Education Sunday in England

 I attended Church online in England  yesterday and it was Education Sunday. The music was beautiful I have to say that and the children did very well with their service pieces. My great grandfather Edward Blake always insisted that all of his children go to school until they completed their time there and they then went on to apprenticeships (boys and girls alike). It was from him I inherited my strabismus just as my father did before me. Interesting that it skipped the one generation as my grandfather did not have strabismus. But you could see it in the huge picture of Edward and Maria Jane hanging in my cousin's house in Dorchester, Dorset. A long way from where the picture was taken beside their home in Upper Clatford. We passed the house and Ivan thought it was their house as did I from the picture but there it was still standing and Edward and Maria Jane were married in 1870 at Upper Clatford. That was 2008 and next door was where Edward's mother lived (Ann (Farmer) Blake) widowed but was married to John Blake father of Edward. Edward was the youngest son in that family (the fifth son). 

I am a great believer in education and I very much enjoy learning and have spent most of my life continuing to learn day after day. My mother used to say that I read so many books and always had my face in a book reading from a young age. I would come back from the bookmobile every week with my allotted number of books. Then read them and read them so many times until the next week when I went to the bookmobile and got new books. My grandmother taught me to read when I was just three years of age because a student doctor said that I would not be able to see by the time I was twenty. Not sure why that happened as I do not personally recall it but the young man had just started into medical school and I wore these thick glasses and my sight was limited at best. It is funny in retrospect as I sit here typing at my computer easily reading the words in front of me although I do have my reading glasses on. I could enlarge the view and not wear my glasses but generally I prefer to just use the reading glasses. I wore glasses from the time I got up until I went to bed for 78 years until I had cataract surgery. It was truly amazing and that first real view after the first eye was operated on and it was clearing maybe a day or so later I looked up as my daughter was getting ready to put the drops into my eye and it amazed me as the ceiling when I looked upward looked yellow through my non-operated eye and pure white through the eye that had been operated on.  I had been suspicious that my sight was not as good as it could be those last couple of months and had been so very very cautious. After the other eye was operated on then that ceiling was so white it was almost blinding but I gradually got used to it. But when the optometrist suggested buying glasses that went from normal to corrected (progressives) I said that I did not think I wanted to wear glasses anymore except when I was reading. It still is fascinating to just walk around and see everything (no fuzziness) and read everything if the print is big enough and store signs are plenty big enough for the most part but must use my magnifying glass for the best before dates!

Continuing working  on the Pincombe book writing up the chapter on autosomal DNA. I forgot I had not finished that. I am not sure what will come next at this point.  I am able to begin the genealogical table with the furtherest back known Pencombe. I shall have to check that out as I do have a chapter on the de Pencombe family. It is close to half a year since I have been working on the Pincombe family book. It is fun to be back to it and the stories that my mother told me, my grandmother told me and my uncle told me circle around in my head as I contemplate what to write. 

My Pincombe cousins and a couple of my siblings plus myself and Edward met at the Library in London, Ontario to review everyone's family lines as I was writing this Pincombe Profile for the Early Settlers in Middlesex County for my cousin George DeKay. It was a lovely meeting and I did not remember meeting any of them as a child although some seemed to have memories of me which was kind. We spent a couple of hours going over pictures and details and I wanted their opinion because I felt that the story should concentrate on the lines that stayed in the same area and I was way off in Ottawa quite a way from London, Ontario. I brought every line down to our generation (i.e. my siblings and myself) and all of our third cousins since we had our 2x great grandparents in common John Pincombe and Elizabeth (Rew) Pincombe. At that time there were still some second cousins but I was twenty two years younger than now. Who would have ever imagined that I would spend my retirement years on genealogy having stayed away from it for most of the years before that even whilst my husband was deeply into his family research. I did help him when we traveled to gather up the information on his lines but my own lines are mostly Canadian I thought in the present and England in the past and at that point I vaguely knew that Robert Pincombe had gone to the United States and remained there whereas his brother John (my 2x great grandfather) had gone to Upper Canada/Ontario after landing at the Port of New York and visiting his brother Robert in Genesee New York coming on to the London, Ontario area. It didn't take long to collect up all the information on the Pincombe family in my birth area and one of my cousin's husbands had built a tree which he shared with me. Profile written; book published and then my brother Doug reminded me that our mother wanted me to do the DNA and that was now becoming readily done so first tested at Sorenson and then FT DNA and it went on and on and finally autosomal testing because we didn't have a living male Pincombe to test in our line and I didn't sense any interest from my cousins so left it alone. Out of the blue my cousin in the United States descendant of Robert tested her father (he was my third cousin once removed) and we shared 3x great grandparents Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth (Rowcliffe) Pincombe. YDNA results were now available and autosomal was starting to be talked about and I knew it was autosomal that would show up the cousin lines between myself and our Pincombe cousins. I certainly hit the jackpot because so many Pincombe tests came online about the same time. Doug was pleased and I was pleased that we were able to follow through on my mother's thoughts of doing that. She used to do research at the Family History Library in Byron (part of London, Ontario) and must have heard about it there. She remembered my fascination with DNA in the 50s when I was a child and it continued into the 60s as I studied Chemistry at University. So that was the path that I followed commencing in 2003/4 with George writing to ask me to write the profile. It just grew by leaps and bounds. 

Edward had retired in 2004 but I continued to work until a shoulder injury really was causing me problems working and so I took off a few months thinking after a course in physio I could go back as I did want to work to 65 I thought. However, Edward persuaded me to retire and I did as of the end of December 2007. If I thought I traveled a lot before now we seemed to be constantly on the road to here and there and everywhere in the Northern United States and in Ontario. Edward and I spent weeks at the NYGBS and the New York Public Library and just walking in the areas where Edward's Kip family had lived from the mid 1630s on having come to New Amsterdam/New York from Amsterdam, The Netherlands with their children. It took us into Pennsylvania, New Jersey and of course into all the New England States where Edward's mother's American colonial lines were located. 

But I digress and I did continue working on Pincombe yesterday. I completed the autosomal chapter and reviewed the chapter on the de Pencombe family of Herefordshire. I still have some latin records to continue reviewing for this ancient family in Herefordshire back into the 1100s. So that verified their likely date of arrival from the continent (Flanders in particular) and their original surname appears to be Flandrensis (meaning from Flanders) which became Flandrensis de Pencombe and eventually dropped the Flandrensis. A grant was made by Eustace de Pencombe, son of Turstin Flandrensis to the Convent of St Peter at Gloucester after 1100 and before 1135. Eustace used the surname de Pencombe. It does appear this line may have been in England even before 1100. I have not located them in the Domesday Book though. 

Today is basement cleaning day and I shall start the robot very soon. I also hope to do another 1/5th of the back yard raking and cutting the grass getting ready for winter. Our trees have just started to turn but that is about normal I am thinking. But the cool weather is coming just 11 degrees celsius at 8:00 a.m. EDT. 

I will continue reading 1 Maccabees as I slowly progress through the Old Testament books. Job follows the second book of Maccabees and then into the Psalms of which there are 150 which will take me a while I suspect. I do love the Psalms then Proverbs and on to the remainder of the Old Testament. 

Solitaire puzzles are next.  

  

Continuing working on the Pincombe book

 I had created a chart in the Pincombe book with the list of chromosomes from 1 to 23 on the left side and then five columns for the five siblings who have tested out of seven siblings in total. I wanted to put into each of the sibling's blocks opposite each chromosome the longest length that was found in the matching for each chromosome. As I worked away I realized there could be a benefit to having the total length that was matched for Pincombe for each sibling but I have a different purpose for that so did not go back and change anything. All but one chromosome had matches for Pincombe - Chromosome 21 does not although that was somewhat surprising given that every sibling has a length of Pincombe and I did discover when I checked back into my phasing that two lengths that are my matches actually are there although very tiny and one of the matches is a known 3rd cousin. I tend to be the most different from everyone else. My percentages shared with each grandparent compared to the other four siblings are always the opposite to their sharing. The four of them tend to resemble each other more than myself although I am more similar to my younger siblings than my older. But that is the way that DNA is distributed - totally random to each newly conceived child. 

I shall have to have a look at Chromosome 21 on Living DNA as their charting makes it possible to do deep studies into each chromosome. Each one of the companies has advantages that they have utilized and they stand out and I do use them all. 

I completed the chart but I am not sure I will reproduce it in the book. Now that I have done it I can see a different value in it than originally. I believe that once I have phased the great grandparents that I can readily reconstruct my parents' DNA which would be fabulous. I may not be able to recreate all 23 chromosomes but we will see. At the moment there are just ten empty boxes but I did not put small matches into my chart particularly unless I had a reason. Using DNA Painter charts that I have created I can see where there are matches covered and most of the tiny holes have been filled with my latest going through the new matches. 

What I thought Table 7 might be telling me is not different from the original thought when I created the headings for the chart about a year ago now. Time has moved quickly for me and this next year is also going to be fast moving. I think perhaps in four years or so I will find a quieter life likely; time will tell. But these books are planned to be completed by then and I would be working on Buller and Rawlings. The Rawlings book is mostly put together by my cousin in Australia and he sent it to me. I have quite a bit that I can add to it and will do so once I have reached that point in time. 

Worked outside on the backyard and started at the back fence and raked up all the small branches (and some large) that have fallen from the maple tree this past year. I achieved a large paper recycling bag full of small twigs and branches and some of the dried leaves that have not rotted through the summer. Then I cut the lawn and so that part is now ready for winter. I think it will take me probably five more days to complete the back yard. Along the way I will finish loading up the shed for winter and get the garage ready for the car as November soon arrives and I like to be ready. Again I will not cut down the plants but rather let them die off and rot away into the ground. Edward used to bring in a lot of fresh earth and replenishment types of additions to feed the ground before planting but I am not going to do that because I am not going to garden it. At 81 I will just watch and look and enjoy the wildlife in the yard and no gardening except I do try and weed a few times a year. 

Having used AI for about six months now fairly regularly I can see that their knowledge banks have expanded enormously. Dealing with genealogy six months ago there was limited knowledge but now the AIs I encounter have a grasp of what an old will should look like and quickly understood my square bracketing of the missing text in latin wills and they have become knowledgeable enough that they told me I was incorrect with some of the bracketed text but I could explain to the AI I was working with that those tiny little marks above the spot where the text was missing do indicate what has been left out more or less and that these wills written five hundred and more years ago were very variable  especially if they were written by the local scribe (perhaps priests or just a skilled person). However I did not do that at the time. As you read the wills that this individual has produced you soon get used to the marks that they use to denote certain missing text. One must be area specific that far back for sure. I do find they quickly jump to conclusions whereas I have an open mind and try to come up with all the possibilities but they lack that human quality of sizing up the problem. But I do respect their ability to find and recall vast amounts of information and that they can sift through it at a very rapid pace.  One does need to have their work evaluated as the Anthropic CEO has just mentioned today and it needs to be evaluated constantly. But AI is fast. Tasks that would take me several days are accomplished in a couple of minutes although one needs to note that the order and the stripping of format needs to be addressed in advance which I have not done yet and we will see if that works. Like computers, using AI may well make the job more cumbersome due to extraneous text, misunderstanding the path to take , stripping out formatting and not retaining the order within an excel file or any file for that matter. Myself I number the lines in all of my large files so that I can return to the base line at any time. So not a problem but it does make more work for me to reassemble my file and reformat my file. 

Woke up in the night and decided to do a bit of work. Always good to make use of any spare time!

Sunday and another week begins in God's world. How beautiful this world is and to have it marred by carelessness is just sad. When will humankind learn to follow God's commandments and they are brief - Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love (respect) our neighbour as ourself. On these two commandments we could live the perfect life but for evil creeping in. 

Church later today and I shall do more work on the photo books as well. 

Diversifying our trade within the provinces and territories and around the world is slowly being achieved and Prime Minister Carney has my full  support. It is nice to see Canada so unified behind this Prime Minister. His vision, the vision of the Fathers of Confederation, is growing.  

Solitaire puzzles when I wake up in the later morning as this is just 3:25 a.m. EDT. Goodnight world. 

Dear Father hear and bless they beasts and singing birds and guard with tenderness small things that have no words. God bless my grandparents, my parents, my siblings, my husband who have preceded me in this life and bless my children, son in law, grandchildren, my siblings' families and all the world dear Lord. May we find peace. Amen. 

 

 

Work Day

 Decided to do the front yard yesterday morning which included raking it and then cutting the grass with the lawnmower and took me about an hour to complete the process. Pulled a few weeds here and there and will see if it needs cutting again before winter. 

As well I ended up continuing to build the new set of family photo albums. I am still on the first album and have been through four of the older albums. So this may work to reduce it down to six to eight binders. Sometimes there are so many pictures close in time that I just put five or six into the section and eventually someone may decide to just keep one of them but I find that I can not just decide on that and will leave to the lookers of the future. 

I am slowly getting past thinking I am spoiling Edward's set of binders that told the story of his life. He enjoyed them very much but now so that the  next generation can enjoy them it is time to downsize the pictures that have little or no meaning to them because they were not there; they are not in the pictures and neither are we because they are scenery pictures. Fortunately the binders actually end in 2001 which will help to make my task easier. I also suspect that in the future likely looking at them on the computer will be much more common as there is an index of the entire set of fourty albums and they will likely look at all of the pictures because we went to a lot of countries in our travels. But I will leave that up to the future and not attempt to second quess it. But for the moment fourty large binders is a lot of binders. 

I find my mind still contemplating the Blake family history but I do think I will set it aside if only for a week and work on the Pincombe family. The generational chart is considerably easier coming down from the family at North Molton, Devon where they arrived in 1486 and lived in North Molton for the first generation but moved away in the second towards South Molton and in the third towards Bishops Nympton and Barnstaple with Pincombe being in a lot of the villages in North Devon along the main highway that still exists there. My line was at Bishops Nympton from the late 1500s until the 1830s at which time John Pincombe and his wife (Elizabeth (Rew) Pincombe) were living in Molland which is pretty close actually to Bishops Nympton having traveled those roads in 2008. They then emigrated to Canada in November 1850 via the Port of New York going to visit John's older brother Robert who lived at Genesee New York and arrived January 1851. All of this was known to me from my mother who was a Pincombe before she married a Blake. 

I do believe that this Pincombe family that arrived in North Molton in 1486 with John Lord Zouch came in one of two capacities - one would be part of a system that guaranteed that John Lord Zouch would remain at North Molton as he had supported Richard III and for that King Henry VII had stripped him of his estates and sent him to North Molton to remain there until he was told  he could leave - that is my suspicion since John Pencombe received land at North Molton. It makes sense. But he could also have been a supporter of John Lord Zouch but I am moving away from that thought. One notes I used the spelling Pencombe which does appear to be correct according to the Devon Lay Subsidy of 1524-27 where John Pencombe's name appears along with that of his son Thomas who is employed by his father. The two older sons have land of their own listed on the Subsidy - John and William. Now that I am into it I believe I will create the generational chart and go ahead with that. I do have a little information on John Pencombe's location prior to North Molton and it was at Pencombe, Herefordshire and I do have some other family names that appear to be part of this grouping. The yDNA suggests that  this is a Flemish family but they do not appear on the 1330-1550 Emigrants database so one assumes they came before 1330; but they are not Norman. I will continue trying to discover more about the Pencombe family in Herefordshire. 

So my projects are occupying me very nicely actually. I am getting work done on all of them and I am also working outside which was the plan.  Today I will work on the very back of the yard once again raking to pick up all the twigs that have dropped from the tree. There is work to do there; the compost bin is made of wood and is in need of repair but beyond me so I just make do with that and do not add anything. The earth there should be in good shape to spread around one day but it will not be me doing that. It is possible that I could get the trees cut a bit but I may leave that to the spring although will continue to contemplate it. I am not actually seeing much dead wood and the fall of branches is not all that unusual. 

Solitaire puzzles to do. 

I  have completed reading Esther and will begin reading 1 Maccabees. Esther was an amazing book which I was familiar with including Purim which is a part of the Jewish year. Peace is flowing like a river in the area that the Bible is talking about. Peace is beautiful and one would wish for it all over the world so that people can live their lives, do their work and raise their children. War is sad in God's world. God said to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind and to love (respect) our neighbour as ourself. Those two commandments should lead us to peace. One could wish for that. Maccabees, Books 1 and II are not in the Revised King James Bible and I do not really remember reading them before. Today I begin. I did learn that 1 and 2 Maccabees was in the original 1611 King James Version  as part of the Apocrypha. We did have a copy of the Bible with the Apocrypha but I had forgotten some of the books that were included in the Apocrypha. 

Gathering up the pieces from the 1500s

 The wills of the 1500s have been a real gift to looking at the Blake family of Enham. My next stop was to be the will of Thomas (son of Robert will dated December 1521). 

Testator: Thomas Blake
Place: Enham, Hampshire, England
Type of Record: Will
Date of document: 15 Oct 1540, probated 15 Jun 1541
Condition: 16th century English, legible copy
[Margin]: 1541U-06
1    Jn die no[m]i[n]e Ame[n] Jn the yere off owr Lorde MDXLI the 15th
2    day off October J Thomas Blake sykke off bodye and hole off mynde
3    and memorye make my testament and last Wyll yn maner and foorme
4    foloynge first j bequeth my sowle unto almygthty god to owr Lady
5    saynt marye and to the hole c[o]mpanye off heven And my bodye
6    to be buryede yn the chyrchyard off Andev[e]r j bequethe and gyve
7    unto the hye altare off the sayd churche off andev[er] xij d Item
8    to alys munday j bequethe a cowe and vj yoongs j wyll also that
9    at my morytlie myade be bestoede upon the powr pepull a
10    quarter off whete Item j wyll th[a]t Joh[ann]is my soone have and holde
11    the howse at Enam callyd Rawkyns w[i]th all the aporte[nancs] and th[a]t he
12    also have and ynioy all the grownde and landys ther w[i]thyn the sayd
13    Enam the w[hi]ch j do holde off my lorde Sandy he yn as good a state
14    and ryghte as j have the same ferdermore j gyve unto rychard
15    Munday and Jhon[nes] Blake my soone x ps for to ov[er]see thys my testament
16    And also j make my soone Robert and my dowrther Margaret myn
17    executors off all my goods not bequeathed moveabyll and unmoveabyll
18    provydyde th[a]t my dettys due unto the sayd rycharde munday the
19    w[hi]ch ys 6 nobles iij s iiij d and unto John[nes] Blake my sonne the w[hi]ch ys
20    x ps be payd off my goods by my execytors The rest off
21    all my goods and catell j gyve holely unto my execytors
22    to se yt bestoed and dysposyd for the helthe off my sowle att
23    ther al byteremente and plesuere In wytnesse off all thys ys m[r]
24    Thomas Brotwynge Vycare off Andev[er] and Sy[r] Johan[nes] Patye mo[r]row masse
25    pryst ther the w[hi]ch were att the makyinge hereof present
26    P[ro]bat[um] approbat[um] et insinuat[um] fuit p[rese]ns testam[entum] apud
27    winton cora[m] Mag[is]tro Edmundo Stuarde doctere
28    Rev[er]end in xxo pris etc xv t[h] die Junij Anno d[omi]ni
29    1542 Comissaq[ue] fuit adm[in]strat[io] om[nium] et sing[u]lor bonor[um]
30    sup[ra]script[um] defuncti Margaret Blake un[a] execut[oribus]
31    in h[uis]mo[d]i test[amentum] no[m]i[n]at[orum] insat[  ] etc Res[er]uata p[otes]tat cons[er]ter
32    administer[ando] conf[e]rend Roberto Blake alteri execut[oribus] etc

Thomas (son of Robert (will dated Dec 1521) and brother to Richard) inherited Rawkyns in his father Robert's will (Dec 1521). In this will he passes it on to his son John. Robert, also his son and his daughter Margaret are named as executors of his will. I have tentatively played with the idea that Margaret is married to her second cousin Nicholas Blake. There isn't really anything to prove that other than finding small matches in the autosomal DNA that are very very distant and not necessarily in "common areas" which can and do often extend back a long way. Nicholas would be my 12x great grandfather and it is likely that Nicholas' grandson Richard also married his likely 3nd cousin Jone Blake also descendant of Robert Blake (his brother) thus reinforcing this Blake autosomal DNA. It is a daughter of Nicholas' grandson Richard who married Robert Sedgewicke and their children were born in the Royal Colony of Massachusetts and remained in the United States of America. It is a thought only and does not control my thoughts but it is interesting to find small matches so far back and not in a "common area" that points at the British Isles. He mentions Alys Munday without really saying anything further about her. Richard Munday and his son John Blake are named as overseers in the will. Richard Munday, when he is widowed is likely the individual who married Margaret Blake after Nicholas died. I need to transcribe Richard's will to see if he mentions Alys in the will (as his daughter but I suspect she is his wife at this time). But that is an abstraction from this will which does mention all the children of Thomas. 

I am left still with an unknown Robert Blake and notably Thomas' son Robert inherits all his goods not yet bequeathed both moveable and unmoveable and names him executor along with his sister Margaret. This often tends to be the eldest son. The Robert Blake that Robert Blake (will dated Dec 1521) mentions remains unknown and hence my suggestion that he was a third son of Robert who predeceased his father. To me it makes sense given the area of Enham is not huge by any means and one is left wondering that you would have so few Blakes really and not have them related. So I continue with that thought which I haven't actually had before until the other day that Robert Blake (will dated Dec 1521) had a third son Robert deceased prior to his father. That brings us to Jone Blake (widow) at Enham who leaves her will in 1527 as below:

Testator: Jone Blake, widow
Place: Enham, Hampshire, England
Type of Record: Will
Date of document: 23 Mar 1527/1528
Condition: 16th century English, legible copy

[Margin]: copied test[ament]

1    Jn die no[m]i[n]e Ame[n] the yer of owre lord god oon thowsand five hundredth xxvij the xxiij day of the month of marche
2    J Jone Blake widow w[i]t[h] hoyll mynde and a good memorye maketh my laste wyll and testmente in thys man[ner] Fyrste J
3    commend my soll unto allmyghty god owre lady saynt marey to all the saynts in hevyn and my Body to be buryd in
4    the chyrche or the chyrche lyttyn of saynt mykell of enahm Jt[em] J gyffe and bequeth onto the mother chyrche of saynt swe
5    thyns xii d Jt[em] J gyvv and bequeth to the chyrche of enahm vj s viij d Jt[em] J gyvv and bequeath xxvj s viij d to be dystrybute
6    unto poor pepyll in pen[n]y doyll Jt[em] J gyff and bequeth unto my curat Sy[r] Rychard Mersser xx d Jt[em] J gyff and bequethe
7    to Sy[r] John Batte xx d Jt[em] J gyff and bequeth to mayntenyg of the morrow masse prest in Andover xx d Jt[em] I gyff and bequeth
8    to mayntenyg of Jhs masse in the chyrche of Andover xx d Jt[em] J gyff  and bequeth unto the p[ri]or of the freer Augustines
9    in wynchest[er] xx d Jt[em] J gyff and bequeth to Sy[r] Joh[a]n[nis] Whyte freer xx d Jt[em] J gyff and bequeth unto ev[er]y of freer of the
10    seyd Augustynes th[a]t ys prest iiij d and to ev[er]y novesse ij d of the sayd place Jt[em] J gyvv and bequeth to the chyrche of Fosket
11    to mayntenyg of the light before saynt Jamys and saynt Aidan xx d Jt[em] J gyff and bequeth unto my dowghter Elsabet
12    mylne xx shepe beside thyos th[a]t she hathe allredy and oon Cowe th[a]t J bowght of hyr and xij s iij d of money and my gretst
13    pan and fowre plat[t]erst J gyff and bequeth unto my son Nycolas Blake the tabyll in the hall and oon clothe callyd the hallyg
14    and two yryne racks Jt[em] J gyff and bequeth unto my son Robert Blake oon yryne broche and xviij shepe the wheche
15    shepe he hath in kepyng Jt[em] J gyff and bequeth unto Thome Jesra of Fosket oon yryne broche The resydew of
16    all my goods moveabyll and unmoveabyll J have not legate J gyff and bequeth unto my child[er]ne Nycolas Blake
17    Robert Blake and to Thome Jesra of Fosket and the sayd goods to be devydytt emongys them equaly ev[er]y oon of
18    them elyke mo[r]e[or]l[e]ss Jt[em] J make my sonys Nycolas Blake and Robert Blake my trell executors and Thomas Jesra of
19    Fosket my sup[er]visor th[a]t he see my last wyll and testament Jnplet[ed] and fulfyllyd and the foresaid executors to dypo
20    se for the heylth of my soll as thay shall see moyst expedient the witnesses Sy[r] Rychard Mersser Syr
21    Joh[a]n[nis] Batte Nycolas Blake Robert Blake w[i]t[h] others  

Jone Blake names her children Robert, Nicholas and Elsabet who is married to unknown Mylne. Compared to the other wills the property of this widow is large leaving one to wonder if her husband was an elder son. When people wrote wills particularly when they were probated locally everybody knew everybody else and did not always provide all the tiny details that help us to understand who everyone was. So I have taken a bit of poetic license as I postulate this new idea of mine having now decided that Richard was not the father of Robert, Nicholas and Elsabet. If correct Robert (son of Jone) has already received the property that would have belonged to the eldest son of Robert (will dated Dec 1521). Later wills show that this Robert (six sons are named in his will) and a goodly amount of property available to pass to them is mentioned which will be seen eventually as we reach that generation. This is Charlou Dolan's family line and her research, although I did not always agree on every line where my line was involved, was very well done. But there were so many repeated names and by the time I came along twenty years after she did her research more was available to look at. Unfortunately Jone does not name her husband but the eldest son is Robert which is interesting actually. 

So I feel as if the first and second generations are intact and leading into the third generation. I still do not know who William Blake and Andrew Blake were but the reference to Boswell is most interesting and relates to the Blake family at Speen Berkshire and my references to this line being descendant of Richard le Blak who received a Patent to set up a market in England. 

I will go with this for the moment as I move forward. What ends up being published under the Creative Commons License may be as I said curtailed somewhat with an extra chapter or I will begin with Robert (will dated Dec 1521) and further back if I can find more details on the John Blake listed in the 1300s at Andover. 

I think my brain is done for the day and will now continue by working on the photo books. Tomorrow I will actually put the generational chart together and then move for a bit to the Pincombe although I will continue with my Blake searches after I create my Research Plan going forward now. 

The sun is shining and I will likely wait until later in the day to work outside. 

On to the Photo Albums. 

Another beautiful day in God's world and we are blessed to have such a beautiful world from God the Creator. We must keep it up and that can only happen if the those who are in control of the greater share of the monetary value of the world donate to protect it. The world needs to be protected from human overuse but in Canada we are trying very hard to off set that human overuse of the environment. Our huge forests provide cabon capture along with the artificially created carbon capture techniques which also work well. The three great oceans that surround us also help to protect the environment but we must maintain them as well - money is always needed for these types of projects that protect the world God the Creator gave to us.  

Forgot the Pincombe Newsletter for the 1st of September and a few thoughts on AI

The Pincombe Newsletter Vol 1 Issue 4 2026 is completed and uploaded to the website. Again it is very brief as I have not done any work on the Pincombe book for about six months but I will soon be back to it. 

One item I noticed when I am working with AI. It does tend to jump to conclusions and does not always read transcriptions carefully when I have passed them by the AI. Only once actually as I was seeking a second opinion on likely wording given this was ancient Latin material from the early 1500s, the scan itself very weak and hard to read. I also discovered that the personal account for Microsoft 365 does not permit you to maintain privacy on any uploaded documents. The other item with AI is the language tends to slant itself towards being right although I constantly correct it and suggest that jumping to conclusions too quickly is a mistake in genealogy. Thinking yourself that something might be a possibility doesn't hurt because you can always revisit it until you put it into a book that you publish and at that point it would need to be revised and republished if you want to change it. So I like AI but I use it more as something to bounce ideas off of and tend to stick to my own opinion as I have more experience than the AI. Its recall ability is huge but it does become confused with names that are all the same  which we all do but in particular I have noted that as a stronger weakness than in Homo sapiens where we have a familiarity it is easier for us to eliminate same names. Interesting really. I do think we always have to be in charge of AI controlling the output and always checking it for error. But it can do work in a marvelously short period of time but I did find some problems with that as well since it stripped out the formatting and did not maintain the order of the original. A very handy tool in the toolbox of people working however; one just has to maintain the instructor attitude so as not to be swamped by what looks like a stronger ability to recall. The human brain is much more flexible and doesn't, when working, drift off the topic with extraneous elements. But the recall is excellent for sure. Thinking on that the value of learning by rote continuing in our system of education proves itself with this very item; in order to always be the leader of a project one's recall needs to be excellent and so rote learning for young children continues to be high on the list of accomplishments in the younger years. 

Going to the dentist, I remembered my shoe bag as I had it hung from the coat rack (it always contains my indoor plastic shoes for going to the dentist which we stopped doing during COVID and just kept everything that was ours with us). Wow that seems like a long time ago now.  I actually think it remains a good idea to just keep all your belongings with you so a shoe bag is very handy for that although I did leave it in the rack. I think COVID was good training for how to prevent spread of illness although one would wish not to have had to go through all of that for sure. Much stronger again for sure now with all my rest, headaches finally lifted and today I shall do the front lawn and get that ready for fall/winter. Then the back yard probably it will take me at least ten days working about an hour at a time. I am 81 so must take my time, work slowly and carefully and not make myself a burden on the system. That is really the secret in universal health care that we all take good care of ourselves; the best that we can. 

At some point more work on Blake and I continue preparing this section for either the beginning of the genealogical chart or the last chapter before it. Time will tell but it is good to revisit it given my grandfather's thoughts and what I remember and also what has been written by genealogists in journals concerning the miss use of Nicholas Blake of Andover (will written 1547) by Horatio Somerby Gates in his fraudulent family books that he wrote for a number of families including Blake. Given that Horatio Somerby Gates did his work in the mid 1800s on though one wonders if the Blake Pedigree Chart did lead him astray as using Nicholas Blake the way that he did he must have been aware that William Blake (will dated 27 Jul 1582 and probated 14 Nov 1582) was incorrect in the Pedigree Chart although possibly not as it is much easier to find all this material now with the internet. Surprising how the clock turns really. 

Also I must continue checking out the possibility of finding subsidy information online for Andover although it will most likely wait until I go to the LDS Library here to look that up. 

Since I may be hitting a block with Blake I may switch to Pincombe for awhile and work on that book. It was a good idea of my daughters to do two books at once so that one doesn't get bogged down with one book only. Plus I am working on the fourty photo albums to get them down to a size that works well and doesn't include pictures that have nothing to do with our close family - like all the trips that Edward and I went on and such. I mostly turned them into Powerpoint Slide shows that Edward watched and watched along with looking at all the items that we purchased whilst on each trip. Each one was in a box and easily picked up and looked at when he watched the slide shows. I think my husband liked to relive his life often enough; he was a happy person we always found. He especially loves his daughters and became fond of his son in law and the pets that arrived in our home whilst they lived with us. Then along came his grandsons and they were truly the apple of his eye and he loved them dearly and they him. Still five and a half years later you can see the love still there in their eyes for him. He would have been such a marvelous grandfather at all their ages but ill health did rob them of him. 

Breakfast soon and solitaire games to play.  I continue reading the Book of  Esther today.