Thursday, January 31, 2019

Configuration issues

In the mode of continual progress, we are firming up some points, such as the use of native mode (html/css/js) at our main site. Along with this, we got SSL rolling so that we could have private business exchanges. Too, we added in Search at the main site and the blog. At the main site, there are no ads. For the blog, they are there until we get them turned off due to our non-profit status.

The main benefit is that they are formatted the same which gives us opportunity to build an index and much more. The image shows a search on 'Cape Ann' at both sites. One returned 36 results; the other gave us 56 results.

Search
 Another development is that the NEHGS now has a genealogical tree builder. So, we will be looking at that this year. Last year, we finally got back to WikiTree and found it very useful. For instance, we go the Thomas/Margaret issue raised up and settled. As well, once I received some hand-written material that was done by Dr. Frank, I updated a tree for him that is almost complete. This goes back to Thomas and Margaret.

Dr. Frank featured
At the same time, findagrave has upgraded itself. So, I put in a virtual record for the Gardner burial plot (the theme of remain status will be prominent this year). There is a lot more to report. Our tenth year will be really busy as we get ready for the upcoming 400ths.

Remarks: Modified: 02/02/2019

02/02/2019 -- Search at the main site and on this blog are ad-free non-profit. We can start to build indexes. That is one task. What would they look like? 

Friday, January 18, 2019

Tenth year

The first diving into this type of work was in 2009, and the blog started later, in 2010. So we can take this time as an opportunity to do reviews and can offer this as the first post of the type that we will continue to do and update all year.

This list is brief. We will looking for other examples as we review all of the posts.
  • One of our first look-abouts was back in 2013 with a view to the 400th anniversary. At the time, the year was expected to be 2024, but one might, we learned later, argue for 2023. So, 400 is significant as we see from the already celebrating Plymouth folk. We will keep earlier activities in mind. 
  • One activity the past month has been to create and update an image index that maps each image into a blog post (see tgsoc.org). Right now, the images are in order by the year and month of the post, but we will are working toward a general search capability. In late December, we updated the chart of post counts by year and month and expect to map to over one-half of the posts. 
  • We also have the unfortunate task of following up on the question of "Where is Thomas?" As such, we'll leave no stone unturned. For starters, we have collected posts about Thomas and his character.  
  • There have been several contributors to our work. One example is John Goff who has provided several articles and commentary.
  • Another goal will be to get the first few generations documented which has been a standing wish for some time. We have one means, via WikiTree. We will be looking at the tree service being offered by the NEHGS. Other means (not ancestry)? 
On our site, other buttons are planned. Anyone interested in the development process can assist. Let us know. At some point, we'll start to itemize the new functions and their status as some will be more easily done than others. Too, though, the future issues will continue to be on the table. 

Remarks: Modified: 01/05/2020

01/05/2020 -- We have several references to the decade's work this year. Two of those was the look ahead (Decade start) and Gardner's Beacon (Vol. IX, No. 3).

Monday, January 7, 2019

Gems of Salem

Gardner Research started in 2010 from a blank slate, more or less, using the wonders of the www; in other words, trolling the waters of the internet to see what we could find. The result? Lots of stuff, some of which we have organized. And, there is a lot more work to do.

As we have seen, records get digitized and come online. Sherborne, Dorset is an example as their records allowed us access to lots more about Margaret and Thomas. See the discussions on WikiTree. Notice two things: this is a profile of Thomas sponsored by a Great Migration Project using Anderson's book (1986); Margaret is given as Thomas' spouse and mother of the children. As well are records coming on-line, people write.

A very good example, that is relevant, is salem.wickedlocal.com. Early on, we saw an article by John Goff: Looking at Salem’s beginnings: The White and Gardner family contributions. This article published in 29 Dec 2007. That was eleven years ago; we saw it four years later and noticed that it mentioned Rev. John White.

One of our first activities was to start the Thomas Gardner (planter) page on Wikipedia and have added several other pages or links. A good example might be when there were news stories about Amelia Earhart's plane. Gardner Island was mentioned; so, we had to look at that (as we have with other areas: Gardner Junction, Gardner, CO, Gardiner, OR). And, John got into that story, too.

I well remember John's first email. He congratulated us as he had run across our Wikipedia tagging (put link to Thomas Gardner's page in that of Gideon Gardner). I do not know if he wrote about Gardner Island, but we did discuss Gardner's Beacon. And, John was kind enough to contribute articles as well as provide other information to support our research (thank you, John). I thought that it might be a good task to itemize John's work, especially as it relates to Gardner studies. See the list below which is provided as a reminder to us to look further into the articles. On the list, too, are Salem articles that mention Gardner.

First, though, here are a couple of examples of overlap interest. On our Gardner Gate page (portal to truth), we just did a summary of some pre-arrival information (1 March 2013 - the 2nd most read post) pulling information from a series of Gardner's Beacon issues. Then, I just found this article by John -- Salem’s forgotten French heritage (7 June 2008) -- in which he details French activities in the area that became Salem. He mentions the discussions with the American Indian. There are several articles that we will look at further.

But, another example, is the work that we did to track down information about the owner of the barque, Bostonian, that wrecked (Oct 1850) at what became Gardiner, OR (update - 30 October 2018). The original work was done in 2014 with an article published in The Essex Genealogist. The owner was a descendant of George of Rhode Island, though, two of his wives were descendants of Thomas Gardner of Salem. But, as well as the family information, there is a whole lot to discuss about the time (More on the Gold Rush 31 Mar 2016).

Here, I see that John wrote about a response to a query (1990s) from San Francisco (NAUMKEAG NUGGETS: Salem in the California Gold Rush 5 Jun 2015) about a ship that they discovered. It had been built in Salem.

From what I have seen, hundreds of ships were abandoned as crews rushed off to pan gold. That makes the Bostonian different in that not only did it bring supplies from Boston to San Francisco (July 1849 to January 1850 voyage - only four passengers - it was loaded), it went then to New Zealand (that was interesting, verifying that part of its journey), returned to San Francisco, and wrecked in Oregon is October of 1850.

Many went to California by land. We have researched that avenue, as well, due to our interest in the western expansion. Too, New England (and Salem) had the reach of a long arm. A third way to the gold fields was boating down to Central America, trudging across, then boating back up to what is now known as the Left Coast. This went both ways (many lost their fortune in that journey).

There are other examples in an endless set of things to research. So, gems, indeed. Finally, to a partial list of John's Gardner touch. Each item is marked by date; there is no obvious order, yet.
Remarks: Modified: 08/27/2022

02/08/2019 -- Recently, we got registered with Google as non-profit and have put a search facility on the sites. They are (will be) ad-free, once I get the administrative stuff completed. On the search page, I mention our manual effort at indexing. Now, we can get more serious. I extended the above list with some hits from searching on John Goff.

02/08/2019 -- Put photo of John Goff from 5 Jun 2015 article, Naumkeag Nuggets.

09/03/2019 -- Like the way John writes (see image). He mentions Sidney which is good. Dr. Frank and his sister, Lucie, picked up Sidney's work after he stopped his Essex wanderings and writings. This is an example of John's view (seen after I had, more or less, determined the same thing).


It was in this house where Thomas and Margaret enjoyed Cape Ann's wonderful life (posts search on Cape Ann).

04/20/2021 -- John mentioned in a Melissa Berry article (with reference to Richard Davenport). On New France and New Spain. We see it more out west.  ... Added link to page of Gideon Gardner, who was namesake of Gardner Island (by either Joshua Gardner or Joshua Coffin). 

08/27/2022 -- Finally, added John to the Descendants of Richard. Just for the record, search results on John Goff  (23 posts) in this blog. 

Thursday, January 3, 2019

29 December 1674

That date is the date of Thomas' death in Salem, MA and is 344 years ago (this past week). It will be a while before it has its 400th anniversary: 400 or so. But, there are things that we can do now with the 400th of the arrival coming up.

One thing is that we will have a rolling bit of information in brief snippets. On our new site, TGSoc.org, we had a paragraph taken from the WikiPedia article on Thomas. It has been the same since we started that site. Today, we changed the text to look at what was going on prior to 1623/24. When one looks at this, one sees that lots of stuff was going on. There was almost regular traffic across the Atlantic, mostly looking for fish. The issues related to round-tripping in one year, plus preserving the catch, motivated the commercial interest that got Thomas and Margaret to these shores.

Gardner's Gate
(portal to truth)
As of January 2019, see December view (below)
The snippets will bounce around in time. Overall, they'll be collected coherently. Soon, we will start some about Thomas' whereabouts. We have written a lot about this subject. Expect some overview posts this month, as well as a timeline of what we know and why we know.
The Thomas record on findagrave quotes a web site that says that Gardner's Hill is in Harmony Grove. Below is a map that shows Perley's view over 100 years ago against a modern overview from photos. The markings detail the relationship in a manner that we can measure. Actually, we intend to walk it just like Sidney Perley did over 100 years ago. Ann's childhood home is right there in the clipped region, so we will be getting into the details.

Gardner's Hill (per Perley) and
Harmony Grove
(on different sides of the river)

We'll start with this little bit from the NEHGS overview of Thomas. Notice the use of "painful" cast down for a historic view. By this time, Thomas was deceased. It says elsewhere that many had been buried on Gardner's hill. Who might these be? Until when were there burials?
You see, Samuel Pickering Gardner, about whom we will write more (ancestor of John Lowell Gardner II), recorded his visit in 1830 to Gardner's hill. And, he noted that grave stones had been moved and piled. Some had already been broken. Suggesting? Grave locations lost, for one thing. He, too, told us who sold the land. I have followed that lead (as well as, looked at what Dr. Frank wrote of the person).

Since the first look in 2010, I have been picking up pieces. So, I'll put together a summary and suggest where we look. It must be done for the 400th anniversary. Okay?

We have three types (at least) of grave disturbance.
  • Some like the grave of Thomas, himself, are unknown. His stone had been moved by the 1830s. And, it was broken. How many of this case are there? Where are the bones? 
  • Some were moved over to Trask. This is per Perley who was a sleuth of major proportions. His work was picked up by Lucie Gardner, sister of Dr. Frank. Did their stones go with them?
  • Some were moved with their stones to Harmony Grove. 
Now, we know, in some cases, just stones were moved. This needs to be made visible. Sheesh, the NEHGS blew right by this. 

I understand that there had been a court case at the time. 1840s? This needs to be researched. And, there are other subjects to look at. 

Our take on the matter is that this has been known and put in the closet. Why not look at it further? There are several things that might have been left unsaid. That is, then, especially given the times. 

This is now. And, we have the resources of all sorts to get this story told. Stay tuned. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/29/2019

01/04/2019 -- The Perley image had a typo. Also, added more text.   Too, the next issue of Gardner's Beacon will have the bit of the graves as its main theme. We will also post updates to WikiTree (see link on the sidebar), as well, as get others involved via a G2G.

01/18/2019 -- Joseph died in combat on 19 December 1675, about one year later, leaving his wife, Ann Downing, as a widow. They had no progeny, so we will remember them specially.

02/22/2019 -- Gardner's Beacon, Volume IX, Number 1 addresses the problem of "Where is Thomas?" that has been needing attention, now, for a couple of hundred years, almost.

12/29/2019 -- We have made several improvements to the look and feel. Lots more pending. The portal (to truth) provides a few historic tidbits per load. This is a small start.

December 2019 view
illustrating several improvements