And the basement is cleaning day three

Prayer for the souls of the people murdered in Tumbler Ridge, BC. Information still coming. 

 Yesterday the cleaning went very well and was accomplished mostly before lunch which was good as the Fit Bit is now starting to recognize the cleaning and I am receiving reasonable numbers for this work.The duration 3 hours and 12 minutes, the cardio load 92 and the calories burned 1169. My last old Fit Bit had  higher numbers which I never really felt were correct. I am satisfied that this fits the effort that I put in. So today the basement and the robot will begin its task shortly. 

I continue to contemplate how to update Canada Post to virtual mailboxes as I consider Canada Post to be a valuable service which at the moment needs a redo I think in order to take up more of the possible package deliveries in particular (more money being received by the Post Office) and to help offset the cost to the government mailing items to us where there is a cost (all hard copies would have to be paid for both the printing and the cost of delivery). I think it would result in Canada Post being able to support itself. Plus it guarantees package mail delivery all over Canada without exception.  As mentioned yesterday the beginnings of virtual mailboxes are already there with the postal code which is in two parts - the area code the first three items ( a letter a number followed by a letter) and then the location code (a number, a letter, a number) which brings it down to a group of households in an area. This just has to be subdivided into individual units and a particular code chosen by the unit owner can be used for this third category that actually lets you into the mailbox and can be changed regularly to prevent fraud with two factor authentication with your phone and email just for extra layers. That gives it enormous flexibility into the future. Fascinating really but it will take time to implement although we should speed things up so that they are not so slow really. We need to speed ourselves up. I would suggest that the electronic flyers that would be distributed by Canada Post into the virtual mailboxes would carry the same cost as the current distribution of paper flyers by Canada Post. This system will be expensive to setup but the main attributes of the system are consistent across all departments of the Government and everyone will benefit particularly on a mercantile basis and that will help to ensure the Post Office being in the black rather than the red. Enough on the Post Office; just my thoughts at this time for whatever reason; sometimes I am just annoyed about something and being the person I am I begin to think of good solutions. 

Working on Chromosome 1 and yesterday I managed to complete the D's. A few good insights that solved some great grandparent lines and I will continue with that today. It is really the common area (common to Europe and the British Isles (and by extension a lot of the people in the Western Hemisphere except for the First Nations)) that is the most difficult to separate into the great grandparent line very often. But there are still probably 200 matches to go or more. I will count them when there are fewer. 

I have now organized the recycling that has been added to our collecting to put out to the street. I put all the small plastic items into one of the bread bags, another bread bag will hold the large pieces of plastic and I use very few cans and the  number of large plastic containers has almost completely disappeared with the purchase of the boxes of liquid hand cleaner and soap that I bought from a company in Montreal. I replaced the cleaning solution with a paper product that comes in a recyclable cardboard box. The amazing thing is that there is only floss in the garbage and it will takes months and months to fill that plastic bag in the garbage container. Amazing really and a good move forward having a private company take over the recycling collection. 

I want to start on the enormous set of excel files for the photo books so that I have created just the family part of it and then I can begin setting up the photo books. The other way was not working for me as I just felt sad about taking apart the History of his Life that Edward created. It will still be there in the scanned files along with the original indexes. One day a descendant might just pull that up and have a look at it; one never knows. But it was something Edward did not want to happen that he would be forgotten as he always felt his father was. Definitely our daughters will never forget their father; they loved him dearly and still do. 

Time to do the solitaire puzzles and I have forgotten my tea so must go and do that.  

Second Day of Cleaning

 First day of cleaning went very well but it is on these three days that I have to really work to get to my 12,000 steps per day (just over 13,000 yesterday) - I seldom go beyond that on a cleaning day. I primarily concentrate on my books when not working and getting them done. Whenever life becomes conflicting it does appear that I hide behind my books. The books will be published with a Creative Common License and free on my website. The Blake will be a shorter volume than the actual one that I will produce but I still feel strongly that I will not be adequately proving to my mind anything prior to 1521 and will not include that portion in the published online book but it will be in the book that I place in the Guild of one-name Studies Library where I am a member. I will get some of the material transcribed (it is all in Latin) but I do not have all of it and so I must leave it to a scholar in the future who finds the story of the Blake Family of Andover intriguing. Perhaps another descendant of that family will do that. I have a busy couple of months ahead of me of work although I do not plan to publish before January 2028. Once I complete Chromosome 1 then I will be changing how I am working and back into planned days for either Blake or Pincombe. It will be exciting and I will enjoy it. 

I continued yesterday to contemplate the Cosmic Horizon and Heaven. I do believe God is in the Heavens and the discussion was most interesting that I read yesterday. I do not believe I have ever heard it expressed in quite that way before (past Lecturer at Harvard, Dr. Michael Guillen, The Economic Times). It was absolutely beautiful and thank you to him for sharing it with the world. I still remember the first time I saw a print of an atom; it was just a flat image on a paper but I loved the look of it. It so appealed to me and drew me into Chemistry at a young age (about twelve as I was headed off to High School). I read Chemistry for years before I studied it and still find  it fascinating. The atom is the secret; it is the basis of all that we see around us including ourselves. DNA is built from atoms and in the creation of a life at every level DNA responds to the material it receives from each parent accepting the best presented and rejecting the inferior. That doesn't mean as we all know that everyone is born perfect. I myself had strabismus all my life until I was 78 years of age and then like a miracle I could see into the depths like I never did before. I could see without glasses and even more astounding I passed my driver's test without glasses. I notice that now nearly two years later I do not reach for my glasses first thing in the morning that did take a while. But it is all the mystery of the atom how our life flows and will we ever know when the atom first appeared in this universe. Genesis is a simple story of the beginning but I think that the atom is all part of that story. The secret of the Cosmos never to be revealed whilst one is living. But we can dream about it.

Another good day of morning exercise at 58 minutes, cardio load of 51 and 339 calories plus 2615 steps which is about right for that set of exercises. I injured my back in a fall in my mid-teen years and I got up and walked again so never really investigated it (I was one of seven children after all) but I still have to be careful with my back as it is easily put into difficulty without the proper exercise. I did finally in my 60s get some help with my back and some good exercise recommendations. That is one of the many reasons that I do do exercises every day to keep my back very strong. 

Still none of my expected  mail and mostly what I do receive is all brochures (and that could be virtual as well saving one's time looking for it online). Canada Post is particularly good at delivering bulk mail. Perhaps not a big deal getting my piece of awaited mail as I can just call the company; I already paid my premium (this is insurance for my burial so do like to keep it up to date). But I do like to have the paperwork. I dream of a virtual mail box and we are setup already with the filing system for it with the postal code (the two parts of that postal code were particularly ingenious). I actually did work for the Postal Service in one of the District Offices back when I was having a problem with miscarriage from being on my feet all my working day and needed to rest so I went to work at the Post Office and with my COBOL language did manage to secure an interesting position but I was taken ill after my daughter was born and had to leave my position. Having the postal code would make a very straightforward setup and we could move to it quickly. I have had so many different kinds of jobs in my life all emanating from the various trainings that I have had in school, in the workplace and just on my own usually online learning once that entered into our lives.  I do not know if there would be initial savings as the added computer setup, the electricity, the use of AI (still in training stages and will be awhile before it would be ready without a lot of human input). But the advantage is so huge and I believe it would increase the income earned by the Post Office because it would be a do it all delivery service for government and mercantile as they choose providing everything particularly delivery of parcels which they are quite excellent at providing (parcels would grow of course because of items that the government delivers to us which were once letter mail - for actual hard copy delivered perhaps we would pay for that in the future); but for the consumer/tax payer/business being able to handle your mail anywhere in the world is a plus. We have a bit of that already as you can get the post office to scan your mail and send it to you. That is an interesting mid step but for privacy the virtual mailbox wins out absolutely. 

At the District Office of the Post Office in the middle of the large room there on the second floor where I worked were maybe a dozen desks of men who had served in the Second World War and had been injured in various ways and they formed a work pool that we could get to do particular tasks and one in particular was very keen on computers and I got him to prepare the huge piles of computer pages by marking particular items for me. He became extremely good at it and fast. I admired those young men in the height of their youth (well I suppose in their 40s and 50s then) pushing themselves day after day to work and to learn. They could  have just sat back and given up but they did not and I will forever remember them for their courage to keep going and continue doing what they could do to support themselves and their families.  

Worked on Chromosome 1 yesterday and I am into the D's so not a great deal done yesterday. But some good sorting of the common area with lots of Relative lists attached to the files now. AI can do all that work for me eventually. But for the moment I must prepare my files removing any randomness so that the AI will do the best job that I can tell it to do with minimum junk coming out. 

Tea all drank and solitaire puzzles to do. I have one neat trick that I use when my back is a problem and that is to kneel at the computer and type and play solitaire puzzles. It does seem to strengthen the back.  

 

 

Cleaning day One

An ever repeating sequence in my life is cleaning days. I do not mind cleaning it reminds me of my grandmother teaching me how to clean and I do try to follow her clear instructions. Life has changed though and now at 80 I do do things somewhat differently. She was a fascinating person though and my memories of her are very strong and clear in my mind. She managed though to say only certain things about her families leaving one to wonder many times. I wonder if she visited the area of Bermondsey where her great grandfather Christopher Buller had his Slop Shop on Tooley Street in Bermondsey. We were on the tour bus when I was looking out the window as we drove across the Thames from London and I just happened to glance up at the right time to see the street marker with Tooley Street upon it. Generally I can not read those signs but it was a large sign and the bus was right beside it and of course one is sitting up higher in a tour bus with huge windows. That was our first trip to London in 2008 (my husband and I). I had been in London in 2001 with my oldest daughter when we did my pilgrimage to Rome and then a side trip to London on our way home to Canada.  I had asked Edward first if he would like to come but he declined although he regretted that after our Tour of Europe as he saw little of Italy compared to what I had seen with my older daughter. He always wanted to go back and do a trip of just Italy. But once he went and enjoyed it he wanted to go much more often than I did. I wanted to see everything that I could see so it took a good six months to prepare for each trip and so it was generally every second year that we went. 

My grandmother did mention all of her grandparents - the Taylor grandparents were shoe makers/shop keepers and the Buller grandmother lived with her children except not their family. Henry Christopher Buller, her grandfather, had died twenty six years before she was born. My grandmother attended her grandmother's funeral not long before her father died actually and she had met her father's sisters at that time. Both of her parents had come from fairly large families. But Buller is one of my challenging lines which I will have a longer look at after the Pincombe and Blake books are completed. 

 I worked on Chromosome 1 yesterday and managed to get through to the C's. The number of matches is huge so it will be a while getting through this chromosome. However, some of the dust has settled on the common area as I was able to prepare a good list of matches for Buller and Blake as well as Pincombe (my Rawlings matches are very few actually overall but the ones that I do have are close so good coverage). 

The start of the work week is always interesting and today it is minus 24 degrees celsius with a wind chill of minus 35 to minus 40 degrees celsius. So a very cold day out there and I believe I will just look at the snow from a distance whilst I clean. The desire to go out in that is pretty weak. I did put the skis away until March when I might ski again - time and the snow will decide that. 

On the first chromosome at the beginning there are quite a few matches (as many as 40 actually but I did not collect all of them) that are early Colonial American and in the Blake/Knight line. I am still trying to find a match that will reveal which of the two. There is also a length on this same chromosome that is definitely Blake and both ancient and  modern so again I wonder are these the descendants of the Sedgewick family where Joanna Blake married Robert Sedgewicke  the 6th of Jan 1634 (old style) at Andover St Marys in Hampshire, England. Earlier in the history of Ancestry DNA I did collect five or six matches that were small but traced back to Sedgewicke (I do need to pull them up as I saved them when Ancestry removed the very small matches from their database). I will spend some time looking at these matches when I am doing the genealogy charts. Some really good lengths of Buller on this chromosome especially with my two Buller cousins testing recently (descendants of Clement Charles Caswell Buller (brother to my Edwin Denner Buller) and I already have two other descendants of siblings of my great grandfather Edwin Denner Buller so an interesting length of this chromosome is known to me along with two descendants of the Welch family which was the mother of Edwin Denner Buller. Not quite as large but in a significant place which has aided the investigation quite a bit from an earlier time. But the addition of the last two was memorable as it solved the problem on Chromosome 3 for sure. I do have eighteen known matches but this is a very long chromosome and there are spots (particularly the common area where more Known matches would be nice). Although time is providing answers that weren't there earlier. 

 Time is moving onward and I must finish off my tea and do my solitaire puzzles before breakfast and then cleaning. Exercises completed and a snack to fortify me until breakfast. Another beautiful day on God's world. An interesting discussion on the location of Heaven which I found very thought consuming. The scientist who discussed it is a physicist. I loved studying physics because so many of the early scholars were very religious and constantly brought science and religion together. I have always felt that the examination of the atom revealed God to us as it is so perfect and designed in a fundamental way that does make one believe very deeply in the presence of God in our world. Randomness doesn't cut it with me mostly because randomness is chaotic and destructive and the atom is perfect because it follows a logical course that is beneficial not destructive like plants and animals where the best combination of DNA is always chosen. 

 

Continuing blog - I am verbose today

 The only time that I have gone to a neighbour's door for help in my life was my car was stuck. It wasn't stuck in terms of ice or anything but I was backing it out of the garage and I did not seem to be able to manage it for some odd reason. I must admit I was getting concerned about my eyes at that stage but they had said I didn't need cataract surgery yet, But it just seemed that I wasn't seeing as well as I had been. So I did knock/ring the bell on the door next door just the one time to get help with that and they did back my car out of the garage. Which I said thank you for their assistance. My husband knew them well and they helped each other out when they were away or we were. I really didn't know them at all until my husband passed and then I did start speaking to them as my life was very busy helping my daughter and my son in law stayed in my house for half of a week with our youngest grandson as he needed assistance with his Autism (a very expensive process) so I did ask them to take in the mail which they did when I wasn't there but it was a short period of time. But mostly I keep entirely to myself except when my family is with me or I am with them. My daughters and son in law and grandchildren take good care of me. 

I am finding though that the mail is very slow these days; some items I am expecting have not arrived. It seems really strange and it again makes me feel that virtual mailboxes would be so much better. All of these companies can produce electronic documents that the post office can distribute. It would be so much neater and no waste of paper. Even though my black bin was not emptied this week in two weeks it will barely have anymore than is in there now but with virtual I would have almost nothing and only need collecting every month or two. I simply do not use a lot of products. I never get parcels at the door as I do not buy anything except when family is here and we go shopping. But the Post Office would actually have a bigger business in parcel delivery if the mailboxes were virtual (especially in the country as well where everything could be delivered closer to home). Mind you I do not think the Post Office has to make money. It is a service to the public but it could be close to supporting itself with bulk mailing for business in a virtual way and delivery service for both government and mercantile. The number of in house workers and delivery van drivers would grow to offset the loss in jobs that a virtual system would entail. Running a virtual system requires management and workers along with AI.  

I am also trying to reduce the plastic waste and metal from cans. I seldom open a can so that isn't very much but when my daughter is here we do have more cans. Plastic is a slow process as there are meat containers but I am thinking of switching to a butcher that only uses butcher paper to wrap the meat and just go more often when I have someone with me. My daughter found this company that makes a product in a Canadian cardboard box with a thin plastic container that is larger than I used to buy and that reduces the plastic somewhat but still there. I guess we need to go to powders but still you need a container but if it is cardboard which we produce a lot of then that does reduce the waste of plastic. We switched to powder for clothes washing and that is in a tin container which recycles very well much better than plastic (such knowledge from my own days in Chemistry at University). I usually have very little in the blue container but it has increased since we recycle all of the plastic freezer bags now. 

I have had a large white plastic bag in my garbage for two weeks now and all it has in it is floss and it will take years to fill it with floss. The used kleenex is in a paper bag and goes out with the recycling along with the food waste which I put into used milk cartons (waxed cardboard) and freeze until the day of pickup. Again I only fill one of the 2 litre cartons once a week when I am on my own. When I have company I use the paper recycling bags not biodegradable plastic because we make the paper bags here in Canada. 

Interesting really where all of that is going. I am verbose today but that  happens when I am awake in the night contemplating how to solve whatever the current problem is. I may have a solution that I will work through over the next couple of days. I did find it inadequate to be told to just go to the store and set it up when I tried to set up a system online that I have used many times in the past but it took my money but did not set up the system I needed. I went through this call system that finally got me a person after two hours nearly the other day and was told that he couldn't do the work even though I had the charge number against my credit card for the government department. I find that weird really as everything is online and surely he could see that I had paid but not received the setup required. But maybe not. I didn't care for his solution which was to trek out to the store and set it up there. Why would I do that when I should be able to just easily set it up on line as I always have. But I do have a workaround in mind once my money comes back - no one is  made of money to waste randomly trying to set something up. Plus I did  not get a response to my filling in the forms where you mention the problem. 

Having to change your work direction happens in life as my own husband graduated as a PhD Chemist and went on to do a Postdoc in Chemical Engineering as he wanted to be a working scientist not just an educated one. But no jobs as it was the time of the draft dodgers and they came north and took all the  jobs for a bit and our PhD graduates taught high school (many in his PhD graduating class did that in that time period). So he did yet another degree masters in library science and got a job that he worked at happily for thirty years so I do not really have a lot of sympathy. Retrain and get a different job if your job disappears due to automation or political circumstance. Plus I do need a new vacuum cleaner and I want it to be all Canadian like they used to be; I will feel the same way if I am buying a fan or any other electrical device that is no longer made here and we import them from the companies in the United States that bought our companies out or simply out competed them and they closed during free trade. Those American companies in some cases made their products off shore eventually more cheaply in Asia and that is where some of them come from now first coming through the US to here. So retrain and lets get our industries back sooner rather than later. The shop vac works well but I would like a new Canadian vacuum cleaner and especially one that doesn't sound like a jet engine taking off. 

Well must get some work done before church and eat my breakfast. The day is moving onward. The exercise this morning was excellent and it was 56 minutes (4 minutes faster than usual), 49 cardio load and 326 calories, step count 3306 which is still a little high as I did lose count a couple of time.  Yesterday I walked nearly 17,000 steps. I get up and walk every hour for about ten to fifteen minutes which does bring that count up rapidly plus I ran for thirty minutes and did weight lifting for 22 minutes. 

 

 

Chromosome 1 progressing

Awake early and probably sleep again but decided to write my blog. Chromosome 1 went well and will continue with that later today. It is the longest chromosome and I inherited an all Blake/Knight chromosome from my father. Some of it is known and some of it I will see what I can find. 

Bought hand soap and detergent from a company in Montreal instead of the usual big plastic bottles of it. These come in a thin plastic dispenser inside of a cardboard box so decreasing the amount of plastic but still quite a bit of cardboard but the bonus there is that we make all those cardboard containers. Trying very hard to only buy Canadian but sometimes I do make mistakes like buying my Turbo Tax which I really like. But next year QFile will do the trick I am sure. The $27 for the Turbo Tax is well offset by what I paid for the huge containers of hand soap and detergent. I generally spend only on Canadian products in the stores but one has to read the labels very carefully as they are mentioning on the Television. Just thinking it is Canadian doesn't work. 

I did buy the shoveling for the remainder of the season from the company that does do my laneway but it didn't happen yesterday. We will see I may have to remind them as it isn't on the sign the person on the phone said but then it is set up until the 1st of April like the laneway. Generally I pay the extra to do the laneway in April just in case of heavy snows.  

 I do have a puzzle generally with Chromosome 1 as there is a set of matches in a common area which is either Blake or Buller or Rawlings or Pincombe. I have more or less got a list of matches so that I can separate them out readily but it doesn't always work and then I just assign them to the "too small" category file and do not use them. That file is going to be the largest I suspect in that this is a very common area for the British Isles and Northern Europe. 

Sunday and another service online from my Church. I do enjoy being able to attend in that way; it isn't exactly what God planned but at 80 years of age it works very well for me. The need to move is very strong in me I must admit. I do not want to wait too long but eventually this house will be too much for me even with the helpers that I purchase to assist me. I will have this company that does the laneways and porch/patio do the yards this year. That way there will be the cutting every second week I think which will make life easier. The exercise is good but sometimes it is also exhausting as it is a large yard. 

Sometimes when I look back at all of my years the amount of volunteer time that I have put in seems huge but all of that is also way back in the past. Although I did do some volunteer work with some healthcare projects during COVID and after and still do some. All online making life much easier - online is great really. But my girls are long grown and a lot of the volunteer work was with their groups or their schools.  

God is always with us in the wind and the rain, in the skies and the rich land around us. Thank you God for all that you have given to us. Help us to be better administrators of this land bringing peace to the world for all peoples so that everyone can live a good life in these lands. 

 Back to sleep and another day is dawning although not quite yet it is early at 3:40 a.m. 

H11 Newsletter on the website

 Accomplished yesterday and it is on the website awaiting approval from the support group. It is a time saver as it turns out. The process I used to use for the first newsletter of the year  for H11 took me about five or six hours of going through all the material but FT DNA's new mt tree is perfect and covers everything much better as it identifies the matches in common. So thank you to FT DNA for saving me some time as I move away from so much time on newsletters to working on my books. 

I continue to contemplate how nice it will be when I move from here. Yesterday the black recycling bin was not emptied by the collection people; possibly because I put it up on  top of the snowhill (as did others) and nothing was sticking out which seems a bit strange as I could see into it. It takes me a long time to fill the black bin. It will be so nice to be gone from all of that for sure. I am tired of dealing with people in my 80th year. I just want to work away on my books and have no one about me that isn't my family. Honesty for sure but then I have worked since I was twelve years old and except for a short period when my oldest was born and I was ill for a few years I have worked until I retired in 2008. A little sooner than I planned but I had tore my rotator cup and it needed rest and finally I decided just to retire. It was a good idea except my husband always had so many things he was doing and wanted me to help him and so I did but I managed to avoid getting involved beyond the event that he  needed help with or a trip that he and another fellow had put together and I would help with that but then quiet came for a while until Edward had something else he wanted to do. Me, I prefer just to stay at home and work on my projects. I am not a people person and even less so now that I am 80. My time that is for fun is spent with my family but they are very busy people and so I have all this lovely beautiful time to myself to work on my books. 

That recent event brought it to my notice how much the world is changing and all that waste of paper is too excessive delivering it door to door (it would take  me a month or two to accumulate a black box full of paper and as time passes it will take longer and longer. Have a stand somewhere in a mall where people can pick it up. I still  have stamps that I bought fifteen years ago (there are still three there) which tells you how much I use the Post Office. The Post office needs virtual mailboxes for people to receive their information (usually one is printing something and then putting it into an envelope and then mailing it but if one had access to a system that sent the item via the post office that would be perfect). Bulk mailing is done very well by the Post Office.  I would go for that as I do think the Post Office is an important part of government. I do see a value in the Post Office just not the current setup. That way one is always able to access their mail anywhere they  have an internet connection.  I agree with the opinion of the government that door to door delivery needs to disappear. 

I have been using computers for 60 years now and our young people are so good at managing computers starting even younger than my 20 years of age at the time. Lately in a discussion with a Chatbox trying to solve a problem the AI that I talked to could not get beyond simple sentences that a child would use and so could not understand what I was saying. It finally gave me a telephone number that I sat for nearly an hour listening to the excuses before looking up a number that did give me a person after 25 minutes.  AI needs a lot of work still. 

However in spite of the mishaps, I did complete Chromosome 2 and I will move on to Chromosome 1 today. I was pleased with the overall result of this chromosome. I rejected  ten matches because they were too small; that is the most so far. The file is now 3627 lines and by the time I have completed Chromosome 1 I estimate that will be over 4000 lines easily. Then the real work begins. Although I still have to check the databases for new matches which I will do first. 

 My usual exercises yesterday replacing weight lifting with rowing. I do like rowing and we canoed all over Northern Ontario in our young days my husband and I. It was fantastic and I highly recommend it. The rowing is a sort of strength training along with just the good cardio that goes with it. So for 400 rows, 23 minutes, 135 calories and a cardio load of 43. Today's morning exercise was 1 hour, 403 cal, and cardio load of 49. My steps were 3203 a little longer than usual but I was contemplating my blog and lost count a few times so just added 100 more. 

The FitBit wants me to slow down but it needs to continue to refine itself to work with me in my normal exercise routine (it is just six weeks old now!). It is getting better and better. My step count was 16,002 steps yesterday. 

Just the Kipp Newsletter to look at today and I will think about it. I only mention Y-DNA in the newsletter. 

Forgot to make my tea so must do that and solitaire games to play.  

 

 

H11 Newsletter in progress

I did work on the H11 project yesterday and all ungrouped members are now grouped. It is not of any value to do the statistics I used to do in this issue of the newsletter. In each individual member's page is all the information that I used to provide in an anonymous way which is now available to each person except they can see the matches. Thank you to FT DNA for doing such a great job in this upgrade. I can not publish the new mitogroups because that information is personal. So a small writeup on that in the Newsletter. I still have to have a look at the recent messaging online about H11 and see if there is anything other than my newsletters. 

H11 is an old haplogroup subclade which wintered in Ukraina during the last Ice Age. Presumably given the tracking of some of the members of this group it would appear that there were several paths to the west through central Europe and into southern England and through the Scandinavian Peninsula and into Scotland where my ancestor appears on the Blood of the Isles Database created by Bryan Sykes. The H11 also trekked east and south east and south west. The Blood of the Isles Database is a limited look as few markers are mentioned but the ones that are end up, in my case, being significant and it is likely that both of my lines y-DNA and mt-DNA were in the British Isles 8,000 to 12,000 years ago as Western Hunter Gatherers. Both of these signatures go extinct when my generation is gone and when the grandchildren generation is gone (y-DNA in my generation and mt-DNA in the grandchildren generation). I think sometimes it is hard to believe given that I have six siblings but there you go. However there are still, in my estimation, around half a million to a million holders of this mt-DNA and an unknown number for the y-DNA (there were fourteen matches on the Chromo2 test). This being an expensive test probably did not get as many testers as it might have. But I do know that the y-DNA is all over the British Commonwealth but not so sure of the United States as no one has tested there that matches. I do not know of any male Blake of Andover going to the United States. It became a very small family in the mid 1700s and most holders were still in England. Time will tell though and if DNA studies continue to interest people more will be available in the future. 

 Today finish up the H11 Newsletter and work on the Kipp Newsletter. I also hope to get back to the matches and there are 22 to finish off Chromosome 2 and then on to the last one - Chromosome 1 with its 250+ matches. That will take a bit of time. 

My new exercise routine now a few weeks old is going very well and I think it was time for a change to that type of longer exercise. I also ran for thirty minutes and lifted weights for 20 minutes. It gives me a good cardio load for the day and exercise level. At 80 one has to keep up the exercises as you lose the muscle tone very quickly. The balance also has to be part of the whole exercise story and I was amazed at how adding two sets of exercises that my daughter mentioned to my routine kept me from falling down readily whilst skiing. 

Started filling in my income tax with basic details and I do believe I will move to one of the Canadian manufactured income tax form programs. I suppose I knew it was American but I guess I thought maybe it was also Canadian but it is totally American owned. But at $27 for the basic form it isn't a lot but I will move to possibly UFile as it looks interesting, has a lovely Canadian flag in the corner and is downloaded to the computer which I prefer. It is sad though as I really like Turbo Tax. We were all happy I think with the status quo but time changes and life moves on and so must we. I do like what Prime Minister Carney is doing. One mustn't think of the deficit at this point; we need to think of increasing jobs and Canadian content of everything. 

Today the opening of the new Consulate in Nuuk, Greenland and the Governor General is there along with Minister Anand  and we are well represented there by many Canadian Inuit cousins and friends to support this new Consulate and it will bring us even closer as peoples. It isn't far from Baffin Island to Greenland and new trade routes are opening up in the Hudson Bay and we can all work together to make our lives more productive. 

Drinking tea and on to the Solitaire Puzzles. Still enjoying the Sudoku very much and do get a good laugh out of the Superstar label.  I do miss the sixteen games of Spider to achieve the Diamond level in that particular Solitaire game and perhaps I will return once my  eyes adjust to this sparkling as it tends to give me a headache. So move on from that; there are other games and Sudoku is great as a memory and brain game for sure. 

 

 

 

H11 Newsletter is a complete redo of the site

 It will take me a while to do the H11 Newsletter as the mitogroups will necessitate a complete rework of the site. I am in the process of looking at that. The Kipp Newsletter only deals with the yDNA groups and will also have a look at that but again I am moving away from working on Kipp since I do not know the family and perhaps someone in the group will come forward and become involved. We will see how that goes; I will mention it in the next Newsletter.

Cleaning was slow as I decided to download my TurboTax which took me a bit to accomplish but everything  is working very very well. I do like using Turbo Tax to do my Income Tax. It is an American product but it will be difficult for me to change that unless I just do it. We will see in the future but this year it is TurboTax once again.

Cleaning completed although it was a dragged out session today as I kept on checking in on a couple of items.  That completes cleaning for the week except little everyday things. 

I did absolutely nothing on the matches as I decided to work on the Newsletters and will likely do that to a large extent today. Reworking the H11 viewing chart will be a large task with  517 members although some are only Family Finder and did not test their mitochondrial DNA at FT DNA (I am assuming that they did test it elsewhere which is why they are on the H11 site!). 

I will start out though with the matches as I am now down to  43 left to do (my guess of 40 was pretty close). Then there is just Chromosome 1 to add to the flat file and I am looking forward to that. This was a huge task as it turned out but I have now really looked at all of those matches after many years of not opening some of the files or just a brief glimpse. 

The bright sun out this morning does tell me that cold weather is coming since the clouds are not very prominent but then we are promised the Polar Vortex for a few days and it is  minus 16 degrees celsius at 7:44 a.m. EST. This is normal weather for us although we have had a mild winter or two in the last couple of years but a return to normal winter for Canada. Definitely we need all that snow to build up the water reserves on the land. 

The new consulate is being opening in Nuuk Greenland today by the Governor General. It is a nice feeling to realize that our Governor General is Inuit just as the people of Greenland have Inuit heritage. Long ago the Inuit people traveled across the Northern Pacific (estimated 5000 plus years ago) in some fashion we are still learning about that (our simple thought of an ice land bridge across the Bering Strait is being replaced by a very reasonable thought that the peoples moving across would have stayed close to the shore or on it but not necessarily go all the way north to the Bering Strait given that the winter would have provided lots of ice covered areas for travel. Our Inuit are very used to traveling about in Northern Canada during the winter and have built homes of ice for many thousands of years at stopping points. 

It is fascinating what DNA reveals to us about our heritage. I continue to marvel that my paternal grandfather talking about his family and saying they always lived in the Andover, Hampshire, England area (he always specified it like that as I was young and he wanted me to understand that this was a different place on this planet of ours). I am glad he did that and repeated it so many times (I loved to hear him talk and he could have said it every day and I would  have listened just as eagerly as I did as I loved being with him). But I am distracted my point in bringing up my grandfather was that the yDNA of our line is Western Hunter Gatherer and the particular haplogroup belongs to a lineage named the "Deer-Hunters" by Ethnoancestry. I tested my brother everywhere I could as he was so willing that I do so and the second brother I tested when he was willing just to have the two samples in the system. The Western Hunter Gatherers were said to be in England 8,000 to 12,000 years ago but I always wonder if they were there before the Ice Age and simply returned to the lands of their ancestors. The proof may lie way below the surface as there was a kilometre of ice on the British Isles at the height of the Ice Age.  

Tea all drank and must do my solitaire puzzles for the day. I was also doing a weekly challenge with Spider but had to give it up when my eyes discovered sparkling and it still overwhelms somewhat and tires them so I have stopped for a bit (I have done them every since that project was added to the site so do miss it on occasion but replaced with Sudoku) but perhaps I will return one day as I love doing Spider Solitaire Puzzles. The Sudoku has these levels gained as you are given points and I am now at Super Star having passed through a number of levels over the past couple of months. I take my time as I aim to have no errors and it is fun I must admit. 

 

 

Updating exercise routine

 I updated my morning exercise routine over the last couple of months bringing together the two sets of exercises and doing them first thing on awaking. Working very well and amounts to 1 hour of exercise around 400 to 450 calories with a cardio load of 45 to 50. It was my daughter who inspired me actually to take on some exercises I never considered or even thought about. So it is 23 stages in total and the first nine stages are waking up and stretching and then a couple of YOGA type exercises and then I get up and touch my toes 30 times and at that point I add in 200 steps after each exercise set. I was having trouble with my shoulder aching which I just always attribute to my arthritis but she suggested that I might not be working the shoulder enough. There you go so I added in my exercises from the period when I was in physio after I tore my rotator cup. So another four sets of exercises which follow a walk of 200 steps and are ended by a walk of 200 steps. Then Reverse Warrior count of 30 on each side, a 200 step walk, then 40 squats, a 200 step walk and on to the Pose of Tranquility for two minutes and a 200 step walk. Then a new one that she had found is to sweep one foot in a circular motion forward and then back with the other foot firmly on the floor. This took a bit to accomplish but I discovered that when I really got the hang of it and doing it 30 times each way on each leg I didn't fall down skiing anymore. So a real bonus there. Then the 200 steps and I balance first on one foot and then on the other for 60 seconds and follow that with 200 steps. Then into the full plank for 1 and one half minutes followed by 200 steps and then a full squat as far down as I can go and hold it for 60 seconds with hands upward praying above your head but in front to keep the back straight (I think that is another yoga pose actually). That one is really hard and it took a while to get up to 60 seconds. Then walk 200 steps and do 100 jumping jacks followed by a 200 step walk. So that combined all of my exercises from the two sessions into one and then I have a snack and sit in front of the computer and write my blog, drink my tea and do my solitaire puzzles to exercise the brain. I do not recommend this all at once. It has taken me three months to combine my two sets of exercises and to add in the new exercises. I am very physically fit for sure but I always start small and work my way up that way you will not injure yourself. Consulting a doctor is always a good plan if you do not do regular exercise. 

My new FitBit is in tune with me now and I am happy with it. Has some new bells and whistles so to speak and a learning curve. The old FitBit was actually four years old and did very well. I have used a FitBit now for ten years I think although would have to check that. These ten years have been very different for me.  

 I accomplished nothing on the Newsletters yesterday but had a good day working on the matches. I must do the Newsletters they are past due now. I am up to the M's (first name) now in the matches and I have been busy collecting the Relatives in common for quite a few of the samples. AI will do a good job of creating a useful table for me to work with these matches. There are about 50 matches left to do or perhaps less I did not count them just estimated. There are still nine cousins known to me not yet added to the chart so that may affect some of the unknown matches with regard to solving the great grandparent. 

Just minus 10 degrees celsius today but another polar vortex is headed our way so February will be cold for a bit but the gradual movement upward to spring and heavier snows is likely coming our way. We will see. All of this snow is a good thing to fill up the reservoirs, the creeks, the rivers and the lakes. The run off will be horrific though if it is sudden so hoping for gradual and slow run off. 

Cleaning Day three and it is the top floor. Although I would very much like to move to a smaller house I do not see that happening in the near future. We have been here for nearly fifty years now; in the early spring it will be  fourty eight years exactly. The first set of houses was all that was here when we came and you could see the Ottawa River from our upstairs windows. Neighbours have come and gone through the years and when I went back to work outside the home (I proofread and copyedited for about fifteen years at home) in 1994 that was really the last time that I knew the neighbours beyond the houses beside me (although I do have this sort of occasional wave at neighbours as many of them are the same people) as I went off to work early and came home late and all my time went to my children and husband. Working away from home was great; I needed the change for my mental health for sure and I gradually slipped away from any and all volunteer activities. There just wasn't time although my husband regularly volunteered me to do items in his volunteer work. But now all that time is devoted to writing these books and keeping up my newsletters. 

Tea being drank and must do the solitaire puzzles. On to the day.  

Two Newsletters

I do have two newsletters to write - H11 Newsletter and Kipp-Kipp Newsletter. They are both looking only at the DNA groups within the FT DNA study. I shall work away at them today. I always mean to do them as I used to a couple of days before the due date but writing books has distracted me from this task the last year or so.  In the case of the Kipp Newsletter I really do not know this family (it is my husband's family) and feel somewhat in left field working on it although I always did write a portion for Edward on the yDNA study that he managed at FT DNA. I took it over until someone does come forward to take it on. 

The basement completely cleaned yesterday and today it is the main floor and soon will begin that process. I also worked on the matches and I am about 1/3rd of the way through at this point I think. A new Rawlings/Cotterill match where the testing was at 23 and Me so a nice list of Relatives in common in this last batch. An interesting find in that the  Farley family does appear to have a Knight connection. This actually would be a step forward in solving one of my largest matches outside of family so we will see how that flows.  David Farley (son of John Farley and Mary (Yeates) Farley) married Mary Ann Blake (daughter of John Blake and Ann (Farmer) Blake) 12 Jun 1853 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire. Two known Blake matches were very handy as well. Today will see me working on the J's and there is a long list of them. I hope to complete Chromosome 2 this week and perhaps into Chromosome 1 which has over 250 matches and will take a good week or two to accomplish but then complete and I can start to use the file in ways that should give me interesting tables to explore with regard to the four great grandparents being noted in this particular rendition of the phasing as they match these five siblings tested (five tested out of three girls and four boys) of the great grandparents. I find I talk more about my brothers but they were all closer in age to me than my sisters (one sister is six years older and another sister is eight years younger). Just one brother is outside of that closeness to me as he is ten years younger. My prayers are very much with my older sister who had to have surgery lately and for a speedy recovery for her. 

I do feel a great desire to get back to writing the books Blake and Pincombe these days and a bit impatient to have that begin. But it is a process and will involve my transcribing the latin documents that I have at hand with regard to this Blake family way back in time. I feel I can progress from Robert Blake who left his will in 1521 living at Enham and will begin there initially. If I can take it back further I will but time will tell me that as I work through the material. With regard to the Pincombe book (which is really Pencombe as that was their surname when they arrived at North Molton it does appear) I can begin with John Pencombe who is on the Tax rolls and work my way forward but there to I have information on the Pencombe family of Pencombe Herefordshire which can be added in once I have transcribed the documents at hand. In this case I am working on a family that probably came from the modern Belgium area of the Continent perhaps in the early 1100s as there are records back that far. I  shall have to have a look at the archives there to see if there is anything. But the yDNA line points to a European line and not a Western Hunter Gatherer as is the case with my Blake line. 

But also I want to start scheduling myself to work on the index of the photo albums and to start collecting matches using Edward's present charts and the Excel files that I gave to him as I downloaded his matches from Ancestry. I need to see if any of them are on Gedmatch. Unfortunately collecting from 23 and Me did not happen in his case although he has many many excellent matches there. I may try writing to people to see if I can acquire the matching lengths to help with phasing his grandparents as it might interest people to have that information as well that are his 2nd cousins since they share great grandparents. For the other testing companies I have that material at hand and can search for those matches. It is a long shot for sure but I think it does make me feel happier about breaking up this set of fourty albums that covered all of his life really but they are all scanned. The early pictures I scanned for him maybe six months before he passed away and he found that to be something very pleasant to look at as he organized them in an online type of photo album so thinking about that does make me think he would like what I am doing. He and I belong to the generation that viewed everything in place not online. But this generation that will receive the photo albums  will view it online by preference. But perhaps in the future there will be a child who wants to see those original pictures in their binders; no one can know that. 

Vanilla tea all drank; a gift of my daughter, and now solitaire puzzles and then breakfast and the cleaning. I am a bit late today.  

 

  

 

Jasper following the fire

 The Prime Minister certainly has his fingers in many activities (managing the restoration and recovery of Jasper) he is quite amazing although he definitely works with his cabinet; with the other appointees not in the Cabinet and all of the party to get items done. I find him quite fascinating but then he has worked all of his life and brought to the government those skills and knowledge that he has gleaned during that lifetime of work on two continents since his work in the British Isles placed him right there in the midst of the EU and British Isles. 

I think as I listen and watch that he is a doer like the Parliamentarians of our early days when we took on huge commitments and tasks and completed them making us the country that we are now. But it is all the people pulling together to make us great that will help this to happen. When Rupert's Land was purchased the idea was to grow Canada and we did but it was always meant to be all of us (and then Newfoundland joined and added in their gifts) and the projected railroad was going to help with that and has. But the idea that so few would bring themselves to buy such a huge purchase and commit themselves to making this entire country work for all of us is really the secret of those times.

Although we enjoyed free trade with our neighbours to the south and north-west (USA (including Alaska) and Mexico) it did reduce our native industries making us dependent on other sources for so many of our say electrical appliances. Now the opportunity is there for our young people to create and rebuild that lost base of industry to support us as we move forward (it will help to replace the car industries although time may also replace those as the government of Canada has been busy). 

Sitting at a desk is not really the best for our young people - they need to be out and active and working with their minds and their bodies to remake some of those lost industries. It is true that you might train for something and end up doing another where my husband is a very good example as he trained to be a Scientist (PhD Chemistry) and then he did a Postdoc in Chemical Engineering for two years. Still no jobs and he did yet another skill he did his Masters in Library Science and was a Technical Librarian for the remainder of his working life. So do not let what your dreams were impede you from doing great work. The possibilities of having an interesting life are always there. 

The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition working together can do great things for Canada. Decision times can come when they need to come but in the meantime making us Tariff Proof is the most important item on the agenda. Increasing trade between the provinces and territories so very very important (apparently could be as much as 7% GDP over time). 

My shopping takes me twice as long as I read all the labels. Mind you I only buy food and maintain a place to live but I mostly buy basic ingredients just because I prefer to make all my own food from scratch. I do not buy packaged or frozen dinners. I do buy some frozen certainly - our wonderful summer vegetables which tide us through to the next summer so beautifully. But not all of them are frozen some of them stored like turnips, carrots, winter cabbages, brussel sprouts, and then there are the greenhouses now that bring us fresh vegetables all winter long. 

 

The value in working on the great grandparents.

 Really all that I will be doing is taking the set of phased grandparent chromosomes and labeling say the Blake portion subdividing it so to speak and showing where the Knight area is and where the Blake area is  - it will not really resemble the chromosome that a great grandparent  actually has. That would require my knowing a lot more about the matches of my cousins than how they match me. But it is interesting to see the area broken down into eight great grandparents. Worked on the 2nd chromosome yesterday and it did go fairly quickly through about the first 1/5th of the matches thus far simply because I have so many known cousin matches. 

The Sermon at Church was very interesting actually. He is a very knowledgeable speaker and quickly comes up with lots of linking comments on the early Christian Church since that is his specialty. I quite enjoyed the United Church Minister's sermons at Dominion Chalmers years ago and in the mid to late 90s until he retired. Edward spotted it in our bulletin at Orleans and we went to Dominion Chalmers just for the series but ended up staying there until that minister retired. He used to talk to Edward just for a few minutes after every service and following the death of his brother and then mother he really wanted that little chat each week.  The new minister was young and into a more folksy less old music service and /Edward asked if I wanted to go regularly to my own Church so we picked the Cathedral with its beautiful organ and wonderful choirs and went there and I still do except online. I do like to give God my 10% as He instructed and so the Sunday was a lovely day as always. God gave it to us as a day of rest and worship. 

Cleaning day today and it is the basement. I shall soon begin with the robot vacuuming the rug. No rush. My hour of exercise is complete and just breakfast to have whilst the robot cleans. 

There will be time to work on Chromosome 2 and that will fit into the day of cleaning the basement as well. Just having a break and working on the matches and on this chromosome I have a known match with a 5th cousin Rawlins but she descends from one of the older Cotterill lines as well along with some other similar matches. What I can not readily determine is the division here between Rawlins and Cottrell in their lines. I think this is the only chromosome where I have that difficulty although will search it out. I am matching because they are Rawlins or because they are Cotterill/Cottrell? That is the question but it isn't that long a match and they do follow each other sequentially so certainly possible but would I get a good match that is the question because it is a number of generations back. It is a problem that I may not be able to solve! The ancestor of these two lines does appear to be a William Cotterel with two sons Stephen and William with Stephen marrying Mary Rawlins 28 Jan 1764 at Enford, Wiltshire a daughter of my 5x great grandparents William Rawlins and Mary Ford. William Cotterell married Elizabeth Kempton 3 May 1760 at Wilsford nr Pewsey, Wiltshire. An interesting conundrum for sure. It doesn't even help me that there is a good X chromosome match for Rawlins since DNA divides as it divides so some of it will be Rawlins/Rawlings and some of it will be Cotterell/Cotterill depending on your descent. I  mull this around since technically I would not inherit Cotterell from these earlier marriages since they are not in my line coming down from William Rawlins and Mary Ford. So am I seeing actual Cotterill in this match where my newer infusion of Cotterill is matching this older Cotterill/Cotterell  or is it simply Rawlings/Rawlins. I am particularly cognizant of the match with my known 5th cousin who does have Cotterell/Cotterill in her lines going back including both of the marriages Mary Rawlins with Stephen Cotterel and later William Rawlins and Mary Cottrell by 1842 (marriage not yet located by me and it may have been in Australia as all their children were born there commencing 22 Jun 1842 so she is looking at her 3x great grandparents in this case so how large a match would I anticipate - 16 cM does seem reasonable but we will see what I garner. I have a number of known matches in this instance in terms of how they descend from this couple William Rawlins and Mary Cottrell in Australia. 

Drinking tea and time to do the solitaire puzzles and I did accomplish that. Time to get some work done. 

 

Chromosome 3 completed

 A whirlwind day and the completion of Chromosome 3 made it a successful day. Plus I realized that I had finally thought through a methodology that would work for the photo albums. I will work with the indexes and create a full index of all the family photos and then create the photo books. The hard copy pictures that are not in the photo albums (7 or 8) will be shredded. That will be thousands of pictures I think. There are so many but remaining is a fully scanned set of pictures by date that fits into the indexes and the original slides prior to the digital cameras. It does sound much easier for me to take on except the eye work will be heavy but I can work away at that in batches not quite so long as working on the photo albums which are more of a physical work job plus mental it would appear. 

So today I begin Chromosome 2 and it has 116 matches with 20 known cousins. These cousins relate to my great grandparent lines with two Rawlings,  four Buller, four Pincombe, two Gray, four Knight and four Blake. I do not have any known Cotterill or Taylor lines. The spread is excellent across the chromosome with just a few breaks where it is unknown. That doesn't mean it will be fast because I will be downloading Relatives in common, Matches shared etc depending on the nomenclature of the various databases. 

I am deciding when I will begin the extraction of Edward's matches from the various databases using the same methodology as I have used. I did collect more information which at the time seemed superfluous but in the long run was a good idea. It will be a large task although I already extracted them into a list for Edward which I can use as a reference point to aid me along the path. 

 Sunday again and it is hard to believe how fast the weeks pass. I have my chicken all ready to make my chicken stew and that sounds delicious. Generally I eat chicken for four days and then fish or eggs for three days. It works well and my expenditure of time on planning meals is very short. My grocery list is ready for the next trip to the store but I want to scrub my refrigerator first this time. I like to clean it in the winter when it is less full. Although I wipe any spills when they happen generally but getting out the shelves and drawers really lets me give it a good cleaning. 

Church later this morning and I do enjoy going to Church very much online. I wonder sometimes if I ever will go back to in house worship and time will tell. We are meant to gather as Christians in our Churches and celebrate the gifts of God. It is  my constant omission for quite a while now (since before COVID for sure). Edward loved the music of the choirs and the organ at my Church although he did prefer his own United Church but certainly the draw of the music and the organ was very strong for him. 

Parliament back in and will watch Question Period next week. It is a time of hard work here in Canada as we work to make ourselves Tariff Proof. It is coming along but lots more to do. We need good jobs for our young people and I am hoping that they leap into creating new companies within Canada to make items like vacuum cleaners and other small appliances that we no longer make here. There are lots of new ideas on how to create and make things and it is the youth that will do that. What they see on their video games they need to now create in real life. They can do it; they are clever and well educated - creative thinking is what is needed to create items that exist digitally but give them that extra creativity to make them better, quieter, more efficient and Canadian. Go Canada Go. 

Drinking my tea and solitaire puzzles are next to wake up the brain.  

Supporting the government

I am always one for supporting the government that won the election; the people do get to choose. I continue to support the methodology of our Prime Minister. I may not always agree with him but as an working economist he has the knowledge and the experience to convert us from an economy dependent on the current trade deal to standing tall and strong on the world stage with many deals including a deal with our friends and neighbours to the south if that is their desire (United States and Mexico). Cutting the GST from 7% to 5% (over time) which was done by past Prime Minister Harper was a very economically unsound move because it funded the government. That was the intention of the GST; the GST was a wealth tax because so many items are excluded that are necessities and so those less fortunate pay considerably less GST over a year (the only people who really benefited were the wealthy). Not long after PM Harper brought in his first government the Stock Market in New York crashed in 2008 and we never recovered within his governance and still we have not yet recovered (as it turned out the era under PM Trudeau was also not productive for Canada although five years of it were COVID influenced) but we are on our way. Balancing the budget by selling off Canadian items to the Americans is not good business practice (the items were making money for Canada - short term money is not worth while in the long run). The budget will balance it will just take time; re-tuning business always take time but we have lots of it for sure. Ontario for the first time with the federal governance of PM Harper was a have not province under his leadership because he only saw oil as an economy for Canada and did not support the industries in Ontario sufficiently. I would rather Pierre Poilievre does not follow his ideas. There are economies all over this country that need to be built up/created in order to make ourselves more self-sufficient. I am a conservative first and foremost but like many I did not support PM Harper in 2015 (that support for the Liberals did not last long as I have always hated the tendency of liberals to toss money at it but I will say this government has been thorough and thoughtful in this process of making us trade independent). I realize that a Stock Market crash such as occurred in 2008 was a cruel twist in an otherwise productive government but one must accept and move forward in a way that benefits all of the country.  We are a hard working productive people (I call that fighting people but I did grow up with four brothers (three of whom were my best friends as a child and the fourth was ten years younger and only ten when I married so that opportunity was missed)) who do well and in our history we built a railroad across a nation having purchased Rupert's Land and became a joined country from ocean to ocean to ocean and then we built the St Lawrence Seaway. All of this on our own - go Canada go. I was pleased to hear Pierre Poilievre say that he would work with the Prime Minister in parliament. Of course he is going to bring up opposing points (we expect no less) but working together is important at this time in our history. That is life. Non support of the government at this time and causing an election will be punished at the polls. 

Chromosome 3 has just under 30 matches left to do and hopefully I will complete that today. Still I could not work on the photo albums. I will have to work hard to get into that I think. It isn't lack of interest but rather it seems like a lot of work for something that is all scanned and filed by time period. The indexes though include everything so again it would be a lot of eye work for me and I can only do so much although my eyes are stronger than a year ago. What I really need to do is to create an electronic file that only contains the family items and then construct the photo albums. It is maybe the better way for me as I contemplate that. It is a massive task really looking at it. One needs to be on a desert island somewhere without internet and just doing that I suspect. In the  meantime I continue to contemplate the process that I will use to phase Edward's grandparents. I know it is a project that was dear to his heart but without any close family (daughter tested) or first cousins tested (he does have a couple of half first cousins though that will be helpful) for autosomal DNA it will be problematic for sure. 

Mostly the matches did all get corrected in terms of grandparent when I went through them for the re-phasing of the grandparents but the occasional item needed to be updated. Separating out Taylor and Cotterill have proven to be the commonest work that I will use the AI to help me with. For the others the matches have been extremely helpful. I still need to check the databases and see if there is anything new that would be interesting. 

Tea all drank and time to do the solitaire puzzles.  

 

  

 

A good working day on Chromosome 3

 This chromosome will take a couple of days more likely because I had to repair a difficulty with it when I re-phased the grandparents DNA. Still a couple of the matches needed a deeper look at them before I could assign them and I am collecting Relatives in common this time as I work my way through. I am about one third of the way working on the F's. 

A lot happening with the Conservative Convention but I have not re-established my membership in the Conservative Party. I generally vote Conservative but I decided long ago that I would not be a member of a political party anymore. 

The meeting with the Prime Minister and the Premiers was most interesting and everyone on the same page these days for the most part. We need to grow Canada for the generations to follow in a way that is sustainable and not influenced by the changes in administration in other countries. Self-sufficient we actually are so long as we do not mind eating stored vegetables all winter once the fresh run out type of thing but our greenhouses are also doing a good job of giving us some fresh vegetable. But I leave all of that up to the leaders; my musing is just thinking out loud to myself. There are much more able people than me running the government. 

I think today will be the day that I get back to working on the photo albums. Perhaps try to do an hour here and an hour there just to get back into it. I did find it to be somewhat disturbing taking apart something created that covered the life of my husband pretty much from the earliest times of his life but mostly from the time that we knew each other until he passed away. He scanned all of the pictures and they are all in files so he probably realized that as time passed the binders would decrease. I just had to accept that and I have. Phasing  his grandparents will be a nice addition to the work that he did on his lines. 

Although I thought I had looked at all of these matches when I rephased the grandparents I rather think that I just passed through some of them since they were not of value to me. This time every file is being carefully examined for extra details to assist in phasing the great grandparents. So I am finding some interesting items that I missed the first time through not that they alter the grandparents; they do not that was why I passed them by but they do have a role to play with the great grandparents. Mostly I have collected 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins so looking back to 3x great grandparents at the limit but some of these were 5th and 6th cousins and even further on occasion when endogamy influences the matching. These are definitely the matches I want to regard carefully because they will help to separate Buller from Taylor and Rawlings from Cotterill, even Pincombe from Gray (and as I have learned this especially is showing up in this chromosome where the known Pincombe occupies perhaps half of the total but now I can see the Gray (and Routledge) match extending backward through time where I hadn't really noticed it before). Separating Blake and Knight is generally straightforward as I have many many matches but still some are still in the unsure column. 

Today streaks of cloud in the sky and it is minus 21 degrees celsius and another cold day promised. We have been in the deep freeze now into the second week. Generally it last several weeks to a month but it has been a couple of years since we experienced it. All in how the systems move about and right now the polar vortex is being dragged down from the high Arctic into Canada and parts of the United States. But the snowfalls have been excellent and generally when it is so cold not so much snow. So that has been a bonus this cold spell to help fill up the lakes and rivers with good fresh water. 

I think when people trade with us they do see us as a source of fresh water for the future as Climate Change dominates the landscape of the world around us. Climate Change has occurred many times in the past and because records do not exist that far back we do not know if it was because of very very active volcanic eruptions which we are now duplicating with our industrial output or wildfire which cleans out the forest and is needed for some plants to regenerate. So Climate Change is real in archaeological records but the cause of it not known to us other than in our own generation. Looking into the very deep past may help us with our quest to handle Climate Change. 

Collection Day and it is the large collection day which includes garbage. I am putting out one sole white plastic bag which is perhaps one third full in a large green bag. I would like to just put out the white plastic bag but I think it has to be in a green bag for them to take it (I tried it and it was left). Perhaps there will be a change now with so much more being recycled (flexible plastic like bags and freezer containers, etc used to dominate my garbage can but not any more with the new pickup rules). Either that or make smaller green bags perhaps; we will see how that flows. But it has taken me six weeks to collect up one third of a bag so amazing really when you think about it. All the rest is recycling except for the power tool from my old vacuum which I had forgotten to place out until now. That is the end of the old vacuum. The ShopVac is doing a great job whilst I wait for vacuums to be made in Canada once again. Since I am 80 it probably doesn't matter what I do others will do differently I am sure.

Drinking my tea and about to do the solitaire puzzles. Yesterdays most difficult one was a challenge you really had to watch very carefully every single solitary move. It is fun to be challenged with these puzzles first thing getting my brain warmed up for work for the day. One hour of exercise also already done and a snack to tide me over until I eat my breakfast.  

7 million dollars for an ostrich cull

In a country where there are so many hunters and so many long guns I did find this hard to believe but I also realize life has changed from when I was young. I worked for a couple of researchers in Zoology for a couple of years and Lands and Forest as it was called wanted to have a culling on Navy Island as there were too many deer. As it turned out one of my bosses was doing deer research and so he agreed to cull the herd and off we went with a number of hunters (mostly working people) including my husband and the cull was done. We collected up all the deer and they were dissected and the parts used as stated by Lands and Forest and my task was working on the eyes (many eyes) each attached to a particular deer number. That cost nothing and I think we need to go back there and do that sort of thing. Seven million dollars is a lot of money to cull a herd. My thoughts for this morning as that was on the news yesterday. 

Perhaps that is what this is all about; our buying Canadian. We are going back to basics and buying Canadian in as much as possible but a presentation on the television (CBC) this  morning was revealing that so much of our food that is packaged has a mixed origin not Canadian as the flag on the box says. To the credit of Prime Minister Harper at the time there was a good concentration on Canadian content in food. I will give him credit where it is due for sure. That I think is part of the value to us of China building cars in Canada for Canadians. The Auto Pact suited us very very well but the automakers (because it is the aim of a company to make as much  money as they can and I come from a business family so do understand the principles) built too many cars in Canada according to the present President shipping them back to the United States where they made a much larger profit because our workers are paid in Canadian dollars and our health care is covered by a Health Tax that industry pays here which is much cheaper than in the United States. So the over production occurred here and was the cause of this horrific withdrawal of the American companies  from Canada which is still occurring as they downsize here (and the unemployment rate is not very pleasant to look at). We have to look at it in the long term for sure because a lenient administration to the south might overlook this type of profit making and then we might have one that doesn't and we have to repeat this dreadful step. 

So the appeal of China building cars here is that they would be for us. We buy a lot of cars in Canada. This is a big country and it is a rite of passage for our youth to get their driver's license the day or so after they turn the required age and then buy a car and still live at home. The full lane ways testify to that here in Canada. China builds cars in smaller countries than ours so why not here and our problem is solved. Not so much in the way that we are used to (a home grown industry would be much better). We do like cars built by American companies (I come from a Dodge family and over my 80 years I have seen a lot of Dodge trucks for my families' business; a lot of Dodge cars that we all drove and a lot of families were like that). But we have to protect our economy and the President explained very well when he said we sell similar products so we are competitors on some items and Free Trade has bought out/competed out a number of our industries. Mind you Free Trade has been good for all three countries in the past fourty years but will it always be so; that is really the discussion in my mind. We need to recreate many of our lost industries here. I see Brexit as an example actually where the British basically were doing that and still are. Our Prime Minister was there and knows the steps. But it doesn't have to be so brutal as Brexit and again he knows the steps. The larger country in a relationship dominates that relationship and controls a lot of the flow and a discussion helps to meld that flow into something that works for the three countries involved. But I for one do not want freeze dried milk cheese products and other products. I want good fresh milk and vegetables grown on family farms not on factory farms where heavy use of pesticide control and fertilizer rules the day. I will pay more for that and do not buy cheap cheese, cheap milk products but then I do not eat a lot so I can just search around for what I want. 

Although yesterday was meant to be a working day on the matches for chromosome 3 it did end up being somewhat of a thinking day. I try not to get involved in all the world affairs anymore. I can not affect it and in the long run it will go the way it goes because the money is the control on final decisions most times. Not always sometimes human compassion and care will dominate like at the end of the Second World War which saw the most benevolence of any time in my life as I remember the newsreels from my childhood but that was an horrific happening that literally killed millions and millions of people in the long run.  The murder of six million Jewish people will always be in the minds of caring people - it was so wrong. We went to the show every Saturday (I saw all the newsreels, those pictures of the Jewish children are forever burned into my mind; how could anyone murder all those children; all those adults for that matter) with my grandfather and later my father so that my mother could clean the house without all those children (namely my siblings and I) under foot (I think she had a cleaner at some point but the bankruptcy changed a lot of that for a while). 

So the day passed and I did accomplish some of the matches and this one will have to have my eyes totally on it because I had to rework it with new matches in the near past which completely changed the look of that chromosome although I knew long before that that I needed to do that and just sort of did workarounds that didn't correct the main source but it is now corrected but the eyes will be wide open as I work on this chromosome. 

Today the Prime Minister and the Provincial/Territorial Ministers meet to discuss items on their agenda. For myself, I see referendums as non starters and why people waste money on their selfish desires is beyond me. Many people in the provinces concerned are not interested. If you do not like the life you have then move on; that was the way of the pioneers - do not destroy what is an effective and welcoming society in Canada (but you can not just land here and be welcomed you must apply to come here and that has always been the case pretty much in our history). But then I admit I have little or no interest in money beyond being able to buy my groceries and pay for my upkeep and never have. Something that amazed my husband as I passed up high paying jobs to take something that interested me. But I do like to see Canada have a good economy and do well for her people (all of her people and I have a particular spot in my heart and mind for the First Nations because my grandfather was a First Nations person in his homeland of England without actually knowing it although he said that his family always lived near Andover, Hampshire, England). It is his fascinating story that I will tell in this book on the Blake family of Andover that I am writing. I am positive of all the connections as I postulate the likely scenario; I believe them to be true but as time passes old documents will come to light and either prove or disprove what I am postulating (just as has happened with the stories of Nicholas Blake (my likely ancestor) which were totally fraudulent and debunked by scholars much more knowledgeable than I about some of these items (created by the American genealogist Horatio Gates Somerby who wrote fancy stories for people who wanted those types of stories). But great science comes from postulating and so does great knowledge whether it be personal or for all the people. One item that should be high on our agenda is disabling robots crossing our border; that will be important in the future. 

Tea finished and time to do my solitaire puzzles. The day commences and it is minus 19 degrees celsius and beautiful sun. Another perfect day in God's world here in Canada on a lovely winter day. It is beautiful to look outside; like a Christmas card with all the snow on the trees, on the ground on the houses. God be blessed and loved for all that He does for us as we move forward in time.  

 

Another successful cleaning day

 Day two finished for cleaning this week and today it is the basement. The robot will soon do its task of vacuuming the rugs. Another beautiful day in God's world. It is minus 23 degrees celsius with a beautiful golden sun rising in the east. Day is actually predicted to reach minus nine degrees celsius so we will see if there is a slight warming trend coming to the Ottawa Valley. It has been a cold week and a blustery week with lots of snow. Wonderful for the spring melt for sure saturating this great land deep into the roots of the mighty trees that dominate our landscape. When one flies into Ottawa you can only see trees for miles and miles and then suddenly there is a city right in front of you. The frozen Ottawa River will soon enough swell up with all of that fresh water flowing into it from the lakes and the streams that feed it. But in the meantime lots of more snow falling to the ground to refresh the land after the drought of last summer. The United States too is benefiting from all of this cold and heavy snow as it should help to swell up their rivers in the west. The loss of life during these difficult snow periods is sad though. 

Parliament back in and I watched question period. Sometimes I think that people forget that Prime Minister Carney carries a lot of Irish blood and the Irish are fighters for sure (he has excellent debating skills and always includes the members of his party (it is nice not to have a one man show)). I think it will be an exciting session of Parliament given that the leader of the Conservative Party is in his background French and they are also fighters (he too lets the members of his caucus play a role in parliament). Out of all this arguing will come a better plan for Canada and diversification of our trade. The President of the United States did say he wanted the countries of the Western Hemisphere to be successful and that is what we are taking from his direction - a move to make Canada even more successful. It is interesting that the leaders of the two main parties are not "English." Their style of governing is not English at all; one can see the roots of their Irish heritage and their French heritage. I would have to check but I think this may be the first time that at least one of the main leaders of our government do not have an English heritage. Sometimes I think people become confused when one talks about English Canadians - for most of them the only thing English about them is their language - they are not English English as I call  myself on occasion. But first of all I am Canadian and proud to be one. I think there is a beauty in all the countries of the world. Something exciting offers itself when a country has an individuality that people recognize immediately and it makes the world more exciting; more interesting. Peace in our time is the aim and one just needs to follow God's words to us - love your neighbour as yourself. 

 Worked on Chromosome 4 yesterday and it is evolving nicely. A huge number of matches on a good length are all from the Gray-Routledge family. These ancestral lines are from the East Riding of Yorkshire (Gray) and Cumberland (Routledge). But each of them are eventually as one travels back in time likely Viking (Gray) and definitely Highlander Scot (Routledge). England is truly a mix of many European lines due to the estimated one kilometre of ice that sat on the British Isles during the Last Ice Age. Nothing would have survived from the period before that Ice Age. But I often wonder if the Western Hunter Gatherers who made their way to the British Isles 8,000 to 12,000 years ago had been there before and were returning to their homeland. My grandfather always talked about his family being in England for ever and the y signature of this family is Western Hunter Gatherer and said to be amongst the earliest of the inhabitants of the British Isles. He always said he was English not Irish and I concentrated on that and then suddenly the best match on the yDNA lived in Dublin, Ireland. It still makes me chuckle but around the Andover area running towards Basingstoke there are a number of families who have tested their yDNA and they all belong to this group of ancient Western Hunter Gatherers so one can easily believe that what he said was the truth that he knew; his family had always lived in the Andover area. With the coming of the Normans in 1066 life changed and one had to eventually acquire a surname. I contemplated that for a long time and finally as I searched out Blake working with Bill Bleak on the Blake yDNA study at FT DNA I started to contemplate why so many Blake lines in England - why would they choose the same surname? The discovery of the Emigrants Database was very revealing (1330 - 1550) showing just under fourty individuals coming from the Continent and other parts of the British Isles not designated as English into England (there was a lot of traveling between Ireland and England in this time frame and if one reads the Calendar of Patent Rolls people were sent there and returned to England so one can not judge the country of origin within the British Isles using this set of documents). But the thought continued in my brain why would a farmer working his land at Enham choose the surname Blake when it was already used so much (the British are a very independent people so I can not imagine that an ancestor of mine would do that unless there was a reason)? I think the logic that I have brought to this discussion in my brain that an individual would have seen an advantage in marrying a Norman and why not use that surname works in an interesting way. It certainly wouldn't hurt them and the advantages were probably there for them to do so. Hence I began to look at all of my accumulated information differently and the Blake families of Berkshire and the Blake family at Andover did have an association of some sort in the mid 1500s that doesn't state a relationship it simply implies it by mentioning each other in their wills. After all anyone reading the will at that time would have known these individuals were related. Anyway an interesting thought on my part especially given the tendency of people (particularly indigenous peoples) to say they have lived in a place forever. As nothing has occurred to change my mind in that regard these past five years or more I continue in that vein. Plus it suits the accumulated information on the Blake family in England which points out inconsistencies within the data that can readily be answered by time passing and memory blurring the exact time and place of events. 

I continue to correspond with the individual who wrote to me from Upper Clatford. Her surname Kennedy is interesting because my 2x great grandmother Mary (Routledge) Gray had a sister Grace who married  George Arthur Kennedy 14 Jun 1810 at Lanercost, Cumberland. This family came to Canada in 1818 with Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge. And so I have Kennedy cousins. However it is not an unusual surname and found also in Ireland as well as Scotland. I need to reply to her email and will do that today. 

Also I will continue with Chromosome 4 and I have just under 30 matches still to do. I have only a couple that I can not sort away from Pincombe or Blake but that may happen as well. Otherwise I will just ignore them - I have plenty of matches and it doesn't matter in the long term. Then just three chromosomes to do and my task of extraction is complete except I must now go back and look once again at the databases to see what has accumulated in the past few months. I occasionally glance at them and nothing huge has come in but there are some interesting ones that I will look at. Time is passing quickly and I have been at my computer for over an hour which I tend not to do but rather get up and walk for ten minutes every hour. 

 Tea is finished and I need to do the solitaire puzzles. Walk first.  

 

First day of cleaning completed

 Yesterday the cleaning went very well and I was completely finished by noon. Then I went out and cleared the porch and patio of snow and the top of the laneway. The company had cleared the laneway although I do redo it because there had been perhaps another couple of centimetres - it was quick though. The city did not plow the street so no end of the laneway fill up yet but probably soon enough but the company will clear that. I really hire them for that very thing - clearing the end of the laneway after the city plow comes through and of course for big dumps of snow in the laneway. 

Continuing working on Chromosome 4 and I did have a Eureka moment when I discovered that several good lengths of the Pincombe was actually Routledge so from the Gray great grandparent. There are a lot of matches (many of them early colonial American which didn't surprise me actually as many dissenters came from Scotland to the colonies in America). I am perhaps half way through the matches probably more on the lean side of that but close enough. I will continue working on the matches today. 

I had an interesting email from an individual in Upper Clatford. I had thought that my one place studies for Upper Clatford and Bishops Nympton had been removed but discovered that they are still there. I have not added to them in years because of my husband's illnesses. I had to give up a lot of items in order to stay with the things that I could accomplish which included items for Edward that he wanted me to do. Upper Clatford was the home of my great grandparents Edward Blake and Maria Jane (Knight) Blake. Maria was born at Turnworth nr Blandford in Dorset and as far as I can tell she lived there until her late teens and then I find her in Upper Clatford marrying Edward Blake 29 Oct 1870 at All Saints Parish Church. This is a beautiful old Church which we visited in 2008 with my second cousin Ivan Kent (grandson of the youngest son of Edward and Maria). 

 https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/18252/ 

My Blake line began in Upper Clatford (possibly for the second time as there was an earlier Blake family in Upper Clatford according to the Parish Registers and I believe this family was descendant of Robert Blake's line a brother to Nicholas Blake (the ancestor of my line in as much as I am able to discover plus the word of mouth of my grandfather talking about Nicholas Blake and the fraudulent Genealogist Horatio Gates Somerby misusing information on Nicholas in his rendition of the Blake family). Joseph Blake (the priest recorded that he was of Andover) married Joanna King 8 Jun 1757 at All Saints Upper Clatford. Their mothers both of Andover and both of the Carter families there. Whether or not they were related I have not yet fully determined. One of Joanna's sisters, namely Mary (the eldest) married  John Blake, a malster/brewer at Abbotts Ann, and the will of this John Blake mentions Thomas Blake (son of Joseph and Joanna (King) Blake) as his nephew along with Thomas' siblings. This John Blake at Abbotts Ann is also a likely descendant of the Robert Blake line. But I digress from the subject matter. 

Along with some interesting information on Upper Clatford, the writer sent me a will which she had transcribed and it belonged to a William King and was dated 22nd Jan 1590 (old style I assume). She thought perhaps it was my ancestor. I am not actually sure of that. I do know that Thomas King (who left a will 29 Sep 1762 in which he brings together his Blake grandchildren from his two daughters). Thomas, in his will never mentions his daughters (who are still living) but leaves his farm and possessions to his son in law Joseph Blake. It amazed me actually. His daughter Joanna does remarry as her husband dies rather young and it is the farmer next door (a widower) Thomas Collins. A most fascinating story actually. Was Thomas King descendant of this William King - I actually have transcribed a lot of the King wills in this area (including this one) and I have not yet firmly settled on any of them as the father or line of Thomas King. But it could be that continuing discussion with the writer would perhaps help to shape that narrative. This William King has a son Thomas mentioned in his will but it is 150 plus years later. Since he has a large number of sons though it is possible that one of these lines farmed at Upper Clatford. 

Time is so difficult to find for such individual items not associated with the Blake and Pincombe books so must guard against getting distracted. But definitely it was interesting to hear that so much is being done to look at the early history of Upper Clatford - a perfectly lovely little village nestled just south of Andover below the main London highway. Our first trip past this area revealed many farms and just eight years later that same passage along the London road revealed field after field of  solar panels as England becomes green energy.

 So today I continue with the cleaning and it is the main floor. I am a little late today I got distracted by my blog and the emails of yesterday. Drinking my tea and will do my solitaire puzzles. Then breakfast. I now do both of my exercise periods in one time period beginning with waking up basically and it takes about an hour to complete all of the exercises but I find that I am very awake and feel quite refreshed to begin the day so did move to that. The cardio load is 48 with 88 zone minutes recorded. My suggested cardio load for the day is 57 to 92. I will vastly exceed that on a cleaning day which happens every week. I am pleased with the FitBit though and this is a new one for Christmas from my daughter and family. Primarily I use it to ensure that I do walk 12,000 steps a day minimum and usually it is closer to 16,000. I think it is healthy to do so. It also reminds me to eat when I see the calories that I have burned as the day passes. I am not a foodie and eating is something I just out of habit more than a strong desire for food. I have favourite dishes and generally eat then consistently week after week. My husband's was a foodie and I must admit all those years of varied meals was interesting but now in widowhood I tend towards my childhood style of living which was to eat the same thing most days and that was easy in a family of nine people (two parents and seven children). I am an exercise fanatic for sure. Edward enjoyed it that I loved to do so much exercise as he was also keen on a busy life style which included lots of walking, biking, skiing, swimming etc. etc. Now in old age I have retreated back to my busy style of life of my teen years before we married (I was just 20 years of age and he was 23 years of age).