Another beautiful Sunday in the Creator's World

 Looking out on the fresh blanket of snow protecting those tender roots under ground is absolutely marvelous first thing this morning. It is cold out there but the plants are protected this year from the savagery of the Polar vortex. Mother Nature was ahead of the game this year with a thick blanket of snow. Global warming is here but in Canada the polar vortex rules the day and it is very cold here. I love the winter for its isolation and lots of time to work on projects because there simply isn't anything I can do about the outdoors. It just survives through each winter by the Grace of God and Mother Nature to spring up again once the cold winds depart and the summer sun works its way north once again. I am  left to wonder many times is the calming Mother Nature stronger than the Polar Vortex? The strength is in her gentleness as each tiny flower erupts from the ground in the spring. That is so much stronger than the cruel polar wind. It blows and blows but in the long run the protections that Mother Nature creates can outlast any polar wind. But why is that? Because, I think, the Creator determines the eventual outcome in the long run and He has told us how to live - love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself. When that is happening then the world lives in peace and we want peace. Prime Minister Modi of India wants peace; he was very clear about that with the Russian dictator. Freedom is gone from Russia but it probably still exists in the quiet corners hidden away waiting to break through once again and flower. Then Russia can return once again to that glory they achieved which the world acknowledged at the end of the last vicious World War. So many deaths; so many of our youth buried in the battlefields of France. The heart mourns for them and their aim which was Peace in our time has been trampled on. I was born into that desire for peace in our time; when the United Nations formed and we tried to set it up so that aggression would be punished. But the greed crept in once again and it is greed that will destroy our world if we do not learn to love our neighbour as ourself. 

The rephasing of the Grandparents is complete and thoughts of working on the great grandparents swirl in my brain. I can basically use the same setup and simply choose a bolder or lighter colour for the pair and as that stands I would be looking at dark grey for Blake and a lighter grey for Knight, then dark green for Buller and a lighter green for Taylor, dark orange for Pincombe and a light orange for Gray and finally dark purple for Rawlings and a lighter purple and I will have to decide ultimately if that is Cotterill/Cotterell or unknown. The matches will take me there and at the moment I am still ambivalent; there is so much Cotterell/Cotterill already available in the line as matches from the past that are abnormally large because of two marriages two generations apart and close enough at 4x great aunt marrying a Cotterell and a second cousin 4xr Cotterell marrying a Rawlins and some of us have inherited entire lengths of the Rawlings/unknown chromosome amongst the other three which we also inherited as singletons which is apparently not that unusual. Mother Nature is in charge of how all of that genetic material passes and normally chooses the best matchup. It is in this matching that the less desirable genetic code is eliminated and the better is passed (generations that become stagnant lead to disease and so a constant flow of different DNA works better in the long run in the general case - that isn't to say I do not agree with eliminating genetic disease if one can but the better way is to probably marry someone outside of your close family circle which has always been the verdict of the Christian Church for time immemorial). The creation of children is perhaps the most important thing that we do as Homo sapiens along with the nurturing given to offspring (and children do deserve the best that we can provide them although it doesn't have to be the most expensive toy for sure - whatever works best in a family). It is the love that a family has for each other that is really important to their survival as a lasting entity through time. That does make it more interesting to pursue from a scientific viewpoint. The name shifts occurred through time but my cousin in Australia (William Rawlins, MBE) did an excellent job on the family tree for Rawlings/Rawlins. He had taken it back to William Rawlins and Mary Ford whom I believe married 30 Sep 1741 at Wylye Wiltshire and I took it further back to a William Rawlings baptized in Steeple Ashton, Wiltshire 16 May 1669 and the son of a William Rawlings. He did send me all his research and other Rawlins.Rawlings cousins in Australia have continued the search and so far we appear to all agree on this traceback. I am ready through for new research to come up and the advent of DNA does make for even more interesting possibilities.

The morning is passing and tea is drank; solitaire puzzles complete and Church today online if that is possible or I will read the service on my own (already in my reading list).  

What will I work on today? I will continue contemplating the phasing of the great grandparents but I do believe I have come up with a plan that will work. I need to annotate my charts just a little more before I share them with family. I am going to reread the Blake book today as I have latin items that I am translating and will insert into that book. It is time to get back to writing although the year of wading through the DNA matches has been interesting and will continue as I will regularly check the databases - Ancestry has been checked and a few new matches to examine. Living DNA is next and then FT DNA, My Heritage, Gedmatch and 23 and Me although I am not going to write people so it will simply be a look at the match from the viewpoint of whom do they have in common. Perhaps one day 23 and Me will return to their setup as it was absolutely excellent. 

 

 

Beautiful white snow

 What a beautiful sight out of the window - everything covered in white snow. Another snow fall in December to protect the roots of the plants for the spring growth. It is a good thing; last year's December was cruel cold with no ground cover of snow to protect the roots. It showed in the spring. More snow is promised and the skis are waiting to be tried out once again. At 80 I will go cross country skiing once again. Amazing really to my mind but I am thinking of my two grandparents whom I knew so well in their declining years. But they were both very active until they suddenly were not; that is how life goes sometimes. 

A lovely walk yesterday with my cleats on my boots and I really enjoyed the fresh air. It was cold though, still minus 27 degrees celsius with the wind chill but I was dressed for it and just that little bit of my face that I covered with my enormous gloves that I used for clearing snow to warm it up as I walked. It was very invigorating and when I got home I made a cup of hot tea which was thoroughly enjoyed. Although I was not cold except perhaps my lungs were cooler than usual as they sucked in the cold air. The hot liquid quickly warmed the lungs up as it traveled down my esophagus to my stomach and it has always fascinated me when one is cold to feel the hot liquid traveling down one's throat and spreading its warmth through the body. 

I did complete all of the chromosomes but still doing some work on Chromosome 23 with regard to the crossover points since I do not have them from Living DNA. I have those points from Gedmatch and from 23 and Me and created a third set that looked at all the information in the nearly 100 matches I have in Chromosome 23. I am still reviewing that although there were no changes in the placement of the crossovers in this Chromosome. With one brother inheriting 100% Buller in his X chromosome from our mother who received it from her mother and is a mixture of  Cheatle (marriage of William Welch and Sarah (Cheatle) Welch) from her father's mother and Taylor/Roberts from her mother. The portion which is included in the entire first section of this chromosome which my brother inherited  and passed to my great grandmother Ann (Welch) Buller  is Cheatle and was inherited as well by myself and a number of cousins. Chunks inherited by other siblings is also part of this Cheatle bundle that has traveled through time from Sarah baptized in 1795 at Ashby de la Zouch to Canada now in the 2000s. The next section of that chromosome in my brother is labeled Taylor which I also share. The last section of this chromosome is shared by two siblings including my brother and appears to be Cheatle as well; we will see. I have inherited Pincombe referring solely to the four grandparent line at this point. There isn't any Pincombe though it is all Gray-Routledge as inherited by my maternal grandfather from his mother my first born Canadian whose parents were Robert Gray and Mary (Routledge) Gray. I do know that some of it is Routledge as I have matches with Routledge and both of Mary's grandparents were Routledge on her mother's side (Thomas Routledge married Elizabeth Routledge at Bewcastle 23 Jun 1785 coming to Canada in the late summer/early fall of 1818 and my first colonial emigrants (Mary was just 14 years of age at that time). Chromosome 23 will likely occupy me for a few days as I have always meant to have a good look at the matches. It does seem like a misnomer to label sections as Pincombe as no Pincombe Chromosome 23 is inherited by my siblings or myself since my maternal grandfather does not inherit an X chromosome from his father. However my maternal grandfather did have a surviving half sister who would have inherited Pincombe from her father (my great grandfather) but the X chromosome would be passed from Elizabeth (Rew) Pincombe to her son William Robert Pincombe (my great grandfather) and hence also not Pincombe. Fascinating to learn all of this and the learning continues - I have always had a fascination with learning. The other 22 chromosomes though are full of Pincombe DNA passed from my mother (received from her father) to all of us. 

Slept in today; all of that fresh air but everything is done now that needed to be done to prepare for winter which is very much upon us. 

It was good to see our Prime Minister and the President of the United States on good terms at the FIFA event. Our countries have been best friends for over 200 years and some snowbirds have had enough of the cold and will travel, they say, to the southern United States to enjoy the heat once again. It will take a while to get the numbers up to where they were I suspect but gradually we are finding our feet with unemployment now at just 6.5% coming down from 7.1% a couple of months ago. The GDP has also come up but it will take time to rework our trade around the world for sure. 

Time to make tea. 

Twenty chromosomes completed now for the re-phasing of my grandparents

 Just three chromosomes to go and I will have completed this project of re-phasing my grandparents. The changes were except for one chromosome and just one side of it were minimal just a little adjustment here and there to compliment all the testing centres. One small blip discovered on Chromosome 7 in one length only and I will check that out again one of these days; mostly waiting for a match in that area for that one individual. 

The phasing of my great grandparents will begin and lots of data for that especially for Blake, Knight, Pincombe, Rew, Buller and Taylor. There is a fair amount for Rawlings and the last one I still have to be sure I am not seeing the matches of my earlier marriages in the Rawlings line with Cotterill/Cotterell (spelling varies). I did trace the two lines of interest back to a common parent with my Rawlings line having married into the Cotterell line in the mid 1700s and again in the 1800s. A brother of this early Cotterell was the ancestor of the line at Kimpton where my great grandmother was working. The priest recording the surname as one of the middle names of my Grandmother did point in this direction and the matches are coming with the companies suggesting a possible connection. I would say that in general I will look at the data and see where it leads me for sure although in my mind is a young girl and woman who loved her family and really it was never mentioned as far as I know until I was helping to put together the family tree for my parent's 60th wedding anniversary and couldn't find her birth registration or baptism. At this time it continued not being mentioned but the answer was soon found in the paperwork and about 100 British pounds later and a number of documents I had the answer. Myself I loved this grandmother that I never knew and really it does not matter to me; I love her anyway just because she sounds like a lovely grandmother to have had but missed because she died when she was 64 five years before I was born. But my grandpa said she loved the two grandchildren that she knew and that is wonderful that she got to know two of us. The young man of interest in the projected position of being my great grandfather died at just 54 years of age and his cause of death was mentioned somewhere and I made note of it because I have made a medical history of the family. We were blessed with really good genes actually but an inadequate exercise routine life style has taken its toll in the past and one hopes that it stays in the past. They say the youth of today is much more inclined to a good life style and that is excellent news actually. Other than arthritis which both of our parents had and the two grandparents I knew meant that perhaps we would all have arthritis. My answer is to run and walk a lot. It does help. Staying out of the frigid is helpful as well but the walking is definitely good for an individual I think with arthritis. 

Back to the writing of the books to a certain extent now and I did spend a bit of time extracting any new matches but I shall be rather picky these days and just select matches that give me extra and new information.  The days of collecting vast amounts are in the past I believe. I will get my entire genome done once it is set up and I already have a kit that I want to buy but it waits for that. Other than that the DNA is just going to compliment the books where it is valuable. There are some sections of Blake that have passed down through the centuries and I am always alert for Americans with deep Colonial ancestry who match but the matches are so far in the past but they are large and in what is generally referred to as a common area or pile-up area in the chromosomes. I may get into tiny studies on that we will see. 

I have missed doing the Pincombe Newsletter and the H11 Newsletter and will get that done in the next couple of days. All my concentration was into those matches for sure. I learned quite a bit in tiny ways as the changes were, surprisingly except for one chromosome where I knew there were problems and just on the one length, very minimal which I hoped for but was prepared to be corrected if changes emerged. Collecting over 2000 matches during the past decade plus did pay off for sure in terms of a good phasing of our grandparents. 

Today the car goes in for its snow tires and I take it in soon. The radials are good tires and until 2012 we never owned snow tires. I shall be very cautious and the walk home will be lovely. Although it is pretty cold but I will be dressed for it. I had the flu and couldn't take it in two weeks ago I was too sick but someone else desperate for their snow tires would have gotten that appointment so worked out for everybody. I started it yesterday and ran it for about five minutes until is was part way warmed up so hopefully at minus 20 it is going to do the same today. I also have to pump the tire probably we will see if the light goes on. 

Tea drank and solitaire puzzles to do and then the day of research (and taking the car in) begins.  Still avoiding the news in terms of my thinking about it a great deal. We need to become tariff proof and that is the aim. I still think that we need to give some space to the car companies that are afflicted by tariff to do what they have suggested they will do - Canada is a huge market in terms of car buying and I suspect no company really wants to lose it and will try to work around the difficulties that exist and might just be solved when CUSMA comes up for renewal - really everything is a bargaining point. We have a great deal to offer for sure but we must be a more independent country but still every bit of best friend and neighbour to the United States. One cannot share the huge border that we do and be any other than best friends. We have a lot to offer each other for sure (during any cold spell any one in Canada does think about the warmth of the Florida beaches or so many other warm places in the United States). We can outlive the cold but the warmth is nice on occasion! Our two hundred plus year friendship has been something that God wanted to see between His people; I am very sure of that. They are a larger country and like a big brother really but big brothers want to see us be as successful as they are in order to have this continuous land mass stable and efficient and prosperous and best friends. 

First ten chromosomes re-phased for the grandparents

Nearly half way through re-phasing my grandparents and some review of Chromosome 23 matches. So far they tend towards Buller proving that line quite early on to likely be as I had thought it; one entire Buller chromosome passed to one of my brothers intact from his mother and unchanged from her mother who received from her father and it came to Edwin Denner Buller from his mother Anne (Welch) Buller whose twin sister Sarah married to Edwin Withers had a huge family now found all over the world. Anne of course received it from her mother Sarah (Cheatle) Welch giving me a large length of Cheatle that is shared by many around the world. Quite fascinating DNA as it travels from parents to child through the generations. 

Other than the small glitch at the beginning of one sibling's chromosome in Chromosome 7 the re-phasing has been extremely smooth. I marvel at how close I came with that first phasing actually which I have updated a number of times over the past decade plus. The problem is one match that appears to be Blake but really not information to alter anything already in place. It waits for confirmation and perhaps will come one of these days. 

The basement cleaning all accomplished and everything back in place. The basement looks empty; it needs to look empty as it had been full to the rafters on occasion. More downsizing could be seen as I surveyed what is left. I remember telling my husband to be then and later husband that I never wanted to be left a widow; please do not leave me a widow I said to him after he asked me to marry him. It is a sad task to be a widow; to have to manage and be a caretaker of another person's dreams and possessions is the hardest thing in the world really. When a person is unwell you do not like to ask them how they want to manage items and he knew that about me and told me many things that he wanted me to do and they have been done for quite a while now. But the possessions he created that meant a lot to him are just massive in content and will not survive intact because so much of the material in them is about Edward's life. I would say that a comfort in his period of illness was that memory he created of his life from the early days of our marriage right up to the present at the time. He carefully preserved it all and regularly would collect one of those large binders and bring it up to his office and enjoy it all once again (including reviewing all the trip brochures collected and items purchased). Sometimes he would ask me to join him and I would but lots of times he just wanted to enjoy it all by himself. But the children and the grandchildren do not know all those people and the places are not something that mean anything to them and will not because he isn't here to make them live for them (Edward did do a lot of things on his own away from us). They belong to the moving generation these children and grandchildren. They will not create the kind of memories that my generation and those before me created. It will be different because recall is different. You can have it all just on a tablet with a big memory card. Life is and will change rapidly over the next century for sure. All of these pictures are scanned and in files and will never be lost in that way but the originals will have to go through the shredder because they are other people's memories and one just doesn't dump the originals for sure. They need to be shredded and that is another huge task. I am glad that Edward spent all those hours scanning and when he tired of it I scanned a great deal of material for him so all stored away just in case there is that inquisitive child in the future like Edward who wants to know everything about his ancestors. Edward is still very much in his grandson's minds; they loved him dearly.

 Today snow clearing as there is just a couple of centimetres. I will put on my cleats although I did put a mixture on the ice it is safer to wear the cleats for sure. The car in the garage so I do not have to clear it off or de-ice the windows which is a treat. Soon time to ski; the snow looks good and it will be perhaps a white christmas which we are used to having here in Canada. Soon all of Canada will be covered by snow. It is beautiful actually but it is also cold and there is a polar vortex. We are going through that period of shift when the polar vortex covers our area for weeks on end. 

 Tea drank and solitaire puzzles worked. It is early today as the puzzles went very quickly. Eyes a little tired today so will not do a lot of work but I will do some planning as it is time to return to the books. I will work on the phasing of the great-grandparents over the next few months. I am not in a rush but I have not yet pulled all the census material to aid me in my quest from Find My Past, Ancestry and My Heritage. I tend to a look at all of the databases and accompanying material just to see what has been collected by the companies. This is my pleasure for sure; subscriptions to all of these companies. 

The sky is lightening but no wind in the trees. God is watching over His world as always. His creation still intact in spite of the Satans in our midst. We learn so slowly we humans and it is time to move to that peaceful uplifted plain where war is no more; greed disappears and the world will prosper. 

The return of the Indigenous articles from the Vatican ensures that the memory of this great land mass will always be visible in this country and part of its heritage. Thanks to the Pope for making this happen.  Thank you to the Thomson and  Weston families for their winning bid to purchase the original charter of the Hudson's Bay Company with plans to donate it to  four museums here in Canada. This document from 1670 will be part of the historical background of colonial North America. 

 

Finally Chromosome 1 completed

 I did complete Chromosome 1 yesterday and I knew I couldn't resist working on the re-phasing of my grandparents. I did the first three chromosomes. I set up a slightly different set up using Excel instead of Powerpoint. Powerpoint really isn't set up to do this type of table although I liked it early on but gradually could see the advantage of using Excel so I did start that. I still have to work on Chromosome 23 and will probably do some of that today. When this is all completed and I have recorded everything I will give it to my siblings in case they have a descendant that is interested but my daughter will also maintain the files in her lifetime just with regard to actually making sure the files still work! She has her own items to work on. Once I have finished that will be all that I will do likely. I am more interested in constructing these books and will use all of this information as I prepare the family trees. 

Continued today working on the chromosomes and I have discovered a slight blip in Chromosome 7 as I rephase. I will have to re-look at it but the matches do not appear to be there to truly reveal the slight blip. We will see how that goes. I have three sets of crossover data and will see whether there is a blip or not since I can compare the five siblings (thus far nothing points to a change but I have only checked one sibling whose crossover point just didn't quite strike me as correct - fussy old woman I guess. Sometimes it is perhaps how the test flowed for one sibling as occasionally I will see a slight difference between companies in how they interpret the data primarily because they use different points. When whole genome becomes universal then these blips will disappear as there is really only one result that is correct. But as I said this is not yet pure science it remains as citizen science where the proof relies on incomplete information in some cases simply because not all the companies choose the same testing regimen. 

This is also basement cleaning day and I shall go and start the robot to do its chore on the rugs. They are old rugs now although considering I have run on them for years and they had a family of four and their friends on occasion moving around on those rugs they barely look worn. But they were good rugs and I will take them with me when we move. It was one of the first items I bought when I went to work proofreading at home in the early 80s. My a long time ago now and wages were significantly smaller in those days. I never drove the car anywhere that did not involve my work and my husband biked to work and our children walked to school or took a bus. Although I eventually did have two trips a day to take my oldest daughter to Middle School and back in her last year there. It was quite simply a better idea and we could stop and shop at stores and so two trips a day were not part of my working regimen. I used to record all those things; amazing really. But I am that sort of a person and completely converted my husband who did not keep accounts at all when I first knew him. I taught him to do bookkeeping and he was Treasurer at his United Church for around ten years. He loved doing that as his father had done that at his Church. It was sort of a memory thing for him as he went through life since he did not get to have his father after two years of age when his father died in a farming mishap. 

Tea drank and must go and start the Robot; checking to make sure it is fully charged although I do glance at it through the week these days as it does slow me down to have to charge before I use it.