And another day of cleaning

Today the top floor and then it will be almost complete. Yesterday went well although I was tired by the end of the day for sure. 

I did complete the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter Volume 11 Issue 2 2026 and it is in for review. Perhaps on the website later today. Very brief this time as I am in the thinking process for the next chapter of the book and I have decided it will be on Autosomal DNA pointing out different lines. 

The end of the week should see me back into the matches once again but the days fly by quickly. 

Tea all drank and Solitaire Puzzles next. 

 

Cleaning Day

Cleaning day and it is the main floor that I will be working on. Nothing unusual just the regular cleaning.. 

Yesterday passed very quickly as I watched the television somewhat with regard to the War against Iran. Support is strong for the United States in this especially in the Middle East but also we in Canada believe they are doing the right thing; the people of Iran in great numbers have risen against the government but it is difficult to face bullets with no ability to counteract that. Time will tell but the death of the Ayatollah and the reaction in Canada does show how we feel about the leadership currently in Iran. The leadership are a bitter satanic people to have destroyed all those lives and the lives they have destroyed in Iran itself trying to stay in power. To shoot down a civilian aircraft headed back to Canada filled with children, women and men was a callous act - so many deaths. It was the act of a despicable satanic leader.  

 Very little real work yesterday as I took the day off contemplating that it is Sunday and the Lenten studies, I am looking at two different ones, have been particularly interesting. But it is just contemplating how to manage the house and the yard that does occupy me somewhat at this moment. I am all set up for the winter but the summer will soon come and I believe I will have this company that clears the snow cut the lawns. That will leave much smaller amounts of land for me to take care of plus I think I will get the tree trimmed this year as well. I can see dead wood up in there and best to get that out. I would rather not chop it down as I look at the fir tree next door that is slowly dying and it is huge and this tree in front of my house might catch it if it comes down if I am lucky as it is strong and healthy. Plus I love trees and they are so good for the environment. Most people have taken the trees down that the city planted over 45 years ago. Some  have replaced them with trees but a lot have not and it doesn't look quite so lovely having all those trees I have to admit. Trees do give character to a street. 

I need to continue looking at Gedmatch to see if there are any matches that I particularly want to collect from there. Then I will move on to FT DNA, My Heritage and Living DNA to see if there is anything new in the last eight months that would assist me. The chapter I am creating in my brain for the Pincombe book is slowly coming into focus so will also work on that but first the Pincombe Newsletter was due yesterday and I completely forgot actually so will likely work on that first of all today in my down time from cleaning. 

Drinking tea and must do my solitaire puzzles.  

 

The people on the Canadian Plane that was shot down on the order of the Ayatollah Khamenei

All those beautiful children, men, women shot down in the Canadian plane so many years ago in Tehran will be remembered once again with love and it is said that the Ayatollah Khamenei has died in the US-Israeli strikes. The young girl murdered for not wearing a hijab will also be remembered. All of those people who never came home again after being arrested by the Iranian Guard will be remembered but the Ayatollah and his proxies both within Iran and Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas creating terror in the Middle East  especially in Israel will not be mourned by the world or many of their own countrymen. Khamenei was satanic; as evil as evil can be. Canada stands with the Iranian people injured by this man as our Prime Minister said although his words dealt more with nuclear weapons for sure as that is the greatest danger that was being presented. Iran using the threat of nuclear weapons by pursuing them to gain an upper hand is just evil in the same way that Russia's use of the threat is also evil; totally satanic. 

The day moved quickly yesterday and I did little work actually. I am contemplating my next steps as I give my eyes a rest for a bit. They are 80 years old even if the lenses were renewed! I still marvel at being able to actually see without glasses and read so much. When the letters get smaller than I  need my glasses. 

I like to be organized and that is perhaps why my days are so very similar week after week. I get more done if I am totally organized. Although my free time tends to be spent on future organization in order to complete a project which isn't a bad use of the time. 

There was an article on some cuneiform tablets found recently which I was reading first thing this  morning involving King Nebuchadnezzar. There is so much verification of events in the Bible with all of these discoveries of ancient tablets.  I have always found all of these discoveres so intriguing in particular the Dead Sea Scrolls. I moved on without saving but have found a couple of items referring to the same stones:

  Cuneiform cylinder with inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II, describing the rebuilding of Ebabbar, the temple of the sun-god Shamash at Sippar - Babylonian - Neo-Babylonian - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  Ancient Cuneiform Cylinders Shed Light on Nebuchadnezzar II’s Work in Babylon - GreekReporter.com

 The second one refers to this earlier article I note. But the first one I have not read so will do that one next. I can remember our priest when I was a child (his surname was Abraham and as a young child I did confuse the Biblical Abraham with the priest on occasion) and his sermons always appeared to be booming from the pulpit and caught the attention of this child with the wandering mind. I listened avidly to every word he said and having learned to read at a young age would try to follow the story as written in the Bible later in the day to learn more about what he had been talking about. Sundays are precious to me as I do love going to Church and soon it will be time for the on-line service. 

Early mornings are generally my time to see what is going on in the world. How is Canada interacting with the world? But mostly at the moment my mind is on Canada becoming tariff proof because we need to have a solid investment with our country for the children of the future - it is really always about the future not about ourselves. When we become too deeply engrossed in our activities; our desires to travel here and there; our desires to do so many things than we do not concentrate on what is really important. The future of Canada is for the children of Canada; they have to live with what we do now in the present.  It was this continual concentration by the adults in the past that brought Canada to its greatest in the first sixty years of the 1900s. But then we slipped into complacency and being a secondary partner along with Mexico also a secondary partner (various industries tried to make extra money by building in these two secondary countries where the cost was lower and then selling them in the United States at a greater profit to them) in what was meant to be a great trade deal. We were weak and did not develop our industries (allowed our industries to be out competed and closed) in a way that would benefit the future but rather always thinking in terms of the greater continent. We need to concentrate totally on Canada and making Canada tariff proof. 

It will take time and hard work and being up to date on where we are at the present. Five contracts to widen Highway 17 from Arnprior to Renfrew was in the news but the road is widened now from Arnprior nearly to Renfrew with four lanes why not to widen the Highway 17 from nearly to Renfrew to Pembroke where the military have successfully widened the road for quite a while now to Petawawa (perhaps give the money to the military and let them get the road built; they are better at it). Perhaps that is what they meant and the news reporting got it wrong; I surely hope so. Then there is the portion of the road from Petawawa to North Bay and when is that getting done and beyond North Bay to Sault Ste Marie and along the shores of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay and finally to the Manitoba border. When is all of that getting built? I trust we do not hear anymore about a tunnel under the 401 in Toronto. Highway 17 has needed widening ever since it was built and we did get the passing lane eventually (I can remember when it was just two lanes as we went north summer after summer to canoe in the northern lakes in the 1960s and early 1970s). This road is so heavily used now and desperately needs to be four lane; shovels in the ground hopefully when the snow melts and the ground unfreezes. The road for the mines also needs to be done and the extension of the railway line if that isn't already done; hard to keep up with it all.

So I do pay my taxes happily every spring on the money that I have earned during the year (do spend it on the Highway 17 being widened) that didn't get taxed at source. I do not receive junk mail trying to steal my refund usually because I do not get one. It does make you wonder how the scammers achieve their information. AI would trap them very quickly. Take back the money they steal from people and put them in jail where they belong. Get a job, work for a living instead of scamming people. 

Time for breakfast.  

 

 

Life is changing rapidly all around us in the world

 A little shocked to see how changed the world is today monitoring it as the day passes. Canada is a quiet place in the north and it remains that way really. We like our quietness and our calmness. Budget deficits come and go with the rise and fall of trade and commerce. I remember an Alberta recovering slowly from the depression and then the World War reactivated some of their economy (all this before I was born) but the recovery was ongoing and eventually the extraction of oil put them into the black and they became a have province. The natural resources in this province will sustain them for many years if the money is carefully invested like Norway did but it was wasted by earlier Premiers. That is the value of provincial taxes as it gives them a surplus in the good years to invest in items that produce a steady income to support all of the province's needs. Alberta pays very low provincial taxes. 

Taxes produce a future for the generations to follow and are a good thing in my opinion. I do not begrudge my taxes to the government and always I pay taxes in March/April just because I prefer that. The donations I do as well but donations do not reduce taxes that much unless you have a lot of money you are donating. Yesterday my groceries were $135 for the week to come so I have not noticed prices creeping up as I was around $85 last year at this time but I did buy some extras like a bar of lovely 90% cocoa chocolate and some prepared canned tuna which caught my eye plus a few other items that make up perhaps $30 of it but that is still up somewhat over last year. Mostly I just buy basic things but a package of chicken was nearly $35 up quite a bit I think but it is lovely chicken. The salmon maybe up a little I do not always pay that much attention. 

But I still believe in taxes being the best way to manage a country and ensure that all of the people are taken care of although I am a conservative in that regard as people should not expect the government to pay for their upkeep. It unbalances the tax system forcing the well to do to pay too much of their income into taxes - when it is over 50% of your income then you wonder about the taxing system unless you are the ultra-rich in which case they made their money on the backs of Canadians and should find a way to support the government and not expect to pay low taxes. Mostly it is the well to do who are using private medicine because they like the convenience whereas public medicine does cost a lot of money (I had to go private for my cataract surgery because I simply couldn't timetable it when I had 100% support as I knew when my eyes were operated on I would need that and I did). I also accept that that was my problem not the problem of the health care system. As it turned out this young ophthalmologist trained here and did a fellowship in the United States immediately recognized that I would be best with the simple lens. The original ophthalmologist paid no attention at all to my time frame which I do understand may not be high on the list with public medicine but I was telling her more than half a year ahead of when I needed the surgery to happen. But had she said so at the beginning (she was actually always on holiday at that time) I would have gone private immediately and had the surgery earlier but it was delayed by nearly a year (it took several months to get my records transferred as the secretary did not appear to be able to manage that quickly - having worked in the hospital that was a surprise). I do believe we should only hire people in our medical system trained in our country personally. I can now see like I absolutely never have and, do not wear glasses except for reading. I am getting old and so I keep resting them as I have a lot more to transcribe from Latin. 

 Completed ancestry yesterday and moving into Gedmatch full time for a couple of days probably as I look at all the matches that have been added since 2024. There are a lot of new matches but so far not too many that fit into my categories. 

Tea all drank and on to solitaire puzzles. Another work and exercise day.  

 

The Budget Bill passed

 It should have  happened in December before Christmas break and I begrudge the time wasted about 2 and a half months that things could  have been happening. We need to move along and be quicker doing things. There are people unemployed and we need to get these ideas going so that they are employed. So that we are looking for workers and not having people without jobs. I have little patience for criticism at the moment. 

I did listen to the talk given by the Conservative Party Leader and there were some really good points there like working with the current government and getting it all done. I think of this as a Unity government at the moment and anyone who upsets the apple cart will find at the polls that most Canadians want these things to happen and as quickly and carefully as possible to give the greatest benefit to the Canadian people. That is what Confederation was all about; benefit to everyone in Canada. The provinces are simply a tool to make it easier to handle local issues; they are not autonomous and if you do not have enough money for health care then bring in a health tax and stiffle the complaints. 

I go to a doctor maybe once a year and the $750 health tax I pay is barely scratched by that visit although overhead affects this for sure as rent/equipment costs money and doctors pay for their own clinics (plus I pay more than that monthly in Income Tax which also goes partly to health care). I am actually part of the Ontario long term medical study and have to get my blood work for that and will very shortly when one of my daughters has time to take me. It is not that far away to drive but I have never given six tubes of blood and then driven and this is not going to be the first time when I am 80. Looking forward to the results of that test actually. I sort of think these days that people should know how much a doctor's visit costs even if the system is universal. Generally I think doctors are underpaid often enough for the work that they do. I like and dislike universal health care - it becomes too soft a cushion and one doesn't regard the actual cost of their medical care. Yet I do not want to see children without health care wandering about and it is a measure of a community that the people who live in it care for the people that live there. 

We have to be careful when we are over 75 and driving I think. Extremely careful with our mind totally on the road at all times and not to drive if we are tired. It is a must and if you fail to follow that you should not be driving. The world depends on that driver behind the wheel being aware at all times; no drugs and no drinking of alcohol.

Yesterday I worked away on Ancestry with some work on Gedmatch. A few more very interesting matches on Ancestry with Cotterell cousins and given the frequency of Cotterell on their side the matches were quite good for sixth cousins as they traced back to William Rawlins and Mary Ford (my five x great grandparents) through their daughter Mary who married Stephen Cotterell. They have a good tree and now I have all the children of Stephen and Mary which is so very helpful. There was also a long length of shared matches in Ancestry also very handy. Is the Cottrell family at Upper Chute/South Tedworth related to this Cotterell family? Are they both related to the Cotterill family at Kimpton (and I think Stephen is by the records I extracted but I am always looking for anything that contradicts any of this research). I do like it to be correct. So that made the day very interesting and obviously I do have Cotterell DNA (unless they are in a common area but that is the treat of Ancestry as they remove common lengths with TIMBER so generally your match is a true match with a similar family line). Since my only connection would appear to be through my paternal grandmother the priest recording her name as Ada Bessie Cotteril Rawlings was capturing what he believed to be true plus she was registered with that name and I must check the dates on those two items. I think the baptism was before the registration actually. In both cases Rawlings should have been Rawlins as her mother was baptized as Rawlins and Cotteril should have been Cotterill if the father was from the village of Kimpton. So very interesting and I am avoiding it looking like a soap box opera as far as I am able and sticking to facts. 

My mother used to watch all these soap box operas on the television and when I used to get home from university she would say come and watch and so I did a few times just to give her company but it gave me a dislike for soap box opera and whenever politics or anything begins to look like a soap box I avoid it if at all possible. 

Collection Day and I have already been outside to put the collected items out to the curb. This is the first time I have put out a garbage bag (I didn't even bother with the container which generally sits way at the back of the garage) which has basically one white garbage bag in it which has dental floss for six weeks, a few bandaids and the furnace filter which I checked and it is garbage not recyclable. Amazing really how much is being recycled. I am busy using the bread bags to collect up the smaller plastic bags from freezer goods and others, I use one of the yoghurt containers to collect up the small tinfoil, flexible plastic lids and the like, items that look like paper but do not tear so have plastic in them and then I put that filled container into the waste container and start a new one. It is starting to look neater when I put it out to the street but it all recycles. How wonderful that is. I do want to start buying my meat in butcher paper though although having these sealed plastic containers gives it a longer shelf life so it becomes problematic and I understand that. So I use that method when I want a little more time and the butcher paper from another store which generally has that for immediate usage. A new company has been formed to take care of all that addition to recycling; great for business. 

We are a country that produces boxes and other paper containers and we need to move to that where it is possible. It is easy to recycle paper. I can remember life without plastic bags so it can be done but it is more difficult to keep items fresh, to keep brown sugar from caking and there are other examples. One step I have taken is to use a freezer bag for storing brown sugar and wonder if a movement towards brown sugar in paper bags would work and just store it in the freezer bag. It can still clump in the lighter plastic but the freezer bag does a really good job and you just wash it and I have been using the same one for a couple of years now. 

Today I continue working on Gedmatch as Ancestry is mostly complete although will check for new matches and I am going through the four accounts that I have for siblings and looking at all the Common Ancestors and placing them into their coloured groups for ready recall in the future. That was how I located one set of Cotterell (sixth cousins) sharing 20 cM as my cutoff is 23 cM in Ancestry which can be quite a large number and likely I am missing items between 18 and 22 cM and in particular this one but I can only do so much of this and I have a lot more to do. 

Drinking my tea and time to do the solitaire puzzles.  

 

Cleaning accomplished once again

I never grow weary of cleaning actually; it is a lovely redundant task that keeps one physically fit and the house clean week after week. When the dogs are here there is a lot more work to do for sure but they they are towards me friendly warm and loving and I enjoy their company. Perhaps in the future I will be enjoying all that lovely restful time with the dogs. They love the yard and it is full of snow which they will also love. 

Yesterday I did have a look at Gedmatch but did not find anything new that I would use from the first kit I looked at. I will do more of that today. I still have a small amount to do on ancestry. I like to do them together because that is the only way you can look at the chromosomes on ancestry matches and not that many really move their kits to Gedmatch - I have no idea what the percentage would be in total but I find it to be around 5 to 10% of my database. Since they dominate the field with 28 million tests and possibly more that I  or  AI  may not have found the latest. Another interesting statistic shows that 53 million people have tests across the four main testing companies but that doesn't include Living DNA which has a sizeable database as well. Considering there are 8 billion in the world this is just a drop in the bucket (less than 1% of the world's population). Mind you it is a higher percentage in North America where the testers predominate except for the British Isles and I do not know the percentage there that have tested with Living DNA. I know I have lots of matches there as well. 

More contemplating of the Blake in  South Newton and I will dig out all that information and construct a tree coming down using the wills from the 1600s on. Proving that they are from the Calne Blake family  is the thought in all of this and South Newton is 47.6 kilometres to the south of Calne. I just sort of thought it was that family as the Calendar of Patent Rolls does have this family involved in various activities around this area south of Calne over into Somerset. Although actual connections may be difficult but word of mouth does cover the Somerset family to a certain extent and I need to pursue the South Newton group and see what is there. Of course this all goes back to my premise that the Calne Blake is actually the descendants of Richard le Blak who applied for a Market Permit in 1274 whilst living in Rouen Normandy and in the Pipe Rolls of Hampshire we do find a Richard le Blak family at Wargrave (near Windsor, Berkshire) and then a gradual movement to the west apparently (still to be proven but why would people randomly choose the name Blake - it really doesn't make sense to choose a name that other people have and really is not something that I could see any of my known English relatives doing) to Speen Berkshire and then to Hungerford Wiltshire and eventually ending up in Calne When You look at a map this is certainly a possibility. There are a number of le Blak individuals on the Pipe Rolls at Wargrave and nearby Wargrave. It does make sense that a Norman would come to the British Isles with his commercial intentions and set up near Windsor where the King was. Anyway I still have two years slotted for this book and I am sure I will need every day of them. But as I said if I do not feel what I have found is conclusive I will publish what I am happy with and the rest of the original book will be placed in the Library of the Guild of one-name Studies for academics and genealogists to regard in the future if they so wish. 

 The Pincombe book is falling into place as I am now looking at a new chapter before the genealogical descent charts. I am thinking I will put in the DNA chapter closer to the beginning of this book than I did in the Siderfin Book where it is basically at the end of the book. I place a high value on the DNA because it helps me to sort lines often enough. There are some lengths of DNA that simply persist on and on through families and leads them back to their MRCA just by the cousin matches. 

Another day, tea all drank, snack eaten after exercises earlier, time to do Solitaire Puzzles, have breakfast, and later a nice run and lifting weights. Back into the regular days without cleaning.  

 

 

 

 

I am not totally absorbed in cleaning

 It isn't that I am overly absorbed in cleaning but rather I hate to have to rush about at the last minute cleaning. If I am always basically ready then life is easier. Plus it is good exercise and spread out over time which doesn't hurt when you are older either. So today is the basement and another week of cleaning is done. 

I do wonder sometimes if Edward had not gone off to the Ottawa Branch meetings of the OGS with Gordon Riddle if he would have gotten so involved with that group. I am not sure how long Gordon kept going actually. Edward would  never  have gone without his suggestion and invitation actually as he didn't go in  London all the time we lived there but we did lots of genealogy traveling to the United States and all around where he lived as a child once we bought a car. That really changed Edward's life having a car (the advantages of a wife working I used to say). The Ottawa Branch of OGS and being Treasurer at Orleans United and singing in the Choir there were his principal interests other than his children (he even helped out with the Macoun Field Club when our eldest was keen on that) as non work activities. Mind you it was nice seeing him enjoy the Ottawa Branch so much the few times I went until he wanted me to drive him there much later after I took on the task of the Pincombe Profile. He especially enjoyed being part of Gene-O-Rama. 

Before we moved here all of his genealogical work had been on his own with us traveling down into the States before the children were born on a pretty regular basis looking for items and he did attend some meetings at local genealogical groups there way back then. But once he retired we were back at that once again for sure. I think that might be the fun part of genealogy is going to all those interesting historical buildings - I found it quite fascinating. Not the genealogy that was much later like after 2003 when my cousin George DeKay got me to write the Pincombe Profile he wanted for the book he was publishing. 

Gordon and Edward still corresponded back and forth after the Riddle family moved away from Orleans (Edward had an amazing number of correspondents and those letters were hard to write when I wrote many of them after he passed away about 50 or 60 or so) that he had corresponded with for over fourty years and more in some cases. When we went west it was to Edward's closest relatives - his nieces and mostly the Schultz family events and the Allen family events which were in  northern Ontario (although we did not go north until 2019 although Edward did with a cousin of his as I vaguely recall) and just around the Kingston (also 2019) area and we would pop into London to see my family and then just my siblings after my parents passed away. 

I practically never think about when I was going back to do my masters and a little surprise entered our lives. We were all enriched by the arrival of our youngest for sure and we closed in as a family for quite a while after that (perhaps as much as three or four years) although I was still too busy being a volunteer secretary at Edward's Church plus all my proofreading and copyediting for local printers and I was also treasurer for Camp Bitobi I think for about three years sometime later in that period. But my eldest daughter was old enough by then to babysit although we didn't go out a lot; didn't interest me particularly actually. Edward did love to be around people. Trips down  memory lane for sure. 

I did work on the Ancestry matches and should finish that today and then check Gedmatch to see if there are any new matches in there. I  do like Gedmatch; it is well setup and I used to always pay for the extras but I do not have time to use the extras so do not at the moment. If I was to find that I had a really good set of leads on something I would. 

It still intrigues me this match with Blake at South Newton. The wills there go back into the 1500s and 1600s and I did transcribe them but without really taking it all in. I will reread them one of these days as I have a set of ancient results for Blake both in the early colonies of America and in the British Isles. I need to do trees for those families in the areas around Calne now that I have had this very fascinating match. I rather think that I am looking at a likely marriage between an individual at Enham without a surname and a daughter of a Blake since surnames were uncommon in England until after the arrival of the Normans in 1066. Since it was fashionable to do so English families did acquire and use surnames certainly by the 1400s into the 1500s but also as early as the 1200s/1300s when I am contemplating that such a marriage took place since I have seen Blake records in the Andover Manor records in the early part of the 1300s. I did not see any earlier than that. 

The Blake families in the 1200s are in distinct areas in England as seen in the Calendar of Patent Rolls and I have done a number of charts a while ago now but can be seen in the index in my blog.  

Day is moving on and I must get the robot working and then I take over with  my dusting and washing and the cleaning is done for the week. How nice. 

Forgot to make my tea and must do that and then do my solitaire puzzles whilst the robot works.  

Cleaning Day two

 Today it is the main floor and I will begin in an hour or so. It is minus 17 degrees celsius and the ice is building up here and there. Yesterday was busy although I did not accomplish a lot with the ancestry matches. I continued to check out the match with a South Newton Blake family. I will do a bit of searching on that as I have collected quite a bit of material on the South Newton Blake family including all the wills. They just always struck me as likely being descendant of the Calne Blake family. Some of the family sizes were large and certainly land was passed to the eldest and any monied items in order to keep it intact. I can understand the principle and it worked well for the times. Generally the other sons went into the military, the church or business as that grew to be a suitable occupation. Other sons stayed and worked for the eldest. That was just the way of life. 

One other item caught my eye and it was in the Cottrell line. A large match with a Cottrell family at  Upper Chute, Wiltshire and is located 3 miles NE of Ludgershall and 7 miles NW of Andover and interestingly 7 miles north of Kimpton. I am, as I said, ambivalent about the father of my paternal grandmother. Interesting that the young man similar in age to her in this family is also named George. But why did the priest use the spelling Cotterill on her baptismal record - strange really. I will have a look at the records on Find My Past and investigate. This is sizeable at 54 cM on ancestry considering the use of TIMBER. This is primarily though a Northhamptonshire family so was surprised. The furtherest back is a John Cottrell born 1804 at South Tedworth, Wiltshire. The shared matches are certainly interesting and include my two brothers tested at Ancestry. The other question of course is this a descendant of Stephen Cotterell and Mary (Rawlins) Cotterell where Mary is one of the children of my 4x great grandparents William Rawlins and Mary (Foord) Rawlins. Knowing that their daughter married her second cousin a William Rawlins leading to a possibility of large matches if I happen to actually have Cotterell/Cotterill/Cottrel DNA inherited from my grandmother. But this is the largest match that I have had thus far. This George Cottrell married in 1879 in London but in 1875 he is named as the father of a daughter in London (my grandmother was born in 1876).  Very very interesting that the name is George perhaps and close enough at just seven miles away. His marriage appears to be to the mother of the child born in 1875. Wouldn't that be amazing to find a solution. The only way that I am going to match a Cotterill/Cotterell/Cottrell is through my grandmother as my tree shows thus far. None of her direct line ancestors though are Cotterill/Cotterell/Cottrell that would have passed DNA to her. 

So Ancestry, as always, proved to be most interesting and I always check my matches there simply because of the vast amount of information that comes with the match even though it lacks the actual area where I am matching on an individual chromosome. 

Charging up my FitBit as it was down to 30% and I generally charge it as soon as I notice that it is 30% or lower. Sometimes I do not notice until it starts to send me messages but generally I notice before 20%. It is now up to 92% and does charge quickly this new one. The older one was taking somewhat longer to charge so another bonus in having a new one. This is a Charge 6 and the last one was a Charge 5. I have been a FitBit user for a lot of years now but about seven years ago I stopped using it for almost an entire year because I felt like it was driving my life. Now I have a different attitude to the FitBit and how I use it and perhaps one has to progress to that. 

So this looking at matches I have missed over the last year as I work away is proving to be most interesting. I have my lists for the others but I do like to go into Ancestry first and then have a look at GedMatch and then start pulling the matches that I found in the other databases. I am looking for anything that would upset the applecart so to speak. But also for anything that is new and adds information that I have been thinking about and Ancestry has certainly filled the bill on that one the last couple of days. Just a few matches to go there and I will be into even more indepth looking as my excel file will be built completely with all of the sibling's results filled in and any MRCAs noted on the Ancestry matches file. 

Tea all drank and must do solitaire puzzles, then breakfast and cleaning.     

 

Ancestry update on ethnicity

 Once again Ancestry has updated their ethnicity estimates especially within the British Isles. I had selected one set of data as put forward as my father and one set as my mother. They are correct. My mother has ancestry in southwestern Ontario and my father's ancestry totally in Hampshire and area although some interesting additions here and there. So you see my father's journeys all being in England plus coming to Canada as a nine year old with his parents in 1913 whereas my mother's journeys are all in southwestern Ontario. The percentages though struck me as not what I might have anticipated but I have four tests on Ancestry and need to build a table with all the results and look at them in that sort of frame of mind. For instance I inherited little Pincombe lots of Gray and others inherited lots of Pincombe and little Gray as it turned out. Again I inherited heavily from Rawlings and less Blake where the others did inherit heavily from Blake and less Rawlings. That is why I am different although percentage wise I am very like my next youngest brother; very unlike my next oldest brother and similar to my two sisters, one eight years younger and one six years older. The other two brothers have not tested (one died in 1999 prior to autosomal testing) and the other I have left it all up to him and he just never got to it and really with all the data that I have he shouldn't feel pressured for sure. He is the image of my grandfather and it continues to be the case as he ages except my grandfather was always thin and he is not as thin. But I can see it more and more every time I see him.

So that completely occupied me yesterday when I wasn't at Church (online). Although I do see it somewhat as work I always feel it brings me closer to my family so also see it as a family time. My older sister had a fall and broke her hip and is slowly recovering so prayers being said for her recovery. I continue with working on Sunday although I must admit I do feel a twinge of guilt that it is work but then it is also time spent thinking of loved ones and God would like that. 

We won silver in the playoff Hockey game; the team did well and really looked equally matched and the sudden death overtime goal broke some hearts and cheered other hearts. That is the way with sudden death ends to games! I like the way that Norway runs their Olympic training actually. The interview with someone involved in all of that was most interesting.

But ancestry continued to intrigue me through the day as it will take me quite a while to work my way through the 21 matches. I glean as much as possible especially looking at the matches in common.  

My mind wanders today back to the early years at Edward's United Churh in the late 1970s to 1985. I was volunteer secretary of Edward's Church for a number of years  (he volunteered me )).  I was marking papers at the same time for a professor that I would work with doing my masters and our daughter was all settled into school. Edward was very content at work and he and his cousin Gordon Riddle talked about their mutual Kipp genealogy and Gordon had invited Edward to go with him to the Ottawa Branch meetings of what is now Ontario Ancestors. Although planning to do my Masters all good plans sometimes get changed for excellent reasons. I returned to motherhood instead of doing my masters welcoming our surprise baby when I was 36 nearly 37 and working at home proofreading and copyediting for private printers for about a dozen or more years and finally a secretary was hired to replace my volunteerism for the Church taking that off of my plate as I was very busy. The Riddles  had moved at some point no ideas on that as our directions rarely crossed after we left Orleans United Church in the mid 1990s and never after they left Orleans. We were no longer attending Orleans United Church regularly after 1996 (Edward's brother had passed away and the minister at Dominion Chalmers sensed Edward's need to talk occasionally and that was certainly a drawing card to going there for him every week) as we went to Dominion Chalmers for a couple of years and then to Christ Church Cathedral when the minister at Dominion Chalmers retired (he was excellent; a brilliant early Biblical scholar). Christ Church Cathedral is Anglican but Edward loved the music of the organ and the choirs so was content to be there and as he said to pay me back for going to his church for nearly 20 years. I think he used to go sometimes to special services at Orleans United as I do recall being there also once or twice in the early 2000s. The women's group there used to make up lunches for Gene-O-Rama which they sold to the Ottawa Branch. I was busy in those days working full time. I also took a course at St Paul's University on developing encounter groups for people dealing with mental illnesses - a very interesting experience for me where I learned a great deal about myself having been in just such care many many years earlier (back in 1974). I do not keep in touch with Edward's Church other than donating some money for music in memory of Edward, as he requested, which I do through Canada Helps. Funny how little things pop back into one's memory on occasion. Not sure why I thought about all of that really. 

Cleaning day today and working away on the matches in Ancestry. One  match I actually wrote to in the Blake line - a very small match but it was with a Blake in South Newton, Wiltshire. Corresponding back and forth I learned that his father's line was from Salisbury. That of course brought to mind that interesting arrival in the Emigrants Database 1330 - 1550 with a Richard Blake coming to Salisbury 7 Sep 1441  from Ireland. Presumably these people listed are not British Subjects. I shall continue my correspondence with this individual as his tree begins in 1735 at South Newton where Mary Blake was born as was her son John Blake born in 1781 at South Newton and his son James was born at Salisbury. Looking at it now a little more intently I had not noticed that the original birthplace of the line was South Newton. I tend to think of South Newton as associated with the Calne Blake family. That a small match would occur with an individual that is at least 7th cousin or greater is surprising. He has built a huge tree and I have not yet investigated it for any other possible lines. A glance now shows me an Arnold line and of course my Arnold family was in Dorset to the south of this area. This is a very large family so would not jump to conclusions on that too quickly. I tend to think if there is relationship between the Calne Blake family and the Andover Blake family it is quite distant likely in the 1300s to possibly the 1400s simply because the wills of these two sets of Blake mentioning each other in the 1500s do not state cousinship or even kinship but rather friend which was a term also used by people who had a kinship but was distant and considered not really there as far as I can tell. I can be corrected on that anytime. The amount shared 10 centimorgans across 1 segment. I generally find that the use of TIMBER by Ancestry to remove ethnic related DNA lengths can affect this final length by 0 to as much as  5 or 10 centimorgans. The smaller the amount the smaller the effect I find generally. Perhaps I can persuade him to take his kit into Gedmatch. We will see. But it was very interesting to see. I do know some pieces of DNA that are common can be so stubborn and exist in a line going back quite a ways certainly as far as 10th cousins but this would need to be in the range of 16th to 20th cousins I would think. 

So that was an interesting find. Just realized I didn't finish my blog. 

It is cleaning day and must get back to it. Working a couple of solitaire puzzles as I forgot that as well. 

 

 

 

 

Sunday and another snowfall at minus 7 degrees celsius

 Cloudy and snowing but it is Sunday in God's world here in Canada. The snow falls lightly but consistently as I look out of my workroom window. I love the winter and I think I probably always will. There is something so beautiful looking at the snow covered landscape especially on a Sunday. God's day in the week when we put the tools away and just contemplate what the gifts of God have brought to us through the centuries that man has walked the face of the earth. The world has changed a great deal since my childhood when we saw the news on the newsreel or heard it on the radio although TV was not far away and I watched the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on the television with my grandfather and all  my siblings of course and my parents were in and out doing the work that they needed to do. My grandfather was thrilled as he watched and did not take his eyes off the screen the entire time I do not think. He talked a lot about the traditions and who all the people were; it was a perfect history lesson for sure. I am trying to remember if my grandmother was there but I do not think so actually. The two youngest were not born yet and so it was just the five of us watching this exciting black and white spectacle. The newsreel was more impressive and we did see that later as well. 

Church once again and we are into Lent and a time of contemplation. I did find a Lenten Study online which I will pursue on my own. Usually I join a group but as I age my desire is to be more and more alone unless it is my family of course. I am polite; I even wave if people wave at me but mostly I just want to be alone to contemplate and to write. It is wondrous all this working time as in my entire life I have never had so much time that belonged just to me. There were always items that needed doing and time was this ethereal quantity that I couldn't grab hold of very often. I love evening prayer time especially; time to talk to God and I still repeat the prayers of my childhood as they come back to me. One does need to thank God every day for everything He has given to us. His Ten Commandments told us how He wanted us to live. 

I did complete my review of 23 and Me, My Heritage, FT DNA and now I am working on the Ancestry matches and there are quite a few at 23 cM or more numbering 21 which I am slowly entering into my table that I have kept now almost from the beginning. It has nearly 1100 matches listed for the four siblings with all the details and the MRCA where known. A number of them are on Gedmatch and I need to review Gedmatch but Ancestry must come first. Then Living DNA and my task will be complete in terms of review. Now I need to go back in and get the matches and prepare the files and then enter them into my phased great grandparent file and also work them into the phased grandparent file if they are needed. So still a lot of work ahead to do in that regard. But I am also back to writing the Pincombe Book at the moment and soon the Blake book as well. 

I had an email from a member of the Galway Blake family which I will pass on to the member of our group who manages that particular Blake group (my pace at getting some of these things done is rather slow to be honest but I will do it). There are so many Blake founders that I do not even attempt to keep up with all of them in the present. Should I let the Blake one-name study be more available? I actually have not had any one write to me expressing such an interest so will probably wait for that. I have done a lot of work on the early Blake founding lines in the British Isles. 

Surprisingly I am one of those people whose mental health does better when they are alone. In conversation I will monopolize that conversation and leave it when I find it doesn't feel comfortable to me. I apologize for this tendency but my mental health does better on its own. Fortunately I bear no grudges against anyone and like the Lord's Prayer says:  "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Ever remembering that God said "Revenge is mine" and just move on with my life and live it the way that God commanded. It is important to do that as we can see the consequences of not doing so. 

 Church in a little while and it is in the middle of the Gold Medal Hockey game but I shall go to Church knowing that most of Canada will be glued to their television sets watching along with our wonderful friends and neighbours in the United States. I believe I have had at least six emails this week from different Americans looking for information that Edward may have gathered and I have tried to be as helpful as possible and do generally direct them to his tree online on our website. He did a lot of work that is used by many many people in the United States and Canada. If I forget to do something I do hope people will remind me. 

 Thank you God for another beautiful day on Your world and may I be ever mindful of this gift to us from so long ago now. Prayers that we can mend what we have created that is harming the world. 

 

 

Surprise snowfall overnight

I missed the weather report that said snow and woke up today hearing the laneway being cleared by the company and realizing my black box was not far enough away although it was on the grass next door as I am hoping to get it emptied this week. Went out and moved it and cleaned out the snow and added some more so that it is about 3/4s full now. When the newspaper was delivered we didn't have any problem filling it but that is a long time ago. 

Just the sidewalks to clear and they will be around later to do that. This is southwestern Ontario snow as I call it; moist and great for making snowmen not our usual dry snow that does pack well on a hot sunny day but otherwise is pretty light and devoid of a lot of moisture. The trees all have a dusting of snow and look quite beautiful through the window of my workroom. Winter is lovely; I do love winter the best but a lot of the reason is all that solitude and time to work. Edward did not enjoy the solitude as much as I did and was out and about doing all his projects with me accompanying when he asked. He was so involved in so many things especially when he retired. For him, I think, being retired was sleeping in which he loved to do. That and just all that time to do anything that he wanted to do and his genealogical endeavours paid off big time for him in terms of unknown family to him but so well known to the world - Roger Williams, Hannah (Peak) Bowne, even the Royal Governor of Massachusetts and so many others. 

It was incredible that so much was lost. He found it amazing that I knew all of my ancestral stories but my first ancestor did not arrive here until 1818 and it was Thomas Routledge and his wife Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge with their eight children, son in law and several grand children. They were joined in 1832 (still proving) by Robert Gray who married their daughter Mary Elizabeth Ann Routledge in 1835 at St Paul's now St Paul's Cathedral in London, Ontario. Unknown to each other but they did come from neighbouring counties sort of (Routledge from Bewcastle, Cumberland and Gray from Holme on the Wolds, East Riding of Yorkshire). Their daughter Grace Gray (my first born Canadian ancestor)  married the next new arrival in my family line namely William Robert Pincombe from Molland, Devon who was one of the children of John Pincombe (Bishops Nympton, Devon) and Elizabeth (Rew) Pincombe (Bratton near Minehead, Somerset). The only surviving child of Grace and William Robert was my grandfather John Routledge Pincombe and my second born Canadian ancestor. John married Ellen Rosina (Buller) Pincombe (Birmingham, Warwickshire) who had arrived in Canada in 1908 and their daughter Helen Louise (Pincombe) Blake was my third born Canadian ancestor. My father arrived in 1913 with his parents Samuel George Blake (Upper Clatford, Hampshire) and Edith Bessie (Taylor) Blake  (Kimpton, Hampshire, aka Ada Bessie Cotteril (Rawlings) Blake). So I am fourth generation Canadian on my mother's side and first generation Canadian on my father's side. Since I was born before 1 Jan 1947 I was initially a British Subject but grandfathered to Canadian Citizen as I was born here in Ontario, Canada and hence forever more a Canadian citizen no longer a British Subject. I did find that fascinating as a child. Probably many times a year as a child those emigration stories were talked about and all the names were familiar to me. 

But life was different for Edward's families in those days in the 1600s/1700s and a lot of time was just spent surviving I suspect so that the stories simply did not pass down through the families. Well educated many of Edward's ancestors were but they had to turn to the plow to grow food for their very existence and that was hard tiring work so that at the end of the day there just perhaps wasn't time to talk about life as it had been. The Dissenters paid a huge price for their dissent for sure but the gain was huge and my husband would have been celebrated by his ancestors I am sure as he made the kind of accomplishments made generations earlier by his ancestors in learning. His first ancestors arrived from Amsterdam to New Amsterdam now New York in the early 1600s so his first footpaths on this Western Hemisphere were his Dutch and French (Huguenot - it appears that dissenters attract each other) ancestors followed quickly by his German (Palatines and in a way they too were dissenters) and Swedish ancestors with his small number in actual fact of English ancestors (all dissenters initially) arriving between the 1630s and the 1660s primarily and to Massachusetts for the most part. Edward certainly had his own opinions and the genes were definitely there for that. 

A trip down memory lane does work very well to get the brain moving in the morning. It reminds me why I am doing all of this work - my mother wanted to write a book about her Pincombe family and my grandfather a book about his Blake family and so here I am in 2026 writing the books. My memory serves me well very often and both of these individuals (my mother and my paternal grandfather) repeated themselves many many times. In a family of seven children that is not surprising that repetition would be a pretty constant item on the menu. 

For myself I look back and I think why would they choose only Pincombe or Blake and of course it was the name that they were born with and so their thoughts centered on that surname. My mother also remembered the surnames of her grandparents and great grandparents but also included in that mass of data were family lore which I still investigate when paperwork becomes available that I have not seen but family lore does not always lead you to the correct place but then these stories were repeated to her and sometimes the repetition doesn't always follow exactly the same line of thought I have discovered. The intent though is interesting and I do like to not miss any possible leads when I am missing information. So I search those brain cells of mine for any tidbits that sit there dormant for sixty or seventy years or more and pull them out and look at them. I have a very lucky memory it appears as just little bits of conversation (tagged in a way by the manner in which my brain works where particular words cause a flood of memory). Yesterday I started writing once again in the Pincombe book and will continue with that today along with working on my lovely new file as I input the new information, if I do as I am being very selective. Mostly I am looking for anything that could upset the apple cart which is important for me to find that now rather than later!

Tea all drank and time to do the solitaire puzzles to really wake up that brain. The laneway is cleared and now the snow shovellers have come and gone and the path out is clear once again although I am not going anywhere. It is Saturday and I prefer not to be on the roads on the weekend. I stick to school times for my outings as there is very little traffic especially walking traffic!

 

 

Silver in Women's Hockey is beautiful; we won it

I am thrilled that we won silver; our whole Olympic Team is doing great. I actually hate it when people act as if it is a loss. We gained a silver on the score board. That's it. Gold is always nice but silver is not a failure; I do dislike the way people see the Olympics as a win or loss - it is an achievement just to be there. Congratulations to all. 

I have always loved the Olympics until it became another TV show like a soap opera. Its a game some are won some are lost but it is being played by humans and these things just happen. Cheers for all the members of the team; you are doing great. Wanting to get a medal is great; wondrous and good for the mental health. Getting a medal is more a feature of how life flows sometimes. I thought it was interesting when a comment was made about one member of the Canadian team whose parents had both been in the Olympics. It is just such a wonderful accomplishment to put all that time in your life into being at one  Olympic game or two maybe or more - the parents are certainly the drivers in that for sure because they get them to the practice and they are there cheering them constantly at every event and the players learn rules of life. 

Myself I have just always loved running but I did not want to be part of stop watches or controlling how I ran or any of that. I just love to run and it is unlikely that I am of that type of runner anyway. So these are special people prepared to put up with coaches who just want you to win for sure and sometimes not achieving what you really wanted. 

I did complete all the matches and moved on to looking at the newest matches in the databases. There are not a lot as I have become much pickier. My interest is not fading in DNA just do not want to continue a lifestyle where I am constantly collecting data that is borderline or difficult to prove or appears to be somewhat strange. Other than that I will continue to look but my cause moves forward and I will be back to writing shortly. I have already developed in my mind the next chapter of the Pincombe book and then the genealogical chart will begin and indeed I already have a beginning of that in my Legacy file. This book will be published as written because all of the data that I need I have; just have to transcribe some of it out of Latin. A slow process but actually a quite enjoyable one surprisingly. I do so like a challenge and latin is certainly a challenge especially because it was written in some cases 800 plus years ago. It will be published under a Creative Common License as  the Siderfin books were and are free on my website. 

Another work day and shall see how much I accomplish. My new file is set up to work with the great grandparent data and that will begin shortly. We will see what AI can do for my file. I am starting to create the scenarios that I want to look at.  

Drinking my tea and time to move on to the solitaire puzzles.  

Is there change in the air?

 Moving to a new stage of my old age as I pass some management on to those better able to do that. the youth of our country is innovative and resourceful and now to really move ahead they need to look at the jobs that are to come and train for them so that they are ready when the jobs appear. AI will come soon enough especially to a country like Canada because we have what AI needs - vast amounts of available electricity, ability to create the infrastructure to contain such intelligence and the will to do it. AI will make life run smoother in some ways but there will be blips in the path because AI will need a lot of training so it is very important that one become very efficient at what they do in order to best teach AI the methodology that must be used in order to get the superior results. 

There is talk that our population is starting to peak and that the numbers of people will begin to decrease in this world. There are a lot of us here for sure. The Russians keep sending their young men to the fields of war which Russia created and the body bags keep going back to Russia. So Russia may experience a very sudden decline in population of their own making. Will women want to have babies that are being sent to war; I doubt it. They didn't in 1917 and the whole country did something about it. Peace waits on that. 

On the news this morning there was a video of Khan Younis in Gaza. How sad to see the tent city there where the children have to live. The children did nothing wrong; they didn't invade another country but it is always the children who pay for the deeds of the elders. I feel sad for the children of Gaza; I have from the beginning and desired that they could come here to Canada where they would be safe but it needed the people of Islam to come forward and take them in but it did not happen and so we had to watch day after day as children were killed and maimed in a war they did not invent. Children need to be with people that are of their own kind; it is only fair. Although adoptions across such creeds and races do work; I have seen some that work very well but in this case the children would have been coming from a war stricken country and they just needed that comfort of their own people until they could return to the arms of their families. 

 Yesterday was a somewhat tumultuous one but it lead to a new way to do things and I look forward to that as it will take a bit to come to fruition but I will be happier with the changes I know that. I maybe did five matches yesterday but did  manage to do my 12,000 steps after all without actually doing any special exercise aside from cleaning the top floor which is completed and another week of cleaning under the belt so to speak. There are some things that are beyond me and I know it and so I do not attempt them. My life ahead of me is considerably shorter than what I have passed through thus far. In order to be as effective a human being as I am able (and that is God's wish for all of us) I need to make changes that smooth out the path ahead. I have these aims that I want to achieve in these years and I do need help on occasion and this was one of those occasions. Thank you to my family for their guidance. 

 Today I will work on the matches and should complete them as there are only nine left; hard to believe. I will also check the other databases for the new matches that have come in and see if they are useful in my quest. It will be easy to set them in if that is the case. 

Today will be a running day (30 minutes before lunch) and then a weightlifting day this afternoon (mid way) and we will see if I do anything else other than walking. This morning's exercises went quite smoothly and the cardio load was 40, 1 hour was spent and 3204 steps with 375 calories. So about usual and I know I repeated several of the counts of 100 steps as I forgot to stick out my thumb to remind I had already done the first hundred of the two hundred on occasion. The statistics are interesting that you obtain on the Fit Bit with 5% at peak, 24% is vigorous, 47% is moderate and 20% is light. The average heart rate was 101 beats per minute. A good way to start the day it does appear. I read a bit ago that one's exercise periods should be 45 to 60 minutes long. So I moved to that with this early  morning exercise and I think it works well but one should of course check with a doctor if you are just beginning exercise especially if you are my age. But I have been running since I was a very young child when I finally stood up and walked free of furniture when I was eighteen months and it was when my first glasses were put on my face. I quess instead of a lot of fuzz I could actually see - no ideas on that. But at twelve when I went to high school the gym teacher really encouraged running and so I took it up and have run most of my life ever since. I was a better long distance runner than a short distance at that age and I would say it remains as I have good endurance that keeps me running for the full thirty minutes. I could run longer but I think 30 minutes of running followed by 15 minutes of walking is good exercise although one notes that even greater variety is touted as beneficial like run 10 walk 10 or whatever combination but I prefer the continual running followed by a slowdown walk. Perhaps as I age I will change in that regard. Somehow I can not imagine myself running at 90 but I guess one never knows what life will present. 

I see though that the Fit Bit is back to its desire to keep lifting my cardio target - it needs to remember that I am 80 and only maintaining. A fault I think in some ways of the programming but it sees how I manage on cleaning days and thinks that I can continue that sort of high pace which is not likely. I am always somewhat tired on Thursday and have to push myself just a little to do the exercises that I do. So will I make the low and high targets today. I probably will make it to the low target of 188 cardio load but it is not likely that I will make it to the 251 cardio load that is the top of the range. But getting to 188 we will see. I have 40, running will be around 80 to 90 and then weightlifting around 40 to 50. Plus the walking is around 10 to 15 so I just make it to the 188 and a tiny bit above but not likely to 251 even with the walking every hour on the hour. But it takes time to train a Fit Bit one thinks and probably it doesn't recognize the fact that I am 80 and that means something; if I was 50 or less I could see that the level of activity as suggested is more doable. 

Yesterday working on the few matches that I did do was revealing as a couple of them were known to me and clarified the particular great grandparent simply because we share a 2x great grandparent. Always an interesting experience this autosomal DNA. 

Tea drank and must do my solitaire puzzles. Then breakfast and back to work on the matches.  

 

 

 

 

 

Final cleaning day

 Half of a week cleaning and half of a week working but it seems to flow well. Awake in the night first time for a while actually. Sorting through the idea of moving and when it will be feasible. Highly desirable but the timing still not quite right. I would have one less day of work if I sold and moved into a one floor house and it is tempting to do that sooner rather than later. No ideas on that though as the logical time to move is in four years so we will see how that flows. 

Today is the top floor and then the cleaning is done for another week. Olympics moving along and soon it will be playoffs in a number of items. It is nice to see so many of our young people involved in the Olympics although I have barely watched it this year. Life has been busy amazingly for an 80 year old. 

I also want to finish off the last  fifteen matches and then that task is completed although the work just begins where the great grandparents are concerned. But I still need to look at the databases for the various companies and see if there is any new useful information. That will take the rest of the week probably along with working on the 4300 line Excel file. All backed up and I will create a new file to actually work with the data leaving the original on the file where I created it which includes all of the chromosomes one by one  beside the large chart including the chart that was used to determine the crossover points looking at the Living DNA data but not necessarily relying on it for the final decision - I used 23 and Me, FT DNA, Gedmatch (primarily Ancestry data), and My Heritage along with the Living DNA data. 

Falling asleep once again so will complete my blog in a couple of hours. 

 And so I return and exercises all completed and this hour on arising works very well it appears with a cardio load of 40, 55 minutes in length, 3000 steps and 292 calories. I have had my snack and will soon make my breakfast. 

Cleaning the top floor so I shall soon pick everything up and eat my breakfast and then begin after a short rest. It takes about 45 minutes to vacuum everything and then perhaps the same for dusting and then I need to scrub the bathroom and I will be finished and it is usually about three hours as I tend to underestimate the amount of time that I will spend. 

I will try to complete the remaining matches as it is not that many and than set up my file system for the work to come on this created excel file which is less than 5000 lines. There are a number of sorting routines that I will do and then examine the results with regard to the known people and the matches to all those known people. It should be interesting and the gain will be a breakdown of the great grandparents into their two lines (as everyone has two lines). 

I do not think in Canada that we are anti-American but definitely we are pro-Canadian and struggling to bring our economy into a state where there is no dependency except the usual that one attains by trade. We certainly enjoy being part of the North American Trade Agreement for all these years - I do not really think anyone would disagree with that fact (although in retrospect having our native industries decimated by competition/buying out and closing was a bad decision) but circumstance has made it necessary (we must do our best to make ourselves economically independent). That is the aim so one is seeing pro-Canadian and to a great extent we are all looking towards making Canada tariff proof. 

There are a few people in Canada who have ventured into another country looking for aid to form a country and I probably wouldn't use strong words but definitely mis-advised. Canada bought and paid for Rupert's Land and that is how the huge mass of land came to be part of Canada. We even ceded a number of areas to the United States since they lay on their side of the border but we did pay for that land and it was ceded freely with all the treaty obligations (and it is worth a lot of money now for sure). 

Alberta itself would be worth a huge amount of money and Canada would need to be recompensed.The rights of the First Nations come first that is the deal in the purchase of Rupert's Land. I believe the First Nations in Northern Quebec preferred to be part of Nunavut in such a situation when a referendum was discussed there and I doubt that has changed. That is a huge amount of Quebec. You live with what you came in with and Alberta did not exist until Canada created Alberta. Anyway that is my understanding.  

Why anyone would want to leave this prosperous country is quite beyond me to be honest (the opportunities for youth and they are coming and there will be far more in this near future for all of her people). The cost would be enormous unless you leave only with what you brought to Confederation (this concerns only Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia as they all existed but in many cases their land area was much smaller (that applies to Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba not sure about British Columbia would need to look that up) prior to Confederation (some joining later than 1867). In this case Alberta and Saskatchewan did not exist at all until they were created in 1905 with the Treaty Rights enshrined in their forming. But then I see the ownership of land as immemorial back into time unless you purchase it with all the rights of ownership (and for the most part that is not possible in huge areas of Canada as it belongs to the First Nations who kindly share it with us and are unlikely to sell it outright). 

The International Courts did decide in favour of the First Nations and I agree with them. I also think that there is a limit to this sort of logic but it is deep into the past as our knowledge of countries did develop later than say 8000 years ago although some countries did exist and have the paperwork to prove it whether it was etched on stone or written on some sort of material. Interesting this logic really but allowing any other logic leads to what we see in Eastern Europe right now and thank you to NATO for standing up to it. During the Ice Age no one was in Russia likely and Ukraina was the name of the Ice Refuge in that part of the country so a much older name for sure. 

However we have entered into this time of war ushered in by Putin and his supporters in Russia who have led the ugly illegal cruel despicable attack on Ukraine and it continues to this day (it amazes me that the people of Russia continue to allow Putin to constantly force their children into a war that is killing so many of them). Where are the Russians who said no to the Tsar (history records he was murdered for that very crime) and refused to continue a war that was killing their people? One wonders; there is no benefit to the Russians in this at all and one prays that there never will be. 

 Work to be done and breakfast is next after the Solitaire Puzzles.  

 

And another Tuesday also a working day

Yesterday the basement cleaning went very well and was accomplished in good time. I even had a 25 minute run before lunch. This is just running around my indoor track so to speak (I have created it with so much furniture gone now). I can see why people did not always have so much furniture in years gone by - the space is wonderful. I did grow up in a house that was post-bankrupt when money was tight but my father had time to read to us which was lovely (that was after my grandfather died I think). I used to read to my grandfather and he loved that. I can not really remember if he read to me perhaps he did but the memory is lost to time. But  he loved it when I read to him. But mostly he liked to talk and tell me all about Upper Clatford (and other places in England that he had been in but mostly he talked about Upper Clatford and not Eastleigh where my father was born). Sometimes he talked about Eastleigh but not a lot. 

I have completed the R's now in the matches and into the S's and there are perhaps 34 matches left to do. I am just guessing because I did not count them and there is just one page of matches to go so about right. It may take the two days though that are ahead of me for cleaning. Today is the main floor and I will not run today. It is more work to do the main floor because I do the vacuuming, the scrubbing and the dusting. It takes about three hours or slightly more in total. But it is finished when it is finished. 

My fingers are itching to get at the file now to sort it to suit myself and see how many great grandparents I can successfully pull out of it. I know that Gray and Knight are fairly clear and if it isn't Gray or Knight then it is Pincombe or Blake but it has to be definitive to make that call. The Buller is sticking out not too badly as well and again the same justification if it isn't Buller then it is Taylor. Rawlings I have quite a few matches and if it isn't Rawlings then it is my Grandmother's father said to be George Cotterill but I remain on the sidelines on that one. I will simply have separated out that individual where it is possible and await a good match to really determine that. It may not be in my lifetime. 

The Olympics is going very well with lots of winners. I like that actually when many countries win a medal. It is a powerful message for the athlete to take home to the people in their country (any medal is a powerful message).  Sixth four percent of the medals have been awarded so still quite a bit to go. Twenty six countries have won at least one medal. A lot of cheering when the athletes come home even if they did not win they competed and that is the most important part I think. I used to sit and watch for the entire time period but life is busy and I do want to get the books written and so I just check in every once in a while when I am doing my ten to fifteen minute walk every hour. The FitBit buzzes me to tell me if I have not yet done my 250 steps for the hour and up I get and do the 250 for that hour and the 250 for the next hour except I notice generally that I have been sitting a long time and so up I get and often I do do the 250 at the beginning of the hour! Exercise is wonderful especially for the young but the old benefit too. As I look around me I think anyone under 55 is still young  really. Then I see 56 to 75/79 as middle age and old is definitely hitting 80. Somehow you feel the difference. Perhaps it is the necessity of redoing the driver's license although it was just the eye test after all that brings the age of 80 home to you. 

 The Buller family is huge I am discovering and a lot of that hugeness is actually in a cousin family not my Buller line. One might say that the Welch family is huge (Henry Christopher Buller married Ann Welch and she had a twin sister who like her sister Ann had a very large family (between them twenty four children)). The number of grandchildren was huge and it continued through the generations as I have so many cousins who match me on this Buller line of mine and for them it is a different surname but we all share the Welch (but William Welch and Sarah Cheatle (our most recent common ancestor were my 3x great grandparents and so are not in that level where I am separating out the eight members (namely the great grandparents of whom there are eight). The Taylor line (Edwin Denner Buller married Ellen Taylor) is considerably smaller which is a surprise although it appears to have this huge Irish branch so still working on that but it is likely the Irish portion that is found in all of my siblings including myself. The only confusing part in that is my portion tends to be from the Irish Republic (Eire) and their portion from Northern Ireland. All in how you inherit the DNA and I am the most different from all of them - if there is a place to differ than I do although I also have the usual amount shared although it is on the lower side rather than being strongly related to each other. 

Time moves onward and my tea cup is empty and I need to do my Solitaire Puzzles. Had a great time playing Sudoku last evening with I think four of five games. Sometimes I do that. I love the thought process; it completely occupies the brain as you look from square to square and length to length to find that one item that will unlock all of those numbers and there you with a complete nine square Sudoku neatly arranged and finished. No flashing of light but I still miss doing my sixteen games of Spider every week. I did it from its inception as a new challenge until I stopped. I hope to return to it one day when my eyes have adjusted to sparkling. One never knows. Breakfast and then cleaning follows. Generally I begin around nine o'clock.  

I had a request for Rathbun/Rathburn information the other day from one of Edward's likely cousins in the United States but we did not go to the graveyards in Pennsylvania (that was planned but did not happen as COVID did) and I could not answer her question. It is sad to write that Edward has passed away; that sadness remains as I did really want him to be 90 like he wanted to be. It is not a morbid sadness he would not want that but rather a genuine sense that he had missed out on turning 90.  I wrote and thanked her for her kindness in her note back when I let her know that Edward had passed and I did not have an answer. 

 

Monday and it is cleaning day and it is the basement

 Soon I will start the Robot cleaning the rug. I always check to make sure it sat on the charger properly all week so that it will run its normal 1.3 hours on the rugs. I would never vacuum the rugs for 1.3 hours but the robot does it and the path is random and I do not think it misses even a tiny bit of dust by the time it docks itself. It takes about the same amount of time every week. Then I clean out the trap and it has about the same amount of dust - more in the winter than in the summer. Then wash the floors that do not have rugs, wash the stairs down to the basement and dust all the furniture and the task is done for another week.It used to take me four or five hours to clean the basement as Edward had so much stuff and it is pretty much all donated now as I have little or no use for tools. The books and furniture he accumulated down there is also all donated years ago; he did that himself but still there was a lot there. The house is getting emptier and emptier but it needs to as I will eventually move to a much smaller house and one floor hopefully. 

Yesterday was a very interesting sermon and I was perhaps even more keenly interested following the tragedy in British Columbia (prayers continuing). One does come closer to one's religion when tragedy strikes. 

Here it is Monday and the sun is rising in the east as I look out my workroom window. Very faint in colour which is always a good sign as a brilliant red sunrise is a warning to those on the seas as I learned as a child. I do have a lot of these old stories that are from the British Isles since everyone of my ancestors in the last five hundred years appears to be from the British Isles. 

My ancient yDNA line carried by my brothers and my ancient mtDNA line carried by our female line tell me that both of these were ancient to the Isles (although both will go extinct in my own personal family line there are many many cousin DNA holders out there all matching us and the lines will go on and on). But in between these two types of DNA  there is a great deal of autosomal DNA shared with cousins passed down to all of us from our mutual most recent common ancestors and with five companies testing I have this overview that I keep in mind coming from all of them that somewhere back in the past I have European (primarily German and French (I do know I have Huguenot who came to the Isles in the late 1400s)), some Scandinavian (likely Viking in my Gray-Routledge line) and some Eastern European probably because my mtDNA wintered at Ukraina during the Last Ice Age or later maybe there are a lot of centuries prior to my known family line of the last five hundred years plus in some lines and I do have a few lost lines although not too lost as they are likely from those small villages and no records before the Parish Registers for some of them.  

I still marvel at how quickly I changed from having no interest in genealogy to a rampant interest (mostly following the introduction of DNA information but also my cousin did need the profile for my Pincombe family and, as it turned out, I was the best person to provide that document now published and available for usage by researchers). 

My husband was both shocked, overwhelmed but grateful to my cousin for pushing me to do this Profile. From that point forward we did even more traveling (as my husband was retired) down into the New England States, New York and even into Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin following the trails of his Kipp family mostly who had gone west in the late 1700s from Northeast Town, New York and also north into Ontario in the early 1800s (his line) and some of his line then went from Ontario back into Michigan further west and he corresponded with many of those cousins. But now I was a more enthusiastic follower of genealogy which he truly loved working at. 

Many trips to NEHGS in Boston and the knowledge just flowed. I myself found a number of books on the Blake family of the United States there. This was where I first encountered Horatio Somerby Gates and his fraudulent work and a memory blazed forward as I sat looking at some of the material. I finally understood what my grandfather and father were talking about where Nicholas Blake was concerned. 

Fascinating really how life comes together from the deep past to the present. My grandfather was talking about Americans looking for information on Nicholas Blake and descendants in Andover, Hampshire, England and that the story about Nicholas was incorrect that they were following. Fascinating really. 

Anyway tea all drank and must do my solitaire puzzles.  

Sunday is always anticipated and this one will be full of prayers

 Prayers continuing for the murdered children and adults in British Columbia but also for the recovery of those still in hospital suffering from gunshot wounds. Time has stood still just a little here whilst we think about the loss of eight beautiful people and the wounded some continuing to fight for their very life in the hospitals. God be with them and I would pray that God will keep the murdered little ones wrapped in His loving arms. Their lives ripped away from them so cruelly. 

Church today online as always and last weeks hymns were quite beautiful actually. I always wonder what hymns will be sung perhaps because I was in the choir as a child and loved singing. I did sing "The Lord is my Shepherd" one time but I do not remember why or exactly when other than it was not winter. I was absolutely petrified but when I got up to sing I was fine and I sang it to God I remember that. I never did it again but it was a gift my grandmother said that I had for God. My youngest daughter was around eight I think when she sang a solo at Edward's United Church; much younger than I was. She was nervous and asked me to sit right up at the front so that she could look at me and not be nervous. Actually she did very well and I think she hardly glanced at me. That was a while ago now but it was something my husband and my daughters did together. Sometimes they would say I should join the choir but I said I am not really United Church I am an Anglican and I just do not really want to do that and they understood even at their young age. I  just enjoyed watching all of them sing - Edward and his daughters. They are so much like him and they greatly adored him as he adored them. 

It was something special for him to have the girls be so like him although he would occasionally say I think they look like you too but the reality is that they look like Edward's family not mine (when one tested her atDNA for him as a surprise one Christmas he was thrilled as he didn't have anyone close to him that tested). My oldest daughter looks so very much like Edward's mother now although it wasn't noticeable when she was younger so much but then I did not know Edward's family until we were married. We came from different places in Ontario (I know virtually nothing about Edward's families other than the research that I helped him to do as I never lived in that area) and so I would not have noticed anything in particular but certainly now when my daughter is coming to the age that my mother in law was when I first met her I can see the strong similarity. A picture of Edward's great grandmother as a child that I saw years and years after we were married (I think perhaps I first saw it after Edward's mother died and he brought a lot of her keepsakes back when we went to the funeral). This picture is of Hannah Catherine Parlee (descendant of French Huguenots who went to Staten Island in the early 1700s) at the age of fourteen it says on a paper copy Edward made from the tintype and she is the exact image of my eldest daughter at the age of fourteen. Amazing really but the logic is there because the X chromosome that was passed to Edward from his mother goes to his daughter unchanged and this was his mother's grandmother. She received an X chromosome from her mother Margaret Evelyn Allen that came from her mother Hannah Catherine Parlee. Edward inherited more than 50% of his X chromosome from his mother as Allen so interesting how the genes flow. 

 Later after Church I shall work on the matches and I have just a few Ls left (eight actually) and then on to the Ms and there are nineteen of them. I am progressing and about half way now through this set of 250 matches which has reduced to 239 as I have rejected eleven of them. A few interesting insights from this work yesterday that have permitted me to do a little more separating out of Blake and Knight. The Pincombe and Gray in this chromosome are a bit more stubborn to separate but I think once I start with my sorting that these will slide into place as I look at all the chromosomes since I am not flitting back and forth between the chromosomes. 

A beautiful sunny day and it is minus 17 degrees celsius and we got our first Gold at the Olympics and we are in fourteenth place worldwide (the placement is by the number of gold medals).  Norway is dominating the Winter Olympics and in first place. Italy is in second place and very often the home country does do very well when the Olympics are in their own country. The United States is in third place and they generally do very very well in the Olympics whether it be summer or winter Olympics. There are still lots more to win for sure. I am always rooting for Canada and we are doing great; we have a huge team and so much enthusiasm. 

Tea all drank and time to do my solitaire puzzles.  

 

 

There is so much sadness in BC

 Prayers continuing for all those still recovering from gun shot wounds and prayers for the souls of the lost children and adults. May God hold them close to Him wrapped in His loving arms. I watched our government leaders all at the Memorial yesterday on the television. Such a sad time in our nation. 

I could not settle down to work yesterday so I did an academic study questionnaire that I have been in for about six years as it was ready for me to submit once again (every two years). It is an interesting study and I hope it finds value in the future. I couldn't settle down to it the last couple of days but today I did do that. As I answered some of the questions I found myself thinking about a small town now missing all of those young children where everyone knows everyone else. It is not something that I experienced growing up in a large city but listening to the people talking about the children you realize how tightly knit a small community can be. 

I did work on the matches once again and completed the J's. I am about half way through now and some new information did appear which was helpful. The intent is to (and probably I shouldn't use phase because it isn't truly the same as phasing grandparents) break down the grandparent's parents into their contribution to the five siblings DNA and it is working not too badly overall. There will still be a lot of work to do but I will use AI now that the files are organized in a way that I will return what I want and not miscellaneous information that was on the particular files. It is still there but not in the path of the searches. As you use AI you must give it detailed instructions in order to get back the information that you want. 

Another Saturday and it is a lovely day. This is a weightlifting day again and YOGA along with my early morning exercises and running for thirty minutes. I believe that the Fit Bit and I are now more or less in synch with regard to recording my daily exercises. I am getting a good estimate of the amount of cardio for the day although I generally exceed it but it does take a bit to establish a routine for the Fit Bit with these newer Fit Bits. Each one I acquire is a little more complicated than the last. The first one was just basically a step counter with a few extras so it has come a long way. The benefit to owning a FitBit is actually recording your exercise path day after day. When you are older you do forget some items although memory generally brings them back the FitBit is a record keeper and a good one. 

 Today I work on the K's and perhaps the L' s as not that many Ks. Perhaps I will have a sneak preview at what is new in the databases; we will see. Another beautiful quiet uninterrupted day for me working away. I do love Saturdays; it used to be cleaning day when I went back to work outside the  home. Although I loved proofreading at home the scientific literature it was nice to be out in the real world working - the work at first the Medical School for two years and then into the now Ottawa Hospital for a further ten years and then Health Canada for a year and a half I think were very very interesting. In my younger days I had wanted to go to be a doctor in Africa (being a doctor in Canada did not interest me) but I got married at 20 and my husband was not interested in going to Africa he preferred to stay in Canada and did pass up a job in Washington although he did have his regrets in later years on that one as he became so interested in the histories of his families who were primarily early American colonists from The Netherlands, Germany, France, Sweden and the British Isles. His earliest were from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam now New York City. It amazed me that my husband did not know his immigration stories; they simply had not been passed down. As he searched and discovered people like Roger Williams his 10th great grandfather and so many others; I was amazed that all of this had been lost during subsequent immigrations north into Canada from New England beginning in 1800 into Ontario and continuing right up into the early 1830s. Land was free and his people mostly came into Niagara where some stayed for a bit and also into Oxford County. All forgotten. When we went to NEHGS for a weekend retreat he worked with Gary Boyd Roberts on  his tree and that was one comment that I heard Gary saying to Edward that many of the descendants of the New Englanders did lose their immigration stories over time. It was a long time I guess as it is now more than 400 years since the Mayflower dipped its anchor into the harbour at Provincetown, Cape Cod where the Pilgrim Monument stands. A site we visited quite a few times. All of his ancestors from England/Scotland (there were not actually that many at the time as most were from Europe) were Dissenters and some of them famous dissenters. It didn't surprise me actually as Edward had strong opinions. He was very Protestant in his views. It wasn't something that we talked about a lot being Catholic in my views but I did promise that I would go to his Church when we had children and we used to go to his Church before children. I generally went to my own as well usually without him as sometimes I would drive over and go to Church with my father at our home church. But the Cathedral was also close by and I would go there although I knew absolutely no one but that has always suited me. I like to go and pray and sing in my Church and I am not an outgoing person (introvert fits me well) but I also didn't mind going to Edward's United Church as I had gone to the United Church with my Grandmother and my Uncle (my mother's brother) and his wife my aunt when I was a child. It wasn't far from their house and we walked there just as we did from my house to our home church. But now I attend my Anglican Church online and at 80 it works very well for me. 

It was beautiful listening to the wonderful words from our Prime Minister at the vigil last evening. They were perfect and as mourner in chief he continues to do a wonderful job in our country. We will struggle and we will move ahead and get everything done but it is very pleasant to have him at the helm at this time in our history. He has a dream for Canada just like the Confederation Fathers and it is of a country that welcomes people (although you must ask to come here and always that has been the case although we did take in thousands of draft dodgers from the United States back fifty years ago now) but our First Nations do have their rights where the land is concerned and we respect that; it is part of our culture and we will defend that right. Listening to Wab Kinew talking about the work forward in Manitoba to bring our economy to absolute success were wonderous. I do very much admire that man; he is a perfect leader for Manitoba in this time of crisis and I suspect at any time really; he has a good head on  his shoulders for sure. His family heritage of thousands of years in this Hemisphere stands him in good stead as a leader in the past, for now and for the future of this country. Tecumseh walked with Brock as the leaders of what was to become Canada and we are now very much in pace with that. The Governor General (of Inuit Heritage) Mary Simon was also at the vigil representing the King of England and the people of Canada and King Charles III expressed his deep sorrow at the loss of all those bright young children and the adults in this sad time in our nation. 

Tea drank and it is 7:00 a.m. and minus six degrees celsius; we are having a warm spell although I think we may still have more cold - the Polar Vortex does it own thing for sure. We have lots of snow though for spring runoff to refresh the dry earth from the drought of last summer. Time for solitaire puzzles and I am now a Champion in the Sudoku puzzles. I still miss doing all my Spider though and will return one of these days. My eyes will eventually get used to the flashing I hope. My eyes continue to amaze me having spent most of my life with basically very little depth of vision and my sight was not really that good as I can now drive without glasses which is truly amazing although I wear sunglasses but still I can actually read the street signs which is stupendous as my children have grown and I do not have them to tell me the names of the streets as we pass them.  

 

 

 

The sadness remains

Sad watching the news today which I just finished doing. The little girl who was shot in the head and the neck remains in critical condition. How cruel for the parents to have raised their daughter to the age of twelve years and seen her be so successful to now have her so injured. Prayers continuing for the souls of the murdered and for all the other injured people from that dreadful day that will go down in history as we remember in particular those little murdered ones just into their teenage years. We quickly forget those who harm us but the ones lost because of that one act we never forget - in our hearts for ever.  Leaders of the parties (Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Leader of the Green Party, and the others are invited and I do not know where that is at) are going to a vigil in memory of the lost in Tumbler Ridge, BC and praying for the injured. Dear God please keep the little murdered ones especially close wrapped in your loving arms. 

On with the day remembering the loss. I must say that I do find it annoying to have anyone ring my phone that I haven't asked to call  me or arranged to call me. These rude ignorant spammers probably trying to steal people's money should actually get a job and work and stop their ignorance of ringing a telephone randomly with a fake name. My pet peeve of the day. Basically I do not know anyone in the world that I want to talk to on my phone when I haven't arranged it in one way or another. That way is called email and my delete finger works very well. I do occasionally answer the phone when it is a number I recall attached to a name I recognize. But generally I leave it to go to voice mail. It is exhausting doing phone calls perhaps a hangover from my breakdown; no ideas on that. Everything is so much easier when it is written down. It is interesting that we seldom or never hear the names of dictators (except when mentioned with disgust) or tyrants or murderers who care nothing for their people once they have met their fate. If we do it is remembering them with hatred and disgust which they deserve for their sins.  

Good accomplishment yesterday and I am well into the Js now but still more than half to do. I also did the Hunter Gatherer thing and got food.  I had to buy a big plastic jug of white vinegar as I was all out. I am trying to keep these big jugs down though and it looks like vinegar, bleach and floor cleaner are the three left.

A big pile of brochures from restaurants, stores etc was in my mail box yesterday. They will go to the paper waste next week. I dream about having everything paper on line.  This is Collection Day and it is the recyclables. I have very little to put out once again but do try to do it weekly to keep that cleared away since I freeze the recycled food waste in my freezer until I put it out to the street. Keeps any odour down and the animals do not appear to try and get into the container. 

A couple of interesting matches yesterday that fitted so neatly into the Knight family. There are so many Knight matches due to the endogamy in this family in my lines going back. I wonder about these ancient Blake matches (do not appear to be Knight in a couple of lengths) in the Colonial United States descendants but Nicholas likely married his first cousin Margaret (daughter of his uncle Thomas) giving those descendants a double set of Blake and then Richard Blake married Jone Blake (second cousins)    just two generations later again boosting the level of Blake in this line so it is conceivable that particularly common areas might just be amplified by this marriage of cousins frequency. I am suspicious that I would see any sharing with cousins more than seventh cousins apart but having so many in two particular areas is very suspicious especially when their trees are so deep going back into Colonial America where the chances of marrying a closer relative would be much higher. All of these Blake lines would be descendant of Robert Blake of Enham who left his will in 1521. There is a John Blake in earlier records in the Andover area prior to 1521 (1300s actually) so it is finding information to link this earlier line with Robert. Finding a John Blake in the 1300s was rather fascinating as the Doomsday Books do not have a surname for anyone in this area of Andover in the latter part of the 1000s. By 1200 there are records for Blake in England but they tend to be in the London area or into East Anglia. My suspicion is that the John Blake of the 1300s was the first to use the Blake surname and married a daughter of Richard le Blak which would account for the relationship between the Blake family in Speen, Berkshire and Andover, Hampshire in the mid 1500s when no close cousinship is mentioned (the English people tend to recognize 1st cousins as close and 2nd cousins as some what distant according to my cousin Ivan). 

Tea drank and time to do solitaire puzzles. Exercise went very well but it is actually my older daughter that has given me all these new exercise hints as she, like my younger daughter, is very into exercise. It is important to do lots of exercise especially given our tendency to sit about so much. Both are very busy though but I do chat with my older daughter every night for about an hour. It is kind of her to take so much time out of her day but as she is an academic only and we have a lot in common discussing our books and such that we are into and occasionally I do have an idea for her. My younger daughter is very busy and I do not clutter up her phone with my book writing.