Research continued

 I did complete Chromosome 6 and moved on to Chromosome 5. It is slow plodding as there are a set of matches that could be Blake or Buller and I never really looked at them carefully before as they didn't assist me in phasing my grandparents but I retained the matches. Some of them are on Ancestry so did try to find the tester's results there but did not so moved on to the next one. Usually there is more than one though and will continue working on the matches today as this is yet another research day. Last week was very busy so decided to pass on the cleaning this week and just relax and work away at whatever I wanted. 

I had a lovely piece of salmon last night, three small boiled potatoes and peas. It made a delicious dinner and there was enough salmon for two more nights. I am definitely not a big eater. Today I may do it with brown rice and peas. That will be hot and the salmon cold slices. I will also enjoy that. Then tomorrow perhaps a salmon salad sandwich with pickle. 

We had thick snow for a bit yesterday with accumulation. The city cut away the huge snow hills along the side of the road so that makes it a little easier getting about. I had a lovely walk out side yesterday as I had something to do and decided to walk. It was lovely at the time although thick snow later in the afternoon. 

We continue working at becoming Tariff Proof and our Prime Minister has traveled around the world working on this very item. I for one am pleased that we are no longer in discord with China. They are the second largest economy in the world and for our farmers in the west the Tariff imposed by China was very hard on them (it was a response to our 100% tariff on Chinese EVs). As the American car makers rework their businesses on this side of the border primarily in Ontario increasing business interests in auto by other countries is also a good plan and a tester of 49,000 EVs is an interesting method to start that and the Chinese companies are investigating (according to the news feed) setting up auto plants in Canada and one would assume that they would be in BC as that is the closest point to China. Ontario needs to stop clinging to the past. For sixty years the decision was made to have an Auto Pact which morphed into Free Trade that suited the car manufacturers. Since the present setup by the auto industries no longer suits the government in the United States a change has occurred which has resulted in unemployment in that industry in Ontario as jobs are withdrawn from Ontario back to the United States (it is unlikely that the car makers will risk trying to ship cars made in Canada  into the United States so those days of high employment in that industry are likely gone). New industry in small motors could help as the training is not that dissimilar and less expensive to setup. One is always retraining or should be and this is no different but someone does need to pick up the initiative and recreate the industries lost here in Ontario by Free Trade in order to offset that loss of employment (at the moment these items come into Canada from the United States under CUSMA). One generally sees that type of activity as a responsibility of the province and in this case the Conservative government in power. Less talk and more action would appear to be needed in this case. I have seen a lot of waste of money this past year but no new companies have been created in Ontario (certainly the Ring of Fire would be in production if productive support and assistance had been given by the government in Toronto to this area in these past twenty years but I will also place some of the blame on the Harper Government as they labelled themselves) as far as I can tell to offset this loss of industry. I do need a new vacuum cleaner and I want it to be made here in Canada. I wonder if that will happen? It is good work and actually easier than building cars and less expensive individually. There are lots of such items that we can go back to producing here instead of importing them and that will employ people. We are the heaviest importers of food and goods in the world I suspect percentage wise - our long cold winters are part of that but the tendency to move away from manufacturing items here the last sixty years has been a huge mistake. 

I found the Prime Minister's critical analysis of the world situation to be most fascinating at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He is a very in depth scholar and it truly showed in this dissertation. Not really any mention of names of individuals or countries but rather a discussion that critically analyzed our position in the world as a middle weight power but not really naming us in particular or any other nation as to their location on this graph of power. It reminded me of my lectures in Economics 20 and how they could have been so much more useful and powerful than having a graduate student scared of teaching a room full of chemistry, physics, and engineering students. Truly it was somewhat of a waste of time although some of the principles of economics did come across in his lectures which I have retained to a certain extent through the years. The choices were rather limited for this compulsory "non science" course. But in reality economics is a social science but it has developed through the years since the mid 1960s for sure as I sat and listened to this excellent lecture on the power of the middle ground and how it can be utilized in a world where there are powerful nations and very weak nations.  I suspect that our Prime Minister taking on the task of being Prime Minister when the former individual was basically turfed out had no idea that he would find himself teaching the world the basics of economics at Davos but he did it very well. 

So today continue with Chromosome 5 and  still 89 matches to do there. 

 

As I have been saying

Canada, in order to fulfill the dreams and aspirations of the Fathers of Confederation, must diversify its trade and make Canada economically sound on its own. That is what I have been saying for a while now quietly to myself on my blog and they said it loudly back in the 1800s. It was good to hear the Prime Minister say the same; we need it and we can have it but it will be hard work. The same hard work that put a railroad across a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans,  5,500 plus kilometres from Cape Spear, Newfoundland to the Pacific in British Columbia. The Trans Canada Highway 7,800 kilometres winds across Canada; we need a four lane highway across the north in the province of Ontario which must get done and sooner rather than later as much of it is only two lines plus a passing lane. This road is twice as busy this past year and the widening is needed and I hope to see shovels in the ground in the spring all across the province. Surely we can accomplish quickly, in Ontario, this tiny bit of road when one compares what our ancestors did over a hundred years ago building a railway from ocean to ocean. 

The auto-workers could become road builders for a time until we have that road done but retraining is more important for sure (we can not live in the past; the future is there for us to grab hold of and run with it). I can think of lots of additions to small engine items with AI coming in and in our present Buy Canadian we would pick them up very quickly. Re-training is what has to happen though; industries come and go and we have to move with the times.  My husband trained for eight years (undergraduate, postgraduate to his PhD) to be a scientist but after a two year stint as a Post doc he went back and did a library degree and got a job. Sometimes one just has to retrain and off you go into a new job. On the other hand we need to bring back the production of washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, stoves, vacuum cleaners and dish washers from the United States - our industries were out competed and closed during free trade and now CUSMA brings these items to us across the border. We could build our own (needed just as much as cars and the same type of  work just smaller) as we did before Free Trade (another good industry (small engine) to create as everyone buys them and the opportunity to improve what we are buying now is huge thus making it interesting).  I am wondering if this Chinese EV catches on if the auto industry building Chinese EVs for Canadians will end up in British Columbia since that is much closer to China. 49,000 cars is really just a drop in the bucket. A small city of 70,000 buying one or two per household (or more) would swallow up all those cars in just one buying spree. I think it is exciting to have this opportunity especially for our youth to have a less expensive car that is also electric (there will still be room for Stellantis to do so as they mentioned they still plan to do EVs here). Plus the tariff easement on canola and other items is great that was gained. Being Tariff proof is very important. Then again a home grown auto industry can also be there; just takes money. 

We share a huge border with our friend and neighbour the United States and will always be friends but we need to be Tariff Proof and that forces us to concentrate on growing Canadian industry by increasing our home production back to the sort of levels and types before Free Trade - our youth needs jobs. 

Writing back and forth with my many cousins these days in the United States looking at our mutual matches. Worked away at the matches and just three left to do. They went very smoothly into the great grandparents lines for the most part. Chromosome 6 was a gem for sure. 

I will start Chromosome 5 today and there are 94 matches with nine known cousins covering three of the grandparent lines. Pincombe is particularly well covered for this chromosome and all are descendant of the Pincombe line none are descendant of the Gray line. The known Blake are all from the Knight line. The known Buller are all from the Buller line. This chromosome could be a challenge as it does not have any known from five of the eight great grandparents (Blake, Rawlings, Cotterill, Gray, Taylor). A quick glance though does tell me I may have been a bit remiss in collecting up the Known so will perhaps have a look at that before I begin. 

Tea drank and must do my solitaire puzzles and then begin on my research.  

Research Day

 It was interesting having a research day on Monday and I have managed to get through all but 41 of the matches and perhaps today I will complete those matches. I had to give up when the lens fell out of my reading glasses and apparently I had lost the tiny screw that was holding that section together. Fixed quickly at the store where I bought them and all fine. Probably good actually as I tend to work for too long sometimes. The  matches continue to be complimented by the large number of cousins making the split back to great grandparents for phasing much easier. Chromosome 6 is a winner for that for sure. 

I went out and shoveled the snow on the porch, the patio and the laneway as it wasn't very much and the exercise and fresh air is definitely good for me. I do not take a sufficient number of rest periods from working on the computer but getting back to that as I was well organized before the flu struck. One has to really work at this type of thing I think when one is older as there is a tendency to rest too much and not keep up the good exercises I suspect. Plus I did overdo it with the skiing but all rested up now pretty much. Perhaps I will do a little skiing in the backyard through the winter since the snow is so lovely and not all iced up as it was last year. 

I did do a bit of intensive study on some of the matches and found a couple more known cousins which is always handy. The one large Blake/Farmer/Knight match that I have with a New Zealander is finally coming clearer. I rather think I am related primarily on his father's side but I also have a match in the Buller line on his mother's side. So a bit complicated that match because of endogamy primarily but perhaps also because they all lived in the same area (his ancestors and mine) with the introduction of a Buller line a couple of generations back. He looks like a strong second cousin but actually is a third and fourth cousin all around with descent from Ellis and Eleanor (Knight) Knight (my 3x great grandparents) and also from John and Ann (Farmer) Blake (my 2x great grandparents)  thus giving him that 3rd cousin and 4th cousin match. The Buller is also likely a 4th cousin. Amazing really what one can solve since DNA arrived on the scene more than two decades ago now although autosomal is much younger in terms of usage; it took a while to establish large enough databases to make it worthwhile. 

Time to do my steps for 9:00 a.m. and breakfast. I am late today for sure. The morning has been spent on some work I needed to do which wasn't oriented towards the books that I am writing on Blake and Pincombe.  

The meeting in Davos will be very interesting I suspect as I have been watching the talks given by the various heads of state. Talking is always good for sure. Some of these friendships go back more than 200 hundred years. A world at peace is a gift that we must grab hold of and nurture remembering God's words to love our neighbour as ourself.  

Interesting sermon at Church

 I found the sermon at Church yesterday to be thought provoking. The service itself was the second Sunday after Epiphany a special time in the Church year as we continue to remember the gifts of the Wisemen to the Baby Jesus but already we are talking about the ministry of Jesus as the entire life of Jesus on earth is remembered in this period from Christmas to Easter. As a child it mystified me but as an adult I find it to be a wondrous time of contemplation when one looks back on more than two thousand years of the Anglican Church which is my heritage. All of my ancestors were members of the Church of England as recorded dutifully in the Parish Registers. Before that date the baptisms, marriages and burials were not always recorded in such a consistent manner so that my Scot ancestry, my possible Irish ancestry does not appear as far as I can tell in any written record but there are still millions of records to examine probably not done in my lifetime! Mind you if my great grandmother Ellen (Taylor) Buller was of Irish descent I have yet to find that conclusive proof of such ancestry. 

Yesterday I did work on Chromosome 6 and I am about half way through the 128 matches and I am on the forename J's. The matches continue to fall into great grandparent lines due to the number of known cousins on this chromosome. There are some that do not but for the most part this chromosome is working very well for me. No surprises and mostly the work I have already done verifies itself and the individual matches continue in the same line as I placed them; some of them years ago now and I have not looked at them beyond a glance because some are small and just were not needed for the phasing of the grandparents. 

I cleared the laneway; I did not purchase the ultra because I need that sort of look out the window and seeing the snow in my laneway and on my porch and patio to get me out the door and do some yardwork. It doesn't take me very long and the fresh air is good for me as I just push it to one side. But I do like to have the end of the laneway cleared after the city plow has been through and dumped a load in my laneway plus the heavy snowfalls is harder work. I did consider asking to have a no parking sign in front of my house actually but then a different neighbour needed that spot and parked there for a time that one would think is fair to all the people around me. Parking in front of one house for day after day, night and day, does seem to be unfair to the other neighbours who do have moments when they need to park out of their laneway. In particular the laneway of this particular neighbour is usually empty so does seem somewhat inappropriate. During the past January thaw following a heavy snowfall, water collected in a huge puddle about 20 to 30 centimetres deep at the end of my neighbour's laneway which the city workers had to wade through to pick up the recycling during this one particular week. After the neighbour moved his vehicle finally after days and days I went out and broke through the stack of snow that was under his truck to the large puddle and it flowed to the drain just past the next door neighbour on the other side. Since the laneway was absolutely empty for days (perhaps they were away no ideas on that) it did seem very inconsiderate. Plus earlier in the week when the city plow came it left this heap half way across the road. I am too old to move all of that snow but did push it out of the way to a certain extent so it didn't impede traffic. Such is life; one must be considerate of one's neighbours for sure. 

So all in all a busy day yesterday and I did Yoga in the evening which was very relaxing. I must get back to doing more Yoga. It took me a couple of weeks to get over the effects of the flu and I am pretty much back to doing all of my exercises again. Definitely the flu shot is worthwhile. I was too slow to get mine this year although I generally do get it early in November so just an early batch of flu that caught me. I will wear a mask in the fall when I am shopping until I get the vaccination from now on. COVID also all up to date; I have not missed even one of those needles as it just seems worthwhile. My daughters are very busy so I must avoid catching such things. 

Today more work on Chromosome 6 and the cleaning does not need to be done this week until Wednesday to Friday so will  have research days today and tomorrow. Tea all drank, solitaire puzzles completed and time for breakfast. I had a snack after my early morning exercises so just really hungry now.  

And yet another research day

Working on Chromosome 6 and with all the known matches this one is moving along very nicely thus far and I am up to the J forenames as I work my way through almost to the half way point. I have been adding Relatives in common to some of the matches especially on 23 and Me where the matches that are listed do share at least one length of DNA with the current tester. Since all grandparents are represented in the known list this chromosome has been a lot easier than some of the others and with 128 matches that is rather handy. Just five left to go and I will have set up the database and can then move back to writing as I have this lovely chart in excel that I can flip about as I wish to review matches against census  in the 1800s and the ability to check on mother's maiden surnames in the databases. 

I also want to start working on Edward's grandparents phasing as I feel that this is a project that is a go  although my close relatives to him is limited to our daughters I have many many first, second and third cousins in his database which is handwritten but none the less extensive enough to help lead the path back to his grandparents. It may help to solve the mystery of his 2x great grandfather Isaac Kipp's parentage. I rather think his father is Henry Kipp who was a Quaker in Northeast Town area but proving that will be a bit difficult and going back from Henry though might be possible with Quaker records. We know that he matches the Kip line of New Amsterdam/New York so the endpoint or beginning depending on how you look at it is known namely Hendrick Hendricksen Kip where Kip is an added surname to distinguish several Hendrick Hendricksen families in New Amsterdam now New York City. We also have his marriage in The Netherlands and the baptisms of the children there. There is family lore and some written history but much of it is not based on fact and so Edward was busy working with a couple of researchers in The Netherlands in 2017-2019 but COVID struck before we made our trip there. Since my knowledge of Kipp is very limited I did not pick up the traces of that but with all the DNA testing being done around the world I may be able to tease out information at least on the American Colonial lines back earlier in time. We will see as I work on phasing the grandparents. 

I feel this might lessen my reluctance to take apart the binders which proved to be a task too far for me at the time and I set it aside. The idea of taking apart someone's lifetime work putting together all these fourty lovely binders of his many activities through the 54.5 years of our marriage became something I just found difficult. But to save the family portion of it I do need to do it and it has to be me for sure.  I did check to see if the Ottawa Branch of Ontario Ancestors (was Ontario Genealogical Society) would like the trips as I could easily put them into some of the surplus binders but they did not at this time however they are also digital so will not be lost if I now shred all of the prints. It is a difficult item really when you are working with prints of many people still living and all pictures have been named. 

So some shoveling to do later  and time for Church in just a few minutes. Another lovely Sunday in God's world and one would wish that all the world was at peace and every neighbour loving their neighbour as God asked. One can only pray for that and thank God for what He has given to us these many centuries of the presence of Homo Sapiens on this planet. We have been a successful people surviving many many catastrophic happenings especially in the last century. 

Time for Church, tea drank and solitaire puzzles completed. Thank you God for all that You do in the world that You have given to us.  

Continuing with research

 Although I have not made any conclusions the review of the Rawlings/Cotterill matches on Chromosome 7 were certainly very interesting and that one section of my 7th chromosome is Rawlings is quite indisputable and the other section simply needs more research but does appear to be Cotterill. Since I do not inherit any Cotterill because my lines do not directly intersect with the cousins that I do match and we share 5x great grandparents in William Rawlins and Mary Ford, it would appear that I have acquired Cotterill in that particular chromosome but more work is needed on the trees of the matches that are within that grouping. Chromosome 7 is now complete and I am working on Chromosome 6 where there are 128 matches so a longer research period to complete that chromosome. However, I do have fourteen cousins to assist me in that task and at least one from every grandparent line. On this chromosome all five siblings are quite different from each other which perhaps lends to the large number of matches available (I do not collect all matches although did tend to collect anything over 19 cM in the past. Mostly now I only collect 25 cM or greater (single length). 

I think given a population of 40 million, 49,000 EVs coming into the country is a fairly small number It is a less expensive car meaning our young people can afford to purchase it and they will be a much more mobile part of our population over the next few years as they work on improving their skill sets and finding jobs that help them along that path. Each family could afford two of them to make life easier and more flexible especially if they have children. Times will be somewhat more difficult as we move forward in diversifying our trade base. Plus we have all sorts of new industrial aims to follow through on and complete over the next twenty years. It will be exciting I think for Canada and for our young people.  I would say to Premier Ford that he has not done anything to improve our situation in the last year and wasting money on frivolous unnecessary items like removing the webcams which were capturing speeders particularly in school zones was a mistake and a waste of money. We need the Trans Canada Highway across Northern Ontario widened to four lanes and as soon as possible - the traffic on that road is too heavy; Toronto doesn't need an underpass - the north needs that road. Clinging to the past does not work; we must forge ahead into this future that the Prime Minister has painted. One recalls I did not vote Liberal being Conservative in most of my voting years but I do tire of waste of money very quickly and there has been too much of it in Ontario lately. 

Another heavy snowfall cleared away and we have a good base now for skiing. I am taking a rest for the moment but hopefully still snow here in March when I will take up skiing once again. It is pretty cold out there for this old person! I can enjoy the snow from the inside of the house. Trees all coated with white and looking quite ethereal. God is in the Heavens watching and waiting for us to do the right thing. Love they neighbour as thyself and we will be following God's law and much better for it. Cloudy out there and some snow is promised. January can sometimes be so cold with a bright sun and blue sky but today it is cold and cloudy. 

Drinking tea and solitaire puzzles to work on before I start into the matches for Chromosome 6. The first two done yesterday were interesting.  The first one is Blake with our 2x great grandparents John Blake and Ann (Farmer) Blake in common. The second the same so a good beginning with two matches already separated into great grandparents. 

 

A good research day

 Chromosome 7 has good long lengths of Rawlings/Cotterill and quite a few matches over the entire length of Rawlings/Cotterill in total putting them all together. What does it all mean? Since I do not descend from the marriage of Mary Rawlins to Stephen Cotterell 28 Jan 1764 at Enford, Wiltshire nor do I descend from the marriage of Mary Cottrell (grand daughter of Mary and Stephen) to William Rawlins. Mary Rawlins is my 4th great grandaunt and her grand daughter Mary Cottrell is my 2nd cousin 4x removed. We all share my 5x great grandparents William Rawlins and Mary Ford who married 30 Sep 1741 at Wylye, Wiltshire. I do have Cotterill and Cotterill descendants who match me so one is left to assume the match that I share with them is Rawlings but there are lengths that do not have Rawlings matches as far as I can tell. But this length of chromosome that I have on Chromosome 7 which extends almost the entire length of the chromosome (just 3 cM at the end is Blake/Knight) has proven to be most interesting. It just happens that this particular chromosome is very heavy on the Rawlings grandparent side for me and overall I inherited more than the 25% Rawlings when one looks at inheriting from grandparents with 50% coming from each parent so 25% possibly from each grandparent but my Rawlings is more than 32%. 

Looking at Chromosome 7 with just ten matches left to do all of the total length of the chromosome I inherited is covered by matches with the exception of 35 cM to 70 cM with the total length of the chromosome from 0 to 156 cM where I have a crossover that takes me to Blake for the last 3 cM. Two of the individuals are known to me that match on this chromosome and both are 3rd c 1xr living in England actually where most of my Rawlings family live other than Australia, Canada and a few in the United States. These two known cousins occupy from 106 cM to 156 cM. They have not inherited any Cotterill from the earlier generations but are related to descendants as I am including four of the matches and in this small chart I am just looking at 19 matches in total (the two known cousins may match some of the others but it does not show up in my charting). I am able though to say that from 77 cM to 156 cM is Rawlings and that includes 12 of the 19 matches. By luck and chance one of the matches has a derivative of the surname Cotterill/Cotterell which doesn't prove anything but is interesting but the other great part is that this match has a second match with me and runs from 28 cM to 34 cM. Of the remaining seven matches five of them are matching in this length between 28 cM to 34 cM. Just two matches (siblings) are outside of this particular grouping. At this point I am not concluding that the group from 0 to 27 cM is Cotterill without Rawlings because I have not recorded small lengths of matching (the group from 0 to 35 may well be both Rawlings and Cotterill in their ancestry). Tracing down the two siblings is probably a good plan so will think about that but it is the first time that I have had sufficient matches (and it caught my interest as I have not been thinking very deeply about it as I have made this trek through the chromosomes designing a database to produce a phased set of great grandparents). Rather I thought to leave that to the completed database to extract for me using AI. What we know about twelve of the matches is that they have Rawlings and do likely belong to the descendants of William Rawlings and Mary Ford because they resemble my two cousins who do not have a possible Cotterill line in their ancestry charting them back but would match any Rawlins/Rawlings that is shared. The group of five share their length with an individual with a derivative of the Cotterill/Cotterell name and as I check their trees I may also find Rawlins which is a future endeavour but they do not appear to match my two cousins known to me. The remaining two match three siblings on the Rawlings chromosome. Indeed four out of five siblings have various lengths of Rawlings matching the above matches here and there. 

So the task today is to complete the last ten matches and I shall set myself to do that 

Must do my solitaire puzzles but first a cup of tea to make. I already had my breakfast as it is Collection day and I was out early putting out the blue bins and the green bin. Life has changed and it is changing rapidly for Canada as we work hard to make ourselves Tariff Proof and we have no idea what is happening with USMCA/MUSCA/CUSMA which comes up for review later this year. But necessity is always the mother of invention and we are on that path as quickly as possible to protect jobs and increase industry. We must be careful  not to waste money on items that are, at the moment, unimportant to the aim of making ourselves Tariff Proof.  There does need to be a push towards manufacturing in Ontario particularly of small motor appliances like dishwashers, washing machines, dryers and the list is endless. Time for great improvements in these devices and an opportunity to start up businesses lost to competition during the NAFTA/CUSMA days. I have to say that my ShopVac does a great job as a vacuum but the noise is incredible; I would like to buy a new vacuum one of these days and there are a lot of opportunities for small businesses to be created particularly in Ontario where so many jobs have been lost because we are not Tariff Proof. I would say overall Auto Pact/NAFTA/CUSMA gave a good life to North Americans over the past sixty years but decisions have been made that make this cross-border trading difficult because we are not Tariff Proof. The Americans are our best friends and neighbours (one cannot share a border the length of ours and not be good friends and neighbours) and will continue to be but until we are tariff proof we must continue to support Canadian businesses that are not Tariff Proof. It is cold in Canada and many Canadians still go south but a large group (no doubt shivering most days) have elected to stay here and help us to become Tariff Proof. But the days will come when the traffic again increases going south especially during the long cold winters in Canada. In the meantime Tariff Proof is what we are heading towards. 

  

Heavy snowfall

 We are having a heavy snowfall but only 10 cm predicted but at the moment it is fairly thick coming down although not so much that the distance vision is limited. Just a lovely white snowfall on this beautiful world that the Creator produced and gave to us at a later time to protect and cherish.

Yesterday finished the cleaning and worked on the matches for chromosome 7. This one is very interesting as there is a length that is inherited by pretty much all of my close cousins that I have found testing all the way back to John Pincombe and Mary Charly who married at Bishops Nympton, Devon  8 Nov 1767. Their six children with their descendants are the progenitors of many of the Pincombe families in the Bishops Nympton area. Although John had a brother William (both sons of John Pincombe and Grace Manning who married 20 Mar 1725 at Bishops Nympton) William's only child, a son, William died at the age of 21 (his parents William Pincombe married Grace Smyth 13 Jun 1758 at North Molton). John and William also had a sister Grace who married John Butcher 31 Mar 1755 at Bishops Nympton But I have yet to trace their two surviving daughters beyond their baptism (another daughter and only son died as infants/young children). John (married to Grace Manning) was the only son of William Pincombe and Mary Vicary who married 17 Jun 1685 at Bishops Nympton. The only other sibling was Joan who was buried in 1726 at Bishops Nympton. This William traces back to John Pincombe and Johane Blackmoore who married 25 Sep 1655 at Bishops Nympton and of their other five children Thomas married Christian (unknown) and their single surviving child John Pincombe married Catharine Bryer at Bishops Nympton 3 Nov 1732 and their five children are the other Pincombe grouping in the Bishops Nympton area and are the progenitors of many of the Pincombe families also in the Bishops Nympton area. Another son of John Pincombe and Johane Blackmoore, Hugh married Sarah (unknown) likely at Swimbridge, Devon and the Pincombe families found in the Landkey, Devon area are their descendants. Working through this Chromosome 7 I may spot some of the descendants of these lines in the Living DNA matches or others that I have not noted before. 

There does look to be a potential for a lot of snow if it keeps up at the present rate. Although I have had fun skiing I am pretty tired from all that fun and will be putting the skis away for the rest of the month or two. It is not something that I generally would go out on my own and do at 80 years of age. Although I could go around the backyard but I have not done a lot of research these past couple of weeks and need to get back to that. Plus I really do enjoy my research just as I enjoy skiing and there is a time and place for everything especially at this age for sure.  

Continuing with Chromosome 7 today and I am about one quarter of the way through the matches. Thus far I have separated out Rawlings, Blake, Knight, Cotterill (coming down from my 4x great grandparents), and Pincombe. Half of my great grandparents in the first quarter of matches is  not too bad. I am not likely to locate Taylor from the Buller/Taylor grandparents and perhaps not Cotterill from the possible father of my paternal grandmother but likely Gray is a possibility. 

Drinking tea and must move to the solitaire puzzles and then begin my extractions of data.  

The third cleaning day

 Yesterday some accomplishment on Chromosome 7 but a surprise well perhaps not really as I had anticipated that I would see Cotterill matches back to my 5x great grandparents William Rawlins and Mary Ford who married 30 Sep 1741 at Wylye, Wiltshire and their daughter Mary Rawlins married to Stephen Cotterel 28 Jan 1764 at Enford, Wiltshire. The size of the match is surprising but the grand daughter of Mary Rawlins and Stephen Cotterel namely Mary Cottrell married William Rawlins her second cousin and this was a marriage in Australia possibly as both of their families had emigrated to Australia by 1842 when their first child was born 22 Jun 1842 at Welling near The Reed Beds, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. That does help me as I work to prove or disprove the suggestion by testing companies that George Cotterill was the father of my paternal grandmother although the priest, on her baptismal registration has entered the name Cotteril as one of her middle names (Ada Bessie Cotteril Rawlings) and her birth registration carries the same name. So very interesting and the match is surprisingly large considering the path back (in total one sibling matches at 31.1 cM in one length, a second sibling (myself) matching on three chromosomes with 7.8, 31.1 and 10.8 cM being the lengths, a third sibling matches at 36.5 cM). Since this is a large match on Chromosome 7 it does rather give me an ability to separate out the results of the known relationship with the Cotterell/Cotterill family with the unknown. Although I did note the match on the other two chromosomes where I match I did not comment at that time because I couldn't really be confident with such small matches. I will make note of the matches in common at this time as that will also be helpful in my quest. 

 We may get some rain today it appears and it looks icy out there so lucky we bought more anti-slip stuff to fix the laneway, porch and patio. Must get out there and do that a little later. I have my cleats on my boots all ready for that endeavour. 

Other than that carrying on with my research and the cleaning on the three days as I enjoy the quiet winter as I hibernate away from all the world in my little house although I do need to look into moving closer to family and I rather think I will start to work on that very soon actually. 

Tea drank and must do my solitaire puzzles and move on to the cleaning.  

  

Moving on to the second cleaning day

 A bit late today and I am into the second cleaning day - the main floor. With all the snow and the slush there will be a little more cleanup around the front door for sure. But we have a good setup with book trays and a tree for coats which keeps it all there pretty much. 

Worked on Chromosome 8 and completed it yesterday with a little finishing up today. The section that I think is early American colonial in the Blake family continues that way in my calculations. Mixed in with that are some good matches in England and Canada in the present time. The only Blake in the Andover family that I know for sure was in colonial America was Joanne Blake married to Roberte Sedgewicke 6 Jan 1634 at St Marys Andover, Hampshire, England and none of these trees go back to this couple thus far plus I believe this is a Knight match on the great grandparent side.  There are many matches in common where I find the matches in Ancestry so this does appear to be a pile-up area exclusively for me in the Knight-Butt-Arnold-Ellis families from the Winterbourne, Dorset, England area. In the 1500s/1600s they were in Newfoundland area but one can see in the trees of some that they moved from there to the American colonies in the early 1700s. One strong match in the group goes back to John Butt and Jean O'Ford who married 14 Oct 1800 at Winterborne Stickland, Dorset, England. In general their descendants are well known to me and it does make me think that this particular pile-up area may be regionally common as all of these families (Arnold, Butt, Ellis, Knight) that come from that general area in Dorset that I am able to locate on trees back that far namely in the Winterborne area, west, south and east of these many small villages. 

I will move on to Chromosome 7  and this one has lots of Pincombe matches, Blake and Rawlings somewhat fewer and no Buller matches where the individuals matching are known to me. But there are some good lengths of the ones known to me (eleven cousins in total). There are 77 matches in total and quite a few are from Ancestry as well as My Heritage, 23 and Me, FT DNA and Living DNA. 

Cloudy out today and apparently rain is possible. There is good snow cover and the temperature is 1 degree celsius. Perhaps no skiing for me again today we will see.

Must get some work done. Solitaire puzzles not yet done. The morning is passing quickly.  

 

Cleaning day one

 Today the top floor will be cleaned and continuing on Chromosome 8. I spent a little time looking at this set of matches that look like either Pincombe or Blake. Most of them are dating back into the early colonial days in America which does tend to make me think of the Blake/Knight family. Few of them go back into the 1600s but I have results for two individuals that are definitely Blake/Knight. The others triangulate with each other and one set is Pincombe. Having reached that stage I will continue today with a couple that I have not yet found in Ancestry (loaded their results into Gedmatch). A few also transferred to My Heritage giving a little help there with the triangulation. Looking at DNA Painter in this area of Chromosome 8 namely 76 cM to 120 cM this is not a common pile-up area so is specific to this family and given the endogamy in the Knight family not surprising and also in the Routledge family (Routledge married Gray and Gray married Pincombe) a pile-up would not be unexpected particularly if that pile-up is in the American Colonies dating back into the 1600s/1700s with their trees. The Knight family in particular were found in Newfoundland, Canada in these early years with the fishing fleets. Continuing with that type of thinking today but do hope to complete Chromosome 8 today. It didn't really effect anything having this group as Pincombe or Blake until I moved to phasing the great grandparents and now it becomes more interesting to do that. 

Went to Church online yesterday and the choirs are back which is always lovely music. It reminds me of Edward deciding that he would attend my Anglican Church because I had attended his United Church as he had asked whilst our children were young. He did love the music at the Cathedral and choosing the Columbarium for his internment just seemed right although eventually I anticipate that he will be buried at Beechwood or whatever cemetery our children choose. I am very much of the mind that funerals/graveyards are for the living to say goodby to their loved ones. 

We had a lot of snow and it was plowed away by the company. More snow today and into the week but then it is January and we are in the very midst of winter with some of the heaviest snow generally coming in late February or early March. Canadians go south this time of year although some are staying home but I still think quite a few are going as the warm beaches of Florida are very inviting. I certainly enjoyed my three trips to Florida but I also love the winter and would miss it for sure if I lived elsewhere. 

A new query which stems from the Blake Newsletter came in regarding I-M253 which I will take time to think about as it concerns a London line that is unknown beyond a 3x great grandparent. The Blake family itself is huge and has quite a few founding lines even within the British Isles itself as well as Continental - the 1330-1550 Emigration Database for the British Isles shows many Blake lines coming from the Continent into England in this time period but primarily into the London area. By the late 1400s the Blake family at Andover appears in a number of records and my search backwards is to find the documents for this family in the 1300s. Before that I do not think this line that I descend from used a surname and likely elected to use the surname of the wife in an early marriage - proving that will be difficult and perhaps not in my lifetime. But it does make sense rather than assuming that an individual farming at Knights Enham suddenly decided to use the surname Blake which was already being used by a number of families in England (many of whom were not originally common to the British Isles) who likely came from the continent following the Norman Invasion in 1066. Since these families were prosperous probably attracted to the British Isles by the Normans that is the suspicion but proving such things is difficult. Plus I have no intention of dealing with that early family history in any line but my own for the most part  but will include the le Blak family of Rouen, Normandy that appears to be related/have dealings with the Andover Blake family in the 1500s in such a way that one is led to speculate that at an earlier time they were closely related but probably in the female line on the part of the Andover Blake family. That is my hypothesis and I continue looking for information to clarify/prove such an hypothesis. Within the Blake yDNA study at FT DNA there are a number of groups with a leader inside of the group so I tend to just let them correspond with each other and not complicate the situation by getting involved in that. 

This research was made considerably easier to look at following the marriage of the then Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) and Lady Diana Spencer and became the Princess of Wales (although I had absolutely no interest in genealogy but my husband was deeply into that and he is related to Diana, Princess of Wales through the Work family some of whom had moved to the American colonies. Diana's proven line back to the le Blak family of Calne along with the publication of a book of her genealogy which traces her back to the Andover Blake family has proven to be most interesting actually and will likely create research interest in the years to come in that her son William will eventually be King of England with the line descending to George his son eventually and his descendants. That will clearly place the Blake line of Calne as ancestral to the King of England and it appears the Blake line of Andover. The Andover line being the more ancient to the British Isles if I am correct and the yDNA of this line appears to be an ancient Western Hunter-Gatherer arriving in the British Isles following the Last Ice Age and suggested to be between 12,000 to 8,000 years ago and dubbed the "Deer-Hunters" by Ethnoancestry (interestingly my grandfather constantly mentioned that his Blake line was very ancient to the area in which he grew up namely Andover, Hampshire, England). His knowledge of the Blake family was extensive as he could rhyme off all of his male ancestors way back to Nicholas and further but being only just eight and not writing it all down I just remember the names really well that stuck out in the line so to speak. My father also mentioned Nicholas and it stemmed from a discussion I often have within my blog on Nicholas. I was surprised to find 14 matches on Chromo 2 yDNA test when I tested my brother there as ancient lines back into Western Hunter-Gatherer are not common in the databases although going into the British Isles group I did find a number of lines close by this area in Hampshire including one large family group in the Barnstaple area. The le Blak line I hypothesize is from Rouen, Normandy coming to England after receiving a patent to set up a market in 1274 (Calendar of Patent Rolls). This is a large grouping in the yDNA Blake group at FT DNA and one would expect quite a range of matches given the time period this group was in Rouen, Normandy and coming to England in the late 1200s. 

Tea all drank and Solitaire Puzzles to do. The day moves quickly and it will soon be breakfast time and then cleaning.  

 

 

 

 

Sunday and continuing with Chromosome 8

 Another beautiful Sunday in God's world. The trees are covered with a fresh snow fall and off to Church online in a couple of hours. 

 Since there are only 64 matches for Chromosome 8 I did a little extra working on this length that appears to be either Blake or Pincombe. I have two matches that are definitely Knight and so part of the Blake grandparent line. One is from 23 and Me and the second is missing on My Heritage and perhaps deleted by the tester since the spring when I was last looking at it. I have nine matches on My Heritage that triangulate with each other on the Chromosome browser. One of the matches does point to Blake quite strongly. I have another twelve matches that do not appear to triangulate with these nine matches except one to one on occasion. I have one match from Ancestry (on Gedmatch) that triangulates with a number of these matches. Just trying to locate this match again on Ancestry as there may have been a slight adjustment of the naming of it as the two names that I am using do not bring up a kit. I will continue working away on these matches today as a few of them are from Ancestry and need to hunt out trees. I can phase these lengths with the knowledge that I have but it would be convenient to actually separate out all members of these two groups into Pincombe or Blake. 

It was a warmer day yesterday and we had a long walk since we need another snowfall to cover up the mess from the ice/rain mixture that we had since our last skiing. Last night we got about ten centimetres of snow so will see how that goes today. Perhaps out skiing at some point. 

As a country we continue trying to make ourselves tariff proof and this week our Prime Minister will be in China. Diversifying our trade is very much in our minds and we should have been doing it the last sixty years. But we also enjoyed our trade deals with our friend and neighbour the United States. So we continue to work away at that and it has been productive. This is winter in Canada though and everything is just a little more difficult with the weather. 

Time to make tea and then solitaire puzzles.  

Offline for a bit

Being offline is always an interesting experience; one is off the grid so to speak and it leaves you feeling independent of the world for a moment in time. But always close to God; God is in our heart and our mind and always with us in this world that He created. The winds were strong last night; you could hear them even over the sound of the game that my daughter and I were playing on the big screen. We are at Chapter 23 I think it was and there are 37 Chapters. I am looking forward to it being completed; I like finished tasks that is my way. Have I enjoyed it; it is has been interesting but I feel lost in it because I do not know the direction or the path but perhaps that is good sometimes to not know the ending. One must work through the various levels building and creating and one feels happy when each level is achieved which is like life really and so the games perhaps teach our young about life. There are pitfalls and there are successes and one learns from both. 

The Blake Newsletter is published and viewable. It was the usual chattering on my part about the Andover Blake Book but an email from a Blake descendant of the Mayo Blake family was part of the discussion. There is a truth in DNA that no one can deny and I think that that is part of our path in life that God has set us on. We are going to know the very truths of everything and then perhaps we can find peace in our world. Does truth lead to peace? I think it can if that is what is desired. When greed for money and possessions is prominent can peace exist. I think when the consuming desire for wealth and riches passes from our world then we can have peace. All of us are equal on this earth and all of us inherit this earth at our birth; that is what the Creator said and we must follow His commandment that we love our neighbour as ourself and that is truly the path to peace. 

Good work on Chromosome 8 yesterday although I am still ambivalent about this set of Blake or Pincombe matches extending from 78,043,790 to 120,188,941 on the chromosome. The distraction is the known family history of the matches which does tend to be northern England, southern Scotland and leads one's mind towards the Gray side of the Pincombe/Gray split. Blake and Knight are predominantly in southern England although the Knight family moved to the Lancashire area in the 1800s working in the woolen mills. The length varies between 20 and 35 centimorgans in the many descendants carrying this particular section of Chromosome 8. Some have deep American colonial ancestry with their origins unknown in their trees as written up (endogamy in the Routledge or Knight family comes to mind in this case as these families were very large and often enough amongst some of the earliest trekking off to the British colonies). Looking at the two siblings most affected the length of Blake is a singleton chromosome for both and the length of Pincombe runs from 60 to 140 centimorgans and 73 to 146 centimorgans for the second one. The other three do not share this length to any degree except for me and I have Pincombe from 17 to 73 centimorgans and 124 to 146 centimorgans. It is intriguing and does rather occupy one's thoughts as the various matches are regarded whilst I study the known information on each individual. But today I will just continue sorting because the internet is down for the moment and that lets me look at them differently actually yielding more insight some times. 

 Drinking my tea and solitaire puzzles. Time to get moving and do some exercise.  

Blake Newsletter completed and in for review

 I didn't have a chance to work on Chromosome 8 yesterday as it turned out and I started into that right away this morning and completely forgot my blog. As I took my breakfast break I realized it and decided to write it now. 

Another good skiing day yesterday (4.5 km) but today it is going to rain (or perhaps a little snow, it seems ambivalent in the weather forecast). Nevertheless it is very overcast and there is definitely melting out there. The streets are awash somewhat here and there. 

Good work on Chromosome 8 earlier today and I have continued sorting out the mystery matches that are either Pincombe or Blake - I found many kits submitted to GedMatch which has made that sort easier. John Blake and Ann (Farmer) Blake had 54 grandchildren in the mid to late 1800s and their descendants are huge and all over the world. Combine that with the Pincombe line and in a similar time period Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth (Rowcliffe) Pincombe had eight children, 34 grandchildren and many many great grandchildren also all over the world. The matches continue to flow in and sometimes in the phasing when you see Blake and Pincombe and just one chromosome length it can be a huge sorting process. Other times they just fall right into place but this particular chromosome does happen to have a lot of singleton matches with Blake and Pincombe!

I discovered that I have acquired a lot more Blake matches on Ancestry in the trees - a couple of years ago I went through and marked all the ones that were descendant in my line but the number has increased enormously in that time period so will be doing that over the next while as I work on the Blake family tree in the 1700s/1800s and earlier and later. 

Now must do my solitaire puzzles and then back to work on the matches.  

 

 

Always good to have the cleaning part of the week completed

 Research extends ahead of me for a couple of days and I welcome the time for that. This has been a busy Christmas and New Years with lots of skiing and fresh air just walking about. It has been pretty cold though although a warming trend is coming and with it a January thaw for at least a day or so. When we first moved to Ottawa there was never a January thaw; that was southwestern Ontario where the streets would run with all that lake effect snow as it flowed into the local rivers. But the weather here has changed somewhat over the past fifty years and hard to believe I have now lived in this area for fifty years plus. We came here with our toddler of 11 months; walking was in process but just short lengths at that time but quickly changed to running all over the backyard. I was so thin weighing 11 pounds lighter than I am now and that didn't change for a few years as I chased my toddler about keeping tabs on her. But it was a new adventure although I did fall ill about two months later but managed until I was better again a couple of months after that. I tried to do too much all at once. It is a dim memory actually those first few months here. 

Worked on the Blake Newsletter yesterday and will complete it today probably. I had an email from a descendant of the Mayo Blake family asking if I had any information on that line. Indeed I do not particularly but their closeness to the Blake family of Galway is interesting. The Galway Blake family is a huge family coming down through the centuries and written up by Martin J Blake (published in London, England)) in 1902 and 1903 as two volumes. Volume 1 begins around 1300 through to 1599 and Volume 2 records the years from 1600 to 1700. The books are available on Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/blakefamilyrecor00blakuoft/blakefamilyrecor00blakuoft/page/n1/mode/2up) . There are many descendants of this family and the yDNA study at FT DNA for the Blake family has a number of testers who can trace back into this Galway Blake family. Members of this family are found in many places in Ireland and in England. The best way to look at your own Blake line is to have a male descendant in the Blake line test their yDNA. There are a number of founding lines for Blake in the British Isles (including my line) and many of them can be found in the Calendar of Patent Rolls. I extracted the Blake records from this set of documents when they were loaned to a research at the University of Iowa and I did build a chart showing frequency of Blake in the various counties of England as that was primarily the focus of my research at the time. I did take on the Blake study at the Guild of one-name Studies in 2011 when it was left vacant by Paul Blake who had been the main researcher for Blake for many years in the British Isles as a member of the Guild. So my answer said all of what is above (briefly) and to consider that the Blake line at Mayo could be an offshoot of Galway even if the furtherest back known in their line was  a British military officer in Mayo during the 1600s when Cromwell was the head of government in England. Her thought was that her ancestor was descendant of the Blake family of Somerset (related to Lord High Admiral Robert Blake). I think she wondered if we shared Blake ancestry but my grandfather was always quite sure that we were not related to the Calne Blake family or the Somerset Blake family in the male Blake line. Interesting he thought that but people thought differently and learned differently in the late 1800s with rote being the prime method of learning. That means to me that your family stories were passed on by word of mouth generation after generation and that was why Nicholas Blake was discussed in the latter part of the 1800s even though he was just a small farmer at Knights Enham who left his will in 1547. It was this Nicholas who was given all sorts of different relations that created a stir at that time. An American, Horatio Gates Somerby, had created a story about this time period using Nicholas, giving him incorrect parents and siblings although some of the material was correct but mostly incorrect. Amazing that there would be such a discussion 350 years later after Nicholas' death but it was this style of learning that brought forward in people's minds the details of their lives lived generation after generation and caused a rejection by those who were in the know labeling Horatio Gates Somerby as a fraud who simply engineered stories in order to impress his American clients. Indeed the founder of the Blake family of Galway was Richard Caddell (Welsh and also known as Richard Niger) who used the surname Blake after receiving land grants at Galway and Mayo having accompanied then Prince John (later King John) to Ireland in 1185. The email was interesting since the Blake family of Galway was also at Mayo in the 1100s/1200s. But I do not do family research for individuals; I simply tell them what I do know and leave it up to them to do the research back in their lines. 

I continue to be amazed at the Blake autosomal matches that I have with individuals in the present coming down from early Colonials in the American colonies.  There are distinct lengths that fall into the pile-up or common areas of the chromosomes implying quite distant relationships but the size of the matches is sometimes rather surprising and one gets a notation of sixth cousin or even closer on occasion and I know very well that is not the case. The only Blake known to me that early in the American Colonies was Joanne Blake (daughter of William Blake and Dorothy Madgwick) who married Major General Roberte Sedgewicke 6 Jan 1634 at Andover and their children all appeared to be born at Charlestown, Royal Colony of Massachusetts in the 1630s/1640s. Joanne herself returned to England after the death of her husband in Jamaica but their five children remained in the colonies. 

Tea drank and need to do the solitaire puzzles and then breakfast. The days move on so very quickly.  

  

 

Blake Newsletter is started

 I discovered as I started to write the Newsletter that it was going to take a day or so to complete so perhaps tomorrow for publication. Definitely getting older as time flits by without my noticing it really. We went skiing yesterday about 4 km in total; it was a good run and just a little cold not too bad at minus 10 degrees celsius. It is doable at that temperature. 

Continuing to work on Chromosome 8 and it has these interesting matches where it is either Blake or Pincombe without a good example in certain lengths and I am into another one of those lengths but today may solve it. I just haven't troubled myself to do so in the past as the phasing of Chromosome 8 is fairly straight forward but sometimes the matches do not lend themselves to the solution of which they are. 

Lovely snow coming down today and we will move it likely a little later as not enough for them to come and do it. I continue to look forward to moving as there is too much work for me in this house and with the yard outside. I just have to make that decision but a couple of items conflict it somewhat and once resolved I will be able to move ahead with that. 

Cleaning day three and it is the basement and the robot is already doing its job. I can hear it in the distance cleaning the rugs. Then just the dusting and the floor washing (which involves moving everything that has been cleaned onto the rugs) and the job is done except for returning everything to its proper place. Takes about two hours in total plus the 1.25 hours that the robot runs but I do not count that as I didn't do anything except set it up which counts as part of my morning exercise. An interesting way to clean and it is definitely the future as more and more people are busy working. 

Although I continue to watch the news I am avoiding thinking about it at the moment. Minds greater than mine are busy contemplating exactly what our direction as a world is. The United Nations was a good plan in 1945 and probably needs some tweaking in order to protect all the countries of the world that were established at that time or at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union which was entirely their own fault as they attacked Afghanistan and went bankrupt in the course of that particular error on their part. The World Court also a good idea but is sometimes conflicted where minorities are concerned namely Israel - it doesn't look like a minority but in reality the Israeli people have to deal with anti-semitism which is a worldwide attitude on the part of some people and they are constantly in danger and the UN has done little to help them from the very beginning of the creation of the State of Israel which can be compared with the pouring of billions of dollars of support into Gaza where there is nothing to show for that expenditure (so a failure on the part of the United Nations in retrospect). 

Whether a country is large or small should not really matter but we seem to be at this point in the history of the world where authoritarianism has raised its ugly head once again but democracies continue to be dominated by the people who live in them and we will just have to see how that flows. I had one interesting thought that Greenland which is Inuit primarily could become a 4th territory giving us then 14 distinct provinces/territories but they are their own people and protected by Denmark and NATO (but Canada is an interesting country in that different areas do have strong affinity to their countries of origin - for the First Nations Canada itself is their country of origin going back thousands of years and huge tracts of land in Canada do belong to the First Nations, for others it is their French heritage going back over 400 years with its settlements in the Maritimes and then Quebec in 1604, for still others (including myself) the British Isles is our country of origin going back slightly more than 400 years as they were on Baffin Island and in Newfoundland with fishing villages and hunting villages although did tend to return to the British Isles during the long harsh winters until 1598 with the first settlements on Baffin Island where the Inuit kindly received them). As a country our affinity as Canadians to countries of origin is part of our makeup and it could be that the Greenlanders would feel comfortable being part of Canada (no ideas on that as they love having their own country just like the Newfoundlanders did before they joined Confederation in 1949 but economically there was a benefit to Newfoundland at that time as we gave them Labrador plus other assistance). The Greenlanders have kindly permitted the United States to have a base on the island since the days of World War II but the people themselves continue to live the life that they have lived for thousands of years with their strong attachment to Denmark and also have a  connection to the Inuit who live in Nunavut which is their closest neighbour and one of the Territories of Canada. An interesting thought that crossed through my mind but I do understand their desire to be an independent nation with ties to Denmark and part of NATO. 

Tea drank and must do my solitaire puzzles as I wait for the Robot to complete its task.  

Blake Newsletter should come out today

 I have been so busy with my phasing of my great grandparents that I have forgotten the Blake Newsletter so will attempt to produce that today along with cleaning the main floor. Yesterday top floor was completed and in pretty good time but extra hands do make less work. In four years my daughter will retire and return home at least that was the long term plan. That she would still like to work when she comes back goes without saying really. She loves working with her students and she is good at it but then I am her mother of course. The cold weather keeps us in day after day as it is just too cold for her to ski but she is getting lots of work done on her projects. The internet from its inception has rapidly changed our culture as one can work with people all around the world in just seconds on the internet and she does as well as her local colleagues who can also be on the internet or in person. Her students love the ability to meet with her at pretty much any time although onsite is also possible but mostly they also have busy lives and appreciate that she can meet with them so readily without a lot of work on their part. I am amazed at how many students do their masters whilst working a full time job these days. 

Being over 80 now has a different look to it that I had not anticipated actually. Although I still have a lot of plans on work to do; my mind does tend to be directed towards completion rather than just continuous work on it collecting new information. Now I need to be directing myself towards completion; all the time completion. My mind still feels very sharp but I am aging slowly but surely towards that time when I may not be quite so sharp! Although in my 60s (and I can find it in my blog actually) I had planned to continue my gathering research until my 80s and then get it all written up and that process is falling into place, amazing how well one can think in one's late 60s!

 I worked on Chromosome 8 yesterday and a little block of matches that looked like either Pincombe or Blake have finally found a home in the Blake family. I wasn't entirely sure but one match did it finally as it was slightly larger with an accompanying match that cinched the deal. Where they fit in continues to elude me although they are 3rd cousins for the most part according to the estimate which means we share 2x great grandparents and that would be John Blake and Ann (Farmer) Blake and their 54 grandchildren so not surprising that I am finding them difficult to place. They have this lovely long match on Chromosome 8 (mostly in the 25 to 35 cM range) which should make them Blake rather than Knight but I will continue working that through as my Edward Blake who married Maria Jane (Knight) Blake may not have been the only one of the Blake descendants of John and Ann who married a descendant of the huge Knight family! The descendants are all over the world though although primarily in the British Commonwealth or the United States. Moving ahead with the chromosome although slowly as there will likely be a couple of bumps in the road in that there are a number of "high count" areas on this chromosome. 

Sudoku has become my new interest and I generally play a couple of games a day. I like the precision of working with a set of numbers and playing with them to get a solution without getting any errors. It is great fun. 

I continue with my solitaire games each day and my tea is slowly cooling and I must move on to that. I am avoiding the news for the most part. I know Canada is in good hands at this moment in time; a person dedicated to growing Canada as it should have been grown these past sixty years. He has his nose to the grindstone working working working. Thank you to him for that as he will make us Tariff Proof (one cannot fight tariff; one must improve one's own economy so as to minimize the effect of tariff) as the way that countries do business is changing slowly but surely. We have our free trade deals around the world and will just keep expanding on our exports moving across this beautiful world that God gave us eons ago. Expanding our exports (both internally and externally) is the way to go to bring us to a better position economically (the need for Canadian products is huge; we just have to be there with them available to purchase - Go Canada Go). The Fathers of Confederation built a railway across a continent that few believed could be done and we can build trade around the world that benefits us and the people who buy our excellent products. Another beautiful day and it is sunrise but cloudy. Cloud isn't all bad as it is hard to ski with the bright sun! 

 This is the true Feast of Epiphany Day, January 6th, but the service on Sunday was very nice and life has to work into the schedule that fits into people's lives. We can not live on a day to day basis we must plan and prepare for the long run to make us the great economic powerhouse that we can be; it will be expensive; it will be hard work but the gain is huge as we work alongside our friend and neighbour to the south and the north (Alaska is part of the United States) and we will be economically sound and efficient - no more waste in the CRA. That has to end and sooner rather than later. Billions of dollars wasted!

 

The Epiphany Service was perfect

Being at Church on Epiphany Service always reminds me of my father's story concerning the 12 days of Christmas and the Wisemen/Kings bringing their gifts to the Baby Jesus. When he as a child in England he said they always went to visit his Blake grandparents for Epiphany at least that is how I recall it. But it was a long trip in those days from Eastleigh to just south of Andover at Goodworth Clatford. His grandparents had moved from Upper Clatford sometime in the late 1890s to Goodworth Clatford. The chorister was particularly excellent for this service. They are all extremely capable the Choristers in the Christ Church Cathedral Choirs. 

A quiet day Sunday and once again we never made it out of doors - it was very cold here and this morning it is a warmer minus 17 degrees celsius but there is a warming trend coming and likely we will ski most of the week if the weather holds and we get all that snow that is mentioned on the Weather Channel. I am all set up once again on a two year contract with Rogers - I really like Rogers and have been with them since the early 2000s. They provide excellent and timely service whenever I need anything which is rare. Other companies come to my door (I no longer answer as I am busy working and have thought about putting a note on the door but decided just to treat it as my workplace and only answer when I have requested the individual come). Mind you I do glance out the window in case it is a municipal officer coming for one reason or another but that does not occur in my memory unless I asked them to come. So would be leery of that probably. 

I worked on Chromosome 8 and it is flowing along with a few removals of matches that are simply too small or ambiguous. Chromosome 9 is completed but has a few questions that I will need to do working on the trees for various matches. There are 68 matches for Chromosome 8 and I have eight known cousins matching many with really good lengths for three of the four grandparents. Pincombe does not have a known match although I do have a number of likely Gray matches that just need me to review their trees most at Ancestry although also at My Heritage which also covers FT DNA and I also have Find My Past. Rawlings is particularly well covered with second cousins as is Buller with third cousins. Blake falls neatly into Blake and Knight with that particular cousin. So continuing work on Chromosome 8 and I am contemplating how to begin phasing my husband's grandparents. I need to find his files that he created for his autosomal DNA especially his work on 23 and Me. The Ancestry I extracted for him including any found in Gedmatch. FT DNA he also managed and was just getting into My Heritage and asking for me to extract his cousins matches there and that was in process (his matches are all in my account on My Heritage). It appears to be doable and I will see how it goes. Probably blog the progress as I move along with that. 

Cleaning day today and it is the top floor. I will start that in a while as I sip away at my tea and time to move to the Solitaire puzzles to work the brain. Breakfast after that.   

The First Sunday in 2026

 A beautiful sunrise and very slight movement in the trees greeted me this morning. God blesses us every day with this rich earth but Sunday is His day and the day that we have the opportunity to thank Him for all the goodness of the world that He, the Creator, has given us. All that He asked for in return was that we love our neighbour as ourself. It seems like such a small item really but the cost of not doing it has been huge throughout the length of the existence of Homo Sapiens. 

Yesterday I continued to work on Chromosome 9. It is a slightly complicated one in that the length that is Blake/Knight is huge and I have so many samples and some are known leaving me with the impression that this length is partly Blake and partly Knight which is to be expected really but the length can be very large as much as 75 centimorgans. It is not true of the lengths that are Pincombe, Buller or Rawlings (and their accompanying spouse). They tend to be uniformly one or the other. But it does add a mystery which has proven to be very interesting. 

Cleared the laneway yesterday although it was just a tiny dusting really but the fresh air was good although it was pretty cold. Our cold spell continues and it is minus 22 degrees celsius at 8:15 a.m. but beautiful sun today. That generally gives us really cold days in the winter that brilliant sun. The wind has stilled for the moment and no movement in the trees. 

Today I shall go to Church online and I will also wash clothes today as I generally do do that. Our hydro is cheaper during the day on the weekend. I will also continue working on Chromosome 9. I am starting to get into thinking about working on phasing Edward's grandparents. I think it is doable although will not be as easy as if I had collected the material on 23 and Me for him. He liked to work on that one himself and he did not collect in quite the same way that I did by capturing the images of each chromosome but I do not have any sibling result for him so perhaps will not make a big difference. 

Drinking my tea and solitaire puzzles are next. God bless the world.  

Research continues and it is moving along nicely

Still working on Chromosome 9 but there are 120 matches on this particular chromosomes. There are a couple of long lengths that occur in the Blake, Pincombe Buller and Rawlings families and appear to be passed down in my line with a high frequency amongst 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins (and even 5th cousins on occasion if Blake/Knight and possibly there is a mashup as I call it when part of the length is say Blake and part is Knight). Proving it though is another question but one of my best matches, totally unknown to me in terms of actual relationship, carries both Knight and Blake. He was adopted and his details on his father are somewhat vague although has a complete tree for his mother. I think there is a remote possibility that I also match him on his mother's side but not a large match but definitely a match is showing up in the Knight family and the Blake family. The Knight family is a bit of a question though as I can not fit him into the descendants of Edward Blake and Marie Jane (Knight) Blake my great grandparents. I know pretty much all of the descendants of this couple down into this time frame. Although they had twelve children only nine lived to adulthood and my father only remembered seven of my grandfather's Blakes siblings. The eldest child (who lived with her grandparents in Turnworth from at least the age of nine years into adulthood) had the largest number of descendants and I can trace them down. The next eldest had three daughters and none of them had children (two survived to marry). The next child was my grandfather and he had just the one son - my father - and seven grandchildren etc etc. The next child only lived a couple of months. Then another son and he was 21 years of age when he was buried at Goodworth Clatford. He had not married. The next child, a daughter, married but died in childbirth as did the child. Then followed another son and he emigrated to Canada in 1911 and married here. They had two children and only the daughter had children. These descendants are somewhat known to me and continue to live in Canada. Another daughter was next and she also died in childbirth, the child did not survive. Another son and he died at the age of two years. The last daughter married and had one son but her husband died in France during the First World War, she remarried but did not have any more children. Her son had one daughter born in the mid 1900s. The next child, a boy, died at four years of age. The last child also a boy married and served in both the first and the second world wars in the navy and he had two children with the eldest having been shot down over France during a reconnaissance mission (he did leave one daughter who came to Canada with her husband and they had three daughters with children (I have not kept in touch although my mother did and told me about them through the years)). The daughter of this youngest son married and remained in England and one of her three children was Ivan Kent with whom I corresponded through the years, he did not have any children. His sisters both had children and grandchildren known to me. So the relationship with Knight is a mystery and could be on his mother's side and I do need to more thoroughly look at his large tree. But definitely he is matching on the Blake side and I can likely pinpoint it (he had told me a few details on his likely father and I did find one individual with the correct forename but we appear to have left it at that). So interesting to have that very large match actually - I have the largest at more than 260 centimorgans and one other sibling equally large, two in the mid 100s range and one around 80 centimorgans. 

I will continue on Chromosome 9 today. Yesterday we cleared the snow in the laneway and the fresh air was bracing but nice. It was minus 25 when I got up yesterday but today it was closer to minus 15 but still pretty fresh out there.  There is a gradual warming trend up towards zero and more snow promised in this next week. It looks like enough snow to ski on the ice that came our way and we might try that out today. Hard to believe we are at Saturday already and the 3rd of January. The New Year is moving quickly and the world with it. Turmoil here and there and we will see how that all develops. 

This is a beautiful winter day in Canada. The snow still clings to the tree branches and it is beautiful looking out the windows. Now I can see the blue sky with some lengths of cloud. The trees are still today. God is watching and waiting and wondering how humankind will deal with these latest events. Our friend and neighbour to the south remains that our friend and neighbour. It is important to us that we are friends with our neighbour and it is as God commanded that we love our neighbour as ourself. It has stood us in good stead through the years but the need to be tariff proof has resulted in a change in how we live in our lives. It will likely take a generation for all of that to take effect but it is happening as we move forward into our proper place in terms of being a producing nation and a strong international economy with other nations around the world. It benefits both of us or all of us however you look at it. We have a lot of products to sell that are needed in other countries and our Prime Minister with his international outlook is making that happen. I see us as being on a sort of emergency setting where we have to work very hard to make all of this new business happen as quickly and as safely as possible. There is a huge need for Parliament to work together; the people spoke in the election and all parties would do well to heed what we said; we want what is happening as the Prime Minister laid out his plans during the election period. It is working; it will be slow and it will be a lot of work but Canada will retake its position as a world leader much as we were during and following the Second World War. We have the stamina for it and we are a country richly endowed with natural resources to help with that. 

Tea drank, solitaire puzzles completed. Time to start working.  

 

 

Chromosome 10 completed and Chromosome 9 started

Yesterday was the day that I learned how to play a computer game using a hand held device; well not entirely the first time I did play a game with my grandson where he helped me to make the moves that I needed to do in his game but this time I did most of it except when I was obviously not getting it right. I am not sure that I am meant for computer games other than solitaire though I must admit. I like them to be short and snappy and not take up a lot of time. But we did have a quiet couple of hours working away at that and it was meant to be a holiday - the first day of 2026. 

Mostly our television set is used for gaming by visitors - it is a lovely big screen for such things and that seems to be fun for the younger generations. Plus I do watch YouTube for my Church Service primarily but also I am doing a history series that I found very interesting. We often watch nature shows on the YouTube made by people around the world. My desire to travel is pretty much nil but it is nice to see other countries. I have traveled so much though with Edward for most of our marriage that it is just nice to not be doing that so much. He loved to drive everywhere and we did. Once I managed, after more than 40 years to get him to fly to Europe, he couldn't fly there often enough. He loved it; all the different countries where his ancestors had been early colonials in particularly the New England Colonies and New York back in the 1600s. His earliest ancestors came to New Holland and lived at Albany and in New Amsterdam now New York.. In our travels we visited all the areas where the Kip family lived amongst others and they were numerous. It wasn't until he really had time to get into his own genealogy that I realized how many of his ancestors (and our daughters for that matter) had lived their entire lives in the colonies of the now United States of America from the 1620s on. When he tested his autosomal DNA he had thousands of cousins really from the beginning of his testing. As the results proved his trace back in genealogy he felt very happy with all of his genealogical endeavours and certainly visiting NEHGS in Boston was part of that. We went to a weekend get together where he worked with Gary Boyd Roberts who helped him with a couple of tricky ancestral lines but for the most part his work was very accurate. 

So I am now into Chromosome 9 and it is also an interesting one with a number of matches. For the most part Chromosome 10 is going to be a lot of genealogical work on the trees of the people who match with long lengths of Rawlings/Cotterill and Buller/Taylor. But equally I do not have all of the Blake/Knight separated or the Pincombe/Gray. I have built this latest excel file in just one so that I can eventually sort it by the name of the match and simplify marking the great grandparent as I have not taken the time to do cross research between chromosomes since there is an easier way than spending all my time flipping back and forth. I have numbered the file so that it can always be resorted back into its original layout. In the case of Chromosome 9 I have  eleven cousins known to me in terms of their relationship to me and our MRCA. Every grandparent is covered with the exception of Rawlings so there will be some work there but that too will be in the future as there is little point in my doing abstract research daily when I can put it all together at once and work on it. But overall this has been a good experience going back to the great-grandparents as they are all on the British census from 1841 on and one is on the Canadian census (my first born Canadian ancestor - Grace (Gray) Pincombe mother of my maternal grandfather John Routledge Pincombe. I always find myself thinking about John and how sad his youth was but my uncle said his father was a happy man with his family. He was very proud of his children and wife my uncle always said. He was over six feet tall and had been a very popular bachelor and did not marry until he was 41 years of age. I imagine many people were very envious of my grandmother and she was fourteen years younger than he was although still she was twenty seven when she married. I have pictures of them in those early years of marriage from my half second cousin which was very nice of him to share with me. George DeKay, my Gray third cousin, who persuaded me to write the Pincombe Profile did set that up. I did actually work at writing books in my younger days and surprisingly have returned to it. But it was kind of my cousin to loan the photo albums to me and I scanned them over a weekend when we came to meet with my Pincombe cousins in advance of writing up the Profile. Since my line had not stayed on the farms I did feel it should principally be about all of them as some were still on the original farms. 

The Prime Minister is going to France to be part of the Coalition of the Willing trying to bring peace to Europe once again. Although some complain about the expense to Canada I think the money that we have used to support Ukraine has been money well spent. We are building up our own defensive industries just because peace is not with us and the only real way to have peace is to always be ready to defend ourselves against aggressive peoples. We do not want war; we as a country have never been aggressive; we have buried far too many of our youth on distant shores. The torch they passed to us we must hold it high and do our best to keep the peace that they died for; the generations that followed them. Life was very different in Canada when I was a young child; we were a very militaristic people very conscious of our need to be ready. We have become like that again. Threatening us with nuclear war is just ignorant and we all know the result of nuclear war but perhaps not; perhaps some people think they can hide underground no ideas on that but the waste of the world that God gave us would not be as He desires. Of that I am very sure. But He waits and watches and His simple words continue to ring down through the ages - love your neighbour as yourself.

So today continue with Chromosome 9 heading towards Chromosome 1 and it is the New Year and time marches onward and must get back to writing the books. I am ready for that now and about to start transcribing some of those Latin documents that have sat on my computer for over a decade. However they still appear to be in good shape but if not I will order them. There are some that will  not benefit me I can see that now but they looked interesting. 

Tea drank. Solitaire puzzles done and I am late for breakfast.  

2026 and half way through the 2020s

 Happy New Year was the refrain yesterday everywhere it appeared. God gave us this beautiful world and ours here in Canada is deep in snow and it is minus 17 degrees celsius today but the World's longest skating rink is open here in Ottawa. It will be busy today I am sure in spite of the wind chill which is minus 29 degrees celsius. One of the great entertainments in Ottawa is that skating rink and on the weekends it is particularly busy. 

I worked on Chromosome 11 yesterday and it will have a few challenges but may yield interesting results for Taylor and Cotterill as there are long lengths of chromosome without a known cousin and a number of the matches are from Ancestry. We also went grocery shopping so already for New Years today. New Year's Eve we generally make a Fish Soup/Stew that consists generally of four kinds of fish cut into nice chunks then cooked quickly at a high temperature in olive oil with garlic for one minute. Then add vegetable broth, some water and spices along with diced tomatoes and cook for 30 minutes and once at the boil add fresh parsley then simmer for the remaining time. Prepare croutons with olive oil in the oven sufficient to line the soup bowl and then a big scoop of the fish soup/stew and it is lovely along with a cheese tray/crackers and fruit tray. Lovely dinner for New Years Eve and generally we do the same each year or something very similar. 

Today I will continue on Chromosome 11 and there are  76 matches in total and I  have completed 19. With 18 known cousins from each of the four grandparent lines I am finding that the work is flowing quickly again for this chromosome. It is more time that flies by much too quickly. 

 As the new year dawns and I can see that in the east this morning, God is watching in the Heavens wondering when mankind will find a way to live by His rules - love your neighbour as yourself. Greed ranks high as one of the great sins of the Christian Church and most incursions into other people's property is for greed - to steal from people. It is sad really that even now in 2026 we can not find peace in our world. 

Tea is ready and I shall work on my solitaire puzzles to start the day having completed my entire set of exercises which takes about 50 minutes in total. It is a good set of exercises which results in about 1500 steps (between exercises) and is 28 Zone Minutes with a cardio load of 13 on my new Fitbit which is lower than the Charge 5 which tended to record it around 45 so we will see how that transpires over the next few months as I suspect there is a learning curve in a new FitBit. This one is a Charge 6. Calories burned listed as 321 calories which is about right from the earlier FitBit result.