Merry Christmas

Another beautiful Christmas and the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child once again enters into our life. At 80 one tends to reflect backwards to a certain extent on the 80 Christmases already celebrated in one's life. Coming from a large family Christmas was a busy time and a room full of children opening presents is an amazing sight for anyone who has never seen seven children doing that. Now my Christmases are small but equally wonderful. But my strongest memories of Christmas remain going to Church on Christmas Day as a family and sometimes we had not yet opened presents as we awaited the arrival of grandparent and aunt and uncle to celebrate with us. But the Christmas Service always was most beautiful and some years I was singing in the Choir (from about nine years to thirteen years as I vaguely recall). Merry Christmas to all and to all a wonderful day of memories. 

I have particularly found the Advent Reflections to be extremely meaningful to me. During this time of Reconciliation between the First Peoples and the Colonials we, the Colonials, are receiving from the First Peoples their thoughts and they are most welcome to my mind. Like the Reflector, I came from a large family (four boys and three girls) but with a difference in that I am first generation Canadian on my Father's side (he was born in England coming to Canada with his parents as a child of nine and his father was a blacksmith on the Railway) and I am fourth generation Canadian on my mother's side with herself, her father and his mother being my only Canadian born ancestors. My little line back into history in Canada is not that similar to other colonials and yet there are likely many who have a somewhat similar background in that all of my known ancestors were born in different parts of England (six in total - Devon, Somerset, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Surrey, London, East Riding of Yorkshire, Cumberland, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Leicestershire and probably other areas - my first Canadian emigrants were the Routledges coming from Cumberland to London Township in 1818 followed by Robert Gray arriving in the early 1830s to London Township from the Eastern Riding of Yorkshire as well. Then my Pincombe family arriving in March 1851 in Westminster Township, Middlesex, Ontario from Devon followed by my maternal grandmother Ellen Buller in 1908 from Warwickshire to London, Ontario and the last my Blake family in 1913 from Hampshire to London, Ontario. Each one of these individuals married someone from England (or eventually someone born here who had only English ancestry) giving me 100% ancestry from England. Amazing really. 

Canada continues on its path of making itself Tariff Proof for the future. There is a lot of work and it will be a struggle to get there but the endpoint is worth having and we must continue to strive towards that for the future of Canada as an independent country. One of the many reasons for doing so is to thank the First Nations for their aid and support during difficult times in our history over the past hundreds of years. This is their country for thousands of years and accepting us and helping us has been wondrous through the years. There was a lack of understanding between us created by differences but we do see Turtle Island/Canada as worth all of the work that we can put into it - the land of our birth and that of the generations that follow us and we must pass it on to them as prosperous as we can.  

Not much done on the matches yesterday but the cleaning completely accomplished and now the research time has its place in my life. Chromosome 15 will be a challenge and I hope to separate out more of the great grandparent lines as I go through the matches. Some of these matches I have not regarded since I collected them so is a first look at them in a number of years in some cases. There have been surprises as I recognized the individuals and can readily fit them into family lines now. There are puzzles; why so many singleton Buller matches to me (should include one brother partially) at the beginning of Chromosome 15. Today though is a busy day already planned and just have to take those plans to fruition. That will happen eventually. 

In the meantime I shall go to Church online if not my Church here there is one in England that is online as well. Breakfast too will have its moments and I need to make my tea, finish my early morning exercises and do my solitaire puzzles.