Another busy cleaning day

 The second day of cleaning completely accomplished and just the basement remains and will soon start the Robot vacuuming the rug. It is a nice way to finish the three day cleaning spree! The time commitment is just two hours at the most - one hour is done by the Robot although I have to prepare the area for the Robot to run effectively which takes maybe ten minutes. 

I finished looking at the four files created by Copilot and they are in good shape. The next step I will probably take on Thursday - my first working day of the week. Copilot will look at each of the files that are referred to by the Blake file it created just by matching the name on the file and the name in the file that it created. Within those files are lists of relatives in common/Matches and I will make a list of what to look for and then Copilot will make a complete list of those names along with a list of the matches that have those names in common. I should get a list of people who match within Blake and a list of people who match within Knight as well as a list of people who are matching Blake/Knight because I did not separate them. I will not have any decision made by the Copilot on this last group because it will be confusing and hence I will do that split although I could supply enough information for Copilot to do it there is a possibility of junk emerging so will avoid that. The human input is still more valuable in this case that the input from Copilot. 

The comparisons between "common areas" will also be made by me because that is indirectly what I am looking for in these sorts - matches deep into the past that take me back to Blake lines in Andover although few people do have that in their tree but some do. The 1700s was particularly small in my Blake line with Thomas Blake (born in the 1680s marrying in the early 1700s and having just one son Thomas and this son Thomas marrying in the late 1720s and having two sons but only one survived infancy and that was Joseph baptized in Andover in 1730 and marrying in Upper Clatford in the late 1750s. He married Joanna King of Upper Clatford and they had three sons. The second eldest died as a child (around the same time as Joseph) leaving the eldest son William who lived in Andover in the latter part of the 1700s and does not appear to have any children and the youngest son Thomas (born posthumously about five months after his father died) who married Sarah Coleman in the early 1790s in Upper Clatford. This very weak line in the 1700s is replaced by a very large line in the 1800s and up to the present. This Blake family of Andover/Upper Clatford is related to the Blake family at Abbotts Ann and I would like to determine the cousinship. I do know they are related through the King family because Joanna King's sister Mary King was married to John Blake, malster, Abbots Ann and all of this is mentioned in John's will in 1796. My thought is that John Blake of Abbotts Ann is descendant of John Blake of Andover who married Elizabeth (unknown) in the late 1670s and was the father of the ancestor of John Blake of Abbotts Ann and Thomas Blake mentioned above (born in the 1680s at Andover). This would make Thomas Blake who is mentioned in John Blake's will of 1796 likely 1st cousins ?x removed. I have yet to find anyone who descends from John Blake and Elizabeth (unknown) with a reliable tree other than my own line. A lot of people have these individuals in their trees but the link is questionable that they are using although by atDNA they are matching me (generally at least three of four siblings or more)! The fun is in the chase as always and as it turns out I do not have a lot of investment in the result other than curiosity. 

It is perhaps being Canadian that I do not particularly get excited about any of my ancestral lines. They are interesting even fascinating given my small footprint on this continent with my father born in England and coming to Canada with his parents as a child in 1913. Then my mother's father's mother was my first Canadian born in Upper Canada in 1839. Grace Gray (my great grandmother) was a first cousin to Sir John Carling heavily involved in politics in Ontario (was Upper Canada) initially and then into federal politics and was Minister of Agriculture hence the naming of the now torn down Agricultural Building and Carling Avenue. This area will now be part of the new Ottawa Hospital - Civic Campus (where I actually worked at the existing campus for six years). So first generation Canadian on my father's side and fourth generation Canadian on my mother's side and I was born before "Canadian citizenship" was created on the 1st of January 1947 so grandfathered to Canadian Citizen all on my own which I always found quite exciting actually. 

Why ever do I spend so much time on this? George DeKay is mostly responsible but there was a tug on my senses after my mother passed away which was a year earlier than George asking me to do a Pincombe Profile for the book he was publishing. My mother knew that I was so into DNA as a child in the late 1950s - found it so exciting and studied Chemistry with that on my backplate at all times. She reminded me of that in the late 1990s as she was going to the Family History Library and looking up items and wanted me to use this new thought that was breaking into genealogy with yDNA studies. I explained that we would need to test my uncle for that and that thinking was in the works but he passed away in 2003 (however a cousin of his did test for me) but I digress. 

The two elements came together with George DeKay asking for the Pincombe Profile and my mother's letters and discussions with me in that regard pushed me into doing the Pincombe Profile, joining the Guild of one-name Studies and reviewing what had been done with yDNA by Sorenson in the 1990s and early 2000s. As it turned out a known Pincombe cousin in Australia had tested his yDNA and I contacted him and an in-between person wrote back (perhaps that cousin had passed away no ideas on that as the writer didn't say that).  It was sort of weird so I just used his results comparing them to my uncle's cousin and they were a match and I just moved forward with the Guild study of Pincombe and Siderfin at that time. 

Who would of ever guessed that I would be so deeply into genetic genealogy at this time in my life! I had always said that when I retired I was going to knit baby outfits and sew clothes for packages going to the First Nations Reserves in my old age as my grandmother had done in her old age. I haven't sewed or knitted very much since I got into my course work at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies and graduated with my PLCGS in 2007 in English and Canadian studies. Funny in retrospect as I continue down this path really with my mother at my side leading me onward. Then my grandfather's memories came into play as I took on the Blake study in 2011 after giving the Siderfin study to a cousin in England as he wanted to pursue it and he was much closer to the repositories than I was in 2010! So Grandpa's stories of his Blake line tumbled out of my brain and I was into Blake and Pincombe pretty much 100% from 2011 on. I continue there actually. 

At 81 nearly I had thought myself to be winding down and I have quite a bit done with that but the intent is to publish all of this on Pincombe and Blake in the next two years and then move forward into Buller and Rawlings my other grandparents to publish their information - the Rawlings because my cousin John Rawlins sent me all his research perhaps thinking I have come to the thought in retrospect that he thought I would write a book. Amazing really as I go down memory lane  - I am beginning to think that is a habit of over 80 year olds.

Must do the solitaire puzzles, tea all drank.  

 

 

The weather took a nosedive in temperature

Woke up in the night and it is 8 degrees celsius after temperatures in the high 20s but it is still May and the weather can be cool sometimes but I think the changes are much greater from highs to lows than in my youth. The weather is not as predictable and a low of 2 degrees celsius is predicted. However the house is still at 24 degrees celsius so will leave the system as it is (air conditioning is on but the temperature in the house is unlikely to go below 23 or 22 by morning). Always nice to have some cooling for sure after a warm spell.  

It was good that the Prime Minister met with the Premier of British Columbia. They needed to chat about items for sure as Alberta has been dominating the news for a few weeks but the pipeline is starting to feel real and it will be a good boost for Canada and help with this retreading of our economy as it grows around the world and less dependent upon our neighbour the United States.  But still it benefits both of us to trade with our closest friend and neighbour as it is an easy transport from one to the other. 

But I do like to see us standing on our own and in unison with the First Nations. Our path forward is together into the future the First Nations and the people of Canada - the best will happen to Canada with such a partnership. 

Back to bed; woke up for a bit but sleepy again. It will soon be dawn as the sun rises early in the late spring as we work our way towards the longest day. 

Will likely add to this when I wake later. No work done yesterday but hopefully some today as this is the first research day following the cleaning.  

A beautiful sunny day has erupted and that is great. The trees are pretty much in full leaf now although the tree at the front is the slowest. I am checking it for dead branches and will have a company come and trim them out once the tree is fully open. The maple tree at the back looks great and I think all the dead wood fell off in the winter as I hauled great amounts to the front to break them up and put them out for recycling. Since the bags were at least 30 pounds and two went out that was a lot of wood plus the long thick lengths that I had cleaned off went as well. I do not need big walking sticks which is something they are good for as I recall Edward making several good stout ones for all the walking that we did in our youth. 

Today finish off the seven matches still to do and then get to work on that great grandparent phasing table. It will be interesting. I have now purchased Microsoft 365 and will use copilot to work on this file in coordination with the matches file which contains a couple of thousand individual excel files that have matches in common entered into their individual files. We will see the power of AI at work saving me hours of time comparing different matches and sorting out some of the ones that have not yet broken into the great grandparent lines of Blake, Knight, Cotterill (and I may have narrowed this down actually we will see), Rawlings, Pincombe, Gray, Buller, Taylor. The fun begins so to speak but actually the logical path back in these eight lines all of whom appear on the British Census of the 1800s except for Grace Gray who was my first Canadian born ancestor in 1839 (her parents Robert Gray of Holme on the Wold, East Riding of Yorkshire and Elizabeth Mary Ann Routledge of Bewcastle, Cumberland. Margaret Routledge (Elizabeth Mary Ann's oldest sister) married  Thomas Carling in London Township in 1820 and they were the parents of Sir John Carling (Grace Gray's first cousin) who was the Minister of Agriculture amongst other duties during his political career in Canada. Amazingly really to have so few Canadian born ancestors (Grace's son John Robert Pincombe and his daughter Helen Louise (Pincombe) Blake  (my mother)). Working on the great grandparents in terms of relationships gives me greater depth into the past as I work on my books in this case it is the Blake and Pincombe books but time may be mine and permit me to also do the Buller book of my maternal grandmother and the Rawlings book of my paternal grandmother. It is unlikely that I would ever do a Taylor book (wife of Buller) or the Cotterill book (father of my paternal grandmother). But I would continue moving backwards in time selecting two books at a time and working away on them so long as that is practical for me. 

Exercises completed and breakfast eaten so moving on to the Solitaire Puzzles as this is a mixed up day because I had a lovely walk in the middle of the night when I woke up and wrote the first part of this blog for the day.  

 

Busy day

Part of yesterday was planned as I needed to go shopping and yes I agree prices are rising. I no longer pay $75 a week and I estimate that I am perhaps at $90 a week (it varies one week to the next because I buy 12 chicken thighs and freeze 11 of them after I cook them in the oven with spices/herbs, olive oil and I also buy one piece of salmon big enough for me for three meals). That means that I spend in total $65 in each three week period on meat only. I then make a fresh chicken stew every day (figured that out on my retreat with the dogs, the cats and the fish). It was nice to have a fresh stew every day with the chicken out of the freezer. Absolutely delicious. So four days a week I eat chicken stew and three days a week I eat fish (usually scallops one night (frozen in a bag by a company for the store I shop at and the bag lasts maybe four weeks (I usually eat about 15 or 20 as they are small)) and then salmon for dinner two nights and for lunch one day). I come from a family with high cholesterol and almost never eat red meat I keep it under control. I do not buy prepared foods and there are more and more of them all prepared. It looks nice but I have 24 hours a day that belong to me and so I cook everything from scratch. We store a lot of vegetables for winter use in Canada and I use mostly them. Money will be tight I expect for the next little while; we were warned. 

Yesterday was also the day to cook my banana bread as I had the three ripe bananas left from last weeks purchase (I try to get a bundle of ten bananas so that I have enough for my favourite cake which I butter when I slice it as icing does not appeal to me). I do not have a sweet tooth. I did buy a bar of dark chocolate with mint in it made in Quebec (absolutely delicious and lasts me the entire week). My expensive extra. I neither drink alcohol to any degree (a glass of wine with my younger daughter on occasion) nor do I smoke or take any type of drugs. That saves a lot of money I think but because I have never smoked or drank particularly or used recreational drugs I do not really know how much I save to be honest. 

Then I did my run of 30 minutes which is four days a week as I clean three days a week and I was finding that maybe running every day was too much as I reached 80 (although if I feel running I do).  I watch television as I do that and it was the time for the Leader of the Conservative of Canada to speak. Does he know that CBC can be heard all around the world? I wonder about that sometimes. As for affordability, the Conservatives were opposed to dental care (the intent of which was to help people with their health care), the Conservatives were opposed to day care support and the list goes on so crying affordability now just seems weird to be honest. Good policies would be supporting the pipelines (I mean they could be there in BC helping with discussions to get this going). All he does is whine about restrictions and insult the Prime Minister which I do not think of as policy when really the first Nations need to see that this is of value as it crosses their land as we gradually do move away from fossil fuels but this is not yet the time but it is there in the future. I also fail to see the value in the Conservative Leader going on a talk show in the United States; I found that very weird and I have been Conservative all of my voting life except for rare occasions (all of which I have regretted so tend to avoid that). However I do feel the government in place is taking us on the right paths to make Canada more independent as we were when I was a child but the Leader of the Opposition has no such memories and clings to an economic state that no longer works for Canada. 

There is no slacking on getting the military going and the protection of the Arctic is a joint project with all the members of NATO but particularly the Arctic NATO countries. The XL pipeline has finally been approved in the US and we will see how that goes (it has been approved in Canada for a long time). I fail to see a value in televising Question Period these days (perhaps we could have a program on archaeological finds that would be exciting). We want investors to come to Canada and sharing all of that negativity which is fake really does not seem constructive. The new trade committee has several prior Conservative government members which is good to see. Lots of interesting people in that group. 

As for Chief Tecumseh and Sir Isaac Brock I was very proud to hear the Prime Minister talk about them. I went to Tecumseh Avenue Public School for my entire elementary school education. We were proud of  Tecumseh. We all knew the stories about Chief Tecumseh and forever he will be remembered in that namesake school. Mentioning them brings home once again the need for all Canadians to come together on all of these projects as they slowly but surely work their way forward. This needs to be a Unity Government and thank you to the Conservatives who gave the majority to the Prime Minister. I support them 100% for wanting after eleven years of being in opposition (or less) to help their communities since that was why they went into politics. Sarnia in particular could have oil refineries again and not buy our now refined oil back from the United States at three times what they pay us for the oil  (hence a pipeline to Thunder Bay would facilitate that as ships can take the oil to Sarnia not as fast as a pipeline but it takes time to build pipelines and we already have the ships). The two big gas guzzling provinces (Ontario and Quebec) could then have locally refined gasoline for their cars and still pay the same with the money benefiting everyone as Ontario doesn't mind paying taxes to the federal government and we in Ontario are by far the biggest users of gas in our cars. The company doing the refining pays taxes (by employing people and by making so much money) to the government especially their health care payment along with our personal Health Care Tax in Ontario we will not be struggling to look after the Baby Boomers as they age. Lots more money in the federal pot for everyone to share because this is Canada and that is what we do. 

The afternoon yesterday was a time of reflection and planning. It was beautiful outside and I can remember as a child my mother calling up to the attic and telling me to stop reading and go outside and play on such a day. I didn't go out though yesterday as the gardening just looks overwhelming; my mother wasn't here to send me out! My daughter tends to get me out when she comes to do her research. Walking and kayaking and gardening but the road is still flooded at Petrie so not happening yet. Good news is the Ottawa River appears to have peaked so by mid May we may be able to get into Petrie. AI is such a neat item to do research on for sure (the implementation is the key). It needs to be set up in a systematic and robust way so that it can be incorporated into our world in the best way.  Can you actually get a robot to consider all the alternatives when they are not yet really developed that actually does not make sense (they need to be sentient and I am dubious of that; humans are sentient); processes have to be established so that we do not get useless material back that has to be filtered through (that is a waste of time). The asset of AI is the amount of memory it can hold but the deficit lies in the inability of AI to manage that data without expert human control. Better to have expert people trained in how to question AI so that the best results are obtained. Soon I will use AI on my huge table once it is completely ready and it will help me with creating my genealogical tables. I need to also continue with the "Phasing" of my great grandparents as they are all born between 1837 and 1859. Except for Grace Gray they were all born in England and are all known to me and on the census (all of my grandparents mentioned these people to me in meaningful ways because they knew all of them so I have a sort of picture of them and even some of the 2x great grandparents actually as many of them were know to my grandfather not so much my grandmother). Luckily Grace (Gray) Pincombe was the first cousin of Sir John Carling and that family is well written up so lots of detail and I have done quite a bit of research going back. 

Hopefully this is truly a research day; I do not have any other plans other than my exercises which are the second most important thing in my day to work at.  

Tea to drink and solitaire puzzles to do.  May God be with the world and help us to reach that plain of peace where all can live without fear. Europe has found peace and that is beautiful to see and they will enforce their keeping of that peace; they are ready or getting ready to do that very thing in a much bigger way and we along with them as part of NATO. But peace is preferred. Ukraine would also like peace but they are not willing to sacrifice any of their people on the stolen lands; they want the people and their lands back and no one can blame them. Russians who do not like where they live can always go back to Russia (and that goes for anyone who doesn't like something where they live (they can get to like it or leave so that the bulk of the people do not have to listen to such things)). Go somewhere where you can be happy (usually it is just greed that causes unhappiness and greed does need to go). In the case of Russia so many young men have lost their lives in this useless war that they likely need the people in Russia and then they will stop being a thorn in the side in countries where they cause trouble. Israel and the United States are no longer accepting that Iran can export terror with the intention of annihilating Israel using their proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis amongst others to attack Israel. That would be peace then and living the rules that God gave to us. They are good rules and the closer we live to those rules the better off the world would be. 

I think I shall stop watching the news once again. It distracts me from my work.  

Sunday in God's World

 We are back to Sunday once again in God's World. The week passed quickly and was very busy. The weather non-typical for December in many ways but not that unusual to have a spell of rain in the winter. The snow base is still intact and more snow fell yesterday and more this week. Soon back skiing again and enjoying all of that wonderful winter that Canada has. But Sunday is special; Church today on YouTube if that works out. It is the fourth Sunday in Advent and Christmas comes on Thursday. But most especially once again in a tradition that stretches back over two thousand years we will celebrate, those of the Christian faith, the coming of the Christ Child - Jesus Christ - into our world so briefly but his birth was a history changing event that was to change the European/Asian Continent in enormous ways. Those simple words - love they neighbour as thyself - would become the body of a faith that grew out of the Celtic Faith of Europe into the Christian faith which is still with us today. My Anglicanism dates back into that ancient Celtic Faith that flowered in the British Isles and has its roots perhaps in one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. That is unknown and simply a tale handed down generation after generation it would appear since my grandfather passed it to me (as did my father). Now in this quiet time when we are covered by winter snow we await the coming once again of the Christ Child into our lives. 

Made large strides with Chromosome 17 but many of the matches are for the very beginning of the chromosome and shared by my elder brother and a younger brother only and date back centuries with many of the matches being from Georgia and Alabama and the Carolinas. I do know that this is Routledge/Rutledge and that any connection with probably 80% of them dates back centuries. My Routledge lines came to Canada in 1818 - Thomas Routledge and his wife Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge (2nd cousins once removed) came to Canada with their large family from Bewcastle, Cumberland, England and took up land in London Township which was deeded to them by Colonel Thomas Talbot. The eldest daughter Margaret Routledge married  Thomas Carling and their son was Sir John Carling. My 2x great grandmother was their youngest daughter Elizabeth Mary Ann (sister to Margaret) who married Robert Gray and their daughter Grace married William Robert Pincombe with their only surviving to adulthood child was John Routledge Pincombe, my maternal grandfather. But already on this continent there was a large group of Routledge/Rutledge living in the southern states and it is descendants of that group who match my two brothers on Chromosome 17 with matches in the 30 centimorgan length and that connection is a long way back. Edward Rutledge (I suspect this is his line) was born 23 Nov 1749 at Charleston, South Carolina and is an American Founding Father who signed the Continental Association and Declaration of Independence. His family had come from Ireland to the American Colonies. They were in Ireland because some of the Rutledge/Routledge families fled there way back in the 1400s and later from the Highlands of Scotland and that is a long story for another time but my lines came to Bewcastle from the Highlands of Scotland which is a story better known to me. My line were known as the Oakshaw/Yakeshaw Routledge Family of Bewcastle with both Thomas and Elizabeth being members of the Oakshaw/Yakeshaw Routledge Family lines. This was the border lands and heavily contested at various times in British History going back into the 1400s. My mother always said that the Routledge family came to Canada because of turmoil in the Border Lands - no ideas on that I suspect that they just wanted a better life for their six sons as the eldest would have inherited the property on which they lived there and the other five would have to make their way in other ways and in Canada they all had land which was an enticement at that time. So they sold their property rights to a cousin Routledge and they came to Canada. My grandfather talked a lot about his mother's first cousin Sir John Carling and indeed learned a great deal about Parliament and debating from him as a child which he passed on to his son my uncle William Edwin Pincombe. I also was able to separate out Buller and Rawlings but this Chromosome is heavily Pincombe/Gray as my two great grandparent lines (it is at the 3x great grandparent line that my Thomas and Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge appear) and heavily inherited by all of us siblings. The other lengths do not appear to lead back in time to the Rutledge family in the United States in the same way as that first length (56 matches in total have been collected that are shared by these two brothers in this first length and I have not listed all of them in my chart sticking primarily to those between 20 to 30 centimorgans in length). It does not show up as a pile-up or common area so is just simply a common area for this family. I do find it interesting that the Rutledge family of the southern states was so involved in politics as was my great grandmother's first cousin Sir John Carling. These matches went very quickly and I have completed them in the one day surprisingly. Mind you there is still a lot of work to do looking at the trees for the lines I can not readily separate into each great grandparent line. But that will be later once I draw out all of the matches back to the First Chromosome. So today, if there is time, I will work on the 16th Chromosome which has 62 matches and six are known to me as various levels of cousinship. 

Must complete my morning exercises, make tea and do my solitaire puzzles.  

 

Lots of work done yesterday

Two full garden bags out to the curb for pickup yesterday and that was just sweeping up the patio and laneway out front. Next time I will rake the lawn and get another bag or two for the next week. It is getting sooner and sooner for putting car in the garage. I could put it in now but I still like the ease of moving about in there and the car occupies a lot of space as it is a small garage. I need to cover the air conditioner as I forgot to complete that task the other day. I didn't have the tape at hand so will get that done and the tape is ready to use. Today is meant to be another nice day although somewhat cloudy the weather says. But that is fine. The frost still wasn't a hard enough frost to kill off the weeds but I will start I think to spend one hour probably in the morning but might be afternoon and work clearing away a little bit each day. 

I completed Chromosome 17 cross over points checking them against the matches I have collected and will work on Chromsome 16 today. The half way point is 11/12 so getting there. Then I can rephase the grandparents and start to organize myself for the great grandparents. Blake will be easy and it splits to Blake and Knight and any matches that are for these two distinctly have been marked as such as it was easy to spot them. As it turns out I have a lot more Cotterill matches than I thought and I have been cautious to record if they come down from the marriage of Mary Rawlins and Stephen Cotterell and then their grand daughter Mary Rawlins marriage to William Rawlins and they went off to Australia which is a good marker for those matches and the source of a number of the Cotterill matches. There are a few that appear to go back to the Cotterill and Sherwood families in the Kimpton area and I will have a look at them. I would be looking at half 2nd cousin matches at the most and I do not believe there are any but time will tell. I have not looked at these matches for at least four years. There are third cousin and so they are suspicious for being descendant of the earlier matching Cotterill family descendants. The spelling of the name moved from Cotterell to Cotterill at some point in both lines. Then Pincombe and Gray do stand out rather well so I am hopeful at being able to phase these two great grandparents. That brings me to Buller and Taylor where the Buller falls fairly neatly into Buller and Welch the next set back in that line and my 2x great grandparents. The Taylor not quite so easy although it looks very like Taylor and Roberts at the 2x great grandparent level but I do not have a lot of easily usable matches for this line but the Taylor line is my mtDNA line which is very unique and I have some good tracing on it plus small matches in the United States with the Rev William Martin migration from Northern Ireland to the Carolinas in 1772 and these individuals, many of them, were planters from Scotland to Northern Ireland during the time of Cromwell (1640s-50). So it will be interesting to do this particular task of phasing my great grandparents. 

I was able to easily send the revised copy of the Siderfin book and the Companion Charting book of the Siderfin Family of West Somerset to Family Search. You can do it all on line (just drop the files) and they send you the form to fill in permitting them to make use of the book including copying it. So that is all done and I can put Siderfin out of my brain now. Although I am not sure I put the Companion book up elsewhere so must check that. Then the task will be complete. It was marvelous revising James Sanders book - such a wonderful opportunity to begin my writing in genealogy. 

I have one other book I will likely revise although will check with George DeKay's family before I do so. George and I had discussed it a couple of times and I know he wanted to expand the section on the Carling family. Personally I felt it was quite complete although I would like to add my own grandfather's comments on his mother's first cousin Sir John as he very much looked up to Sir John and spent some time with him. He encouraged John, I think, to become interested in politics. As my grandmother used to comment that he would argue for hours on particular items and her interest in politics was pretty low and sometimes she would disagree with him and he would then explain it to her in great detail so she could understand his point of view. It must have been fascinating as I am sorry I never got to know that grandfather - he died twenty years before I was born when my mother was only eight years old. It was a loss that she felt all of her life - losing him like that but he was nearly 54 years of age when he passed. Unfortunately he was a heavy drinker and it took its toll on him I suspect although he actually died from a typical farmer's type of disease at the time. So expanding the section on Carling means getting into Canadian history and again I do not want to write a book which isn't academically challenged if I get into too much actual historical  happenings. So will think about that. George did bring the recording of the family tree pretty much up to the 1960s (he published it in 1976). I would only bring it up to the 1921 census but I would take it back somewhat further in a number of the lines that we shared as my great grandmother Grace Gray was a daughter of Robert Gray and Mary Ann Routledge and George was descended from Robert's brother William Gray married to Mary Beverley (their daughter Edna married Percival DeKay (George's parents) . George was my 3rd cousin once removed (I think sometimes I say fourth cousin which is not quite correct). I have a lot more on the Routledge family and the Gray family in Bewcastle, Cumberland and Cherry Burton/Etton/Holme on the Wolds, East Riding of Yorkshire to add in as well. Some interesting DNA matches as no genealogy book these days is really complete without some reference to autosomal DNA matching I think. 

I still have to think about what to do with all of the Newsletters that I have written (they are all accessible on the FT DNA website and stored on my website). Should I put them together as a sort of stand alone Journal (Blake Newsletter, Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter, H11 Newsletter and Kipp Newsletter (a new addition and really mostly Edward's work)). I could then publish them with a Creative Commons License. I have been very cautious not to have any personal information of any of the people in the studies thus making it easy to do that. I might ask at FT DNA about that actually. They may have a better idea. Eventually my website will disappear unless one of my relatives takes it on. 

Lots to think about for sure and the winter is coming when I can get so much more done. Thank goodness as I do want to get these photo albums sorted around before Christmas and will do some work today on that as yesterday slipped by without my doing anything. I just feel I need to do a perfect and efficient job of it since it is part of Edward's legacy to his children and grandchildren. 

Tea drank and solitaire puzzles to do.  

 

 

The New Campus for the Civic Campus of The Ottawa Hospital

A very interesting presentation for the new campus of The Ottawa Hospital at noon yesterday. I have not been up on Carling Street for a couple of years. I did not realize that the new campus had actually started to build. I am still amazed with my very tiny Canadian line that my great grandmother (my first Canadian born ancestor) was a first cousin to Sir John Carling after whom the street is named. The Sir John Carling building of Agriculture was pulled down to make room for the hospital campus when I was still working at the Hospital. Sir John was very involved in setting up the Experimental Farm amongst other items. A very busy man for sure. My grandfather remembered him very well (my mother's father) as he talked about him to my mother but her father died when she was eight. She would have been nostalgic I am sure as we did go to see The Experimental Farm and the Agricultural Building when my parents were here in Ottawa visiting years ago.  I think their plans for the Old Campus is a great idea - Long Term Care. The halls are perfect for a good walk and there is plenty of room plus an auditorium for events and if there is some sort of a pedestrian bridge the grounds around the new hospital will also make for a good walk. I did enjoy my walks around the campus when I worked at the Civic Campus for six years.

My cousin George DeKay did a few pages on Sir John in our mutual family book but he wanted to add to that although he passed away before he was able to work on it. In my list of books to write is a revision and update to his book but it comes after Blake and Pincombe. I have so very much work to do. God willing I will accomplish all of it. George did a great job collecting the family material right up to the middle of the 1900s. I have taken a number of the lines further back into England which I could add in. Then some more information on some of the families that form the nucleus of his work would be most interesting and that was also his idea. Our most recent common ancestors were Robert Gray and Elizabeth Cobb who lived at Holme in the Wolds, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. I descend from the eldest son Robert and he descends from the youngest son in the family James. Most of the members of that family stayed in England except for Robert, William and James who all emigrated to Upper Canada with Robert coming  in 1832 and William as well. The land that the Gray family worked as a copyhold in the Cherry Burton area gradually became unavailable so Robert came to Canada (William was a wheelwright I think, must check). Robert married Elizabeth Mary Ann Routledge and they had four daughters and one son. My great grandmother was Grace Gray who married William Robert Pincombe. It was (Elizabeth) Mary (Ann) Routledge's sister Margaret that married Thomas Carling and they were the parents of Sir John Carling and four other sons.

But back to the  new hospital building and it is looking very handsome one might say. The Research tower will be a wonderful addition. After my daughter completed Medical School and Residency I said why not do your PhD now? I think that research is really the arm of medicine that is the best part in some ways. Of course the healing/caring is also important and she said no I am going to be a Family Physician in the north and so she is. I suppose in this day and age I would probably think that way as well although a medical missionary was certainly my aim in my youth. 

My small donation will go in on Christmas Day in memory of Edward. The Civic was the first hospital I was ever in here in Ottawa as I suffered a miscarriage a few years after we arrived and they took excellent care of me. When we first arrived here with our nearly one year old I became very exhausted, again my memory is wiped for a short time, and had to go back to my parents house to rest for a couple of months but came back hale and hearty again with our little girl who was missing her daddy very much. My husband's family had come to stay and I was still not strong enough to manage all of that. Seems hard to believe now how exhausted I used to get. No missing memories though in all those years since then. I still wonder if it was blood hemoglobin being only 32 and actually as low as 28 before it started to rise again. I was given iron and drank Stout (my first beer drink and last!) as the physicians tried to make my blood levels rise plus I was also nursing the baby. I have never actually had a transfusion although it was considered but I was a young healthy 28 year old who regularly ran and did a lot of exercise. A fluke of nature that my first daughter's birth would involve so much blood loss. My second thought for the ultrasound with my second child was "where is the placenta!"). Understandable one might say.  The first was to admire that beautiful tiny person just 18 weeks gestation - so perfect and so tiny. Ultrasound is such a marvelous tool in pregnancy.

Good accomplishment on the 12th generation. Since  my cutoff is 1920 this does not involve quite so much research into the different lines. Hopefully I will be able to get most of it done by mid week next week. Time will tell. Then the chapter on autosomal DNA. Footnoting the appendices. Proofreading, indexing and I do have a few figures to create. I sometimes feel as if I lost a month working on it as the process just seemed so slow but a bout of migraines can do that to me. I decreased my aspirin dosage which has always controlled my migraines so I do have the occasional flare up but the dosage does seem to control the ocular migraines very well which was my hoped for result. Generally I have migraines when my brain needs to rest!

On to the day.

The Bible Reading from Corinthians

 The Bible reading today is from 2 Corinthians 13 and again we must bear in mind that the Apostles are building the Church of Jesus Christ; the Christian Church which we by right of our baptism we have inherited from the generations that preceded us on this earth. The underlying theme in all of the New Testament is that Jesus brought us the New Commandments and they are simple, straightforward and easy to follow. Thou must love the Lord they God with all they heart and all thy soul and all thy mind and the second is like unto it thou must love thy neighbour as thyself. The Ten Commandments continue to lead us forward but the reinforcement of what God wants from us was given to us by Jesus and it is simple and straightforward. Any veering from that path is sin and 2 Corinthians 13 emphasizes that to the fullest extent possible. A beautiful sunny day (no rain unfortunately but I am watering today) has greeted us once again on God's earth. The trees are pretty much in full leaf now and the sky that I see from my workroom window is about how it will look until the coolness of Fall overtakes us in a few months time and the brilliant colours will surround us once again. But for the moment summer is here with all the pleasures that it brings - especially kayaking as I have decided to add that to my summer exercise plan for both good value in exercise and the pleasure of being out in the woods in God's world. 

Yesterday I worked on Generation 5 of the Siderfin family but must bring myself back up to speed as it is some time (over a month) since I worked on the Siderfin Book. I have been able to leave the Fourth Generation now so that is a step forward and I am into Five. I have to re-remember what I thought about the Fifth Generation as James Sanders does not give a clear picture of this generation although does provide quite a bit of information. I am busy gleaning whatever else there is that can assist me. John (Robert 4, Robert 3, William 2, John 1) is at Selworthy on the Protestation Returns in 1641. A son Robert is born to a John at Selworthy in 1653/1658 (the fiche of the parish registers are difficult in this time period (the parish register seems somewhat difficult which accounts for the fiche of course) and discovering more about John Siderfin at Selworthy is a necessity. I think he is the individual that married Thomasine who left her will in 1709 fairly elderly as her son is married and now at least 51 years and possibly 56 years of age with a very large family and he is still in Selworthy. Finding that marriage would be a treat and Somerset Transcriptions are particularly good. So I shall spend a little time at that today. Eventually this is the Siderfin line that goes on into the latter part of the 1700s and is the only line (John 5, Robert 4, Robert 3, William 2, John 1) in the 1800s although the families are large giving us a small family name that is perpetuated on into this century in a good sized set of data. An interesting family as they do appear to have gone through wealth and then bankruptcy and then wealth again and back into bankruptcy. Always sad to see that in a family; sometimes it is because they are too kindhearted and do not take good care of their estates etc trying to be the great benefactors. Do not intend to get into that aspect of surname research actually. Just take the data as it arrives and move on.

Watering getting accomplished in between updating the Garmin in case we go anywhere this summer beyond our usual spots. The car could use a good run on the highway for sure; the technicians at the garage always tell me that. Great people and very helpful. 

Latin lesson to do today and I have not missed a day since I started. I need to start doing some of the practice routines to cement the knowledge and I downloaded a set of Latin readings to start looking at as that is the whole point in this exercise; to read the ancient documents that pertain to the various surname studies I have engaged myself to work on in my old age. George DeKay certainly set me on an interesting path. Although Edward spent some time enthusiastically with George at the beginning; their mutual interest in genealogy was the drawing card he did find that my becoming quite fascinated with my lines to be somewhat annoying as he wanted me to work on his lines when we were at repositories. I did do that but also put in some time on the various families that lived in the areas but there was considerably less on them and pretty much nothing on some as they were small surname projects until I took on Blake. We visited George less and less! which was fine as he had his own commitments and didn't need us cluttering up his schedule. I could only learn so much from George as he was into his Gray family and more interested in the Routledge-Carling connections in my line than my actual Pincombe line (the intersection with George was the Gray family (he was descended from William Gray a brother to my Robert Gray and Grace Gray, a daughter of Robert, married William Robert Pincombe). Robert Gray married Mary Routledge and her sister Margaret Routledge married Thomas Carling, their son was Sir John Carling (so as mentioned first cousin to my great grandmother). George (my third cousin once removed actually) found that very interesting when he figured it out although I did already know as my mother knew her family history quite well. But interestingly enough at that time when he was writing up the families it stirred up my mother's interest once again and I can see in her letters that she was going to the Family History Centre once again (mid 1970s) and from then on would send me all sorts of items (perhaps to stir up my interest which it did not actually, looking after my baby in a strange city and having to learn all those streets to get anywhere was very time consuming (I can  not read the road signs unless they are large so taught my children to read those signs when they were very young between two and three - must have been frightening for them now that I think about it knowing their mother didn't see very well)). I really did not go out a lot (except the "Castle" museum as my daughter called it, we went to the museum every week my daughter and I and groceries). But Edward and she went shopping every Saturday once she was mobile - she loved going places with him. I stayed home and cleaned. The only ticket I ever had was a parking ticket at the Museum because I missed seeing a sign prohibiting parking in the spot but I went and paid it right away. That is one really fantastic thing about Ottawa - all those museums and I got so that I knew them very very well. I would say though the Westminster and Delaware books took up a great deal of his time and rather wearied him at the time as I noted that on our visits. I was glad that I had finally agreed to produce the Pincombe Profile for him (with the help of my cousins living there). 

Wind is up a bit and rain is promised all next week. Hopefully that will happen. I need to do some weeding and will do that once the watering is done and the ground somewhat less muddy later today although with my daughter. Since I would rather grass it all she does need to help me with that! Onions are up, radishes are up, beans are up, spinach is up and the sunflowers are growing nicely as well as the peppers and tomatoes. In the garden section we left open the carrots are up, the beans are up, the radishes are up and if the rabbits are smart they will let these things grow until they are a good size so that they do not gobble them all up in a couple of days! Time will tell on that but the rest of the garden is fenced. The rabbit area we will leave some of the weeds especially the ones a good size as they will nibble them first!

Another beautiful day in God's world and I can only wish for peace in our world so that we can work on the things that matter. Please China do something about these errant nations that listen to you - Russia and North Korea. Get them to stop their ridiculous wars or threats of war and fear mongering. We need to work on Climate Change. Glory to Ukraine and prayers for her people that they can throw out the psychopathic Nazis Putin and his enablers. Prayers for the Freedom Fighting Russians in Belgorod and area who are fighting against the tyranny of the Nazis Putin and his enablers.  May they return Russia to the Russians and the kind of country that Peter the Great wanted for Russia - a free Russia where the people could have all the education that they want and good relations with all the world.

 

Rain today hopefully

Last night we went kayaking around 7:00 pm and it was a marvelous time in the evening. The beavers were busy working their way back and forth across the channel after a long hot day when they probably spent it sheltering in their dens. One beaver in particular caught my attention as he/she veered away from me as I was quietly kayaking down the stream. My daughter was looking at a Great Blue Heron when I spotted the beaver which then headed downstream the way I was going so I followed. We kept up that interesting following game for a little bit until he/she turned and looked at me and then swam away. Curious I guess. 

Worked away on the Siderfin book yesterday. I have formally begun the 5th generation and perhaps have solved the mystery of who was John Siderfin baptized in 1630 at Loughborough. These generations are becoming clearer as I work my way through the records. James Sanders did an excellent job with the data back in the early 1900s and I could only have wished that he had kept the entire will in his notes as they are now lost except for his notes in the bombing of the Exeter Record Office. Such a loss; the loss of history is a huge loss to those who follow. It is history that tells us how to manage really; the loss of history is a sad event. 

The solitaire games were interesting today. Each has its own challenge and I can feel my brain warming up as I work my way through the five games each day. I think at 77 nearly 78 it is necessary to do brain games just to keep the juices flowing. I used to wake up every morning eager for the day when I was a child and I still do that but perhaps with a little less of that bouncy tendency which my siblings did find to be rather "off the wall" first thing in the morning. It was nice to be in the attic where I could enjoy that wondrous feeling of being awake in God's world. 

Today we have rain hopefully. The ground is dry once again. But for sure the rhododendrons are about to open into flower so rain is guaranteed!  I think though they might be a week late this year but I am not an expert on flowers for sure but Edward was often commenting that the seasons were shifting. The garden is up and the little shoots are pushing their way towards the sky; the predictable thing in life is that plant life is constantly growing once the snow passes just as the plants start to die down in the fall as the time for the snow falls comes back into view. My favourite season remains winter - I love the long research time. It is delicious to have so much time to just work away on my projects. 

My forays into health care are ended for a while now. The surgery for cataracts likely in December and I must have a routine checkup sometime this summer as it is nearly 18 months since I spoke with my family doctor. The time passes so quickly and the medical world is really set up so that if you need something sort of now like a tetanus shot then there is a critical care unit closeby where you can go and wait in a queue for your turn. If it is just routine then you can just book that and have any general tests done like blood work. I try to be prepared for that appointment so that everything that I think I might need is in my thoughts. I remember my mother with seven children made notes when she took us to the doctor. Organization is what is always needed in one's life. Disorganization doesn't do well in an organized society such as homo sapiens tends to live in. Even the hunter-gatherers were organized in their own way so that they made the best use of the land around them during every season. 

So on to the day. More work on the Siderfin book. I think I can see that I will have completed it before the end of the year. Then I will take off a month to six weeks and just rest my eyes doing any suggested exercises on my eyes to aid in their recovery before I launch myself into the next book - likely Pencombe as I see it now. I need to acquire more material on Blake before writing a book about the Blake family of Andover, Hampshire, England. I will restrict the book to that Blake line although it is possible that it will bring in the Blake family that was eventually at Calne due to the possibility of a marriage between a daughter of Richard le Blak (of Rouen, Normandy) who lived at Wargrave Berkshire in the 1300s and an individual who lived in the Andover area of Hampshire. There is a likely connection between these Blake lines (given the mention in old records from the 1600s/1700s/1800s) and the wills show it to me but not so clearly that I can actually prove at this point in time that a daughter of Richard le Blak married someone with the name of John (with perhaps a location type of addition to that name) who became John Blake (took his wife's surname since surnames were not common in England amongst the indigenous population in the late 1200s/early 1300s) found in the early Andover Manor Records (early 1300s). Now that I have found those records that I photographed in Salt Lake City and I am doing my Latin lessons once again I can work at transcribing them but that is a project for next winter which I shall do whilst I am writing up the Pencombe family of Herefordshire and Devon. Also a major task and I will need a number of documents transcribed for the Pincombe family of Devon that I already have and perhaps acquire more of them by the same method as I am acquiring the Inquisition Postmortem of John de Pencombe from the 1300s in Herefordshire. 

After Pencombe and Blake I am beginning to see the potential for other books now. The Routledge family is an interesting one and my likely seventh cousin in England has done a lot of work on the early family. We are somewhat lucky with that family as we know that our line is the Oakshaw (Yakeshaw) Routledge family and the records for this family go back into the 1400s/1500s in the Borderlands of northern England. He has traced them back to their Highland roots (before 1400) and is bringing them forward. I think I would just write about the descendants of  William Routledge and Grissell Routledge who lived in the latter part of the 1600s at Bewcastle. They had seven known children. I would perhaps tie that in with Thomas (my 7th cousin's work) but not write up that portion since he is doing such excellent work. Then the lines coming down from Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth Routledge both descendants of this couple in Canada in the London, Ontario area. George DeKay wrote the initial book but he always regretted not doing more on some of the members of this family and so I will take the opportunity to write more about the work of Sir John Carling (my great grandmother's first cousin). Their mothers were sisters and daughters of Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth Routledge. When the old Ministry of Agriculture building was torn down here in Ottawa I did feel a tinge of sadness since the building was named after him but there remain many monuments to his memory both in the Central Experimental Farm and one of the main thoroughfares named Carling Street. Since I live here I can go to the Archives and find out more about his work in Agriculture which was considered ground breaking at the time and quite phenomenal. I will do that book in memory of George DeKay who wrote the first book on these families. Although the books I write will be principally for my siblings children and my own, I will share them with Family Search if they wish to have copies (and the various record offices in England where my ancestors lived) and locally if there is a desire in the local repositories. 

I am a bit of a dreamer with regard to how I will spend my time but a realist in my every day activities as the day unfolds. 

Amazingly it is past 7:00 and I still have a bit of computer work to do before breakfast. On to the day.

The weirdest experience

Today I had an appointment with the Eye Institute to look at my cataracts. The optometrist told me in January that I would need to have them operated on in another year but I decided that since he said he would have recommended that I should have done that two years ago except my husband needed his done I decided I should get right on that and get it done. My appointment with the Eye Institute was for today. I was there in plenty of time; I took a taxi because that was just the easiest thing to do. My daughter had a lot to do and it was the simple method since I would not be able to see to drive home after drops in my eyes plus I do not drive on the highway by myself anymore. And it was actually really true that I could not have done that. I couldn't read anything in actual fact. The recommendation was to have the cataract surgery with a replacement lens. The ophthalmologist discussed several different types of lenses aside from the basic lens and I had no idea there were such choices. I have worn glasses since I was eighteen months of age. I have strabismus and astigmatism with one of my eyes particularly weak. I was actually being told that all this could go away and I would be glasses free (if after study my eyes fitted into that category). Aside from the fact that I really in my mind did not think that could happen I realized as I spent some time reading about all of these lens later that I actually enjoy wearing glasses and being an outdoor sports person I also like not having bugs in my eyes. I decided to phone and tell them that I really wanted the basic lens and forget about any bells and whistles  - just basic. So we will go with that as I got through to them and was able to discuss with her assistant. The Ophthalmologist that I had as a child, wonderful man with such patience for a small child, always said that my eyes could not be operated on and not to do that so I have avoided any comment on laser surgery or anything like that through the years. He tried to correct my eyes with patching and that did not work when I was a child and said I would just always have to have glasses (I believed him although realize that the surgeries have come a long way through the years but did discover that some people have strabismus return and end up with glasses in the long run anyway). Dr. Dyson was one of the pioneers in child surgery for strabismus and he had been one of my Father's scouts (my father was actually Chief Scout in London sometime in the 30s (have the reference)) and very well liked by many people there. So I do realize that Dr Dyson, my ophthalmologist, did take special pains with my eyes because of that. I also realize that was a long time ago but he was my eye physician until we moved to Ottawa when I was 30 years of age. Dr. Sullivan, an equally good and knowledgeable ophthalmologist here looked after my eyes until he went into fulltime surgical so I decided we would just go to an optometrist and not have to book these appointments so far ahead. But in actuality it is just the fact that I really prefer wearing my glasses and I like the versatility of having the stronger lens to work away on my computer and I have confidence in that and I do not want to move to any of these new compound lens. That isn't to say that I do not see this as a very progressive movement for people and it is good if children do not have to have strabismus all their life but for me no bugs in the eyes is more than enough reason to stay with the basic lens. 

It was fun though being back in the hospital campus (the General) that I worked at for four years (I was at the Civic Campus for six years, Riverside Campus for about two years). I went to the Cafeteria after I was finished and had a huge gingerbread cookie and a coke. Glad that appointment is over; surgery likely towards the end of the year since I have to work that into when my daughter is here. In the meantime I have started once again to work on the Siderfin Book. Hope to finish it before the end of the year so should work very well. Then take a while off of the heavy computer work (I shall try to improve my execise regimen at that time although it is quite excellent already) and then start on the Pencombe book and after that the Blake book. Who knows what will be next but I do have a few ideas (George DeKay wrote a book on our mutual Gray families along with several lines that fed into these lines (Routledge, Carling, etc. etc.)). A book that included more information on the work of Sir John Carling (my great grandmother's first cousin) would certainly be interesting to family members (I just create *.pdf documents and put them up on my server and then anyone can download them at will). I will give copies to Family Search as well if they want them. 

I also want to continue working on the H11 haplogroup and would eventually like to publish a book on that particular subclade of H. The DNA of my father and brothers would also make an interesting study (I-PH151) as it goes extinct in our generation although there are still a number of male descendants of John Blake and Ann (Farmer) Blake as well as John's parents Thomas Blake and Sarah (Coleman) Blake of Upper Clatford. This is an interesting line because it goes back to Joseph Blake (and Joanna (King) Blake of Upper Clatford) of Andover who was the only descendant of Thomas Blake and Ann (Carter) Blake who survived to adulthood and this Thomas Blake was the only  child of Thomas Blake and Mary (Spring) Blake who married 6 Nov 1708 at Andover St Mary. This limited number of descendants in the 1700s makes the family easy to trace back into the 1600s and earlier as it turns out. I would like to do more on the Buller family of my maternal grandmother. Now that I am in to these surname studies they are quite fascinating and as I withdraw eventually from my commitment to the Guild of one-name studies (Blake and Pincombe) I can see all sorts of interesting ways to spend my time. My father had great success all those years ago with his cataract removal. He could do his beloved cross word puzzles and spent hours working on them after he was semi-retired. Dr Dyson always said that I had exactly my father's eyes and I am younger than he was and he never wore sunglasses. I hate them but have worn them for years now. They block the real world. 

The evening is fast disappearing and I am up late. Off to bed. Goodnight dear God and may peace become more than just a wish.

Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter completed

I have completed the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter surprisingly this week. I did not think it would be possible but what I had planned to do - Chart 2 can not happen. I do not have all the material that I need to move to Chart 2 which would be North Molton. Chart 1 was the first three generations and is in this next issue of the Newsletter. I will add to that chart when I receive some new material but it is, I think, for the most part complete. Once I have everything entered I will date it. Plus the Newsletter is already long enough.

Yesterday I found an Ash Wednesday service on YouTube which I attended. I do not actually see myself going to a Service in person for a while yet. It is an omission on my part that I do confess to at prayer time but going is not practical for me. I need to drive on the highway and do not do that very often. Once I have my cataracts removed perhaps I will have such lovely new vision I will do that again. 

Back to the Siderfin book and a week early actually. I am working my way through the census putting families together and numbering them from one census to the next to make that step easier when I come to it. I need to do the same with the BMBs that I have from the 1700s for the Siderfin family. I may have done it I didn't check yet. But I was just in the process of extracting material when I gave the study up to my cousin. 

I am starting to think about the other books I would now like to write. They will all be online; nothing printed. I have one more book to revise and that is George Dekay's book on our mutual Gray families but he also included the Carling, Routledge, Beverley, Hildred, Pincombe and a couple of others in the book as well. I do have some nice historical information on the families that I descend from namely Routledge, Gray and Pincombe. Probably I should investigate and see if the Carling, Beverley, Hildred, etc have individuals who would like to revise the book as well. 

I will do a Pincombe Book and a Blake Book just to bring together all the information that I have collected. 

Another heavy snowfall predicted for today 15 to 20 centimetres and it is minus 9 degrees celsius. A good inside day working away on the Siderfin Book. I would like to see it done by the end of the year and we will see how that goes. Probably I will then move to the Pincombe book and it is an obvious next choice in that I would continue working in the same area of the country Somerset being next to Devon and some of my research tools overlap for this area. My Blake book will probably be about my own line at Andover, Hampshire. I do not see myself writing up any of the other Blake lines. I do not have enough personal experience and there are many Blake researchers better schooled than I to produce such a book on different areas. 

The day begins and I am early publishing my blog but I wrote part of it yesterday after I completed the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter.

A very busy three days

 That was a very busy three days in Orleans - not three whole days as we arrive in the late afternoon and then head back late afternoon but feels like three days given the amount of work that needs doing! There is still probably another 5 or 6 bags of leaves/stems to rake up and will accomplish that next weekend perhaps time will tell. Our lives are fluid here because my doctor daughter is literally on call in terms of being needed although not on a call schedule this week which is nice. My other daughter has been busy creating and teaching a new course at her University. Her term has been very busy and it will be nice to see her at Christmas time. We spent so much time together the past year and a half during COVID and I could not have looked after her father without her help. They were always very close and watching from afar was so very painful for her. 

This week it is back to the Siderfin book. I did not have time to extract the Wills for the Siderfin family from the fiche but will do that next time. Now that I am into working on this book I would like to put everything into it that I know about the Siderfin family which is basically what James Sanders did in 1912. Perhaps one hundred years from now someone will discover this material. I will give a copy to Family Search to facilitate that as well as the Guild of one name studies and Society of Genealogists. This is a very English family these days but James Sanders hypothesized that this was a family from Italy perhaps. I do have a number of matches in this family so perhaps in time we can get together and see what segments passed from this family and whether ancient ethnicity can answer the question of where this family came from before they appear in England. An exciting prospect for some future researcher for sure. 

I shall also begin to look at the Carling-Beverley-Gray-Hildred-West-Mason family book which also includes my Routledge-Pincombe family coming down from the Gray line. My great grandmother Grace (Gray) Pincombe's first cousin was Sir John Carling (MP Canada and Minister of Agriculture). All that remains of him here in Ottawa is Carling Street named for him. Carling Breweries (his familys business) has long disappeared and part of O-Keefe Breweries. This book is 253 pages long and I had chatted with my cousin George DeKay (the author) about republishing this book which he published in the mid 1970s. He was working on that he mentioned to me although his closer family is probably more aware of that as I no longer live in the London, Ontario area and have not been back there for a few years now due to COVID-19 and my husband's declining health. We were last there in 2018. There is a Reunion though of my high school (South Collegiate now South Secondary High School) in 2023 that I may try to attend. That would mark 60 years since I graduated from South actually. It would be interesting to see some of my fellow classmates from that time period. George and I crossed paths (we are fourth cousins) back in 2003 when he approached me to write a profile for my Pincombe family which I did with assistance from my Pincombe cousins and my siblings. 

The Charley book has certainly inspired me to look at the publications that contain information on my family lines as it is yet another way to formally preserve the material that I have collected. One other major project remains and that is the Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills (and Diocesan Wills) for the Blake family. I have transcribed hundreds of them now and they are divided by County. I need to put them all together (by diocese (but noting county) I will probably do) in an *.pdf and see if Family Search would like those as well along with the Guild and Society of Genealogists. Finding more than one repository is probably a good idea. Copyright considerations may limit some of this material but I will investigate that as I move along. Since I am retyping and reformating the work that may get around copyright issues in particular when I am adding in a lot of new material. 

On to the day and my breakfast!

Gray family at Cherry Burton and continuing with the Blake Free BMD project

Although I started my blog purely as a diary for myself, I love it that people comment on my blog postings. I heard today from a descendant of the Gray family at Cherry Burton. My Robert Gray Junior came to Canada between 1832 and 1835. I do not have his exact date of arrival but I know he was still farming in Etton in the summer of 1832 so he could have come in the Fall of 1832 or by the Spring of 1835 as he and Mary Routledge are married and their first child is born 9 Feb 1836. It is highly likely that Robert Gray has come to London Township in Middlesex County Ontario because of Thomas Carling who is descended from the Carling family who were brewers at Etton in this time period. Thomas was the only child of this family to emigrate and likewise only William Gray and Robert Gray Junior came to Canada initially although they were later joined by their youngest brother James. The other brothers and sisters remained in England (and primarily in the East Riding of Yorkshire). I suspect that he arrived in late 1832 but still no actual paperwork to prove that (I also have that opinion from my fourth cousin George DeKay who has researched his Gray line and published it).

I continue working on the Blake marriages in Free BMD. As I work away gradually evolving in my mind is the schematic for displaying this information once I have captured all of it. I now know that I will use the Registration Districts to display the information. That way I get around the problem of Registration Districts overlapping County lines. In my mapping though I shall  have to find a map with Registration Districts as they were in the decade that I am demonstrating. That should be fairly straightforward. I can then colour them in by density much like the Profiler for British Surnames has done. Although not quite as sophisticated as my programming skills are somewhat limited (and becoming more so as new generations of programming are introduced).

I also want to work on some of the Pincombe wills that I have not yet transcribed. This project once begun has proven to be quite valuable to me and they are also linked to by the Devon Genuki website giving them fantastic usability. It is this visual that is prompting me to complete the task of transcribing every Pincombe will that I possess. I hope over time that my work on Pincombe will encourage people to test for the yDNA Pincombe project at FT DNA

Pincombe y DNA Study

Thus far I do not have sufficient samples of yDNA results to really say much more than that my 5th cousin who has tested has a 22/25 match with a line that traces back to Barnstaple (my tracing which I shall put online) and that family lore says that the Pincombe family of North/South Molton were the ancestors of the Barnstaple/Bideford Pincombe family. My own line was at Bishops Nympton from the late 1500s to the mid 1800s when they emigrated to Canada although siblings of my 3x great grandfather Robert Pincombe remained in Devon and were still living in the Bishops Nympton area into the 1900s. My 2x great grandfather John Pincombe continued to correspond with his siblings until his death in the 1890s. This correspondence continued between his eldest son John Pincombe (lived at Lobo) and his cousins in Devon and Somerset. However, my grandfather died in 1925 when my mother was only eight years old and the lines of correspondence were lost to my family line. I did manage to pick up the traces somewhat and am in correspondence with a descendant of Robert's son George (my 2x great grandfather John was his older brother).

We have visitors this week and the time is flowing by very quickly. Plus I must get ready for my 30 minute talk on the Guild of One Name Studies to take place 8 Oct 2011 at Library and Archives Canada at Before BIFHSGO. Being Thanksgiving weekend I do not anticipate large numbers in attendance, however I shall give a good overview of the Guild and the value to you of membership in the Guild and the opportunity to showcase your one name study if you have undertaken one. They tend to grow whilst you are busy collecting and particularly with rare names you have a sizeable one name study and become somewhat the expert on that surname. But more on that at the talk :)

Routledge family of Bewcastle Cumberland

My mother, when she was talking about family, would often refer to our Routledge family and most of what I know about this family (other than my researching of the last few years) has come down directly from her. Her father was John Routledge Pincombe and thus named for his mother's six uncles/ five of whom she knew as a child. Although the emigrant Thomas Routledge was still alive when she was a child that particular memory was not passed down to my mother (her grandmother would have been only five years old when Thomas died). Although Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth Routledge had six sons only one of them married. The passing down of the Routledge name did not continue into the next generation of my line.

My Routledge family of Bewcastle Cumberland appears to be readily traced backwards due to them being known as the "Oakshaw" Routledge family. This family tended to marry 1st, 2nd, 3rd cousins in order to keep all of the property that they had accumulated by the 1700s in their hands. They were very efficient at doing so in actual fact. In my Routledge line I have at least six lines and in all likelihood quite a few more before they eventually descend back to a likely singleton ancestor for these lines back in the 1400s.

My cousin Thomas Routledge, thus far cousin several times over on both the Routledge and Tweddle lines) has done an enormous research on the Routledge lines and his webpage for anyone interested is:

http://www.everymansprey.com/

To him I have left the accumulation of information prior to the early 1700s.

My great grandmother Grace Pincombe (née Gray)'s mother was Elizabeth Mary Ann Routledge. Her older sisters Margaret and Grace received only one forename but Elizabeth was the eighth child with four brothers before her so perhaps the parents decided to give to her the remainder of the names which they wished to use for their daughters. This family appears to have obeyed the naming custom often found in Scotland.

Elizabeth Mary Ann Routledge was baptized 14 Feb 1804 at the Scotch Church in Bewcastle and she was born at Parkhead, the family farm. She emigrated to Canada with her parents in the summer of 1818 likely as the family were still on their property at the beginning of 1818. Her older sister Grace and her husband Robert Kennedy had their last child born in Bewcastle baptized 28 Jan 1818 at the Scotch Church. This family is known to have come with them to Canada. We know they are in London Township by the fall of 1818 as Thomas Routledge is named Poundkeeper in the Minutes of the London Township meeting in January 1819.

Mary Ann (as she was known) was married to Robert Gray around 1835 at St Paul's Church (now St Paul's Cathedral) London, Ontario. She was buried 28 Aug 1875 at St John the Divine in Arva. This is close to where they farmed.

The parents of Mary Ann were Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth Routledge who were married 23 Jun 1785 at Bewcastle Cumberland. Family lore from my mother said there were three first cousin marriages in the Routledge family through the generations back. However, Thomas and Elizabeth were not first cousins although their fathers were both of Oakshaw (Henry and George); they do not appear to be brothers. It is more likely that they were third cousins and I have not yet found that connection. Again, it is before 1700 and I have left that research, for the moment, to my cousin Thomas. I need to go to the Carlisle Record Office to sort these families out back into the 1600s.

Thomas and Elizabeth had a large family - seven sons and three daughters. One son (a twin) died shortly after birth (buried the same day).

Margaret baptized 12 Jul 1786 at Bewcastle and married to Thomas Carling Oct 1820 in London Township, Middlesex County, Upper Canada. Now that I have learned about the Upper Canada Society, I shall join it for my Routledge ancestors and my Gray ancestor since he too arrived in Canada before 1841. Sir John Carling was one of their sons.

Henry baptized 24 Oct 1787 at Bewcastle; he never married.

Grace baptized 17 Nov 1789 at Bewcastle and married to George Arthur Kennedy 14 Jun 1810 at Bewcastle.

George baptized 30 May 1792 at Bewcastle and married to Jane Summer in 1821 in London Township, Middlesex County, Upper Canada.

William baptized 20 Mar 1795 at Bewcastle; he never married.

Thomas baptized 31 Jan 1798 at Bewcastle; he never married.

Allen (twin to Elizabeth Mary Ann and baptism missing)

Elizabeth Mary Ann (above)

Joseph baptized 4 Jan 1809 at Bewcastle; he never married

John baptized 23 Oct 1808 at Bewcastle; buried 23 Oct 1808 at Bewcastle

The naming convention generally followed in Scotland is as follows:

The 1st son named after the father's father. (1st son Henry named after Thomas' father)

The 2nd son named after the mother's father. (2nd son George named after Elizabeth's father)

The 3rd son named after the father or uncle. (3rd son William named after Thomas' brother)

The 1st daughter named after the mother's mother. (1st daughter named after Thomas' mother)

The 2nd daughter named after the father's mother. (2nd daughter named after Elizabeth's mother)

The 3rd daughter named after the mother or an aunt. (3rd daughter named after Elizabeth's grandmother Mary perhaps; after herself perhaps with the name Elizabeth)

That left me with a number of names to work with looking at the family as they tended to always name children after family members.

Thomas was the name of both Thomas and Elizabeth's grandfather. Joseph and Allen are the names of two of Elizabeth's half brothers. John is a mystery still not yet solved.

I do hope to learn more about the Routledge family when we next visit England.

The parents of Thomas Routledge (baptized 1763) were Henry Routledge and Margaret Tweddle who were themselves married 3 Oct 1759 at Lanercost.

The parents of Elizabeth Routledge were George Routledge and Grace Routledge who were themselves married  16 Jun 1763 at Bewcastle. The parents of Grace Routledge were Thomas Routledge and Mary Routledge who were married 18 Nov 1733 at Bewcastle.

This last was proven by this will abstract recorded at the Cumberland Record Office in Carlisle:

Carlisle Record Office Will of Archibald FORRESTER of Cleughside, Bewcastle [Bc] 1767, pg 63.    [I’ve included this one since it names many Routledges with places]

Grace Forrester, deceased poss. The mother of John Routledge

John Forrester, Wit

Adam Routledge s o Mary, Wid

George Routledge, of Oakshaw, Bc, father of 2 children

Grace Routledge, daughter of [d o ] Mary Routledge, Wid

Henry Routledge, s o Mary R*

Henry Routledge of Borderrigg, dec., father of 3 children

John Routledge s o Mary R*, Wid

John Routledge, my “sister’s son, possibly s o Grace

Leondard Routledge of Oakshaw

Mary Routledge of Crossgreens or Strandsheads, Wid, mother of Grace, Mary, Adam, John & Henry

Mary Routledge, d o Mary, Wid

William Routledge of Oakshaw, deceased, father of William R*

William Routledge of Oakshaw s o late William Routledge

Francis Armstrong, Wit

Catherine Dowglass of Ash w o Thomas Douglas

Thomas Dowglass [sic Douglas] of Ash husband of Catherine

Catherine Henderson d o Robert & Helenor Henderson

Helenor Henderson wife of Robert and mother of Catherine

Robert Henderson husband of Helenor & father of Catherine

Alexander Kennedie  of Cleughside, Friend husband of Sibella

Catherine Kennedie of Cleughside, d o Alexander

Elizabeth Kennedie of Cleughside

John Kennedie of Cleughside s o Alexander

Sibella Kennedie of Cleughside w o Alexander

William Kennedie of Cleughside s o Alexander

This will thus links George back to Oakshaw, Henry already being linked back to Oakshaw by other documents which I shall add later. I found the Kennedy family being mentioned rather interesting in that Grace Routledge (daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth) married a Kennedy.

Next session I will start to transcribe the Routledge wills that I have at hand - a project that has been hanging for several years and would add greatly to our Routledge research group which consists of a number of Routledge descendants.