Margaret Friar, WikiTree

TL;DR -- We are taking a closer look at Margaret's family. 

---

In this title, we used Friar as that is how it is written in Sherborne, Dorset, England records. Other spellings have been Fryer and Frier. In the below, we describe why we can identify the parents of Margaret Friar, wife of Thomas Gardner, as Walter Friar and Grace Mullins. Also, there is a current effort to learn more about Margaret's family. 

This post is along the line of  a relook at Margaret that we did a couple of years ago. This time, we are going to identify some specifics that have been collected on WikiTree in order to update Margaret's Profile there. A Great Migration project has been working to ensure that Profiles match up with the NEHGS book series (by R. C. Anderson), including recently determined material which are listed below. 

Friar records

This list is part of an effort to support coordination and discussion (Editing Margaret's past) while the changes are being done. As a reminder, in his profile of Thomas Gardner, Anderson had three wives with the first one (Unknown) being the mother of the children, a second one named Margaret Unknown there briefly, as Demaris was the last wife. What work of supporters of Gardner Research have shown is that there were two wives with Margaret being the first and the mother of the children. 

There will be more updates with respect to this work as simultaneously we are updating Thomas' profile  (Coordinating coming edits of the Thomas Gardner page) so as to have a good one going forward that is acceptable.  

There are a few things that motivate this change, beyond the necessity to close up the deal. These are listed below. The notice of the Thomas and Margaret marriage record was written in 2014. At the same time, some of the other records were noted. Since then, there has been a lot more scrutiny and discussion which was under the auspices of WikiTree. So we have records from which to report on the activity over these few years.  

• we have a marriage of a Thomas Gardner and a Margaret Friar (appropriate timeframe - Felt was the furthest back printed source that we saw)
• before that, we have a birth of a Margaret Friar, same area
• then, we have a Will of a Walter Friar mentioning his daughter Margaret (before the marriage), too, he mentions his son Thomas - there is a daughter Grace - is the wife mentioned? if not, did she die?
• then, we have a marriage of a Walter Friar and a Grace Mullins, same area, appropriate timeframe
• then, coming this way, we have births of boys (Thomas, George, Richard, John) with a father of Thomas Gardner.
• later, the family is not in the records
• then, we see that Savage has a Thomas Frier/Friar as a brother, "perhaps", of Margaret, wife of Thomas Gardner.

There's more. And, we are actively reviewing records in order to identify the births of Walter and Grace. 

Remarks: Modified: 10/31/2020

10/31/2020 -- Added images for our portal.