Celtic Nations Day & St. Piran's Day 2022

 Gool Peran Lowen Onen Hag Oll! (Happy St Piran's Day One and All!)

It's Celtic Nations Day on 5th March, and for those of us in the Cornish Diaspora, it's also St Piran's Day. For us at home here, it's also our third consecutive one cocooning (we've been cocooning 2 years and a day today). Last year we went digital. This year we had hoped to maybe get together in a safe way with some friends, but it was not to be, so it's just us. 

We've had most of the afternoon in the garden. Our rescue hens now have their sandpit spruced up and topped up, as well as their swing re-strung ready for the summer, and one of our two potato planters is ready for us to plant up (we'll do that on St Patrick's Day as per). 

This morning, however, was all about the cooking preps.

My flaky pastry is chilling in the fridge, and my saffron buns have been proving most of the day.

Unfortunately I didn't have quite enough of my own saffron this time around, but I'm hoping that, if they do as well this winter as they did last winter, I'll be able to do them with all home grown saffron next year.

Our family Saffron Buns recipe has two modern branches. One here, and one in the States (carefully collected into the family's mixed Cornish and American Cookbook as collected by cousin Dorothy B). I love looking at the two alongside each other because you can really see which bits stayed the same and which evolved slightly and that kind of lends the voices of our ancestors and makes it feel even more like they're right there, despite having been cooking sometimes hundreds of years ago and opposite sides of the Atlantic.

To my knowledge, we don't have any in-family variants for vegan/coeliacs, but it's such a forgiving recipe (yours truly may have been known to use a little extra butter and make up the liquid in water when the milk went off once), I can't imagine it would be hard to adapt.
If you give it a go, shout me (dglaity1 on Instagram) and let me know

On the off-chance you're peckish and want to try your own, here's the Cornish, 'stayed at home' and the American variant recipes:

SAFFRON BUNS

* 1/2pt (300ml) Milk (Whole Milk)
* About 2tsp (.5g or thereabouts) Saffron strands
* 2oz (50g) butter

* 3¼oz (90g) clotted cream (I can do you a nice line in a clotted cream recipe if you're stuck for one)

* 1lb 4oz (550g) Flour (Bread Flour. We use mainly white if we have it, but wholemeal doesn't hurt it)

* 1 heaped tsp salt

* 2oz/50g sugar (I like brown sugar, but whatever you have to hand is fine)

* 2tsp (or 1 sachet) quick-yeast.

* 3oz (75g) raisins/currants/similar

* 1oz (25g) mixed peel

- I tend to just knock the oven on slightly if it's a really cool day as you'll need a really warm place for it to rise, so a low-lit oven from starting out until you set it to prove usually does the trick.

- Warm your milk through until hot, but not boiling. Stir in the saffron, butter, and cream. Set this aside for 15-20mins until it's hand-hot and properly yellow (should be proper sunshine in a jug)

- Put the dry ingredients (not the fruit) in a bowl. 

TIP: I tend to put the salt in first and the yeast in last. That way the one can't affect the other.

Make a well in the middle and gradually mix the now hand-hot milk mixture into the dry ingredients.

- When it comes together, knead it in the bowl for about 10 mins, adding in the fruit about half way through so that it incorporates.

- Set to rise in a warm place for about an hour (until it doubles).

- Knock back the dough on a floured surface per bread.

- Divide into 8-10 (if you've several children to feed, I sometimes go to 12) pieces and roll into balls.

- Leave to rise again on a baking tray for about half an hour.

- Preheat the oven (I heat it all the way then drop it down) to about 200C (at a guess, high-moderate for gas, but I'm not that experienced with gas).

- Bake for around 20mins until they're golden.

- Make the syrup while the buns bake. For the syrup, I use about 20z (50g) sugar to 3-4 tbsp water. Dissolve the sugar completely, then bring it to a boil for about a minute until it goes glossy

- Set the buns to cool and brush immediately with the syrup.

Serve: Either fresh and still warm (as is, or with clotted cream or butter as desired), or let them go cold and toast and butter them later.

~

1tsp saffron soaked overnight in 1/2 cup warm water

2 cups lukewarm water

1 yeast cake

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup lard or shortening

smidgen salt

1 cup raisins or currants

1/2 cup candied fruit (or more, as desired)

Flour (enough to make a soft dough)

In a bowl, mix together the lukewarm water and yeast. Add sugar, lard, salt, raisins, and candied fruit. Mix well, and then add enough flour to make a soft dough. Let rise until doubled in size. Knead down and fashion buns and place them into a 9 inch square baking dish or pan. Let rise. Bake at 325 degrees until done.

~

ANCESTORS

Our Celtic Family Lines we're remembering today for Celtic Nations Day (if any surnames match, do get in touch. I'm always up for comparing notes and DNA!):

CORNWALL (mostly South-Siders)

LAITY/LAYTY/LAYTYE

COLENSO

PERKIN/S

HOSKING

KITCHEN

ALLEN/ALLAN

EDDY

WOOLCOCK

COLLICOTT

PHILLIPS

OLDS

RICHARDS

WESTCOTT

THOMAS

WEBSTER

HARRIS

WATERS

CORNISH

SYMONS

MARTIN

WOOD

SENNAT

ROSEMORRAN

BATTON/BATYN
BERRYMAN
VEALE

CHURCH

WALES

de CLARE

de BEAUMONT

le ROGER
GRIFFITH
ap GWILYM

ap GRUFFYDD

Verch LEUAN

Verch MADOG

ap GRONWY

Verch ROBERT

IRELAND

McMURROUGH

Ní TUATHAIL

MAC MÁEL NA mBÓ

MAC DIARMATA

MAC GILLA PÁTRAIC

MAC DONNCHADA

MAC CELLAIG

Ní MORDA

Ní CAELLAIDE
MAC CARRACH CALMA

Tribute to Nancy

 This afternoon, coincidentally around the same time as Sean Connery, our Aunty Nancy died.

Nancy (née Laity), was born at the start of 1935, the youngest child of three born to Lily May Jacobs and William Henry Laity.

By 1940 William had deserted Anna and the children. Eventually he would have a second family with another daughter and three more sons, including my Dad.

Nancy and her sister Stella, were avid lovers of family history, genealogy, and Cornish culture. Nancy was, in fact, my first real life example that genealogy & family history are not only things that it is okay to like, but also that it was the kind of thing that real people could engage with.

Nancy once told me that she early on in her marriage to Jim she had started looking for the half siblings. The search proved fruitful and both Stella and Nancy were writing regularly with my Dad by the mid 90s.

We all attended the 'Great Laity Gathering' family reunion in Marazion in the summer of '97, arriving a day or so early in order to meet Stella, Noah, Nancy, Jim & Alison first.

Nancy & Stella the first day we met
Taken outside Stella's house in St. Blazey.

'Great Laity Gathering 1997'
Trip to St. Michael's Mount to see the
portrait of Dolly Pentreath
RH edge: Dad (in black), Sis (in white), Mum (in orange)
I took the photo. Walking between Stella & Nancy.

That trip was the one that consolidated that there would always be a family history & genealogy journey at some point during my life. Stella made a proper Cornish tea that first afternoon and from then, throughout the rest of her life until she entered nursing care, Nancy gave me first potted genealogy basics lessons, what 'vitals' are, how to record and read trees, primary documents, secondary sources and photographs. She even taught me about the fine art of graveyard hunting for dead relatives. Later she would go on to share more research tips & first her discoveries, then later, she shared mine with equal excitement. She was so encouraging from day one. I remember she said to me that first day, if I got good, perhaps I could join the 'family genealogy team', co-ordinated by cousin Russell in the states. I said I'd love to join in and research with her & she joked that maybe after she passed, a slot might come up for me. I've lived half in terror of that happening ever since. Nevertheless, it was a really motivating joke. She was an exceptionally clever woman.

We stayed in touch and another proud day, was when my eldest son was tiny and we were able to get down to Newquay, she made him his first taste of Cornish pasty and on the same day, taught me the family pasty recipe. 

We stayed in touch across the years, mostly sharing family & genealogy news. 
The weekend before my Dad died we spoke on the 'phone and she was so warm, loving and supportive. 

Mum and I saw her last in June 2015, not long before she moved into nursing care. Shortly after, with the help of cousin Russell, we made a discovery about the family tree that allowed us to push back one generation by using the Land Grants of Henry VIII in Cornwall. This also allowed us to unify some of the branches higher up and tidy off some loose ends. I wrote to her about it, but I'm not sure she was able for that kind of information by that time. Still, it felt the right thing to do to keep her included. I never did write to her about the DNA side of things. Mainly because I think by that time, it would have been a bit beyond her. In a parallel world though, it would have been so cool to look together over our shared DNA & chase down the people and the stories.

I will most remember her as a massive source of love and support. She didn't care about the circumstances of how we came to be related, but that we were family.
Tonight I am strolling again through the Laity side of the family tree. Retracing her steps and seeing what there could be out there that's new.

Sleep tight Aunty Nancy. You are so loved. xxx

A post for Armistice Sunday

For Armistice Day, some of our relatives who served.
Our Grandpa & Our Grandad:

Grandpa, William Henry Laity (Later William Henry Colenso Laity), served in both wars. In the Great War winning the Belgian Croix de Guerre, then returning as a PT instructor at the Citadel, Plymouth for the second war.

Grandad, Douglas Herbert Riches, was with the 8th Army Desert Rats. Pictured here with some of the lads near Sidi Birani c1942/3.

Spring Weddings!

As it turns out, today is a special day.

Do you have that happen when you're researching? - You're sat looking at a random ancestor and the date corresponds with something that happens in their life too?

I wonder if anyone has ever worked out the odds of that? - I know I wouldn't want that job. Coo, just think of the variables!

For me, I'm more struck with how often it seems to happen.

Today, of course is no exception, but it started yesterday.

Yesterday was one of those days that just reinvigorates the spirits and just gives a little fan to your genealogy flame. 

Out of the blue I was contacted on facebook by a woman with a mutual surname of interest (LOMBARDI - for those not in the know, Lombardi is to Italian Genealogy, pretty much what Smith is to English. ...only unlike Smith, there aren't really many folks looking into disentangling the family lines). 
She encouraged me to return to a facebook group and ask for some more help (since I've been sat stewing on that particular brick wall on paper for about 18 months and with DNA since roughly last October).
That led me to encountering a lovely lady named Faith, who was able to dig somewhere out of the bowels of Antenati, not only THE document to smash that brick wall, but documents to make light work of the next 2-3 generations too. 
It was a great day!

In the back of my head though, I still felt a little guilty. I've been mulling on a blog post for a while, but an approach would not be easy. Firstly, because I couldn't think of a way to tie a few things together, but then also because of a key issue of the moment.

Ten days ago my sister and her boyfriend of ten years got married, so I knew that I wanted this month's post to be a tribute to that. After all, why celebrate, track and record what went before if we don't equally celebrate the now and the yet-to-come?

Just one problem. Sis is a school teacher and in this digital day and age, we have to be particularly careful about anything online that relates to her, so unfortunately I can't share with you loads and loads of photos though it was a really beautiful wedding - very them. Right down to the ground though.

However, she did look amazing ...and this is my baby sister - and anyone who has a baby sister knows how ridiculously proud you always are of them, so while I acknowledge and celebrate my bias, I do want to show you this one shot that one of their guests was able to snap (it feels weird not to credit them, but we can't risk an accidental reveal) this lovely shot which should be safe:

Isn't she a beautiful bride?!

The skirt was her own and our Mum made the bodice piece for her. I saw the look on his face when she came in. It was all very much worth it.


I needn't have worried though. Inspiration struck this morning.

April 16th has always been a bit of a seminal date in my mind anyhow. Ever since we moved to the first house our parents owned on 16th April 1986 (while Mum was expecting my baby sis who just got married!).

Being only little at the time, lots of my memories jumble around that couple of days, but one of the handy little side effects has been that I've never forgotten that Mum and Dad's own wedding anniversary is the next day:

Keith S Laity & Ann Riches

17th April 1976

Central URC, Sheffield, Yorkshire

Marvellous - two events, both marriages, in the one month. On the way to a blog post I guess, but still...



...and then this morning I received a batch of messages on MyHeritage.
I don't know if anyone else gets this periodically or if I'm just the lucky one, but every now and again, I'll log in for something, typically after a few quiet weeks and find a string of messages from folks that I never got alerts about.
On this occasion this morning it's letting me have a clutch of messages dated back to mid-February. 

Among them, there was one from a lady I'd been speaking with back around Valentines day. She'd reached out because we have a DNA match of some flavour between about a third cousin point to something vague out from there (originally it was 3rd-5th, but oddly on there, as they've brought in all the awesome new features over the last several months, that guide has got to being a bit less handy than it was I reckon).

Anyhow, she and I match about 3% of our DNA and crucially, she also has a match with my mother, but not with my female second cousin who also tested (that side of our family having very handily placed identical twins along the line that really helps with narrowing the field!).

So we set out looking for a match around about second great-grandparents - fourth great-grandparents in the first instance. There was nothing immediately obvious, but we did seem to share a common surname: Brown.

The only problem was, 'our' Brown was Sarah and she was my Mum's 5th (and therefore my 6th) great grandmother. Given the shared DNA, that's really a couple generations out for a straight <any degree of> cousin relationship, but it does give us clues that we possibly descend through siblings. At that point though, all I had on Sarah's upward family group was a father's name: Thomas Brown. 
I don't know if you've ever tried looking for entries for a Thomas Brown, or a Sarah brown for that matter - or, indeed, for a Sarah Brown daughter of Thomas (or vice versa) in England, but if you ever have two-three hours to kill and no paint to watch dry...

I had thought the trail gone cold since we couldn't at that point be sure, but then, through the two messages that arrived this morning (which would have been the next day had we received them sequentially), it turns out that her nearest Brown ancestor, Grace Brown, also had a father Thomas, for whom the dates looked good.

A few hours on, across multiple platforms, and it looks as though we have a strong contender. What's even more astounding is, it was 273 years ago TODAY that Thomas Brown, the possible father of the sisters we seem to descend from, married Mary Frith.

Sadly there is no extant document currently publicly available online that covers their marriage, but they are indexed in the Nottinghamshire, England, Extracted CoE Parish Records, 1538-1837:

Thomas Brown & Mary Frith 

16 Apr 1745

Farnsfield, Nottinghamshire England.

He was 26, she was 24.

Now how's that for a coincidence?! ...and as himself just pointed out, my horoscope for today did say to look out for surprises in love. I'd say that qualifies.

So there we have it. Three different couples from the same family, over a span of 273 years, all choosing an early April wedding.

There must be something in the air!

Just 28 Days (on time and DNA testing)

We're finally really getting down to doing our DNA testing. I can hardly believe the thing we've talked of for so long (especially for himself and his Italian side) is actually happening.

In the end, we decided that the best one for us at this time is the My Heritage kit (which is currently on special offer as it happens). We got a fantastic deal and the test is beautifully low-tech in that it's a really simple cheek swab.

Should you have an opportunity to try one, I highly recommend it. I think most of us have had those times where a place or activity has been somehow familiar and then we've later gone on to find that we had ancestors in that place or doing that activity. It's like it resonates with something deep within us. Stating my bias here, I'm extremely interested in the notion of collective/generational memory. I also highly recommend reading some of the scientific investigations around it if you're interested too. They're an absolutely riveting read.

It was very peculiar to sit there last night, watching a digital clock display on the computer counting off the seconds to one minute either side, rolling that swab around.
Of course there's nothing to see and very little sensation - it's a bit like if you've ever had a piece of cotton wool brush against the inside of your cheek, but it's a strange and oddly confronting thing to sit and think 'what would even my grandparents think of this?'
We are in an age of more scientific privilege than ever before and progress is so swift. Isn't it frightening to think that there are now University graduates who couldn't, without help tell you what the relationship is between a cassette tape and a pencil?!
...these are just a few of the thoughts that raced through my head while performing my test.

It was such a small thing and a large thing at the same time. Stupidly, I felt a little under-dressed for the occasion sat at my desk in sweater and jeans. Though for the life of me, I couldn't tell you what would have felt more appropriate. As though somehow, magically, it might improve the test I also felt as though I should be thinking 'good thoughts' of all my ancestors (though truly, I haven't yet found an ancestor I haven't at least fallen for a little bit). It's a huge responsibility in some ways too. I found myself thinking: "What if my DNA's broken, or damaged? What if there's not enough of it? What if it doesn't carry enough information to be worthwhile?" I had to give myself a stern talking to on that and as with this blog, I called to mind the future ghost of some downward descendant who's often with me when I'm tracking our family's history and remember that as much as genealogy is a pursuit for one's own edification and pleasure, potentially some point down the track, it may also prove to be a tiny treasure for those who come after, particularly for those of us who bridge the gap between the analogue and digital eras.

Now there's just that four weeks wait for results. That in itself is an odd thing. In today's world it seems like such a long time, and yet, four short weeks ago from today I was back to work following time off for our wedding (separate post on that sometime soon. You've probably noticed it takes me a while to get the words to come together) and four weeks from now it will almost be Samhain and the Celtic New Year, which is one of my most favourite holidays in the world.
I'm also remembering back to childhood. There was a book that used to be put out (by Royal mail I think) that covered all kinds of interesting and educational activities that, if you liked the look of them, you could send 28p and however many stamps and in "just 28 days" you'd receive a parcel - honest-to-goodness exciting post. That time just used to seem to fly by, so I think I'm going to have to remind myself that it's "just 28 days" and contain my soul in patience. After his and my results arrive we have to do it all over again for the other members of our family who've kindly agreed to test as well.

I'm excited with the potential learning opportunities from this experience. On my father's side, my cousin has kindly agreed to test, which is lovely as we are sadly low on males to test on our Laity side now. I'm aware of other males who have tested up our common lines, particularly the Spencer/Spencer-Churchill side & I believe there is someone out there who tested some Hobbins Men also. On my mother's side, my two second cousins have agreed to test with me. This will be interesting for all of us as their maternal grandmother and my maternal grandmother (Olive and Edna Dawson respectively) were identical twins, so we're expecting that between us, we may have some very interesting results.


Have you done any DNA testing? What was your experience like?

2017 Looking backwards and forwards

Happy new calendar.

Wow - 2017. The year that not so long ago felt like it would never get here. Don't you just love time? It fascinates me endlessly.


Up until only very recently, I've had something of a funk with my genealogy pursuits.

That whole wikitree struggle I was having in the summer - that sapped a lot of my enjoyment and desire to do anything genealogical in company for really, most of the summer and autumn if I'm honest. 
However, with the help of a really lovely chap who's one of their senior bods, I managed to get things on the road to sorted out, so that's awesome.

One thing that's definitely come out of that whole experience: If your ged.com fights with their system the way mine did (and seemingly, several others too), then it turns out the important thing to know is, that the proper advice is: Don't panic and put everyone up then go back with sources, they'd much prefer if we all add up single individuals with their sources one at a time, even if that means it could take forever to get anyone up there.


Then, later into the Autumn, following a tip, I treated myself to a copy of the subsidies of land grants in Cornwall made by Henry VIII (I will definitely do a post on that resource at some stage this year - it's awesome). Together with cousin Russell (who's a 'proper' genealogist and one of my favourite relatives in the extended family) and a couple of others, we managed to push our Laity family lines further.

Up until now, the earliest we'd managed to find was Richard Laytye, whose son was baptised in 1563. Over the last three months we've managed to flesh that out with some sibling information, worked out how some of the main sections of the family intersect AND we've found and confirmed some information on his parents, so allow me to introduce my newly found 11th Great-Grandparents:

John Laytye b 1500 & Elizabeth 1505 - 1 Aug 1570

Given how the summer and autumn went, there hasn't been much new action in other lines. We're still searching to prove out or not the theories for the Hawley and Spencer lines, and my search for the missing time with William Hobbins continues to be unfruitful just now...
...and then, in a 'funny five minutes' as my Grandad would've said, a couple of nights ago, I started playing with one of those ''which in/famous person are you (vaguely) related to'' things while killing some time waiting for himself. That threw out a gateway in amongst Mum's Heeson branches that connected to the HOWARD family. Interesting in itself as we seem to have more direct Howard links in a different line that I was aware of. Since I was messing around killing time, in light of recent discussions with genealogy friends around where searches of branches can/do/must end, I thought I'd take a quick few minutes and (I must stress this is NOT sound genealogy and I don't recommend it as a methodology - it was fun though...) click around to see *POTENTIALLY* where could that line lead me.

Turns out, there's truth in that saying about never ask a question unless you're ready for the answer. My clicking adventure wandering through time along that potential line took me first to Rollo of Normandy.
- For those who, like me, don't watch ''The Vikings'', he was apparently the one who ended up taking his boat up the Seine (as you do) and demanding land from the King of the Francs. ...okay, so that puts my ''Bad Billy'' even more into perspective. 

It seems that things don't even stop there. - I estimate it'd take me at least 35 years to get all that lot properly researched and traced ...and that would be assuming I have a total personality transplant and don't get distracted with anything else at all, but if I were to be on-task enough that far, it seems that there may even be sagas etc that would take us back to roughly 100 CE. Weird huh?! - I can't decide how I feel about that potential yet. 

Back to 2017 then and there's just so much going on. Our wedding is set for later this summer so there's A LOT of new relations (to say nothing of whole new language and culture) coming along not so far over the horizon. Also, a first cousin just got married and my little sis got herself engaged to her lovely fella over the holidays, so our little bough of the family Oak is set to sprout madly!

There's just so much, so I figured I'd join up for 2017's 'blog a month' and have another crack at it, starting with a look back to this point last year and see what I can come up with for this year.

2016 Target:	2017 and beyond...
2016 Monthly blog challenge	Signed up again for 2017. Already have a post for Jan, so already doing better this year!
Sort out why my GedCom isn't being 'liked'/accepted by certain platforms.	Have that pretty much sorted out. It’s just TOO huge for some systems. I see more manual data entry in my future this year.
Continue working to copy all the existing ancestors across to all platforms (I currently have fragmented information spread across RootsMagic, GenesReunited, Family Tree Circles, GeneaWiki and various other places). In an absolutely ideal world, it would be great to have everything match absolutely, so that I can really work on pushing out to new generations.	Getting somewhere with WikiTree finally. So glad I made a note of the other places I’m behind on.
Update the paper tree when all the online ones are fixed	Yeah. Whenever that happens.
Figure out some kind of nice mounting system for the current paper tree so that we can display it properly.	I have this figured out too. To make it happen though, any one of three things needs to happen: * I get cast in something that makes serious money * I find a craft or genealogy customer prepared to pay me in a custom size piece of perspex * I meet an art or woodwork student prepared to take on the challenge as part of their coursework.
Finish off my four generations project for my licensing exam. - Shooting for sitting the May level 1 exam if at all possible.	I REALLY have to sit down and actually write this up. I’d love to shoot for the May sitting again, but realistically, that’s coming up FAST, and we’re getting married in August, so I guess I’m aiming at the November sitting.
Craft something involving my genealogy.	The MKAL for my shawl design on ravelry last year was really cool. This year I have to either finalise or kill the design idea I started last summer. I’d also like to do something else crafty that’s genealogy involved.
	Start to write a book on Bad Billy

What are your genealogy targets for 2017?