Beautiful weather again and proofreading and the latest edition of the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter is on the website

The weather was beautiful once again yesterday so wandered about the garden a little and had a lovely swing on the garden swing in the fresh air. A very pleasant day here.  Forgot to publish the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter which I realized today and it is now up on the website - Volume 8 Issue 4 2023.

But of course my fingers itched to get at the proofreading of the Siderfin document from 1653 and I managed 1/3 of the document. Very few changes surprisingly given it has been a while since I have transcribed a document from the  mid 1600s. No blanks yet but maybe later the paper was a bit rumpled towards the end of the document. I continue on this second reading with the premise that this is Robert 4 (Robert 3, William 2, John 1) and his wife Ursula with son John. I have not yet reached any mention of Wilmot or the time frame which will probably be tomorrow as I hope to accomplish about the same then. The document reads pretty uniformly as the Franck family is trying to find the will and documents which prove the family pedigree. This family as shown by the Protestation Returns and Lay Subsidy is primarily in Porlock with smaller properties. The property at Eastlinch is substantial about ten times the worth of any of the properties at Porlock so the desire to prove their right to the land and premises is probably pretty strong. I have the sense that Robert Franck the last male in the direct male line at Eastlinch was a youngish man perhaps early to late thirties so he has died fairly young and did not leave any paperwork or Issue but the land and premises are entailed so revert back along the male line until one finds a living male coming down in those male lines. The family at Porlock is largish given the number of members on the Protestation Returns. Not sure why the Horne family enters into the discussion, since I opted not to purchase the Complaint, since the land is entailed and they are descendants of Bridgett (Franck) Horne. But I am not researching the Franck family so can not get very interested in that actually. 

Cleaned out the closet on the main floor and redid it to neaten it up even more. It was always stacked high with stuff (my Edward was a hoarder likely as well as loving to buy all sorts of extras). It is a slow process to downsize meaningfully. He did use to take items to the Salvation Army and they primarily benefit from a lot of the items. That has proven to be providential knowing that he would like to have that done. I am slowly eliminating extras that I have but actually do not have a lot of extra. I am not a shopper and I tended to try to stick to everything scanned and online for my one-name studies. It is possible with families like mine that are principally from the five different areas of England proper although I do have Scot ancestry and apparently Irish but still looking for that link. But I still do have some paperwork generally items that I acquired (copies) from the Society of Genealogists where there are both Blake and Pincombe files which I copied. Plus I have purchased a number of items although these days pretty much everything I buy is an image that I receive via email. Great advances in the last eighteen years in how documents are sold. 

This weekend plans to finish the proofreading of the transcription and then get back to the Siderfin book where I am at the Fourth Generation once again so that I can add in this document and a precis of the will that I purchased from the Somerset Record Office. There really wasn't very much in it but it did rather support the idea that Robert at East Linch and William at Minehead were sons of Robert 6 (Robert 5, William 4, Robert 3, William 2, John 1) and so I will add those details. That will let me finish off the Fourth Generation once again and since my two premises are proven for me I do not have changes to the Fifth Generation but do have some text to put in from James Sanders book and lots of footnoting to carry on with. That will be my work in September; getting all the footnoting done and then October proofreading and editing just to make sure everything flows. Insert some images and I may need to ask permission for some but will check on that. There would only be a couple at the most and I can simply do as James Sanders did and leave out the original images if I am concerned. I have footnotes where they are found anyway. That will flow into November and publication month hopefully. 

Then December if I am not having my cataract surgery I will move on to the Pencombe book and I have a lot of transcription to do there and again for the first run through I will take it easy so as not to strain my eyes. Going through the second time has been fine especially as I only do a few lines at a time and the text, for the most part, has remained unchanged. The spelling in 1653 was inconsistent and somewhat archaic compared to the modern spelling but I did catch most of that the first time through. 

Today cleaning the basement as this past week was rather busy and that didn't happen so will do a catch up and then back to normal once again. Tea almost finished and off to breakfast.

Huge projects

I do have several large projects for the fall independent of my writing/editing. There are four large piles that have to be shredded. There is one banker box of items that need to be scanned before shredding. Shredding the four large piles is difficult in some ways because a large part of it was letters between Edward and family members he met along the way. The letters begin with the usual things that genealogists talk about when they write to a long lost relative but some of this correspondence went on for twenty or thirty years and they became like pen pals sharing their lives with each other. I feel it is important that I shred all of this as it is private information between two people who found a friendship by mail that they enjoyed but it wasn't really meant to be shared with the world. My daughters have a nodding interest in genealogy but not strong enough to support picking up the traces which were left by Edward and carry on with all of this work. They may pick it up one day but this way they can use their own flavour of research and they are happy with that. The amount of material that Edward held was quite enormous thinking back now as I look around a house still full but not overwhelming in quite the same way. The fullness results from four people and then five living here for a period of time accumulating objects and not really wanting to part with them. Even I with my tendency to not gather dust so to speak do have some possessions that I have acquired although rapidly diminishing. One set was the VCR tapes and then DVDs that I bought (generally on sale) during my working days as I had planned this lovely retirement watching all the old movies (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) but my cousin did change all of that and I was able to persuade Edward to travel to Europe/British Isles which also changed how we did things in between trips. I liked to see absolutely everything that I could in any particular area that we stopped and so the huge lists began with the directions attached and on our tour travels we added in our own personal tours in the evenings whenever we arrived. It was fantastic. But I have given away most of the VCR tapes and a lot of the DVDs as well keeping just a basic set that I enjoy because I do not apparently have enough time in a day to watch one most days. Just sometimes. 

Yesterday I did some more work on the Answer document that pertains to the Siderfin family at Timberscombe and East Linch. It is proving to be an interesting story as in the answer Robert Siderfin and family relate most of what was in the complaint as far as I can tell since I elected not to buy the complaint as well. I really just wondered what they would say in the answer and whether it would help me to locate which family this was. Indeed it has and I am simply continuing to transcribe out of curiosity. I suspect that this Robert Siderfin the elder married an Ursula Franck either a Franck by birth or a widow as that is starting to emerge from the document. It will end up having no impact on the writing/editing that I have done thus far except to be a further proof. But we will see how the document flows and I am perhaps one fifth of the way through now. 

I am not in a rush particularly plus I am realizing that I need to do the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter for the 1st of September. That very nearly slipped my mind. In the past three months the idea of writing a book on this family has solidified and will be my next effort in writing in the new year as the likely beginning time. I continue to collect information and will also work in the same manner with this book as with the Siderfin. I will begin as far back as I am able to research and then bring the material forward although continuing to work backwards through the available census and the Parish records to the 1500s/1600s when these Pencombe/Pincombe/Pyncombe families dispersed from North Molton/South Molton area into North West Devon and other areas including London especially. It will be at least two years in the writing I estimate. The only advantage that I have with this book is personal history passed to me by my mother and then my uncle in the last  ten to fifteen years of his life when we used to spend time with him and he and I corresponded regularly or spoke on the telephone all of which I recorded and have available to me. That discussion though is limited to my  direct family only that lived first at North Molton and then in Bishops Nympton/Molland and then with Philip Pincombe in Gloucestershire as my direct line emigrated to Canada originally with others also in that direct line emigrating as well to Canada but also to the United States, Australia and South Africa. 

I have given myself until the end of the year to complete the Siderfin book and will publish it under a Creative Commons license in order that I can protect the contents from being published for profit making it free to download or be distributed to repositories that may wish a copy. Plus it will be then possible for descendants to edit my work with their own new publication even during my lifetime and correct/alter/change items for which new material is available or simply to maintain the lines and bring them forward as I will not publish anything that has occurred after 1920. 

Breakfast is next and I am hungry as usual. Last night we had a piece of salmon poached with dill which was quite delicious along with a broccoli salad which I quite enjoyed but that was many hours ago now! Another beautiful day in God's world and may peace be the choice of all of us as we manage our way through this wilderness of climate change and come to a better side by caution and care and respect and an end to greed, violence and envy. 

Psalm 133 - Bible Reading for today

The words from Psalm 133 are truly a wondrous treat to read first thing this morning.  "It is truly wonderful when the people of God live together in peace." 

Would that it was true. That the people of Ukraine could wake up this morning to peace; Russia back in its own borders as determined at the end of the Soviet Union. What a wondrous happening that would be. No more murdering of the Ukrainian people - the baby the other day; surely no one has the right to murder babies lying in their mother's arms. Surely we have come much farther along than that in our evolution to be better people. 

The document from the National Archives of the UK arrived yesterday in my inbox. What a treat. A first read and it would appear that Robert 5 (William 4, Robert 3, William 2, John 1) married an Ursula as well and that this document concerns Robert the elder (generally the reference given to Robert 5 living at Timberscombe/East Linch. I have only transcribed the first ten lines thus far (it is a very large vellum perhaps 60 lines in total). I have noted the name Wilmot referring to Robert and Ursula's daughter mentioned in her grandmother Christian Siderfin's will and John is mentioned there as well as their son. At this time these children would be in their early 20s likely. Can I completely exclude Robert 4 (Robert 3, William 2, John 1)? I will transcribe the entire document before I finally decide but the early appearance (the use of Robert Siderfin the elder) does rather point to this being Robert 5. Plus Robert 4 (if he was alive) would be 66 years of age and Robert 5 is likely in his early 40s. I am wondering how the name Francke came to be involved with the Siderfin family and perhaps this document will show the connection. I can not find a marriage between Robert Siderfin and Ursula (unknown). 

Cleaning completed yesterday and today we will work on the window washing. A not insignificant task for sure but it will be nice to remove the summer's dust. 

A walk on the beach yesterday late afternoon was most welcome although the weather was looking somewhat stormy it did not start to rain until we arrived home once again. My new sandals got their first workout and I do like them. I really liked my leather sandals but they do not do as well in the sand and they were eleven years old now so getting pretty battered. These sandals are synthetic and have a really good sole and made for beach walking for sure. 

Tea is cooling and I shall read my mail and work on my solitaire for a bit and then breakfast.