Working on GedMatch

 First sibling completed and into the second sibling. I have changed the methodology that I was using and this will be a quicker study but I had to do the long form first just to make sure I was seeing everything that I wanted to see. I am looking for items that upset the apple cart primarily. Making sure that nothing exists that proves I am incorrect in my thinking. That of course is a mirage in many ways because the number of people who have tested their autosomal DNA remains small looking at a global existence. However, I just happen to be lucky to only have ancestry from the British Isles back into the 1400s as far as I can tell. But the Parish Registers certainly show my lines back into the 1500s some as early as the first registers in 1538 so I feel somewhat confident that I am capturing a true picture of my heritage since it includes the data for four other siblings and we all match in such a way that we are all descendant of our parents without a doubt. 

The interesting part in all of this is the desire and consistent updating of the ethnicity of these five siblings by the various testing companies. They keep drilling down deeper and deeper into areas of the British Isles where I have proven ancestry. The occasional sudden shift like from southern Dorset to Lancashire in the 1800s was already known to me by word of mouth. A huge 80 year old birthday party for Charles Butt in his native Dorset called home so many of those descendants and this being an endogamous group it was huge and remains very large around the world.  My grandfather was five years old at that time but he clearly remembered going to the party and seeing all those cousins. 

Why did my grandfather recount these stories to me? Why choose a child of five years of age or perhaps even less as I can always remember him telling me stories. He would repeat those stories ad infinitum throughout our time together. Being the child I was though, adoring him completely, I listened and never said you already told me. I just loved listening to him tell me his stories of his life in the country of his birth. But the cause was his discovery of a book in the local Library written about the Blake family of Galway, Ireland. He wanted us to know that we were descendant of the Blake family of Andover and Upper Clatford where he was born. That was very important to him. Coincidentally in the latter part of the 1800s people came from America (Blake descendants) trying to find out more about Nicholas Blake of Knight Enham nr Andover who had been given a different family line by Horatio Gates Somerby (a fraudulent American genealogist who wrote stories for people in the United States about the Blake family that were incorrect (and there were other families who received the same makeover)). 

So I continue my pursuit of data that could point to something contrary to what I have put together thus far. This recent email from a descendant of the Hinxman family of Upper Clatford is interesting as he is on site there and looking at documents that might well interest me since there was a marriage between a Blake female and a male Hinxman way back in 1610 at Andover.  Elenor Blake (daughter of Richard Blake and Jone (Blake) Blake) married Joseph Hinxman 10 Dec 1610 at St Mary Andover. A very distant relationship (I estimate that Eleanor is my 9th great grandaunt). So yes I will be looking keenly at anything he does send me as this is a difficult time in the records coming into the 1630s/1640s/1650s as Cromwell had taken over the government of England and suspended the Parish Registers. However, some brave souls recorded them anyway and that included William Blake of Andover (and Foxcott) who married Ann Hellier 5 Sep 1644 at St Mary Andover and recorded the baptisms of three children at Penton Mewsey near Andover and at St Mary Andover itself. It is the linchpin in my thoughts with regard to the descent of my Blake line that eventually moved from Andover to Upper Clatford with the marriage of Joseph Blake to Joanna King 8 Jun 1757 at Upper Clatford All Saints. 

Tea all drank and now the solitaire puzzles to do. It is a good way to really jumpstart my brain in the morning. Another working day ahead of me; cleaning all done for this week.  

Prayers continuing for our beautiful world. Special prayers for the souls of the two pilots who died in the accident at LaGuardia Airport. Continuing prayers for those in hospital recovering from the same accident.  

And Monday begins with no cleaning

 Interesting to have the cleaning accomplished on Monday with the basement finished up yesterday afternoon (an hour by the robot and then an hour by me and all was done). I still got to go to Church and an interesting sermon on Lazarus. I found Lazarus intriguing as a child and wondered about him. Loved by his two sisters Mary and Martha (I discovered that I am a Martha in some ways as the work that needs to be done I do first generally). Is it a good thing or a bad thing to put the work first? Not sure really but I have always been firmly convinced that God expects us to adore Him always but do the work that needs to be done. I think I could always still listen to what Jesus was saying but keep working to get it done. But I also see the goodness of Mary like Mother Teresa always obedient and listening to our Lord. And yet I am a listener primarily not a talker. The sermon gave me a lot to think about in that regard actually. Do I do enough in my tiny orbit and I think the answer remains I am 80 and should concentrate on what needs to be done in the time that remains to me. 

Prayers for the souls of the two pilots killed in the accident at La Guardia Airport. How sad for everyone and also prayers for the two crew members and the 72 passengers with nine still in hospital. 

A beautiful day today with the sun shining like a golden orb in the sky. The wind is quiet and the temperature minus 2 degrees celsius. The heavy snow did not come and gradually our snow is melting. A slow melt is so good because the earth needs the richness of all that water after the drought of last summer. It will be muddy out there soon and we will be in to Mud Season for a bit whilst it dries up. I think I will get the company that clears my laneway to cut my lawns this year. That way I can concentrate on the flower borders and perhaps grass in some of that old garden area. The land is becoming more fruitful once again letting us just grow whatever but sticking to flowers for a bit will help to enrich the earth even more. I would love to move though but the practicality of two moves is overwhelming and probably I will not move right away. The desire though is very much there to move and be closer to family. 

Perhaps today I will finish the first sibling's Gedmatch and move to the second. We will see how the day goes. Prayers for my eldest sister continuing. 

Prayers for the world and a better life for all of her people.  

Cleaning day two accomplished

 Just the basement left to do and the Robot is doing its chore very well as usual. Then I apply handwork by washing the basement floor and dusting everything that is down there. It is decreasing slowly but surely. It is also Sunday and I want to go to Church so that will come first. Church on YouTube has been the gift of COVID and I continue to enjoy it. There are services all over the world but I do continue mainly with the Church Congregation which I support by tithe. Some day I would like to go back to Church once again but it does need to be something I can do readily without impacting anyone else. 

No work yet but that is coming. I tried to book my appointment for my part in the provincial study (blood tests) but discovered they appear to be closed for March Break so had to look at the last week in March to do that. Will get that setup today though so that it is done. I have been in the Study for quite a while now and I think it is such a good idea to have these large studies particularly as a look-back when the next generations age into the future. Those of us over 70 years of age grew up in a different world in many ways. A world recovering from the Second World War and the Korean War. A world that did not have computers in everyone's hands. A world that had not contaminated the seas and oceans and the land with plastics. We provide an interesting collection of data for the future for sure. 

Prayers as always for a world in conflict. I wonder what God is thinking as I do believe that we have come right up to Armageddon with the Second World War and managed by human ingenuity and effort (and I will credit the United States with a great deal of that ability) to pass that point of no return and rebuild a good life for the people of the world.  The world rebuilt and we (my husband and I) traveled in Europe (myself eight times and Edward seven times). One would have difficulty seeing the devastation that I viewed on the News Reels as a child at the shows which I went to many many Saturdays for years and years. Europe was beautiful and rebuilt (including the British Isles). But it was perhaps the shrapnel damage on the memorial to Wolfe at Greenwich that did bring it home to me that it all really happened and the world stood still for a while as it managed to reclaim normalcy finally in 1945. 

Time to check on the Robot as it has been running its normal hour. Tea all drank and Solitaire Puzzles to do. I do read all the news but I am no longer a thinker in that regard; I simply observe. 

Being sort of off the grid

 I did spend the last 2.5 weeks more or less off the grid so to speak. I spoke to animals and fish locally only. I did speak to my daughters on the internet or phone every day pretty much. But it was freeing one might say. I have become too much involved in the world around me for an 80 year old. It is time to contemplate the next chapter of my books and then the next chapter and just let the brain soak in all that information and then put it down on paper for anyone who wants to read it. I am glad that I have reached that stage of thought. I am still part of the world but at 80 one should concentrate on the little things and that is what I will do from now on. 

I watched the news finally and as always asking God for prayers for the world. God was very much in my mind through all those days. I was surrounded by God's goodness - the fresh earth, the snow, the forests and it was just lovely. I could feel the love of God all around me; the dogs were constantly at my side wanting my attention at all times. We all slept in the same room together and everyone was at peace and relaxed. A beautiful retreat and I enjoyed it. It reminded me of retreating to the attic as a child where it was just me and my books and my writing. I did write as a child but none of it exists as I destroyed all of it before I married. I came with wedding presents as it turned out along with my clothing as I had never lived away from home before and that was nearly sixty years ago now. Hard to believe how my life has passed these sixty years (I was twenty when we married). 

Yesterday I cleaned the top floor and today it is the main floor and that will be soon enough. Already I have done one load of washing and there are perhaps another couple to go this afternoon. I will clean in the morning. I received two pieces of mail (both of them could have been virtual easily). The rest was flyers and they could all be virtual. I dream of a virtual mailbox for sure. What a wonderful way it would be to receive your mail. You could still buy original paper copies and that is a money maker for the Post Office as they will be hand delivered so to speak and the cost is borne by those who need a paper copy. 

No work done but I am thinking about it and eager to get back to it. The dogs occupied my time enormously; cats are very self sufficient but I can remember that from childhood and also the relentless hunger that dogs have to be with their people. Even the cats slept in the room with me when they were not prowling about the house (the door was open for them or the dogs but the dogs did not leave me). Only the fish were excluded because of their watery environment and they were in another room.

God's peace to all and may the blessings of God fall down upon His people in this fragile time of our world. We have been fragile for a while really since the beginning of COVID. But new strength is coming out of this fragility slowly but surely as we look at a world much injured by our occupation and here and there are bright spots where we have healed the earth. The healing of the earth will be the great news of the 2020s and 2030s I think. It is a slow process but the result wonderful for the children of today so that they too can enjoy this beautiful world as we did as children.  

Very happy pets and home again

 Pets certainly alter your life and I have enjoyed the last 2.5 weeks spent with two dogs, two cats and a tank full of fish. The time flew by and now I am home again and getting caught up on my cleaning. It will be late or early depending on how you look at the week. I will be finished on Sunday having left that day to the basement which is just a couple of hours probably in the early afternoon after Church. 

Little accomplishment on my books but I did spend more time than usual looking at GedMatch and contemplating why I did or did not choose to record some of the matches that I did. First sibling almost completed and this week coming I shall be back on schedule.

 My sudden decision to quit blogging was perhaps premature as I do enjoy the ease of using blogger instead of strictly a word document that I then have to produce a systematic system for storing. Blogger offers all of that and so I think I have returned but my aspect is a little different. 

I have not watched any TV for 2.5 weeks not even for the weather. I have read the occasional news item and I can sense Canada starting to take its place once again in the world as an effective speaker on her own feet. Thank you to Prime Minister Carney and his very capable team but also I note that the Leader of the Opposition Pierre Poilievre has found his world voice and no more whining on a provincial level from him.  This remake of Canada will take all hands on deck. For the Provincial Premiers you are Premiers of the entire province not just the big city that provides you with so many needs that they are going to have to pay more taxes to have instead of draining the provincial funds to keep the people who are in your face all the time complaining quiet. We have a lot of growing to do in Canada. 

Exercises all done, breakfast done and time to start cleaning very shortly. My hatred for daylight savings conversion continues apace as I would like to stay on Standard Time so that it isn't black first thing in the morning. I love the early mornings with the bright sun. 

Must make some tea and soon time to clean; solitaire puzzles are next. And I did renew my Microsoft Solitaire Collection (they are smart to bill you in Canadian dollars and they willingly collect the GST for that to submit to the Government of Canada). If you are going to sell something in Canada then there are taxes to pay. After all we did the right thing when we bought land that extended down into the agreed upon border between the United States and Canada and gave you that land freely. What is spent in Canada gets taxed in Canada but we have no claim on lands that we paid for but gave to a foreign government since it lay in their jurisdiction already agreed upon by land treaties (namely the purchase of Rupert's Land).  

Tuesday already

 The last two weeks have flown by and the dogs and cats have been lovely. Nothing like time spent with animals; very rewarding. 

Nothing done actually but perhaps today might see me nip into Gedmatch and work on the 1st sibling; I am almost finished. 

17 March 2026

1.  Gedmatch and working on the 1st sibling

If I get to that it will be because the dogs have gone to sleep for a rest.  

Sunday in God's World

 Beautiful day outside although minus 7 degrees. Thank you God for this beautiful world that we all live in. This is Sunday and the fourth Sunday in Lent. Prayers for the world; they are needed. 

Still not accomplishing very much but will plan for the following for the day at some point:

 15th March 2026

1. Autosomal DNA chapter for Pencombe

2. Extracting 1st sibling from new matches on Gedmatch 

 

No accomplishment yesterday, today plans for that

 Schedule for Friday, 13 March 2026

1. Continuing Chapter on atDNA for the Pencombe book

2. Extracting new matches from Gedmatch, 1st sibling almost completed

3. Extracting new matches from FT DNA 

Work 11th March 2026

 1. Writing the autosomal Chapter for the Pencombe/Pincombe book

2. Extracting matches from Gedmatch

3. Extracting matches from FT DNA 

Schedule list and perhaps this will do the task that I need done at the moment

1. Autosomal Chapter for Pencombe book

2. Check Gedmatch for new matches

3. Check FT DNA for new matches 

Well the answer presented itself

I still need to mention that my three Newsletters are published every month with each issue being published four times a year and available on FT DNA in their appropriate groups namely - Pincombe/Pinkham, Blake and H11. This does on occasion generate new additions to the studies which is helpful. 

The occasional Kipp Newsletter may happen but really I can not think of one thing to write actually. Five years after the loss of my husband my memory of items is very weak for Kipp since I was looking items up when I was least interested in genealogy and when I came to genealogy in 2003 I did work primarily on my own family although still helped Edward when we went to repositories in the United States in particular. 

However, I have decided to go offline with my diary and thoughts of life around me and memories of the past that have little or no value in the present. 

So I will continue with the blog although perhaps not a daily thing possibly more weekly but time will tell. I will also mention when I publish the Blake and Pencombe/Pincombe books as they will be available in a similar fashion to the Siderfin books (Creative Commons License) online on my website.  I do have thoughts on beyond the two books but they would not be associated with my studies at the Guild of one name Studies unless I decide to register them. 

The question is do I go offline with my blog

 I know some people like my blog on the various families but I am concentrating on just two at a time these days so less interesting. It really was set up to be my diary but seems to have been interesting but I am considering going offline with it. It seems like a logical thing to do as all my time now is devoted to writing these books. 

I started the blog in 2008 after we came home from our week at the Family History Society Library in Utah. A marvelous visit and I learned a great deal there and highly recommend it. I felt it was a way to store all my thoughts from the week and how I organized and utilized all that material in case I ever wondered about it in the future. This is the future and I have a copy of it and I am feeling that it is time at 80 to circle the wagons so to speak. 

Enjoy your genealogies and all the best.  

Sunday once again and watching for the deer

I think the deer could see me in the window and he didn't know me and probably has taken a slightly different path for the  moment. We will see if he returns. It took him a long time looking at the window before he called the female to join him on their trek but they did not go their usual way up around the house choosing to slip through the woods another way. He did stand there and look for a very very long time actually. The one dog and I watched him but I had to put the younger dog into the  mud room as she was barking. 

The Bible Reading for today talked about the battles with the Amalekites thought to be descendants of Esau and had a habit of attacking anyone from behind selecting the weakest. One wonders who the descendants of the Amalekites are today. God said to destroy them entirely but He also said if there are people who love God and obey God in a country then that country should survive. Interesting to contemplate in our present situation where you have a country that attacks other countries in devious ways namely Iran and its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. The use of armed terrorist militias by Iran  though is reminiscent of the Amalekites as they attacked the weak like the attack  on the 7 Oct 2023 against the Musical Concert and the Kibbutzims.  

Slow going writing the new chapter on autosomal DNA and the Pencombe family but that is alright I need to feel my way back into my writing as it is a while since I have written in the books for Pencombe and Blake. There is lots to occupy my attention around me but it is clearing my mind for writing once again. Still a lot to do for preparation of the writing to come over the next few months as I have not yet completed my survey of new matches and entering them into my table. 

Dogs looking for a pat and must refill the water dish. The days pass quickly. Off to Church in a couple of hours online as always.  Tea to make and solitaire puzzles to play. 

Rainy Saturday

 The dogs manage a rainy saturday very well; rain or shine they are out and about. They like the rubdown when they come in as well. Still missing their family but coping. Each dog has its own coping strategy. 

Yesterday I started my new chapter for the Pincombe/Pencombe book - the autosomal DNA and its impact on the study. Initially when I tested at Ancestry I matched one of my 4th cousins in the Pincombe family and we chatted back and forth and she offered to test her Dad's y-DNA at FT DNA to kick start a Pincombe yDNA study. What did I anticipate all those years ago now? I had tested my brothers and knew that our yDNA line was ancient to the British Isles - Deer Hunters they were dubbed by Ethnoancestry. I also did Chromo2 and there were fourteen who basically matched this ancient line in the British Isles. An expensive test so not a lot of testers at that time. What does it mean to be ancient to the British Isles? Basically these Western Hunter Gatherers were thought to have arrived via Doggersland perhaps as much as 8,000 to 12,000 years ago. If one looks at the yDNA study for the British Isles on FT DNA than one can see these ancient family lines scattered across southern England but all over in different areas of the British Isles.  The families in the north Hampshire area all date back in the Parish Registers and for Blake they are found in the land records prior to 1538 when the Parish Registers do begin for a number of the parishes and soon after for most of the others in these areas where the yDNA for ancient British Islanders exists. Amazing to see so many still in particular areas. But I did not assume anything whilst waiting for these results and they are Continental and the earliest Pencombe families found by me were in Herefordshire at least back into the early 1300s but I do not find this surname in the England's Immigrants 1330-1550 Database at the National Archives. No details on why not but suffice it to say a known individual from the Low Countries to the east of France and south of the Netherlands did arrive at this time or earlier and take up the surname Pencombe possibly from the Parish of that name. What we do know is that a John Pencombe arrived in North Molton in 1486 with John Lord Zouch. What I do not know is the capacity in which they arrived together. Since John Lord Zouch was attainted by King Henry VII for assisting Richard III one is left to assume unless the records show more that he was either an attendant or a jailer ensuring that John Lord Zouch remained at North Molton until the King gave him permission to leave. So that was fascinating learning so much about the Pincombe yDNA line and we share Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth (Rowcliffe) Pincombe as our mutual 3x great grandparents (the daughter of the tester) and of course he is my 3rd cousin once removed since they are his 2x great grandparents. Since then many other known Pincombe cousins from my line John Pincombe (son of Robert and Elizabeth (Rowcliffe) Pincombe and Elizabeth (Rew) Pincombe tests verify this line. This was a huge family in Middlesex County, Ontario. 

 Interestingly, over time, the Pencombe line did move to the Pincombe spelling but also Pinkham resulting in a rather interesting conundrum with the American Pinkham family (for the most part this family is descendant of the Pinkham family of Old Dover, New Hampshire) but some American cousins use the Pinkham spelling as there were a few lines coming out of North Molton that are American but still proving how they descend back to North Molton. The Pinkham family though in general in the United States settled in the 1600s around Old Dover, New Hampshire and do not carry the same yDNA signature. However, once again their signature shows ancestry back to the Western Hunter Gatherer and it is well known that England did not use surnames prior to the coming of the Normans in 1066. The uptake of surnames happened at various paces in the different areas. The Pinkham surname first appeared earlier than 1486 in Devon and I need to relocate that reference. I wrote it up in the Newsletter I believe so will have a glance at that. 

So the time with the dogs moving along and we are at day 13 and counting down. The older one still is looking for them and waiting for them to come in the usual door. The young one tends to transfer to me when she stays with me and is just plain happy having a rest for the moment after a busy run around. The cats very happy and the fish are fish. 

More work to do and brewing tea so will do my solitaire puzzles next.  

We are at day 14 and counting down

Dogs still really pleased to be with me but do miss their family very much but it passes quickly. They are busy all day long and still have stamina to run about in the night. Amazing really. 

Yesterday did I accomplish anything? Not really. I discovered that the chromosome browser is back at 23 and me which is handy for the work I am doing. I do like the way they record the matches between siblings with half and full match. I shall make a comparison but I am assuming they did not rework this so still the same as when it was done years ago. I have a few new matches at 23 and Me that are substantial and would be interesting to see although I more or less know how they will be matching me by the matches we share. I did send an invitation to one person who really interests me because he is that area where I have endogamy plus an extra match with another line as he matches a cousin that is Buller. We will see how that goes. 

The dogs, the cats and the fish are all busy little critters needing my attention and I get distracted by them so do not actually think I will do a great deal of work whilst they are with me.  We will have fun and even the news slips away from  me although I note that the  news is saying that the Russians are helping the Iranian to target American ships. Really this Axis of Evil needs to be gone from our world and yet there are millions of people who do not agree with them inside their own countries and God did say that if there are supporters of God within a country then the country should live on but how to handle the satanists really that is the question. Jesus told them to go away as they were evil and He was and is pure goodness. He transcends time and place forever in our lives. 

Work to do and I must  make my tea and do my solitaire puzzles first.  

Day 15 counting down to zero for the dogs

 That is how I explain to them each morning when they wake up and it is me they are looking at and not their usual family; Day 15 and counting down to Day 0  for them. They seem to understand as we have done this a lot of times now and dogs can be quite clever. 

The dogs, cats and I all slept fairly soundly all night and we were all within 20 or 30 feet or 6 to 10 km of each other in case we wondered where each other was. Fascinating really spending time with animals. Then this morning we saw deer which is always an awesome experience. 

Not much done yesterday it was just a busy day overall.  A couple of new interesting emails one from the Hinxman family (The Blake family at Andover and the Hinxman family at Andover (I think) married in 1610 at Andover - Joseph Hinxman married Elenor Blake daughter of Richard Blake and Jone (Blake) Blake (this was a likely 2nd cousin marriage with a grandaughter of Robert Blake (brother of Nicholas)). The Hinxman family I did not find before the 1550s but do have a William Hinxman married to Margery (unknown) and they had eight children one of which was Joseph who married unknown and his son Joseph married Elenor Blake. They had seven children and Joseph Hinxman is the best known to me. He also named his eldest son Joseph and was married to Martha Samborin 23 Aug 1675 at Andover St Mary. They had four children including a Joseph Hinxman baptized 16 Oct 1677 at Andover. The question in my mind was my 4x great grandfather Joseph Blake son of Thomas Blake and Ann Carter married 8 Dec 1728 at Penton Mewsey with Joseph  baptized 21 Oct 1730 at St Mary Andover named after this well known individual and third cousin twice removed. Since this was an Anglican family the tendency to name sons Joseph wasn't as strong by this time as is more commonly found in Roman Catholic families still at this time.  Must write back and will contemplate that over the next couple of days. I have not done much work on the Hinxman family other than looking at Elenor (Blake) Hinxman's children/grandchildren etc. 

Fish all fed, dogs fed, cats fed and I am fed so the day begins and my tinnitus seems somewhat lessened surprisingly.  I have had tinnitus since my high school days when coping with teachers appeared to be my biggest problem. I think teachers assist students a lot but they should really wait for a student to ask for assistance. Myself I had a direction and really did not want anyone confusing that direction. Comments like you really shouldn't do the Business course because you are university material. But I had a reason for doing that and the jobs that I got in  my summers once I was old enough to work at 16 I wanted that type of background and experience and one can see that now typing and bookkeeping are extremely important in one's life. Teachers should stick to their subject matter and do a perfect job of passing that on to their students. Not interfere in a pattern already established by a student; if they do not have one then by all means if they ask help them but do not make haphazard comments that in the long run would not have been beneficial - one cannot know the future. 

Of course school and I were never good friends; I love to learn and for the most part I hated the way we were taught but could I come up with a better system for a class room of 30 to 45 students? I was probably a singleton learner who preferred not to have to work with other students unless they were like me, extremely interested and keen in the subject matter. Other than that I have no idea on the best system but I suspect COVID pointed the way as students who were singleton learners were not as affected by home study; I myself have never had any desire to teach. When I did do substitute teaching on the Bruce Peninsula when my husband taught there for a short period of time; I ran my classes like a sargeant major and they learned what they were supposed to learn that day but any attempts to convince me to actually teach were rebuffed. I was not interested in that sort of work; if you are then do the best you can because the children deserve that. The sargeant major attitude was simply to keep control of the class at all times without any fooling around which one must do if one is a substitute. You are there for a moment in time and must just accomplish what has been assigned for that day or two days or occasionally more; these children do not need a babysitter - they need to learn and quickly; the world is changing rapidly. The Provincial Curriculum is well set up for such needs but could use tweaking where AI is concerned. But the students themselves may provide that fodder of change just from usage.

Must make my tea. Solitaire puzzles to do and on with the day. The dogs and cats are contemplating how long fifteen days is I am sure.  I am probably stricter than their family. 

 

Spending some down time with the dogs

Not out in the yard a lot but quiet time with the dogs is always an enjoyable time for me. Their family enjoys a rest without them and I enjoy some good time with them. Good pets to share just a little dogs. These are very large dogs but very friendly to me. I do enjoy their company. 

Life has been hectic for a bit but slowly calming down. I want to get on with my projects once I have been through all the databases and the next item to do is to write my autosomal DNA chapter for the Pincombe family of North Molton book. I wondered if I might get some stray Pincombe results with the Living DNA Results but not particularly. The Pencombe family in Herefordshire seems to have disappeared when one checks out Free BMD. All the records on Free BMD are from Devon and perhaps just a misread by the transcription. Two are from St Thomas, one from Torrington,one from Devon Central and one from Barnstaple. Interesting that four of the six are from the areas where the Pincombe family of North Molton is known to have lived. On Find My Past there is a record for a Mrs Pencombe 1910-19 in the Herefordshire, Kelly's Directory published in 1913. There is a Baptism record at Wacton, Herefordshire in 1811 for Maria Pencombe daughter of Arthur Pencombe and Ann Kinsey. There are 873 results in total on Find My Past.  I will go through those records over time just to have a look at what has been collected. The information I have on the Pencombe family of Herefordshire is primarily from the 1300s and 1400s. 

I have to admit when a country goes out of its way to support and arm terrorist militias whose sole aim is to destroy another country (in this case Israel and all the countries of the Middle East apparently as they continue bombing them) how does one really regard such a country. The oil that is in Iran belongs to the people of Iran not solely to the leaders but it definitely doesn't come off that way to the rest of the world as the money that is earned from this very wealthy country appears to go towards supporting terrorism and not just around Israel. The world suffers from Iran's terror exports. When the Prime Minister was questioned on the issue of the war in the Middle East I felt all of the questions were totally inappropriate. He stated his case succinctly when first asked - Iran can not have nuclear weapons; they are a terrorist country and they export vast amounts of terrorism. What they should have been asking was how did the pursuit of trade go because that is the primary interest of our Prime Minister and what we want to hear from these far flung press conferences (so long as I am paying for the CBC I want to get the messages that are important to us as Canadians not a lot of valueless gibberish). I am disliking the questions by reporters more and more as they are just obvious seekers of glory if they get an answer that goes viral. They do not care and they should as they are in as much danger of the terror that Iran exports as anyone else and more so likely as they are closer to the line of fire with their faces plastered all over the networks. So more respect for our Prime Minister and let him do the job we elected him to do. 

Sad once again to see children die as they are the victims in all of this around the world where satanistic peoples dangle threats of nuclear bombs at the rest of the world that just wants to get along; raise their families and do their jobs. The ignorance of the Axis of Evil - Russia, Iran and North Korea continues to be so very obvious. Iran and the other two are satanic but at the moment they try to pretend that they are good citizens of the world. God will handle it all at His own pace and time.  We just have to keep on managing the side effects. 

On to the day; I am late today but good time with the dogs did come first. 

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.