My husband's story

I think my husband might start his story today. Both of our daughters have mentioned to him how exciting that would be to have him write his story. He can sit and talk while I type (I am still a fast typist; I learned to type when I was 12 and it was a skill I took to very rapidly and well). Perhaps I am not quite as accurate as I once was though as I do find errors in my blog that I correct on the next reading.

My husband was born near the Village of Princeton, Ontario, Canada on a farm that was actually in Burford Township but right across the then Number 2 Highway from the Village of Princeton. His father died from a farming accident when my husband was two years old and his wife and older son and Edward moved into the village of Princeton where he lived until he came to University in London, Ontario when he was nineteen years of age. He studied Honours Chemistry and then did his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry (papers still cite his original research), he then went on to do a Postgraduate Fellowship (2 years) in Chemical Engineering and following that he did his Masters in Library Science. I entered in during the undergraduate Chemistry degree (I was one year behind him).

He has told me so many stories of his youth at different times and I can recall them but it would be good to have him say it all again in his own words. It is so very difficult to be inactive when you have been so very active all of your life. Memories flood back into my mind of my grandfather whose very active life terminated quite quickly after a stroke and the same with my father. My grandfather was almost 80 years of age when he passed and my father was nearly 95 years of age. In that same male line my great grandfather was 71 years of age when he suffered a stroke and died in 1916. But remembering the last years of the lives of my grandfather and father I can understand how frustrating limited activity can be to very active people.

Edward will be 78 on his next birthday.

Theory of Relativity

Happy Independence Day to the United States.

My Heritage has done some very interesting links using the Theory of Relativity and all of the ones that really work well are in my Knight-Butt lines. By far the largest group of my matches belong to this family. In this family I have Collapsing Pedigree as all the Knights go back to one family in Spetisbury. Henry Knight married Mary Oliver 25 Dec 1727 in Spetisbury Dorset. Of their 15 children only four survived to adulthood. I am suspicious that one of the members of this couple was Rh negative and the other Rh positive and as the generations followed this pattern would repeat itself in several of the descendants. My father was Rh negative but I am Rh positive. As the fourth of seven children (all of whom survived to adulthood) this was perhaps quite amazing (my mother was Rh positive). However, there were thousands and thousands of descendants of this couple as time passed (they were my 6x great grandparents). But it is interesting that I can see a couple of generations in my lines where the Rh+ and Rh- conflict likely emerged.

Henry Knight was likely born at Mapperton Dorset and christened there 2 Feb 1701 son of Thomas and Julian Knight. He was buried at Spetisbury 25 Sep 1778. His wife Mary Oliver was likely baptized 12 Oct 1709 at Tarrant Rushton Dorset daughter of Thomas and Sarah Oliver. I did not find concrete information on this line back the one generation but there was a Thomas Knight (husband of Edith) buried 23 Apr 1723 at Mapperton Dorset.

I subscribe to My Heritage (did  my health results there as well as my DNA), I subscribe to Ancestry and tested my DNA there, I subscribe to Find My Past and all three sites are quite interesting in terms of records. That is how I spend my pocket money so to speak; I do not buy anything else on my small pension so can afford to do that. Not having much time at the moment to use the research tools but when I do it is nice to have them accessible!

July 1 - July 4

Canada and the United States share two important days in this set of four days: July 1st is Canada Day and July 4 is Independence Day USA. Quite a few times we have celebrated Canada Day on July 1st and then gone down to the area where my husband's Link ancestors lived and been present for the Independence Day USA celebrations. We even took part in one event where I carried the Loyalist Flag on a parade route from the starting point to a monument depicting one of the battles in the American Revolution. I carried it because as a woman I was less likely to be seen as a provocative person but interesting in retrospect as I was the only person in the group with zero ancestry in the American colonies or the USA for that matter. I do not know what made me think of that today but it did come to mind. One wonders in present day Upper New York State how my carrying such a flag would be viewed. History is history; we cannot change it and if we do we risk repeating it in the future. We are meant to learn from history.

When we first arrived at Parliament Square in London, UK I was somewhat surprised to see a statue of Oliver Cromwell. Perhaps one of the most ultimately hated figures in British History, his statue sits high in front of the entrance into Westminster Palace (House of Commons). It is so long ago now that many people may have forgotten what he did in his time as Lord Protector of the Realm. But his statue is a reminder that dictators can arise at any time and they may appear benevolent at the beginning but end up being selfish and interested only in themselves as time passes.

We must continue to prove that democracy works; the free will of people is the most important part of living in a democratic state so long as that free will is tempered by respect for other people and property. The right to protest must always be tempered by respect for other people and property. There are people amongst us who take advantage of such protests to destroy thus satisfying their basest instincts or to make the cause for which people are protesting seem violent. Such protests must police themselves and expose the anarchists in their midst for their just punishment under the law.

Canada Day was a beautiful day and I do hope that Independence Day USA is also a beautiful day. My wish for America on its Independence Day is physical distancing and prevent the further spread of COVID-19 and wear a mask. Canada and the USA are like fraternal twins; many of our citizens share ancestry in the other country and they are proud of their ancestry; one prays that America will continue making people proud to say that they are Americans or that they have American ancestry.

God bless all the peoples of the world.

Shopping Day

Out at 6:50 am shopping today. Not many people about and most are wearing masks at that early hour of 7:00 opening. We tend to buy groceries at three different places as each of them has the specific items that we want to buy. I do not have to go to the other grocery stores for a few days; perhaps as late as next week. We are still keeping pretty much to ourselves.

The garden takes up a lot of my time now as Ed is unable to do any of the work outside these days. The chair lift has been a great addition making life much more normal for him going from the main floor to his office upstairs whenever he wants. We moved the TV from the basement to the main floor into the living room we haven't used much in the last 30 years. The most use it ever had was for the Bible Study for Ed's United Church that we hosted at our house. I was working by then (at home, copyediting and proofreading) so it was a pretty basic Bible Study (no coffee or treats!). I was also pregnant with our second child but we had some interesting discussions. I remember trying not to comment as I didn't always agree with people but reminded myself that I am an Anglican and this was a United Church Bible Study. Ed certainly enjoyed being part of the group. I enjoy a Bible Study though; sharing God's word with people is a favourite of mine but I do that online these days. I receive the Reading of the day in my email box first thing and have been reading that for about 25 years now. I am still a member of the Anglican facebook group but it is quiet these days. The Anglican Listserv used to be so very active but as time has marched onward I do not have as much time to be part of a group.

On to more work; a very busy day ahead and this during COVID-19.

Blake families of the world

I receive many emails from Blake descendants around the world. The surname frequency in 2011 when I set up the Blake one-name study:

Entering the name Blake into a world names public profiler yields a frequency for this surname as seen below:

Country Frequency per million
Australia 546.24
Ireland 519.41
United Kingdom 475.47
New Zealand 391.15
United States 274.12
Canada 257.19
Spain 4.82
Belgium 4.59
Switzerland 3.83
Denmark 3.74

Not surprisingly the most frequent location on earth for the Blake surname is Australia and Ireland followed closely by the United Kingdom and then New Zealand and Canada (the ratio of frequency between Canada and the United States is quite interesting in that the United States population is 9x that of Canada). A high percentage of the Blake surname in Canada can be attributed to the Irish Blake families although there are also a sizeable number of descendants of British Blake families (my own included although I do know all of those descendants in my generation and we (my siblings and I are the only ones carrying the Blake surname in our generation).

I received an email mentioning an interesting site and will mention it in the Blake Newsletter due today but not likely to be produced before the end of July. I am hoping to catch up this month on my three now late newsletters.