents who had moved from Ludgershall to just outside of the village of Collingbourne Dulcis (although I think part of the village). There I had found my paternal grandmother as a five year old on the 1881 census. Finding her was incredibly difficult, a bit expensive although not compared to the work done by the last speaker on Sunday - my 100 pounds seems paltry by comparison. I had family letters to my paternal grandfather and grandmother during and before the war from Rawlins family members. At some point it was spelled Rawlings perhaps the parish priest changed the spelling at some point to Rawlings. I was on one of the Rootsweb groups trying to sort it all out not long after I began my foray into genealogy in 2003 when I got an email from my Rawlins cousin in Australia asking me who Ada Rawlins was on the 1881 census. And I could reply that she was my grandmother, thereupon William Rawlins, MBE, sent me all his research. He had quite a dossier and I have not heard from him for a very long time now. William Rawlings and Elizabeth (Lywood) Rawlings had had a large family and no one had been able to sort out who Ada was as she is listed as a grand daughter on the 1881 census living with them. I thought maybe they were hiding her but I just think they were the perfect parents who took in their daughter's illegitimate child (and their grandchild). Elizabeth (my great grandmother) married William Taylor 11 Feb 1882. He was not the father of my grandmother although on the 1891 census he listed her as Bessie Taylor and she was always known as Bessie Taylor until she married my grandfather Samuel George Blake. So that clarified the point about being arrested because she was not. William and Elizabeth (Rawlings) Taylor would go on to have four children (three survived to adulthood). I had thought they had protected their grandchild by moving to Collingbourne Dulcis after she was born. She was very fond of her father William Taylor my grandfather said (although he neglected to say William Taylor was actually her step-father). A well hidden story for sure. 

Then my second question dealt with Marston Green Cottage Homes as I was left with the feeling from the talk on Workhouses that they were terrible places but indeed what I had heard from my grandmother (which was not very much in actual fact; mostly items sort of slipped out in a conversation) and my great Aunt Sarah was that their life had been good at Marston Green Cottage Homes and that the Birmingham Union had sent them to Canada (five children) over a period from 1904 to 1908 and that they visited them every year until they were adults. Their father had been a medic in the First Boer War; injured and sent home in 1882  (Birmingham was home). His wife passed away in 1897 and he died in 1899 leaving the five children on their own. One of the items my grandmother mentioned was that very quickly they were gathered and taken to a new home. She didn't say it was a Cottage Home probably because I would have no idea what she meant. But she did not talk very much about her family in England. The speaker replied that they were very strict likely at the Cottage Homes (which my grandmother was like anyway - she liked organization) but that they had a good life, an education and the children were safe there. I appreciated knowing that. My grandmother Ellen Rosina (Buller) Pincombe was Head Girl (that was in some of the notes I read on this family that are available at the Archives in Ottawa) and he suggested that that referred to her being a matron's helper with the children (perhaps 20 or so in the house). My grandmother was asked if she would like to live with her father's widowed sisters (they offered to take just her) but they would not take all the children so she declined as she did not want to be away from her siblings especially if they were going to be at a home (she promised her mother she would take care of her siblings when she was just eleven years of age). After she was too old to remain and was working she visited them when ever they permitted that. That much I know. But not a lot about that period of her life. I did not really think I would learn very much but in a way I got to see life in England in a far different way than I ever did before. I listened to all the lectures which were excellent. 

Great Conference and I am glad that I remembered to go. I also worked on Chromosome 12 today and managed to get through perhaps a dozen of the matches. It is time consuming as I am checking Ancestry, My Heritage trees and I could also do Find My Past but will save that for a bit when I do my final run through. Once the cross over points are verified using the Living DNA data then I will re-phase my grandparents' DNA for the five siblings. Since I paint all of these matches in DNA Painter it is easy for me to pull up any of the matches and easily have another look at them as I am re-phasing. I am working towards phasing my great-grandparents and that is the main reason for looking at all the trees since it is possible to separate Pincombe from Gray, Buller from Taylor, Blake from Knight and Rawlings from Cotterill. I am still not committed to the idea that a member of the only Cotterill family in the village is actually the father of my paternal grandmother simply because the ancestor of this Cotterill family descends from a William Cotterel who had at least two sons William and Stephen.  Stephen Cotterel married Mary Rawlins (daughter of my 4x great grandparents William Rawlins and Mary Ford) with their grand daughter May Cotterell marrying her second cousin William Rawlins (son of John Rawlins and Elizabeth Green)  thus intensifying the percentage of Cotterell/Rawlings in descendants of this couple making the cousins look much closer than they are. I can not be sure that the matches I do have with the Cotterill family in the village are not a result of this earlier set of brothers (although these latest results from Living DNA do have Sherwood so will investigate that as I  move along (William Cotterill married Jane Sherwood, the Cotterill family at Kimpton)). So an interesting conundrum; isn't genetic genealogy fun!

Cleaning day today and I want to watch my Church Service which I missed yesterday. I considered running them at the same time but I like to have all my attention at Church when I am there. I suppose I do miss going to Church but at 80 I do not want to inflict myself on the system any more than necessary so going to Church online works very well. 

Time to make my tea and a busy day ahead cleaning. I must get more work done on the Photo Books I do want to get them done by Christmas.  

 

  

Second day of Conference

The BIFHSGO Conference was as always very well run and the speakers excellent. I did actually listen all day as I worked on the cross over points getting ready to rephase my grandparents. I really did not have very much knowledge on Workhouses. I didn't realize they were so sad actually although books have been written. Cottage homes were not really discussed so perhaps were new in the late 1800s early 1900s. Some of the other children, my great Aunt Sarah mentioned, had had fathers in the military that had died leaving them as orphans as their mothers had passed away that lived in the home with her as she and May were there the longest.  Sarah did not remember her mother at all (she was only one year of age when she died) and she was only four when her father died. But she had four older siblings. I heard a lot but probably did not retain a great deal as I just have my grandmother and her siblings who experienced the Cottage Homes. The rest of my people were farmers/tradesmen in that generation. 

I haven't decided if I will attend today. I could do it the same way; listening while I work on my re-phasing preparation.  I do not want to get behind as I also need to work on the photo albums. Life is so busy; amazing really how busy one's life can be. Doorbell rang yesterday and later when I checked for mail discovered a flyer from the local High School (probably something to do with collecting at Hallowe'en). I do not answer my door anymore unless I asked the individual to come. I have moved back from involvement in the world; it is time. I shall only watch and listen. I have committed enough time to my local area and my duty is just to maintain what I have and keep it up. When that isn't possible then it is time to move for sure. 

Working on the cross over points and adding in the known just as boxes with lengths of matching DNA by cousins is working very well actually. Chromosome 12, like the others, has a number of known matches and for this one it is probably 60 to 80% of each sibling. Having the images from 23 and Me showing the matching (full and half between siblings), the matching from FT DNA and the matching with My Heritage along with Ancestry and finally the pictures from Living DNA is giving me a really good overall view of the two chromosomes inherited from our parents. They only have the two chromosomes from their parents which they recombine and pass onto each of us as one on to each of us in different ways. There are no missing lengths from our parents now with the cousins adding in what they received from their parents who are all related to my parents (indeed just from five siblings the chromosomes were mostly complete (just a few spots here and there). Could AI have done it better? What AI needs is my input asking the right questions in the right order and supplying AI with data that is prepared for AI to best assimilate it and then give answers. Fascinating really and spending time with my daughter has honed some of that thinking. I think AI is one of the most exciting new items of our generation. 

These boxes are all my known cousins but again on this chromosome there are in total 96 matches including the known but what remains not marked will certainly be added to with all of this data. Could I write a program to do this work? My programming ability is probably still there I just haven't done it for quite a while. Perhaps I will consider it but I would still want to go in and look at each match carefully to see what I can glean from Ancestry Trees (and others) along the way (old fashioned genealogy is still very very useful). Because this is a story about people and it is the book that I am writing about people up to the 1921 Census or 1920 or whatever the last date of such things in the countries from which my relatives descend and that is primarily looking at the DNA results from the British Isles with cousins around the world testing at all these companies. The American cousins (very distant) are fascinating (and it is the Blake matches that come up that will draw my attention; they are few in number as the number of Blake members descendant of the Andover Blake family is few (if any as the family was so small in the mid 1700s) leaving the United Kingdom for other places prior to the 1900s). I do have close cousins (up to fourth cousins) in the United States in particular in my Buller-Taylor line as well as my Pincombe-Rowcliffe and Rew-Siderfin line. Earlier with the Sorenson Database there were a number of interesting matches way back when I first got into this project of DNA/genetic genealogy and that was the spice that left little bits of enticement which certainly drew me in very quickly as the DNA companies formed and offered testing. Then there was my  mother and our last discussion which centered on this idea of doing the Family DNA. I had explained to her at that time that it wasn't a matter of just my older brother and I doing our DNA we would need input from at least three perhaps four others but at that time we were still six siblings as my oldest brother passed away in 1999. I did try to test his daughter but my sister in law was not interested. I would have had half then of that brother. I think it is exciting to know that one's relatives are forever memorialized in these databases in a way that was never possible before. I remember Edward and I having a discussion in 2005 when we first talked about doing DNA. That was one item when I mentioned to him this idea of being memorialized in a database (so long as these companies last); this idea of a forever presence in the world that he really liked. He remained absolutely amazed to see how I changed from absolutely no interest in genealogy to a 100% interest in looking at all of these records.

But our DNA will tell the story of Homo sapiens past far far into the future.  

Time to make tea and do my solitaire puzzles.  

 

 

Raking completed

 It was a good working day yesterday. I accomplished everything that I had planned to do although I did mean to look into the Conference presentations but completely forgot (but it doesn't begin until today so not a problem). I will do that this morning. Not sure if I will attend anything but I can always watch the presentations another time. We will see  but I have the Zoom link open ready to go in 1.5 hours give or take. 

 I have one interest in this conference as my Grandmother was at Marston Green Cottage Homes in Soho for about two years (her father died when she was fourteen). She was Head Girl in the house and had secured a spot in the same house for two of her younger sisters (Ada and Sarah) and May and Edwin (her other two siblings were close by). Although she, herself, never really spoke about being in the Cottage Home the occasional comment comes back to my mind that I think referred to that. She was satisfied by her care after her parents both died; the Birmingham Union quickly took them into their care which given the times, the end of the 1800s, was probably a good sign. Her father had been a Medic in the Army during the First Boer War which probably helped in their care I suspect. Reading the notes on this family one is left with the impression that they genuinely cared about the children and sending them to Canada was felt to be helpful to them. The Birmingham Union checked on the children at least once a year and I do know from family stories that their placement was very good although, again, as a child this was not referred to as part of the Middleton scheme and in fact it was not; the Birmingham Union looked after its own apparently but did piggyback on the emigration facility that the Middleton scheme had set up using it to send the children to Canada. It was interesting reading actually after locating the information. I learned a great deal about a grandmother that I had revered and feared in my childhood. I learned even more years later when my oldest child was two years of age and Edward wanted to search a repository (University near by) near Ithaca, New York. I did know that my Great Aunt Sarah lived there so we added a trip to see her into that itinerary. I had met her as a child a number of times and she was thrilled that we came. She was just 80 years of age then, same as I am, and still a very active person with her children being on either side of the American continent, one in Connecticut and the other in Washington State. Both sons had served in the American Air Force during the Second World War. She had three grandchildren and amazingly one of her grandsons had been there for a visit and it was his last day there so we met him as well as I had not prior to that time. Craig Winters was 25 years old (I was 30 years of age at that time) and he passed away in 2009. My daughter called Sarah Grandma which quite thrilled her actually but she was only two and I had mentioned to her that we would visit my grandmother's sister so I guess she just thought she might be her grandma too. She was missing her grandparents very much. Although we used to go back at least six times a year when she was small to see her grandparents. 

I completed Chromosome 14 yesterday and came across several matches that I had not recorded in my Known file in all this rush to collect data. They were particularly helpful on the 14th Chromosome. I reduced the number of overall crossover points as the Living DNA data very closely resembles my families due to all of them being from England itself (although I do have Scot and apparently Irish but do not have any known connections but lots of matches). I sorted out Chromosome 13 ready to work on it today. There are quite a few crossover points but already a rough look at the data and there will be reduction there as well. I was very precise with the earlier phasing of the Grandparents but the data on Living DNA is permitting me to be much more lenient with placement when they are close together and as I review the data they share basically the same close area. Having so much data from Living DNA has been most helpful. But DNA splits and joins as suits it and phasing is best looked at from a slight distance. 

I must get the rest of the recycling out to the street as I generally do not put it out until morning except for the brown bagging of the garden waste (two big bags). I will try to do two bags worth each week until the snow falls. 

Tea is ready to drink and solitaire puzzles to do. Lots of items to accomplish before the Conference begins.  

 

 

Having too much data

Working on all of this data I realize I am trying to do too much and really need to whittle down the number of items that I do each day as it conflicts with my writing. I have sufficient data to do whatever I want to do really and in some ways again a great deal more than I actually need. Working through the matches has shown me that. I did start out small with this whole process but my siblings were so very willing to contribute to the study and as the number of companies increased so did the volume of my results. For what I want to do the companies that provide me with the most information are Ancestry (although no actual results unless you do PRO which shows you a more in depth view of the matches between you and between shared matches; so interesting but too time consuming for the moment). Because of the volume that I already have I am not going to sign up for that just yet. Then FT DNA is also a really good setup for matches and it was these two that I originally tested my siblings at or they tested themselves. Then 23 and Me came into view and I tested myself and then let everyone know the results and my older brother Doug thought he would like to do that so already had two spare email addresses as he didn't want to do anything with it just wanted me to tell him what was in it. So I agreed to test him and sent the kit to him from the one email address and he filled it in and sent it back. The results came and he was very pleased with the results and I collected matches and this was long ago before you could have family groups so gradually the number of accounts that I needed to open and close; keep email accounts for grew. He then told my younger brother and he decided he would like to have those kind of results so I tested him with my second spare email address and again sent the kit to him and then he returned it and I told him the results and started collecting more data although he was very very like my older brother (very similar in his matching so just a second match with pretty much the same people. I did consider deleting that second account the last while since I am trying to trim down but then he passed away and it was just nice to still have that little bit of memory of him. Although 23 and Me no longer provides a breakdown of matches so I am into that account less and less and it also creates problems which I need to try and resolve today to get back my access to my two yahoo accounts. I have two step verification which is working but doesn't get me where I need to be. We will see how that goes; I will try again in the day time hours. I actually have two accounts at 23 and Me (about ten years apart I think) and the results are duplicate but I decided to do that and then I have the 23 and Me Plus as well which is interesting especially testing on the newer chip. I was into the Yahoo accounts just a couple of months ago and it was fine so will try again. I am very careful to have different passwords for everything; somewhat complicated but it works. 

So can you have too much data? Probably not you just have to do what I am slowly doing which is downsize any data that doesn't really add very much new - it is complicated as I whip back between accounts in particular between Ancestry and the other accounts as all the trees are on Ancestry or My Heritage. But Ancestry has a huge American content and surprisingly for me with just a very little step on this continent, three grandparents born and raised in England, my father born in England coming to Canada with his parents as a child of 9 in 1913 and the remaining grandparent was my mother's father who was born in Canada, his mother was born in Canada and along with my mother they are my three only Canadian born ancestors. So one wouldn't expect to see matches deep into the colonial past of the United States except I am. Huge matches really in the 40+ cM range. Just not expected except this is a pile up area as it is referred to by genealogists - some areas where one's ethnicity dominates the genetic passage of that particular length of gene and this particular length has three such areas; one larger (about 20 cM) and the other two smaller perhaps a couple of centimorgans each. But it does mean that the actual look of the length is much smaller on say Ancestry where TIMBER extracts this common ethnic area from the match giving you this true match. Interesting really but I do not need to contemplate all of that for my study - it is just interesting. So flipping back to trees shows me that so many of these matches (and I only extracted about half of them and they are all mine; no one else matches me on this particular Chromosome 15) in the maternal length of the chromosome. Sometimes  my interest in medicine creeps in and I am tempted to see what has been located on that chromosome gene-wise but I haven't done so; I think my interest in medicine is slipping away. 

Today I plan to work on Chromosome 14 and it is already set up and it is where my older brother and I share matches with a lot of people having Jewish ancestry. We are often said to be third or fourth cousins but that is likely impossible as I am pretty much complete back to the 5x great grandparents and corresponding with a couple of people has shown that the link maybe as far back as 8x great grandparents. Somewhat fascinating in itself. It is a small match chromosome - just 27 matches in total over all the databases but I am looking forward to studying more closely the matches at Living DNA which I have collected. It is now a couple of months since I did that collection and I need to check one of these days on the new matches. But if I have Jewish ancestry it is likely located in my maternal line by the matches and possibly from Somerset. My familiarity with Jewish history in Britain is pretty thin so I do not know if that would be anticipated. But just two of us really share these matches (my older brother and myself) and we also show 0.2% Jewish ethnicity which is within the range of error so very very small but the matches can be larger than you would think. Interesting really especially given the theory particularly expressed during the latter part of the 18th century that the original inhabitants of Britain were one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Fascinating really but I am not getting that too much. I added my older brother's yDNA to one of the University databases there when they were collecting his haplogroup as it is said to be ancient to the British Isles (Deer-Hunters was the name given to them by Ethnoancestry (and yes I did test him there and he found that really exciting). It gave us a lot to talk about all those years when I became involved all because our mother who had spoken to both of us about her idea of testing the family DNA.  My older brother then invited my younger brother to become involved just to keep us altogether I think but the interest there was not very high and eventually he asked me not to send him all that material which I did not although I probably slipped up sometimes. 

Also I want to rake the front lawn as I did complete the laneway yesterday and it is pretty much free of leaves. Once I have that done I think I might put the car away as I do not want to have to scrape the windows. Plus I have one leaky tire which I have to fill every two weeks or so and it would be warmer in the garage to do that for sure. It is a great gadget I saw advertised on TV because the mechanism of my going to a garage and filling a tire could not seem to get into my mind. Purchasing this marvelous pump was the greatest idea and it works beautifully. It is very noisy so always do it in the mid morning when it probably does not disturb anybody. It is very efficient. You just set it for 36 and it fills the tire to 36 and shuts off. They did everything to find that leak but it remains a mystery. For a small amount I bought that and a plug as the actual machine doesn't come with the plug for the electricity to recharge it but only a car charger. Works perfectly though and is pretty fast although as I said the noise is deafening. 

Late today; I actually slept in. Tea all drank and must do my solitaire puzzles and then breakfast and on to the day.