Blake Newsletter, Volume 14, Issue 3, 2025 is published on the website

The latest issue of the Blake Newsletter is published on the website. Again there isn't really a story in this one, mostly data and a short discussion of yDNA as mentioned yesterday. I did not draw any conclusions but merely stated the facts. More data is needed to really come to a concrete decision with regard to the East Anglia group. However, it was very enlightening and the results not unexpected given the settlement of this area of the British Islands being strongly related to Danish emigration. However drawing conclusions would be premature.

Attended Church yesterday and it was an interesting sermon once again; time escaped me and I will watch the service from Essex in my break time today. Amazing how busy life can be for this nearly 80 year old. There is never a dull moment for sure. 

Prayers for the lives lost in the floods in Texas and prayers for those still missing. How sad that so many of them are young children at a Christian Children's Camp.  

Yesterday heavy rain and it does look like more today but is not raining at the moment but very grey out. An unusual July with so much rain but does save having to water the sunflowers that have managed not to be eaten by the rabbit. 

Did think more about moving and I can see this is not an immediate thing but rather I am looking further into the future. For one thing my daughter who spends her research time with me loves the East End of the city where she has lived since just before she turned four years of age. Although she has memories of the other house where we lived they are vague and long ago. 

For myself, I did do a little more work on page 5 of the matches extracting 1 segment and 2 segment matches into my file where I didn't already have them. More on that today in between cleaning. I am back to Monday once again and it is the top floor that will be cleaned today. 

Yesterday was the first time that I worked on downsizing once again. I went through the Allen material and checked to see what was there and then wrote to the Allen family member that has been my contact person and verified that they would still like to have the material which Edward had taken to a meeting back in 2019. They are collecting up Allen material and I will now pass this box to them along with a letter showing the line of possession of the items from this same area to Edward's mother and then to Edward and now back to them once again. Many of the items are quite old and there are a number of tintypes including one that is special to me somewhat as it reminds me very much of my oldest daughter at 14 years of age (the tintype is of Edward's maternal grandmother Margaret Evelyn Allen who died 11 Apr 1914 at 34 years of age when Edward's mother was only seven years of age. The striking resemblance to my oldest daughter was amazing actually when I saw the tintype when Edward decided in 2008 to unpack his mother's hope chest that she had left to him when she passed away in 2000. His finds were especially poignant to him as there were pictures of himself with his father which he had never remembered seeing and for me to see a tintype of a child born in 1880 that looked exactly like my eldest daughter and was her great grandmother (mind you I could see the similarity in Edward's mother as well). Life can sometimes be amazing for sure. But the material belongs to the history of the Allen family which was very large with Margaret being the youngest child of eleven children. Her parents were James C Allen (son of Isaac Allen and Rebecca Crouse) and Hannah Catherine Parlee (daughter of John Casey Parlee and Margaret Folkins). The lineage very interesting and primarily New Amsterdam/New York families with Huguenot, Dutch, and English ancestry (dissenters primarily that went to The Netherlands first before going to New Amsterdam). All traced back into the 1600s by Edward and part of his nearly 70,000 member tree on his website. Edward corresponded with cousins all over the United States and Canada often spending a couple of hours a day responding on the email to comments and queries. 

So next Sunday the project is to prepare the Kipp family material (early Oxford, Ontario) family that migrated to Chilliwack, British Columbia in the mid 1800s to see if one of the Archives would like to have all of these early original pictures. I think there are two boxes that I need to work on and that will likely take me several weeks to list everything in the boxes. It does take the idea of moving for me to get back to working on all of this material. I suppose in my mind I do not really want to break it up but I must in order to properly preserve it. Genealogy is an interesting past time and one that I avoided very successfully for most of my life but in 2003 I took up the challenge by my cousin to produce the Pincombe profile for his book on Westminster Township. No one, especially me, would have ever thought that over twenty years I would be so deeply entrenched in genealogy but without DNA I doubt I would ever have proceeded so far into the studies. For Edward, it was being part of the Ontario Genealogical Society that interested him primarily I think until the overwhelming picture of his own ancestry did flow forth as he studied his lines. It was truly amazing the history in his lines that had been lost during migrations from the United States into Ontario beginning in 1800 and continuing in his lines right up into the late 1820s. Gordon Riddle inviting him to go to the meetings with him was his initial introduction to the Ontario Genealogical Society back in the early 1980s.  

For myself I must continue extracting the matches from Living DNA and once completed work them into my databases and then begin the task (along with collecting anything new in the other genealogical testing sites) of working on the re-phasing of my grandparents and then moving to the phasing of my great grandparents. A task of love one might say but the love between my grandfather and my grandmother was strong and it has been easy for me to move away from anything that I thought about doing before I retired to this work for sure. It does keep the brain stimulated especially my latin learning which continues but I do need to move towards ancient latin and that will happen this fall I believe. 

Solitaire puzzles completed, tea drank and it is breakfast time and then cleaning.  

 

 

Sunday and Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

We are into Ordinary Time in the Church Year - that quiet time in the Church Year when the Choirs step back and we are into summer time. The hymns tend to be the beloved ones of the Church without the choir to lead us but we know the tunes well. The Bible Readings are history lessons for the most part as we work our way through the Christian Church as it spread out from the Holy Land but particularly Paul who was Roman and so the shift was gradual towards Rome and the Papacy formation. Christianity would travel to all the far reaches of Europe moving beyond that to the British Isles although historically Anglicanism finds its roots in the Christian Celtic Church with its roots back prior to the arrival of Augustine sent from Rome to bring Christianity to the British Isles. 

Taking the word of God to all the corners of the earth was the pledge of Christianity and also Islam as it formed and now with the advent of Internet the possibilities are endless really as purveyors of the knowledge of God around the world. Prayers that hate and greed will pass from our world and that a good life can become much more evenly spread around the world when aggression totally disappears from our world. 

Yesterday was a busy day and some accomplishment on the last sibling's results as I completed page 4 of the matches and now I move into the system of extraction using 1 segment, then 2 segments and 3 segments and moving quickly through the larger ones as they will be primarily inadequate data (without a good deal of work and the size doesn't justify it). Then on to the task of re-phasing the grandparents using the Living DNA results primarily (but also the others that I have collected in this year) and the known cousin's results. Then once completed I can move to the great grandparents which is my main aim in collecting Living DNA data for sure since it contains all those interesting incidents of endogamy in my family lines.  

I am back to really thinking about selling the house - it is too large for me and it would make room for another family to come to this area (it is four bedrooms and one and a half baths). The backyard is 180 feet deep (60 metres). The laneway is a good size although single parking only (two or three cars) but you can park in front of this house as well. So we will see how it all goes. I am back to more downsizing although mostly everything that I would not take with me to a smaller place is gone. The Light Rail will be completed this fall which gets rids of all that mess that has been around us these past few years. The training stage is ongoing and the opening of the stations out to Trim from Blair will soon be happening (not sure if that is all at once or station by station). Initially the thought was station by station. The change to the neighborhood is huge with round-a-bouts replacing the crossing lights and realignment of bus stops. The road itself newly paved and accesses to the highway greatly improved. The schools are very handy to this area including both Separate and Public Elementary and High Schools. The Light Rail to Universities and Colleges very frequent making the trips into and out of the downtown really quite easy.

 Off to Petrie last evening for a kayak and me walking. It is a lovely walk and I enjoy my three times around the 0.8 km oval. The weather was beautiful last evening and the beach was packed with people and the walk pretty busy as well. I tend to be passing everyone as I am walking alone and fast generally which I prefer. 

Tea drank, solitaire puzzles completed and my breakfast is late today. Church soon. 

 

Lawns all cut

The lawns are all cut once again and that was a huge amount of work yesterday. July tends to be dry and hot so not a lot of growing for a few weeks perhaps time will tell. Some weeding but still more to do there. Everything done that I wanted to accomplish except for sweeping the front porch and patio and weeding the patio bricks. Perhaps I will accomplish that next week along with other weeding. The hostas though are really effective in keeping the weeds down. Not being a gardener by nature all of this is new knowledge that I probably did not really want to acquire very badly! Moving is always bright and fresh in my mind and one of these days that will happen all in its own time. 

Some work on the matches but not very much perhaps a little more today. This last sibling will be more work because I have left a number of the likely endogamy in abeyance waiting to make a decision on whether to include all of that information in the database or not. What do I gain from doing that as I have some good matches in the Knight/Arnold/Butt/Ellis lines? That is really the purpose in all of that to collect data that I do not have and reinforce what I do but if what I have is adequate then the reinforcement just seems like extraneous work. 

Another warm day although just 15 degrees celsius at 7:00 a.m. The house was cool last evening and I do not think the air conditioning came on at all yesterday although the dehumidifier does as it is humid a bit. Humidity is new to this area to last decade or so but it was very humid some days in southwestern Ontario when I was a child. 

Lots of discussion on the forward movement of our national energy project and looking forward to new work being done there. Canada is a huge country and our population is supporting that forward growth for sure with 85% of the people voting for this forward motion setting us up as a powerhouse by the end of this century. When one is nearly 80 though I guess my thoughts tend to be shorter term although not actually; it is fun to think about what this world will be like at 2100. It has so much potential to be a wonderful welcoming place but always ready to defend itself against aggression. I wonder some days how the Rohingyas are doing.  Their struggle has been long and silent in many ways but much more traumatic than anywhere else in the world except perhaps Ukraine. They have led an honest upright life not trying to take away from anyone just living their lives as best as they are able. They have accepted an unfair loss of their lands and moving on to just have a better life. They would be good candidates to live in Canada really more so than people who hate. Haters we do not need. 

The Prime Minister continues to be calm and collected in his dealings with both the provinces and externally. I think that calmness is good for Canada and yet he is forceful in protecting us. The increase in expenditure for the military is long awaited and will stand us in good stead and it is a great employer of people as well. 

Drinking tea and solitaire games are next. Then yoga and breakfast. I will decide today on the one section of the Blake Newsletter - whether I leave it in or remove it. One of the new Y-700 tests is a perfect match with another in the East Anglia data and the country report has one an American and one from the UK. It remains still not enough data really to make a strong statement but it is interesting because the Blake family of East Anglia was said to be the ancestral line of Blake that went to the American colonies and settled in Hampton, New Hampshire around 1650.  There is another Y-700 test in that set of data as well but it does not match. However, I do believe there are a couple of distinct Blake lines in the Norfolk/Suffolk/London area in the 1300s which may account for the difference. Genealogy is interesting but sometimes one must be slower rather than quicker expressing any concrete ideas on lineage but recording the data is very important. 

A huge shopping day

Yesterday was a huge shopping day although I started off the day picking raspberries mid morning. Not too many yet but they are coming along nicely. The birds have eaten about 50% of the red currants which they love it would appear along with the gooseberries. I should pick them but really watching them enjoy eating the little red and purple berries is much more fun as these are pretty seedy berries and mostly just good for making juice for various dishes or making jellies which I do not eat. Although I made hundreds of jars of jam (and perhaps even more) through the years I do not have a sweet tooth and it was my husband mostly who ate all that sugar so when I went back to work outside the home in 1994 I stopped making jams and jellies for the most part as it wasn't actually good for him to have all that sugar as he was by then in his early 50s. I didn't tell him that I just said I wasn't a martyr and could not maintain that sort of life style when I worked full time! 

But off to the market for the newest vegetables in our area (these outdoor markets are wonderful that the farmers set up around the city) and then picking up some items at a specialty food store that I am fond of (namely frozen Canadian blueberries) but a few other goodies and then to the grocery store where I had a huge load to buy this week. By the time I reach the grocery store I am a bit tired; my nearly 80 years are showing. When I am on my own then I spread out any trips but my daughter drives me and has a busy schedule with her research and so I just fit into the pattern. Plus I just shop occasionally on my own for sure; I am not a shopper. Then out to buy some other items once all the food was stored away that were perishable. Our shopping all accomplished we had a lovely meal of fresh meatballs (made by our hands), a lovely potato salad also made by us and fresh asparagus (likely the last meal of that locally). Along with fresh vegetables on the side it was a perfect meal. 

In the morning I worked on the matches and Page 2 is nearly complete and will work on Page 3 today. I am at 210 new matches to work into the database once I get through all of this data collecting. Many of these are significant because they demonstrate the endogamy I knew was there but needed a solid concentration of my British cousins to really see it well. This sibling is more like me with an even number of results from the four grandparent lines rather than a heavy double percentage of Pincombe matches to the other three. I did not inherit nearly as much Pincombe as the rest although this sibling did actually just proportionally they fell different from the others. There are more individual matches to this sibling which I also knew from the other testing companies. But in general we are all good matches with each other and well within the range given for siblings. I am picking up quite a few of the suspicious ones which were mostly endogamy with so many lengths of chromosome between six and twelve centimorgans with many of the samples having one length of six to nine and one of twelve to fifteen along with four to five between four and six centimorgans. This collection of up to 70 centimorgans on occasion could be seen to be Blake but having all five sets together to look at helped to marrow it down to one of the great grandparent lines a little easier. That is the thought with all this new data that I am using all the companies phase our great grandparents in a meaningful proveable way. 

I did pull some weeds as I was picking raspberries and that is something I need to do a little more of to let the flowers have room to flower this year. On the one side no problem the hostas take over most of the ground and the weeds are minimized but on the other the weeds just keep coming back - they are hardy for sure. The lawns need cutting and today looks good for that - sunny but not too warm just 14 degrees celsius at 7 a.m.

I must admit to being a bit impatient to see shovels in the ground for the pipelines and ports and more industry being created here in Canada but it all does take time and our trade is going well between provinces getting that set up. I am looking forward to seeing more foods from the provinces on the shelves in the stores. Canada is a huge country with lots of ability to do well and unleashing it will take a bit of time for sure.  I still think that the American car companies should just incorporate their businesses as Canadian here and break their ties with their American businesses other than the sharing that can exist between compatible industries. That way they will continue to produce cars for sale here in Canada and we do buy a lot of cars. Since our car (Dodge Caravan) has just over 30,000 km in five years I obviously do not represent most of Canadians but in our younger days we generally put 15,000 to 20,000 km per year on our car. But I scarcely drive it on my own just the grocery store and to the garage to change the tires twice a year and have the usual oil changes and the like done to it. But there are a lot of young people in Canada and it is really a rite of passage here to get your driver's license at 18 now (used to be 16 for a permanent license but times have changed and one does need to ensure that one thoughts are always on careful driving on the roads) and then buy a car and still live at home and go to school. The laneways are full of cars for every house. But it is the choice of the American manufacturers for sure; the Auto Pact has cost particularly Ontario taxpayers a lot of money these past sixty plus years and even if they leave it will continue to cost us money because of promises made. We do tend to be a punishing lot Canadians and will not generally purchase foreign cars but only cars made in Canada with Canadian materials. At 41 million we are a large market  to lose for sure. 

Drinking my lemon ginger tea (one of these days back to green tea but I do not need the caffeine at the moment!) and on to solitaire puzzles. Then yoga and breakfast and the lawns! 

I did complete the Blake Newsletter but still debating the small writeup on the new Big Y-700 results in the East Anglia group. I will probably release it early next week.  

Some research, some shopping

A busy day that saw some research accomplished and some shopping accomplished. I am looking for a new desktop computer as Windows 10 draws it last breaths. I want basically what I have now but with Windows 11 and we toured about looking at various computers. I have a couple of months to decide. I do not need a new monitor nor do I need any of the other attachments as I bought a new keyboard (this is the third one now since the original that came with the computer. We will see what comes with them these days given that my tablet came without a power pack to fit into a socket! I will be even more questioning this time than the last. 

So onto the second page of matches with the fifth sibling and a little work on the Blake Newsletter. Still not completed but soon hopefully and perhaps today it is going to rain. Raspberries to pick as well and the sunflowers are doing well; that is the only item that we planted this year. There is just too much shadow in the back yard to have a good garden. 

Discussing the books in our coffee break I am still in the midst of Blake and Pincombe and will be for another two to three years I anticipate (I am coming up on one year in January although I did pretty much set it aside until now when I am beginning the generational tables coming down. The starting point for Blake is fairly easy although I would be exciting to start in the 1300s it will likely be the 1500s. The starting point for Pincombe not so easy as I need to make a decision on whether to write up the Pencombe family in Herefordshire as known to me and then this likely family of Pencombe coming with John Lord Zouch to North Molton in 1486 (perhaps as an accompaniment chosen by the King I am suspecting rather than as a loyal retainer). Given that John Pencombe received land at North Molton one is tempted to think that the King was the one who was involved in that rather than John Lord Zouch who was attainted. It does give a different sort of look to John Pencombe than I had formerly. 

Tea drank, solitaire puzzles to do and then breakfast but first yoga.  

Happy July 4th to my American cousins.