Supporting the government

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

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

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

Tea all drank and time to do the solitaire puzzles.  

 

  

 

A good working day on Chromosome 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7 million dollars for an ostrich cull

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Another successful cleaning day

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

First day of cleaning completed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Working through Chromosome 4

 This Chromosome like Chromosome 5 has a number of Pincombe or Blake matches which I never really bothered to separate out because I already had so many matches that I could use. The process continues to record the Relatives in Common and sometimes it is immediate that I separate them out and others I will need to go through the trees on Ancestry. 

A lovely Sunday service; I particularly liked the hymns this Sunday. Some interesting thoughts from different scholars in the sermon that proved to be thought provoking. Always a good thing I think to learn something new or a different side that you hadn't thought about for a long time. 

The day passed so very quickly  and I made my chicken stew that I do love so much and enjoyed it thoroughly. I forgot to buy turnip when I shopped and will do that next time but I had plenty of fresh stored vegetables and frozen to make an exciting (for me) stew for Sunday. It is nice to have it all made up to cover my cleaning days so that I just sit down to a lovely bowl of steaming hot stew each cleaning night. 

Today cleaning and it is the top floor today. Cleaning is this necessity that one does but also it is fantastic exercise that extends generally for about three hours or so a day since I usually work continuously from the time I start to when I end for that day. Most of my exercise periods do tend to run around the one hour mark but they are intentional whereas when one is cleaning the exercise level is variable from one ten minute session to the next. Still thinking about a nice new vacuum and perhaps that will happen one of these days. Although the shop vac does a great job for sure. 

Government back in today and will watch Question Period this afternoon. We are in a working together mood always nice to see that. The intention to make our country tariff proof and in my mind restore some of the lost industries that have disappeared during these last fourty years of Free Trade. One enters into Free Trade somewhat naively I think but it was natural to trade with our friends and neighbours to the south (and north, Alaska) and I would say we never particularly had any complaints on any free trade items but time does move on and life is seen differently and so we are here working away at making ourselves tariff proof as fast as we can. Perhaps the new word on the block in this generation is tariff. I think though it is nice to see that the difficulty we encountered with China is cleared away. One wouldn't describe China and Canada as best friends which is our association with the United States but we are at least not on such bad terms as we were. With just a simple tweak - China sends us 49,000 EVs and they are tariffed and they buy from us canola (still tariffed but not so much and other items). A good trade and we are back to where we were before the uncomfortable incident in 2018 (imagine that was December 2018 and just over seven years ago). China might build cars here but that is probably into the future (it depends a lot on the American car makers and how many cars they build here and hence how many cars are available to purchase). Life has changed here though and it is more likely that 49,000 EVs will find a home then it would have been a year or so ago. We mostly buy American branded cars made here in Canada (and some European brands) but that has changed as the companies are reducing the number of cars that they make here. The Chinese EVs might be cheaper, no ideas on that, and for our youth they would be an excellent car as they enter into the wonderful world of driving. It is truly a right of passage in this country to get your driver's license and a car and stay at home. That is why there are so many cars in the laneways in Canada. I suspect that we will see more people buy extra cars just because these EVs from China might be cheaper and it will be practical for more families to have two or three or four cars in a family. At least that is how I see it. 

Another big snow fall and the laneway is already cleared; a very efficient company but we are used to snow for sure. It is still cold but not as cold as yesterday so perhaps we are back to our "normal" cold weather. We will see.

In the depths of winter now in Canada likely lasting until mid March or April this year and more skiing once it is warmer (like just 5 or 10 degrees below zero - I prefer minus 5 or above at my age of 80 years). Minus 15, 20 etc is just too cold for me. My arthritis doesn't like all that cold. It is beautiful though and I have no desire to go south although it is lovely in Florida I have to say. Swimming in the pool in March in Florida in the warm sun sounds absolutely beautiful (and was, I have been a number of times with my children) but I would miss the snow. I love winter. I can swim in the summer here when it is still somewhat cold but I do love a refreshing cold swim. 

Anyway drinking my tea and must do my solitaire puzzles. Time to get to work soon enough but first breakfast. 

 

 

 

Chromosome 5 completed

 Some difficulties in chromosome 5 as I did not separate out a few matches from the grandparent lines. Sometimes they were probably too small anyway other times just not enough information but I have kept them in the chart as I want to see how they correspond to other known matches. That will be something that AI will do for me once I have this chart ready to go. Could AI have made the chart? Perhaps in the future no idea on that although for privacy concerns in the databases I think that AI can not be just randomly used by people in a database although that is one item that these databases could offer in the future as part of their advanced searches such as Ancestry has now set up. Eventually I will use that because I can see some items that I wouldn't mind having more information as I pursue these early colonial Blake lines and as it turns out in I have also found that their are Buller/Taylor early colonial lines in America. I have the one known Blake line mentioned earlier (Sedgewicke-Blake in the mid 1600s in the Royal Colony of Massachusetts). The Buller/Taylor (and I do suspect Buller because like Blake they were out in the world in those early years) line appears to be a southern one in the Virginia Colony or the Carolina colony. 

I did start Chromosome 4 and there are  82 matches. This chromosome has eight known cousin matches several of them quite good lengths. Blake is heavily represented along with Knight, one singleton Rawlings and Dear back to my 3x great grandparents which was a good find. One match back to my 2x great grandparents Pincombe and Rew. The process through these chromosomes has been quite fascinating and I find myself contemplating doing Edward's grandparents with more confidence considering I do not have many of his closest relatives (sibling, sibling descendants, 1st cousins) but many many second, third and fourth cousins who were very kind to test for him in that decade before he passed away. I actually maintained all of the tests extracting the new matches as they came in since I was doing mine but he did all the work of actually looking at them and preparing charts (by hand) as he worked through them. I think he enjoyed that actually. I said from the beginning my genealogy would all be on the computer and for the most part it is but I still do have a couple of thousand fiche, books (not as many as he did - 2 bookcases (small)), DVDs that I purchased some on our trips to the British Isles and Europe. Records that I have purchased but I did scan all of them but did keep the originals if they were close family data. 

I also want to get back to the fourty binders of pictures and reduce them to just the family moments so that they are not lost over time. They are all scanned so in fact they would not be lost but it is nice to think that Edward's grandchildren will be able to enjoy the binders looking through them and perhaps his great grandchildren. His grandsons still miss him very much; he would have been so perfect with them but they are lucky to have a wonderful father who is also very good with them. As well they have a grandfather and a step grandfather that they both love very much and they were younger than Edward and will be with them for a much longer time which is wonderful. Creating the phasing of Edward's grandparents just seems to make it easier for me to do this downsizing. 

Moving on and must drink my tea and do my solitaire puzzles.  It is minus 26 degrees celsius in the great outdoors. The snow continues to be sucked dry by the cold air so not a good time to be wandering about outside here. The bare road is starting to show a sign that it is very cold out there. Apparently we are to get 10 to 20 centimetres of snow which will be light flaky stuff for sure in this cold if it actually falls.

Sunday today and Church very soon. I guess all the world excitement of the past week has distracted me from the actual day that I was living in.  

 

Just thirty five matches left to do for Chromosome 5

 Yesterday was a good working day and I managed to get quite a few matches done with just thirty five matches left to do. I do have this one set of matches where it is either Pincombe or Blake and have not yet resolved that item. But still a lot of matches to go so hopefully will do so. 

Last night out to dinner with family and it was lovely but the meal was absolutely huge; I never was a big eater and I think perhaps I eat less than I used to even. It was fun though and a very interesting evening catching up. Still contemplating selling the house sooner rather than later but we will see. It is easy enough to get around here and I would need to learn a new area. 

Lots of snow and it will continue coming down all weekend. This will be a big snow year I think but that is good to fill up all the lakes and rivers in Canada especially the Great Lakes which we share with the United States and one of the Great Lakes, Lake Michigan, is entirely in the United States. Their levels should also be up much higher this year. I am wondering if all of this snow will help to bring the rivers back up to their usual level in the United States. The snow just seems to keep on coming. 

Parliament goes back in on Monday and we, the Canadian people, expect them to work very well together and gets lots done. The budget has passed and now the implementation of the budget should follow very quickly. Any fooling and the party that does it will be punished at the polls for sure. Elections are expensive. I rather think there is gradual softening of the opposition to the western pipeline and that we will see crude flowing to the northern shipping point. We must diversify to keep ourself Tariff Proof and the only way is to increase our exports around the world. It was always a hidden danger of Free Trade and the resultant competition with larger foreign companies dominating and buying out smaller companies. But looking at the EU it doesn't seem like that always happens so we will just have to see how it all goes. But for the moment our full attention is on making ourselves Tariff Proof.

It is good to see the Board of Peace for Gaza (a wonderful concept) and hopefully rebuilding will begin soon enough when Hamas is disarmed and not part of the governance of Gaza. I wish the Board of Peace every success with the furtherance of the recovery in Gaza. 

Although a referendum is possible in Alberta those who would like to separate from Canada are a smaller group and the best case scenario for any province/territory in Canada is to stay in Confederation (their rights and privileges are very abundant within the Confederation). These lands are owned by the First Nations except where permanently ceded and the perpetual guardianship given to us is dependent on the Treaties. Sort of like 99 year leases but not quite the same. Plus Alberta was created by the government of Canada not by individuals within Alberta and it was the Government of Canada that purchased Rupert's Land from which Alberta was created. People are welcomed to leave and go elsewhere where they will be happy. Canada is a different sort of country and respect to the First Nations rights are totally first when there is any discussion on  land rights. The wealth of Canada is huge and we must protect it for the future of Canada. That was the desire of the Founders of Confederation as they looked into an uncertain future in the 1860s. Like all the torches passed to us from the hands of our dying youths in the past we must carry this torch high into the future respecting the rights of all of the peoples of this land we call Canada and our First Nations call Turtle Island. The job ahead is huge as we diversify our trade to make ourselves Tariff Proof. 

Today continuing with Chromosome 5 and there are 35 matches still to do.  The sun is brilliant out there today and it is minus 29 degrees celsius at 8:30 a.m. EST. It is the time of the waning crescent of the moon so this cold will last for at least four days it is said and it feels like minus 30 degrees celsius now with the sun beating down on this part of the world. A cold half week ahead but the laneway is all clear and it doesn't snow a lot when it is this cold. You can watch the snow hills contract as the cold air sucks out the moisture from the mounds. 

 

 

 

 

Moving Forward

Continuing with my phasing of my great grandparents working on Chromosome 5 yesterday and the same today. Definitely a good time to be indoors as the temperatures are going to plummet. For a bit our good friends and neighbours to the south (the United States) are going to have this huge snow storm coming out of the south west and following the jet stream (which will capture the polar vortex pulling it down much further than normal) right across the United States. It will be terribly cold for them as they do not usually get such cold arctic weather (except in Alaska of course). It will be cold here as well but we are pretty much used to windchills of minus 40. 

I am also thinking about how to begin the work to accumulate the information to phase Edward's grandparents. If I can do it then that would be all the great grandparents done on both sides. It is an interesting idea now that I have decided to move forward with that. I did ask Edward's nieces if they would test their DNA (I would  have paid)  but they were not interested - not everyone is interested for sure. 

Thus far I have just encountered one match that I can not differentiate between Pincombe and Blake on Chromosome 5. But there are still lots of matches to look at so the solution may well be at hand and I will just put that match into the "too small" folder if not.  Many of these matches I have not looked at since I collected them years ago. I am going into the matches and collecting the relatives in common as that is also a handy tool as I am working away. 

Outside already to put out the paper recycling and I had a large cardboard box so put everything in that and it will all be taken away. This is the "small" week collection as I refer to it with the "large" week collection next week. This is a very orderly process here and we have a new company doing the recycling and lots more is being recycled which is great news. I scarcely have any actual garbage these days as everything ends up getting recycled. The plastic bag is holding a month's worth now and is only half full. I also swept and shoveled away some of the snow and will finish that later.  Heavy snow is due on Sunday so the company will do the laneway but I will clear away the couple of centimetres that fell overnight. 

All this snow is great as it will keep the Great Lakes, the Ottawa River and all the many lakes and river systems in Canada full to the brim. It would be nice if next year's fire season is less vigorous but fire is also natural in a forest to help in regeneration. We have so much forest here all across Canada. 

Busy times ahead as we continue to diversify our economy. We enjoyed Free Trade with our neighbours (United States and Mexico) all these years and really did not have any complaints as the natural flow of goods from centuries ago has always been north and south but gradually we are shifting that just a little so that we get products from all the provinces as well which is really nice. The canned salmon coming in from British Columbia is lovely and we have not had that before. Making ourselves Tariff Proof is the aim in all of this and slowly but surely the flow of goods east to west is happening. I would just like to see Ontario hurry up and re-develop the industries lost during Free Trade as they were out-competed or bought out and so many products come to us through CUSMA. I have no idea if it will be renewed but I think we need to be ready for anything actually (with the loss of some of the the car industries we need to find different employment for our people as it appears the car companies were making too many cars here). I think the revised CUSMA was a great idea and benefited both the United States, Mexico and ourselves. It updated the original trade deal written before the days of internet and digital commerce and tweaked some weaknesses - great job. 

Breakfast completed and time to get to work on the matches. A whole day of research ahead of me, these past couple of weeks I have gotten quite a bit done. Life was pretty busy around Christmas and New Years. 

Must make my tea and do my solitaire puzzles. 

 

 

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.