Renovation, plus

We are in the process of getting the next issue of Gardner's Beacon (Vol. IX, No. 2) ready which will review our 10 years of research activity and look to the future. Along that line, the Gardner FAQ is being updated. Plus, we are going back through posts to get the themes back into coherency.

Note: We have a link (see menu, right side) to the WikiTree profile of Thomas Gardner of Salem. This profile is owned by the Great Migration team and is based upon Anderson's series of books plus research after the fact. See Margaret's profile (as 1st wife of Thomas) for recent discussions and changes that stemmed from reviewing Sherborne records.

• In 2011, early on, we were newbies having just started this type of research. After some time getting acquainted with the people and events, we took notice of houses as these were a common theme through the years. Thomas' house seemed like a nice topic. Of course, later, we had to consider it to be Margaret's house. But, then, Roger came along. Finally, John took it from Cape Ann to Salem. Some of the original wood is believed to still be in some current structures. Another theme seemed to recur. It dealt with being forgotten (Written out of history). Looking at what has been written, the first mention of Thomas was by Rev Hubbard who was a contemporary. Of course, he was mentioned in records as we learned from Rev. Felt's review of such. But, there were (have been) many tales told.  
• Back in 2012, we started the What we know post as we read material and received queries pertaining to our research. Why this approach? Having gone through several exercises where we successfully did applications for heritage societies, we had learned 'source' requirements. For issues related to Thomas, there seemed to be more questions than answers as we followed previous work. The attempt at documenting the known state of the matter moved, somewhat, to the FAQ (2015) in an attempt to get the material available in one place with links to discussions and sources. 
• By 2015, we had received queries (Answering questions) with regard to about all of the Gardner families that were involved with the colonial experience. At the time, the notion of "All Things Gardner" came up. Dr. Frank wrote of some families in both of his books (About us/Gardners and Gardners). We started a list of other families in a blog post (Gardners and Gardners - one of our most-read posts) that we heard from or read about. There have been many suggestions about possible relationships between these families. 
• With respect to different views, we will be offering an overview across the board. That is, we will provide links to different sites that are in scope. Too, we will cover stories from the past. As an example, we have found a Thomas/Margaret marriage record. Rev. Felt mentioned this way back in the early 1800s, yet he was ignored. Why is that? One aspect of this will be a timeline of these views. BTW, the 'annals' scroll at our Portal to truth is a first attempt at just that.
• Looking ahead, we have been thinking of the 400th for a while. It was nice reading about the activities related to the 300th (Salem pageant). We think that some momento for Thomas and Margaret is in order this time around. Frankly, building a good web presence for the couple as well as documented research seems to be a good start.  

As we work the next few weeks, there will be renovations done. Hence, we make a little request for pardon. Part of the work will be laying out a longer-term view, including the ToDos, that will help the TGS, Inc. set up for the next decade of work.

Remarks: Modified: 06/25/2019

06/25/2019 - Added in the bullet about houses and who was here or not. Our research has helped us get a coherent story together. But, there are plenty questions remaining to have some consideration, such as Whence. Surely less involved would be getting the first five generations (starting with the first two) documented. We would include collateral families as we tried to show with Dr. Frank's line (WikiTree Profile).