Although Edward put in a lot of time on genealogy it was never one of
our go to items in the first fourteen years of our marriage. He worked
with one of the people (Ed Phelps) in the library at Western gathering up old
documents from our visits to farm auctions whilst we lived in that area
(first nine years of our marriage) and it became a project for him to
think about through the future. Our move here though was, I think,
hardest on Edward in retrospect. He left behind everyone that he knew
and he is far more of a people person than I am. I came from a large
family and generally preferred my quiet lifestyle without people
although loved visiting with my own family when we did that.
In
our first eight years of marriage before children Edward and I collected
up a lot of different types of material. We were both keen on astronomy
and a large section of our not working life went into that in those
first eight years. Edward loved photography and we camped most every
weekend in the summers before children visiting parks hither and yon
whilst he photographed all of the flowers that he had never seen as a
child. Sometimes he put on his researcher hat and prepared sets of data
on various plants that we found.
I have decided that in memory of
my husband's strongest interests in my opinion I will begin the task of
scanning his thesis first of all. It is still cited along with his
articles (joint with his researcher under whom he studied) in journals
around the world. I will also scan his papers and put them up on his
website. I think he always meant to do that but just was too busy with
the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. When he went off
to the first meeting, for him, at the Ottawa Branch I was surprised
actually. But Gordon Riddle had invited him in the early 1980s and he
always felt a little sorry for him because of his uncle who was also a
Family Physician and died younger than one might have anticipated as the
hours were long for him and he was in a rural practice. So when Gordon
approached him to go to the Genealogical Society he responded yes
although I will admit he thought about it a lot at first. He knew I
would never go (I am not really much of a people person) although
eventually I did when my cousin wanted me to write a profile for my
Pincombe Family in the history book he was editing for Westminster and
Delaware Townships in 2004 which was a surprise to Edward. But he did
enjoy the genealogical association along with his part in developing
Orleans United Church where he sang in the Choir for about fifteen to
twenty years and was treasurer for ten years (that was what his father
had done and I think it brought Edward closer to the memory of his
father as he was only two when he died). Although a lot of Edward's time
went into genealogy (he was a great support person in the library) his
greatest love was research in science.
Then there are his
photographs and I think I will put them into an *.pdf along with his
notes and publish that under a Creative Commons Licence for anyone to
look at. Some of the pictures are really quite fabulous if you happen to
be into wild flowers.
He has some other collections that I will work at putting together and publish them as well.
When
I asked him about publishing his family material he said he already did
and had put it up on World Connect. That entirely satisfied him so I
have broken up his collection slowly giving it to the various cousins
that he introduced me to in the last fifteen years of our marriage. That
I think was what he was alluding to in the last year of his life. I was
distracted by the amount of care that my daughter and I had to give to
him through that last year as before that time he was still walking
about and enjoying his life. He tended to recover quickly and return to
his level of activity but I must admit that after the pacemaker he tired
a lot easier than he ever had (that was in 2012).
It is good to
have thought this through with his daughters and they agree with me that
that was really his intent to put all of this material where people
could find it. I continue maintaining the yDNA of the Kipp family from
which he descended and will continue the newsletter for this family. But
actually getting into tracing lines I will not do. I have no experience
with American research. At 78.5 my time is going to go to the books I
want to write about my grandfather Blake's family and my mother's
Pincombe family and after that work on my grandmother's Buller family
and a few other lines that interested both of my parents. It always
sounds like I am not doing anything for myself but really I never
anticipated living on into my 70s at all and so I am just picking up the
traces of conversations that I had as a child with the people around
me. It does seem like a nice idea and I continue with it.
Back to cleaning; amazing how much thinking you do when you are cleaning!
