Knees:
A trip to a sports physiotherapist has established what seems to be going on with my left knee. After a systematic assessment and rejection of possible causes of the problem, he reckons it’s down to wear and tear on the meniscus, possibly just because of aging. The upshot is that I can go back into the gym when I want, do as much upper-body resistance as I feel inclined, and also any cardio work except any running on the treadmill. In addition, I have some specific exercises designed to strengthen the knee. The downside is that, particularly at my age, it may be some time before I can consider running again, although he is reasonably confident that the time will come when I can.
Cheese:
Although I haven’t had my annual check yet, the general news is that my HbA1c remains in the normal range and therefore my diabetes remains in remission. This is despite my weight going up by around 2.5 kilograms based on this time last year. A period of weight-loss is called for, something that might be helped by getting back into the gym and/or swimming or possibly also by foregoing my taste for Stilton for a while. A more considered comment is in my latest Substack post linked here:
Family Trees
Progress continues to be made in working through some family lines, though the C19 Nottinghamshire family continues to be awkward. One of the problems is the divergence between social history and apparent genetic history and this is compounded by the way Ancestry suggests genetic matches.
The theory is that Ancestry (a) finds a genetic match (b) compares family trees to find common ancestors and (c) suggests a match. In principal this should work well, and a lot of the time it does. Where it gets less helpful is when either there is an error in one of the family trees it compares or where there is a problem with the underlying records from which people derive family trees – for example if a family are lying to officialdom or otherwise covering over the traces of illegitimacy or other shenanigans – which is what I continually encounter.
On this point, it is worth saying that the myth of ‘Victorian morality’ does not survive first contact with family history research. What is far more interesting to me are the many accepted ways that families would formally or informally absorb issues – for example an older couple might declare an illegitimate grandchild as one of their own children to census enumerators. We cannot know for sure in many (or most) cases the circumstances in which illegitimate (a term I dislike) children might be conceived – it might be teenage passion, it might be false promises from a bloke who then runs away. As the great Lizzie Higgins sang (What A Voice),
When my apron it hung low
My true love followed through frost and snow.
But now my apron is tae ma chin;
He passes me by and he’ll ne’er speir in.
It’s up and doon yon white hoose brae,
He’s called a strange girlie to his knee
An he’s telt her a tale that he’s once told me.
Oh I wish, I wish, oh I wish in vain,
I wish I was a maid again.
But a maid again I will never be
’Til a apple it grows on a orange tree.
However, the child might also come from rape or other coercion or incest. In the latter case, family shame and trauma would also lead to disguising the truth. Two centuries later, after the individuals are long gone, DNA technology throws up discrepancies in the established narrative.
It’s also worth noting that women in urban areas noted for poverty, such as Nottingham, might well (and often did if offical reports are to be believed) turn to sex work to make ends meet. I’m not saying that this was the case for any of my ancestors, simply that it would be wrong to dismiss the possibility.
I note with pleasure that people sharing the same name as my forebears (Faulks/Fawkes) in a small village in Nottinghamshire were noted for their skill in making Stilton, which explains a lot.
Recent Comments