Gardner's Beacon, Vol X, No 2

This issue of Gardner's Beacon provides an overview of things accomplished in the difficult year of 2020, discusses the state of affairs with respect to the web and what it can be (see Web'ing), and looks at a few expectations for the future. Such as? Tackling the huge subject of AI and Ethics, where AI serves in (and demonstrates many ways) the roles of 'avatar' for that whole affair (applied mathematics, folks, gone wild). We take a brief look at the children of Thomas and Margaret and, then, feature a look at John Gardner (4th son). 

GB X, 2 (PDF)

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See Vol. X, No. 2 of Gardner's Beacon for ... Sources.

Remarks: Modified: 11/28/2021

11/28/2021 -- Added links to material for a more full presentation of information. 

Thomas Gardner

TL;DR -- 29 December 1674, a day to remember.  

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This post is a reminder of 29 December 1674 which is the day that Thomas Gardner died in Salem, MA. He led the team in 1623/24 that landed at Gloucester (Cape Ann) for the purpose of establishing farming and fishing that would return goods back to England. A few years later, the effort moved to the region that became Salem, MA. Later, still, John Endicott came with his new emphasis. Not long after that, John Winthrop arrived with the inception of the Great Migration. 

Thomas Gardner's origins have not been adequately identified sufficiently for confirmation, however there are several ongoing research efforts (see WikiTree). Thomas married Margaret Friar. Margaret was as unknown as was Thomas until recently. Her family seems to have been identified in Sherborn, Dorset, England. 

Thomas and Margaret had nine child, eight of whom have descendants. There is an active research project to identify their offspring: Descendants of Thomas (chain of posts starting with the eldest son). 

When Thomas died, he was buried on Gardner Hill. But, that location was landscaped away during road work in the early 1800s. One of his descendants sold the land which was in the possession of son, Samuel. Another descendant visited the area in 1830s and reported on the consequences at the time of his visit of graves lost with stones moved or destroyed. We researched this topic for a few years: Our summary of the situation is in this post (Gardner's Beacon, Vol. IX, No. 1). 

We are the Thomas Gardner Society (see About Us). Our 'portal to truth' is a vehicle to provide information, interact with our supporters, and demonstrate a simplified web presence. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/29/2020

12/28/2020 -- 

Revolutionary experiences

TL;DR -- Some Patriots and the Rhode Island event.  

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So, finally, to the work of the other day after a few diversions: Recognition of Dr. Frank, Charles Alcott Flagg, and, then, Thomas Franklin Waters. These three were related to the motivations for this post which includes looking around for details that might be of interest. 

Below is a collection of entries related to service during the Revolution that was  documented after the fact. Partly, this is motivated by the interests of DAR and SAR, but there are larger issues that we wish to address, in the future. There are entries from the records of two individuals. The records start in 1775. There are several entries for one of the individuals. Finally, we end up with the Battle of Rhode Island and after. It may be interesting to note that there were three more years to go. The conflict went until 1783. 

Too, this is a cursory look which is meant to suggests where we will put some attention, since we can no longer ignore the details. For one thing, the 250th is coming up. So, we would like to be prepared. Then, as we mentioned earlier, history is told by the upper crust. Looking at some details related to other folks is something that can now be facilitated by the computer.  

In our work, we would not look through related documents such as Dr. Frank did with his study of Massachusetts regiments. Unlike Dr. Frank's day, we now have printed or digital records to access, thanks to those forward-looking people who got this work done. Too, like the RI event, we need to stop and consider what the record entry was referring to. Given that, our focus will be on the individuals, who will not be identified in the beginning.

The examples are 1) an older Major (Essex Co) and 2) a younger Private (Plymouth Co) who became a Corporal, both lived in Massachusetts. 

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  Ipswich. Major, Col. Henry Jackson's regt.; Continental Army pay accounts for service from Jan. 1, 1777, to July 9, 1778 ; reported resigned July 9, 1778;
  also, return certified at Camp near Morristown, April 30, 1780, of officers and men belonging to Col. Lee's, Col. Henley's, and Col. Jackson's regts., and men belonging to Massachusetts in Col. Henry Sherburne's regt., who were incorporated into a regiment under the command of Col. Henry Jackson, agreeable to the arrangement of April 9, 1779; rank. Major; residence, Ipswich;


• Pembroke. Private. Capt. Freedom Chamberlain's co., Gen. John Thomas's regt.; muster roll dated Aug. 1, 1775; enlisted May 3, 1775; service, 3 mos. 6 days; also, company return dated Roxbury Camp, Oct. 6, 1775; also, order for bounty coat or its equivalent in money dated Camp at Roxbury, Nov. 9, 1775;
  also, Private, Capt. Amos Turner's co., Col. Titcomb's regt.; service from April -, 1777, to the middle of June, 1777, 2 mos. 6 (also given 2 mos. 7) days, including travel (120 miles) out and home; company detached from militia and marched to Tiverton, R. I.;
  also, list of men mustered by James Hatch, Muster Master for Plymouth Co., to serve until Jan. 1, 1778, or during the war, endorsed " July -, 1777;
  " Col. Robinson's regt. ; enlisted by Capt. Stowers ;
  also, Corporal, Capt. Seth Stowers's co., Col. J. Robinson's regt.; enlisted July 1, 1777 ; service, 6 mos., at Rhode Island;
  also, descriptive list of men raised in Plymouth Co. for the term of 9 months from the time of their arrival at Fishkill, agreeable to resolve of April 20, 1778;
  Capt. Bonney's co., Col. Cushing's regt.; age, 19 yrs.; stature, 5 ft. 11 in.; complexion, light; residence, Pembroke; arrived at Fishkill June 10, 1778 ;
  also, list of men returned as received of Jonathan Warner, Commissioner, by Col. R. Putnam July 20, 1778 ; engaged for town of Pembroke ;
  also, Private,Capt. John Turner's co., Col. John Jacobs's regt. ; enlisted Sept. 4, 1780 ; discharged Oct. 30, 1780 ; service, 1 mo. 27 days; regiment detached from militia to reinforce Continental Army at Rhode Island for 3 months.
  

Both records specify the organizations that the person was associated with. The records in the enlisted example indicate multiple musterings, through time which agrees with the history of the organization (Wikipedia). We see several things to research further: Massachusetts Line was used for the military organizations of that state; Morristown, NJ was considered the headquarters across the colonial States; the relationships, and how closely they might be, as we continue our studies of collateral families.

This was a brief look at military records as detailed by the Massachusetts project. From that, we can consider other details of the individual's life. For instance, taking the private, what did he do between his militia stints? And, in the locations where the service is depicted, what were the events? How did the locals fare? 

There is really no end to what can be considered of interest. McCullough, with others, has shown us that. And, we have on-line resources with which to do the work, including publishing research results. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/16/2022

12/16/2022 -- Changed pointer on the Battle of "Rhode Island" to Wikipedia. 

Thomas Franklin Waters

TL;DR -- About Ipswich, MA which was the hometown of T. F. Waters and the subject of his research.  

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T.F. Waters was the first editor of The Massachusetts Magazine (first issue was January 1908) that was started by Dr. Frank and friends who were Charles Alcott Flagg (last post), Albert W. Dennis, Lucie M. Gardner, and others. We will spend a little time looking at some of the details concerning the publication of the TMM by looking at those involved, including their lives. 

In an earlier post (Sings of the times, 2014), we were discussing research in Ipswich and mentioned a few families that were in focus. We heard from Gordon Harris who does several things, including work to restore properties in Ipswich about which we will write more. But Gordon has a website that is loaded with information (Historic Ipswich) in which he has a list of houses. His earlier note mentioned one house that was connected with the families that we were researching: 5 County Street. 

Today, we looked at that more thoroughly as we are going to concentrate on the time around the Revolution which is coming up for another memorial (250th). And, that will involve  looking at the related properties. As we were enjoying the look at the writeup on the house, a map was shown that is reminiscent of what Sidney Perley did in Salem and elsewhere. 

But, the author of the map was T.F. Waters. That got our attention. He was a major writer on Ipswich and will feature more in the future as we expand on the expected themes. 

Ipswich - land grants

As we mentioned before, it was the 4th and 5th generations which saw the Revolution through by enduring the turmoil and hardship. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/26/2020

12/25/2020 -- 

Charles Alcott Flagg

TL;DR -- Correcting oversight of old friend of Dr. Frank's who contributed regularly to The Massachusetts Magazine.  

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Charles A. Flagg (1870-1920), C.A., is an example of someone with no progeny who is forgotten. We ran across him first within the context of The Massachusetts Magazine. He was a regular contributor starting with Vol. 1, No. 2 with an article on "Massachusetts Pioneers in Michigan" that we will look at further. 

In our last post, we mentioned that C.A. gave a nod to Dr. Frank's in the introduction of his book, Alphabetical Index of Revolutionary Pensioners Living in Maine, with respect to Dr. Frank's work on Massachusetts regiments. 

Two things motivate this post. 

• C.A.'s work is quoted in the SSP of Maine (soldiers, sailors) quite extensively. However, there is also this little note by the editors (curators) of the work: 
  This list is full of errors. It contains names of men who did not serve in the Revolutionary War. The ages are wrong in many cases, as are the dates of death. 
  
  This SSP work was published in 1982 which was decades after the work of C.A. Too, technology was quite a bit different in the two periods. There is another factor, next bullet. But, this comment was done by the General Genealogist of S.A.R. (sorry bunch of guys?) who ought to have known better. It's one thing to make such remarks (which are without any foundation) in private; to leave them in a reference that is expected to get attention is another thing (very unprofessional).
  Reading the comment gave us pause. What was that? Why? We didn't know how to respond at the time. But, since then we have done a little research. We give a little bio of C.A. after this pause here. Plus, the image shows some of his work that is on-line. C.A. was the librarian for American History at the Library of  Congress, among other things. BTW, in favor of the S.A.R. folks, they did note that other people had errors and corrected them. Okay, editors are for that purpose, for one thing. We could go on but won't. 
• A couple of years ago (January of 2018), we noted that it was 100 years before that "The Massachusetts Magazine" published its last issue. At that time, we surmised about the Spanish Flu, especially in how Dr. Frank would have been busy. Very much so. There was also the drain of resources and funds related to WWI. But, then, we looked at C.A.'s biography and saw that he had died in 1920. We will look at the specifics, but it is very likely that the publication of his work was after he died. The S.A.R. folks could have looked that up. Also, given that it was within the period of the flu, did he have complications related to the pandemic? 

Anyway, C. A. Flagg's work stands on its own. He was a graduate of Bowdoin. Then, he did post-graduate studies in Library Systems. We are talking the latter part of the 19th Century, so it would be interesting to see what was involved. But, C.A. served as a librarian at the New York State library in Albany, NY. Too, he spent time at the Library of Congress in DC. There he was the expert in American History. Then, C.A. went to Bangor, Maine and was librarian there. That is where he did a lot more research, some of it resulting in the index of pensioners mentioned in this post. 

This graphic lists some of C.A.'s work (from uPenn). 

We'll get back to work looking at specifics of the Revolutionary period. History is told top down by the victors and mostly ignores the small people. Technology, now, can revert that and lift proper views to focus. That's one of our goals. Or, from another view, events from 400 years ago and 250 years ago can still have relevance to our lives. 

There ain't nothing new under the sun, essentially. 

Remarks: Modified: 08/05/2021

12/25/2020 -- C.A. was part of the editorial board for the TMM from the beginning. T.F. Waters was the Editor. 

08/05/2021 -- We will be using the work of CA as we study the History of Michigan and surrounds. As well, here is the Find A Grave record for CA. 

Recognition of Dr. Frank

TL;DR -- Run into C.A. Flagg while researching a Patriot who served in Maine.  

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We were researching in the context of DAR and SAR and stumbled upon a nice surprise. Fortunately, the focus was Massachusetts and its derivative, Maine. Though, we have researched other states and will (ought to) do more of this. But, Lexington and Concord is taken as the origin of the turmoil that went on for several years. It may be that we do not appreciate that effort. Lots of history is told top down, by the victors. There is some bottom-up work, such as McCullough's look using Col. Hodgkins and his letters to his wife. The connection there is that he is the brother of one of Ann's GGPs. Sometimes, we have diaries. One diary connected to Gardners that we have mentioned is that of Nathaniel Knapp. But, this was from the prior conflict, the French-Indian affair, where the King trained the colonial leaders to rebel and to do it successfully. 

With technology, we can do a better job of telling the tales, many of which have relevance today. And, lots of resources are on line with which to do this work. Let's look at some. 

• SSP of Massachusetts - This 17-volume tome was addressed earlier (Resources and more, timeframe of Sept 2013). We included a link to all volumes in a post. The SSP link goes to the volume that has the Gardners (pages 254 to 282). Each of those entries tells a story. We will look at a couple examples, one Gardner, one not. 
• SSP of Maine -  This volume is the work of SAR. Some of the entries are also in the MA books as there is overlap. We look at an example below. Now, one of their sources is a book by C.A. Flagg who researched Revolutionary pensioners living in Maine (next bullet).  
• An Alphabetical Index of Revolutionary Pensioners Living in Maine - C.A. Flagg's 1920 publication that is fully readable, thanks to the University of Southern Maine. In his forward, C.A. mentions Dr. Frank with whom he worked on The Massachusetts Magazine. C.A. was a librarian at Bangor, ME, NY State Library in Albany, NY, and the Library of Congress in DC. 

We will take a specific look at CA Flagg this year, especially his contributions to The Massachusetts Magazine where he had a regular column dealing with Massachusetts pioneers to Michigan. CA died in 1920. One wonders if that was due to some lingering impact of the Spanish Flu. He would have been 50 years old. 

The next post on this subject will look at a couple of examples of Revolutionary War service as detailed in the SSP of MA and SSP of ME. We'll use a time frame that maps to service events over several years, using some actual records. After MA and ME, we'll drop south and look at a couple of states there. This is, somewhat, carrying on for Dr. Frank. 

Remarks: Modified: 07/30/2021

12/23/2020 --

Web'ing

TL;DR -- Look at a 25-year-old blog dealing with a deep subject which is modernizing.  

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This is a little aside dealing with technology, in particular how the web was, is, and will be (including ought to be). Our last post on technology dealt with Ethics and AI and had some pointers to earlier posts (several). The main reason for that is the importance of AI and how it will impact everything (and everyone). 

A good analog is 5G which deals with communication. But one does not have to go far, and one runs into the internet of everything which deals with computing at the edge whose results will be an inundation of data which will drive us crazy (and be ignored) or will be of some use (perhaps a lot if we are smart about choices). Lots to discuss; however, we can punt this down the road, for now. 

This post will have a collection of example sites that are full of content yet without the flash that presupposes the need to cover up for no substance. As in, these are not those empty shells that we see, some of which are purely plagiarizing material for the purpose of wrapping ads as if mostly for nefarious purposes. 

The first two show the leaning that applies to our goals (TGS, Inc.). It'll be interesting to see how many more will be added. 

• Theories of Aether and Electricity -- Baez's blog as an effort to report on mathematical physics, his findings thereof. He started early and carried the same textual (enhanced with graphics) mode for years. We always pointed to it as a favorite site. Then, Baez moved to an updated format: Azimuth. It still maintains the clean, simple look offering the most information on the most fundamental of knowledge being studied. 
• nLab -- Baez, again. Not sure of his current involvement, but he got it started. nLab has several functions but is, generally, an example of how web'ing ought to be. 
• Math Central -- Just ran into this while tracking down some sources. Nice format, if you look closely, there use of CSS and JS, as well as implementing some of the basic notions of HTML. 
• ...

We will have more on other subjects. The motivation? At our portal (TGSoc.org) which we see as an example of 'portal to truth' (several modes) there is some discussion of our sites. The first attempt was in the ASP world until the damper of Office 365 came about. We looked around (2012 timeframe) and went with our own hack (HTML and some images scraped from the Microsoft offering). But, then mobility became Job'influenced, so CSS came forward. Finally, JS. 

We have found lots of sites that are minimal in that sense. Too, they remove some of the onus of worrying about the heavy foot of the boss (buy a package and get their oversight - it's not ethical - but the web never was - alas). 

It's encouraging to see that some semblance of sanity and decency is still around. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/29/2020

12/28/2020 -- Gardner's Beacon Vol, X, No. 2 points to this post. Let the discussion begin on how to have sustainability and how the TGS, Inc. can demonstrate/discuss issues/alternatives as well as explain how we got to where we are. 

12/28/2020 -- With respect to progress here and there, we can use Thomas' time here to map to there. We already have mentioned Spinoza and Descartes as cohorts of Thomas. Now, We need to add Pascal. He developed a calculator to help his father with his tax work (France). That is when Thomas and crew were working on getting over here. You know, I don't think that it was until Charles Sanders Peirce that we had someone over here getting intellectual attention over there. Tell us if we are wrong. 

01/25/2021 -- Added image for our portal (https://tgsoc.org). 

Ethics and value

TL;DR -- The ACM which is an old computing organization takes on ethics and its absence from the everyday decisions.  

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We have had a few posts on technology. A recent one looked at an ongoing bit of discussion: content versus configuration (which is a type of recurrent thing that is so common). Then, we just relooked at a dilemma related to technology of a particular sort, namely that wild-west thing of the internet. Also, we noted that genealogists 'foot drag' which is fine. Nothing that we're doing here will harm anything other than egos. 

Wait, was that just or was it harm causing? Or, was it necessary? Those types of things get ignored in the day to day, especially in the business world behind the doors. Oh yes, ethics is a subject that we can go on about without end but won't. 

It is important, though. The latest CACM has an article on AI and Ethics. The ACM is an old group involved with computing from the beginning. They even had the opportunity to have an annual prize titled Turing Award. The 2020 winners - Hanrahan and Catmull - worked on 3D graphics (including getting Pixar going). 

The article motivating this post is titled: Operationalizing AI Ethics Principles. Frankly, this is nice to see since many discussion about AI are seemingly unethical in the sense of the potential for AI to do harm (of very many varieties). One possible excuse might deal with complexity's hardness which is true. So, computing and ethics still have a lot of open areas needing discussion. One might say that's human nature. 

Over the past decade, we have tread through the valleys, so to speak, even that one of silicon. Gosh, would the wild west of the internet have even happened if ethics were on the table? Of late, there seems to be an interest, so we'll pay attention. Not to get too deep now, let's close with pointers to ethics and a few topics. 

• Ethics and blogging 
• Ethics and genealogy 
• IEEE Code of Ethics (thrown in as this group's members touch everything technical)
• ACM Code of Ethics (see image)

As said, no end to the subject. We are in a new age, technically enhanced or challenged depending upon one's view. Before the internet, we had TV and before that radio and ... Of late, some seem to have lost their manners. Is such an observation unethical? Is snarkiness a matter of not being ethical? 

Going back to Thomas and Margaret and their time, we have noted that there is little that we know of the couple except for what they wrought via their children. We are actively documenting that. We noted, too, that Thomas did not even bother to join the church until later (about 1636 - we have that year mentioned in one of these posts) which might look, in hindsight, to have been a move to keep his children out of trouble with the local society. We know, those Puritans (was that snarky?). 

One thing that we can know is that the 400 years of history can have some importance to today's world. And, looking about, there is no end to the amount of work that one can do. We will just be as ethical as we can be. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/12/2020

12/12/2020 --

Feet dragging

Or one might say, of genealogists, that they have their "lead feet" still. There's a lot to say. Being and life does not come from documents. Oh, they're doing DNA, now? Well, that's not a completely closed issue, either. Lots and lots of automated (thereby, computer controlled) work is done with this type of analysis. 

Wait, mathematical analysis has solved all of the problems that we might face. Well, not. 

You know, the SAG published, in part, via the internet. Lots of people do. Your bank wants you to go paperless. So many examples. 

What's the theme? Well, the focus now is going back through ten years of stuff and pulling out those things that will continue to need attention going forward. And, there is a specific intent behind this post, albeit we'll not mention the particulars. Rather, there was a recall that we had seen something about a decision. 

And, it's around the 2010 time frame. We were newbies yet knew the significance of this choice. And, look at the last year. Yes. On-line it is, except people are meeting, sometimes in groups that are larger than is suggested as a limit. 

The milieu then? Well, we would have had a decade and one-half of the internet having gone through several stages from the early days of Mosaic. And, we would have seen lots and lots of problematic results coming from unexpected behavior which would have been known had people paid attention to American History. 

In particular? The Wild West. Yes, we're getting to that now with real families as the focus. 

Anyway, we had a blog post: On blogs and other modern means. This is from June of 2011. We were still in the honeymoon era with respect to the Thomas Gardner Society, Inc. work. And, we left a comment at the Slavak Yankee site where we first read the news about no internet. 

With respect to current events, one motivation for the post is something that recurs. As newbies, we usually took it as some oversight on our part when we bumped up against some genealogical wall. After all, there are those brick walls that people write about. On the other hand, some of the walls that we have seen were not brick at all, in fact, one is an ongoing affair with resolution pending several factors clicking. Not genealogical; rather, we seem to be seeing issues of personalities and their differences (see Ethics, the next post). As said several times, one of  us has no pedigree so cares less for those games that relate to that type of one-up-man-ship (who's better?). We'll get back to this. 

BTW, want to contribute, we are updating the Thomas Gardner Profile on WikiTree with regard to Thomas and Margaret and the kids and more. We have a couple of G2G posts that are on-going. 

Oh yes, what's scholarly (back to Slavak Yankee's post)?  Our offering is Gardner Research and The Gardner Annals. Contributors, of all fashion, are welcomed. 

Remarks: Modified: 05/02/2021

05/02/2021 -- We need to move to a focus on the frontier century where lots of families obtained their hole in the paper trail. But, these can be bridged. As well, we can look at modern examples as a type of juxtaposition: Two different times. 

11th December

We completed our tenth year in 2019 and did a list of posts going backward to the 2010 start: 

• 2018-2017-2016; 2015-2014-2013; 2012-2011-2010. 

In the images in those three post, the posts are in reverse order by year, month, and the day of the post. 

The following image has the proper order and shows the post title for those that were published in December of each year from 2010 to 2019. From this, we can get some sense of the focus as each of those year ends. Too, we can pick some of these themes and expand upon them. 

Most years, we had an issue of Gardner's Beacon in December. That would be a regular occurrence. We have another issue of Gardner Annals in preparation which ought to be more regular. Every year we had had a summary of posts that reported the most-read posts within 30 days and from the start. In years when this did no appear in December, it was published in January of the next year. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/09/2020

12/09/2020 --

Rachel, again

TL;DR -- Looked at the data related to Rachel (Gardner) Noble and considered how she might relate to Thomas Gardner. More questions than answers.  

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This post will pull together some posts from the past, beginning real early. We were asked if Thomas has a sister, Rachel. Had not hear that, at the time, so went looking. There was no real resolution, however lots of material was covered which is scattered through these posts. There was a recent notice received that there was research backing this up. So, we have to follow that hint like fish after bait. 

Now, we are in the process of updating Thomas' Profile on WikiTree. The idea now is to make it a solid piece which references proper sources, starting with Anderson's work (Great Migration Project). Then, we will add in research details, some of which was contributed by Gardner Research. However, with respect to Rachel, do we know any more than about Margaret's proposed brother, Thomas Friar, who came over to Gloucester?

It has been a couple hundred of years since the Revolution and of Americans wandering the world. Someone came back with a tip that Sherborn records mention Thomas and Margaret. Felt heard this and printed the tip (without source - by the time he heard it, how many mouths would it have gone through?). We used that as a clue. Too, old man Folger was noted for telling people that John Gardner had said that his father told him that they were from Sherborn. We like their coffee and took that as a clue. 

Well, we will be doing this in a more formal manner to meet NEHGR requirements. That'll take time. In the meantime, stay tuned. So, back to Rachel. There are only three bullets here. The last one is to a search that has all of the posts that mention Rachel. This is an example of hoping that looking at some related pedigrees might help with another. It can work. Usually? Probably not. But, the attempt needs to be documented.  

• 

  Just Answer
  from the Presidio of
  San Francisco
  

  LDS and Thomas Noble -- Gosh, all of those Thomases. We first ran into this while looking at the Rachel issue and thought that it ought to be brought forward. It is interesting since it has persisted, pay and get some bit of information, and on a quick look the stuff is appealing. That Thomas Nobel had Rachel Gardner as a wife is known; who she is is not; nor, is he known as well as some proclaim, evidently. You see the issues. Truth engineering, folks, with our 'portal to truth' as an offering as a stable source of good information. Now, in this case, the person paid to find out that stuff on family search (et al) may be bogus. Too, the notion is that someone needs to search actual records (assuming that they can get hold of them). We're fortunate that Sherborn did digitize some records. 
  
• Rachel (Nobel) Gardner -- This is from five years ago when we were trying to pull together some loose strings. After all, we had seen the marriage of Thomas Gardner and Margaret Friar. Too, we saw the boys being born in the right order with years agreeing. Then, that family disappeared from Sherborn records. But, more records are available now. We have lots of people interested. And, some are on the ground in the UK, so that might help. 
• Search on 'Rachel' -- When scrolling through this list, look for a yellow box. In there, we tried to follow a suggested ancestry for Thomas, as proposed by the Noble family. At the time, we didn't get far. But, then, we are not saying no either. Case in point is George Gardiner of Rhode Island. They published their book before Dr. Frank did his. Too, they have published books about their meetings over the years. Yet, on WikiTree, there is controversy where the notion is to set his Profile up similar to Thomas' where it's clear about sources and what's still in the air. 

This is one of many avenues of research that are on-going. Based upon our experience, we like the WikiTree approach and the genealogical views being upheld there. 

Too, for those who wonder about technology. WikiTree is a 'wiki' thing where one can edit the code or by menu. They have brought in more menu support, but the code view is still there. Too, they have standards. A method, named G2G (genealogist to genealogist), can be used for coordinating work where comments/updates keep everyone abreast of status. We have some G2Gs related to our WikiTree work. Some like menus; some like code; there are other ways (say, AI); however, common standards can apply but require definition and monitoring. What we have is more stuff stacked on the back of people doing thankless work (thank the Registrar of whatever group you might belong to for their service).  

Gosh, think back to before the camera and the copier and, even, the mimeo machine. Looking at the handwritten notes from 100+ years ago makes one marvel that some progress did occur. 

Remarks: Modified: 02/24/2021

02/24/2021 -- Put link to George Gardiner's profile on WikiTree. We have lots of people with unresolved ancestry. The group on WikiTree is doing a good job providing sources for choices. Not like the shaky tree thingee on ancestry[dot]com. 

Content can be configuration

 TL;DR -- Another look at options, alternatives, and, perhaps, better ways to do things. 

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Given that we are going into the winter months, with the added pressures of COVID19, we will have more time to spend working on issues, such as futures, technology, presence, and such. To get a good start, let's consider the 'content versus configuration' theme which has appeared from time to time. Why do we have these posts? For one thing, they do provide for a nice periodic look that is based upon a timeline that we control. These posts are in a 'content' order with a date to allow a notion of when the what was being discussed. 

• thomasgardnersociety.org (15 Mar 2012) - Our first activity was to create a Thomas Gardner (Planter) page on WikiPedia in January of 2010. Later, after some research and editing, we started a website in April of 2010. This URL points to that site which was based Microsoft's OfficeLive (at the time, ASP world). Here is an old image of the first look (read about the conversion in 2012 here). This blog started on Blogger.com (bought by Google) and has been continuous since September of 2010. Our original (Welcome) post pointed to our site which, at the time, had a bio and the beginning of a list of the kids (2nd post) and their progeny that had been developed on WikiPedia (all edits can be traced). Microsoft decided to push Office 365 which is now their cloud offering for business. Lots of businesses had assumed that OfficeLive would be their and had integrated it into their processes. Needless to say, unexpected costs arose from this decision by Microsoft. Some of this, we paid attention to. Why was Microsoft picked? Well, one motivation was to get into the ASP world, again. It was fairly slick compared to the alternatives that we researched. Unfortunately, the attention was elsewhere so that the decisions at this point were considered mute issues. After all, it was merely an informational site.  
• New era (15 Mar 2012) - After getting the notice, the thing to do was to look at alternatives. In the initial work in 2010, Microsoft's approach didn't have a peer. Mobility as we see now was just starting to come around. There had been a decade of progress mostly related to commercial exploitation of the internet which continues. The basics of Content Management Systems? Lots of questions and little answer. This post (another blog) discusses the research and decisions. After a little effort, the choice was to drop back to HTML (with images snapped of the buttons that were on the OfficeLive pages). Then, once information flowed, improvement work would become incremental. In terms of requirements, there was providing curated information. However, there was the larger picture which resulted in two discussion. On the content side, of course, the focus would be related to the purposes of the Thomas Gardner Society. On the other, things were changing. If one looks at the state of the art, one sees lots of categories of web capability being proposed with many different ways for handling these, with issues like technology being important.  
• Web site - reconfigure (12 Jul 2014) -- That approached worked for a couple of years. While we went along, we still surveyed the status of web work so as to keep an alternative list up to date. Motivation for change came from Google who made the decision that all blogs had to consider mobile friendliness. Since we pointed to our site, we had to upgrade. This time, we paid more attention to the technical work by creating a blog with a technology focus (Friendly to the mobile crowd). We started this blog on the WordPress site and have started a move to our own server. Again, we looked at alternatives and decided to switch to a dynamic mode using HTML/CSS/JS. As for discussions about this, many are looking for minimal, curated sites. This will be looked at more fully later. Default modes, like FB, Instagram, Twitter, and the like? To be discussed. All along, we published Gardner's Beacon at the site. Our first issues was Vol I, No 1 (Spring of 2011). For a few issues, we collected material into an annals format. Too, with more experience under our research belt, we decided to write a correction to an article in the TEG which led to several articles being published. After 2010, digitization seemed to happen quicker. One finding was a record of a Thomas Gardner and a Margaret Friar being married in Sherborne, Dorset, UK in the right timeframe. That led to the TGS helping edit the Profiles for these two on WikiTree.  
• Thomas Gardner (abt. 1592 - 1674) - Besides the marriage there are other records that are of use, such as baptism records for the first three boys, a baptism for Margaret, and records related to her parents. This is ongoing work. With research notes and articles, we configured an area for the Annals for which we are working on TGA Vol. V, No. 1. But, there are many decisions to make with respect to our infrastructure going forward. For one thing, we need various timelines (example from mapped to associated content. That content must be curated and managed over timed. Now, given social media, there are many options for controlling the message, albeit one needs to keep disparate modes in sync. Wouldn't want differences of opinion arising due to mismanaged posts across several sites. We summarized what we had, to then, in January of this year (2020). But, we also need to integrate in support business affairs, in the longer run, including access and membership. There are various cloud options; we have liked our server approach, so far. Earlier, we mentioned mobile devices of which there are many types. Technology seems to have settled somewhat in terms of services but, mostly, that is temporary. For instance, everywhere, people have modified their sites to be flexible. This works somewhat but can be quite frustrating as one changes modes. People don't want to see a smartphone interface while using a laptop connected to sophisticated computing systems, just like the mobile crowd did not like the scrunched down laptop presentation. UX (user orientation) has as many open issues as anyone. BTW, this is future oriented? Yes, think DARPA (U.S. DOD) which have realized, finally, that they need to lead the way toward thinking about 100-year systems. 
• TGSoc (August of 2017) - After a little experience, we saw 'thomasgardnersociety.org' as too lengthy in the newer days of scaling down. When used in email, it was huge. So, on doing a survey, we decided that 'TGSoc.org' would be better. This was registered in 2017 and has been active since in terms of our portal (to truth). Or, one might use gateway. It's use will complement that of the main site which will be an information repository and server. Of course, there will be other components, through time. We have tried several packages and have some notes related to our analysis and decision. The fallback position is doing our own development as needed. Of late, Julia (a programming language) looks promising however there would be a tie into existing services. The architecture needs a little discussion. The image is an example of an icon related to information bits which are now mostly blog-based but will be of any appropriate media. 

TGSoc.org

We have an open list of tasks related to our infrastructure and process. Too, some things ought to be handled in an experimental mode given time and resources. So, there is no shortage of things to do. 

Remarks: Modified: 11/24/2020

11/24/2020 --

America's Lost Generation

TL;DR -- There seems to be a common problem for some families who had the frontier experience that is harder than that of the wilderness in terms of tracking. As the edge moved west, consistent paperwork lagged. To be expected. 

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The computer has brought forth lots and lots of stuff. Some might be good; a lot is not. However, research reports can be on the good side of things. And, in history/genealogy, the web (computer's gift) has brought lots to bear. For instance, this post from 2014 talks a little about research being done by NEHGS staff on their ancestors. The image on the left came from this post. It shows the arrival years. Notice the peak around 1635. And, the drop off at 1640 is obvious. The image on the right shows the spread of the 5th generation taken from the research of the GSMD (How many years are there in a generation?). This work was in 2018. Both of these came from the Vita Brevis blog that started in January 2014. 

    

Seeing these types of analysis got us to thinking about our own data and blogs. We started to look at generations, for instance, and will continue. But, for different groups of generations, we need to dig deeper. This is an example. We have seen 'lost' used several times in modern history usually in an economic sense. Japan experienced one of these, very recently. Some wondered about the 2008 downturn. Now, we will have unseen effects from the COVID19 situation. 

But, we are using it in the genealogy/history sense. The 5th generation bore the brunt of the Revolution. The 6th generation were those too young to participate. However, by 1800, they were adults. Ignoring the War of 1812 for this view, we can see that lots of that generation moved taking the 7th generation with them. Our focus is the western expansion where people from the northern and the southern New England met up in the west and intermingled.

By way of comparison, we also include the 4th generation who provided the leadership in the Revolution having been trained under the auspices of the King. That is, the story will pick up with the 5th but have material about the influence of the 4th. Below are some examples including some that are post-Revolution period across several families who were spread around. What we have noticed is that there were many families who moved once peace was settled, and Thomas Jefferson opened up the west. The experience of those families resulted in an informational gap that researchers will have to fill in. The issues get more difficult as the movement went further west. 

• John Sayward (4th gen) - His parents were in Gloucester where he was born, but they had come down from Maine due to troubles up there.  John left the area but did not go far. He was in Ipswich and tracked down through a friend, John Leatherland, with whom he served in the French/Indian affair and whose sister, Elizabeth, he married. John Sayward also served in the Revolution. See TEG, Vol. 34:4 (TGA Vol I:2). 
• John Graves (5th gen) - His parents went out in Ipswich Canada. What? Turns out that this is upper Worcester County. Indian problems sent the family back to Ipswich. See TEG, Vol. 34:2 (TGA, IV:1). This is an example of the early western movement. 
• Early Ipswich family (5th gen) -- Went south to CT under the auspices of the church. Then, one side went west to NJ; the other returned to MA. 
• Lyman Porter (7th gen) - His father was the 6th gen and went out west. Lyman married into a family that was out of both north and south New England. Lyman is buried in NE. His wife, Caroline, is buried in Los Angeles CA. See TGA Vol. III:1.  See Remarks (11/01/2021) about the new MF database of applications to 1900 where on can look up names. Sure enough, Lyman is there with a daughter and brothers. We will use Lyman as the core of the Lost Generation.  
• Family out of NC (7th gen) - Post the revolution, the family went to TN (following Boone). There, they were involved in establishing a church that spread through TN, the surrounding area, and overseas. The next generation took the family (6th gen) to the western edge of MO in the 1820s which is quite early and where they continued the church work which included circuit riding to visit pioneering families (sometimes being away months at a time). Then, there elements of AR, OK, and early TX.  
• Family out of MA (6th gen) - They moved west through NY, OH, and IN. The western trek through succeeding generations include IA, NE, SD, ND, and MT. 
• Family out of MA (6th gen) - Stopped in NY. Then, a generation moved south and then west. However, the MA-NY movement has not been established in detail as of yet. The case, though, illustrates the issues.    

So, the 'lost' could apply to several generations, albeit we will look at the ones that had descendants coming toward this time. The pattern would be that the movement would lead the paper mill which does the churning in establishing being and identity. One question is how long was that lag before the bureaucracy caught up. Well, that depended upon the location. Too, in many cases, there was an early death. Like with Lyman's daughter and son-in-law, they had a child who was very young when she died and he not long after. But, he lived long enough for a step-mother to come into the picture. The probate records suggest the tale. 

We are taking this focus as we have seen these gaps enough to suggest an interesting pattern. Besides, it makes the drudge work of tracing people more fun; this can provide lots of potential stories to research and write. 

BTW, everyone say brick wall. We say, lots of those walls are not 'brick' at all (also, TGA, Vol IV:1) but are contrived by  mindsets. 

Remarks: Modified: 07/11/2024

05/02/2021 -- We need to move to a focus on the frontier century where lots of families obtained their hole in the paper trail. But, these can be bridged. As well, we can look at modern examples as a type of juxtaposition: Two different times. 

11/01/2021 -- So, now the MF people have a database of those in applications to 1900. And, guess who is there? Lyman and his daughter, Anna. These are the father and sister of Chloe. And, the applicants who were in their 90s? Deceased. Now, with regard to why people were lost? We were looking at a family where one of the boys went from NC to AR. This was almost two decades prior to the Civil War. On the modern map, that distance is over 900 miles through woods, over mountains, and across rivers. Oh, go home for the weekend by flitting over the interior of the country on an aeroplane? Then, there is the fact that these families were in several states. 

07/11/2024 -- Image missing, Vita Brevis, at NEHGS. 

American tinkerer

TL;DR -- As we look at descendants, we cast a wide net including looking at those who have been identified by others. Except, these need to be proven. This is one case where the likelihood appears to be strong if someone does the work. 

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Note: We started this post in an incremental fashion that was following up on a suggestion. For now, this is informational only and about a potential descendant of Thomas and Margaret. We had a similar incident with the 'Descendants of Samuel' page and left a note that points to a post about frontier issues. These are there for the middle ground (western expansion) folks and families. This particular one here deals with a family that came out west from upper New York. They had lived on the border of Massachusetts. On the MA side, we are talking Berkshire County, most likely. So, these two locales are close. More at the end of this post.  

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There have been lots of these types of tinkerers over the past 400 years. Names stand out like Ben Franklin and Nath Bowditch. But, there are lots more. We have been going through the descendants of the children of Thomas and Margaret while covering the time from the beginning. Themes arose like generations where the 4th and the 5th bore the brunt of the Revolution. We picked the 5th since it matches up with the GSMD books. But, we can follow those generations forward and backward. 

So far, we know more of Thomas, George, and Richard. We know less about John, Sarah, Samuel, Miriam and Seeth. Despite Dr. Frank being a descendant of Samuel, we know less of his descendants than of the earlier boys. And, we are starting to fill in the gaps. This post is about a descendant of John. However, he also is a descendant of many families of Nantucket. 

Who is he? William Coffin Coleman was the founder of the Coleman Company. There is no American Boy Scout (probably male, too) that has not run across his lamp and other paraphernalia which is often associated with the outdoors, camping, fishing and such. This is a landlubber post; we will do more naval looks, too. 

William was born in New York, but his family moved to a southeastern country of KS. That area was oriented toward farming, but it was also how trains ran from points (ports) in TX to Kansas City and Saint Louis. As well, there were various types of mining (coal, chemicals) going on. His bio (Wikipedia) notes that he was in several places before he ended up in Wichita KS where the company was founded and existed for several years. 

We were looking at William with respect to John. See below.   

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When we got to this point in the post, we went looking, again, and could not verify this line. Now, the last point of knowledge is the FindAGrave of William's parents. His father was Robert Russell Coleman; his mother was Julia Coffin. Robert and Julia were both born in New York. In the 1870 Census, they are in New York, still, and have his mother (Anna) with them. So, given the families, Coleman, Coffin, Russell and a couple of others, one thinks of Nantucket (then Gardner comes forward). However, there were Coffins in Essex Co, to boot. Both Robert and Julia are the 6th/7th generation. 

We have seen lots of frontier situations further west. This case is nice as it's like a lot of others seen and handled. Even in the east region (Essex Co), we have had to track people through different little locations. In the west, we had families out there early on. Ipswich (churches thereof) sponsored lots of pioneering efforts (need to get the old notes back up to fore - we're trying to curate through zillions of little data bits collected over a decade via the sea of the internet). Ann's greats were out west (upper New York) for a while and then back in Salem. One avenue would be to find a family where Robert fits. Reminds us of New Hampshire. In one instance, a kid was noted but said to have left the area. We wandered in the material westward and found that he put roots down elsewhere. Much like Lyman. Born in MA. Buried in a lonely area out west. We can track his steps in-between. He's fine. One daughter of his is ignored since she died young (being followed by a step-mother for her young daughter). No paper trail. Wait! We've been down that path. Our goal? Get these people, categorically, considered in a more proper light. For one, it's the American thing to do; too, it's the 'honor' part of that old adage that might have more basis than many allow.    

Remarks: Modified: 04/23/2021

11/24/2020 -- Referenced this in America's Lost Generation. 

All that Louisiana brought

TL;DR -- Jefferson bought land west of the Mississippi. It and its watersheds to the west were serious barriers to movement. Yet, people endure and overcame. This whole region is full of descendants of early New England folk. We study the families and situations in order to fill in history with a personal note. 

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Incidentally, this continues a series related to western expansion. Efforts to move west started as soon as people were here, even before Winthrop. He arrived at Salem, didn't like it, went on to what is now Boston. This theme will be constant. Why? It honors all of those forgotten heroes (male and female) who got this country going, starting with the arrival of Thomas's crew at Cape Ann. History can look at the topmost issues; we will be looking at the nitty-gritty which is very much overlooked by many in this day of technology that entices yet offers no reality (yes, that is a focus, too, that we will touch upon). 

We have been trying to follow a few threads of families out of New England (upper right of the yellow region) to the south and to the west. As we do that, we have to consider the situational aspects with respect to culture, history and technology. The periods that we are looking at now run from the French Indian War through the Revolution and then through the War of 1812. That would be generations four, five and six. The location would be the east coast until after the Louisiana Purchase during the term of President Thomas Jefferson, the second President from the south. Before him had been President George Washington and President John Adams. 

So, we are not really paying attention to the larger picture as history has done a good job of that. We want to follow lots of families and consider the situations until, say, 1900. Or last post on this subject looked at Grizzly Adams who went from New England to California and back. Lots of people did this before Grizzly and continued to do so without cessation, even until now. One can cross the whole of the continent now within a matter of hours - without breaking laws such as speed. The record is under 28 hours. Imagine that if you were Daniel Boone who established one route. Naturally, he followed the American Indians who had been here long before. We will look at that, too. 

So, this map shows what was obtained in the deal that Jefferson did. In our posts, we have touched upon this area quite a lot. Take Kansas. Col. Higginson went there before the Civil War to help the free staters. John Brown was a friend of his. Before that, Jedediah Strong Smith was killed in Kansas. Those folks were New Englanders. About the same time, an itinerant came out of the south and was in the same area: Joseph L. Walker (1798-1876) - see the post on Grizzly Adams. 

Louisiana Purchase 

For now, let's just consider another map which was in the post on Cumberland Pass. 

The top map shows the western extent of the Mississippi's watershed. The extraordinary thing is that this was French territory and that it had been visited early. We will step back and look at that in the near future. Right now, we are focusing on the time from the exploration of Lewis & Clark that started in 1804. One thing to note is St. Louis which is in an area first explored in the 1670s. That was the period in which Thomas died. The river provided the means for movement. One thing to look at is the exploration of the rivers that feed into the Mississippi. Lewis & Clark went up the Missouri. People arrived from the east via the Ohio River. It's amazing that the eastern reach of the Mississippi is in Pennsylvania.  

Also, all of those wanderers that we have looked at so far went through St. Louis on the way to and from the left coast. Tales from the interior tell us a lot. We want to identify families and their groupings. Fortunately, lots of descendants fill the area.   

Remarks: Modified: 08/13/2021

02/15/2021 -- We are looking further at rivers as means of transportations as well as being barriers starting with the Mississippi River system. 

02/27/2021 -- Further on the western rivers (and the Missouri River). Changed to using American Indian. 

08/13/2021 -- Updates: Gloucester after Weymouth for the 400ths. The 250th of the sixth generation? SAR/DAR. 200ths: Michigan, Carving the land, Missouri and the west. 

Adams cousins

TL;DR -- After Lewis & Clark, lots of people went west. Some of these are New England folks of whom some are related to the Gardner families. Some came from the South. For all, we can compare the western experiences with those of people of the right coast. 

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We have several posts about cousins, such as Two cousins. We also have been looking at generations where we note that the 4th and 5th bore the brunt of the revolution. Then, we had the later generations down to now. Also, we looked at the early travelers to the west. 

With the recent election, the population size of each state comes up since the number of electoral votes is proportion to the number of people. So, we have from the top, CA, TX, NY and FL. Where CA is almost twice the size of NY. And, discussions go around to CA's problems. Water is a huge one. 

Due to the pressures from one city (LA), CA started to drain the interior dry in the early 1900s. We can start by reading about the life of William Mulholland (1855-1935). But, before long, we see that we have not really covered the history, yet, especially as it pertains to New England's long reach. 

Stepping back a bit, not only did we look at the early arrivals by land, we looked at their influences across the middle of the country, say Lawrence KS, Gardner CO, etc. Along with Jedediah, there were several explorers, such as Joseph R Walker (1798-1876) who was with a party that described Owens Valley. This location is where Mulholland, later, went to get his water. Now, it's estimated that a 1/3 of LA's water comes from this location. Ought we talk about the fires? 

Well, not, as we are looking at  American generations, for one. Joseph was born in TN; his family moved to MO, early. We have that area as a common theme, say Daniel Boone. Later, it was a location where the North/South conflict played out in a western area. But, Joseph went even further west. As did many others, from the early trickle to a later flood. Let's look at one. 

Remember Grizzly Adams (1812-1860) and his bear, Ben? Their story told on a TV show? Turns out that he's of the 7th generation which had the experience of the Gold Rush (49ers), the Civil War and more. Grizzly has a long New England pedigree and is cousin of John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) who was of the 6th (both from Henry Adams and from John Alden). 

So, we have two John Adams. One dealt with the wild people of politics; the other dealt with the wild creatures of nature (some of whom were people). Closer to home, both are cousins; one of them has a Thomas Gardner connection (Roxbury). 

Remarks: Modified: 01/14/2022

10/07/2021 -- Example use of WikiTree Connections: John Quincy Adams to John "Grizzly" Adams. 

01/14/2022 -- Weymouth, MA, birthplace of JQA's mother, is seeing their 400th this year. 

More than fiddling

TL;DR -- Counting follows from collecting. 

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Just updated the posts counts which looks at each month and year, from the beginning. This is only one blog which deals with content of various natures. As the last post noted, we have several configuration concerns to handle. Actually, everyone does. 

Aside: Before the 'cloud' came about, companies had fairly specific configuration modes that needed attention. Some bought services, but any group with significant intellectual property took care of it. With the cloud? It's a new game with a lot of fiddling and fuddling. But, as with life, we should always be learning. Now, the TGS, Inc. content, at this time, is fairly particular and of a minor scope. That will change, hence our thinking of the issues now. Too, we can discuss issues generally without our feet being in the fire. Would not want that. 

There is a new line in this report (first mentioned for August) that shows the number of posts per year accumulative to the end of October. The 'blogger' (Google) sets the stage with this as we don't own the clock. Yes, one benefit of the cloud is to offload worrying about such issues. 

Aside: That users just blithely figure that all of this is handled by experts can be an issue, especially if you want your company to do well (unfortunately, the web was let loose in a wild west mode from which we have never recovered - something about 'genies out of the bottle' that we all seem to find generation by generation. So, this is not something to take lightly. 

In earlier posts, we mentioned the amount of work being done (say, Presence and such) which also includes research on a regular basis (technical examples: Technology and content, Spectral issues, Techie stuff, ...; New England gone south, ...). Mostly, this type of work results in things taken for granted until there's an issue. Even with decades of experience, we don't seem to foresee very well. Actually, switch the context to the financial realm to note what we're referring to (say, the U.S. Fed).  

Remarks: Modified: 11/29/2020

11/29/2020 -- Updated the metric image for November 2020. 

Content and configuration

TL;DR -- Continuing theme that might become more major than not.  

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It has been encouraging of late to see several things happening, almost concurrently. Let us just list these with some comment. As a reminder, our portal (TGSoc.org) is where we support 'content' for things dealing with all aspects of the Thomas Gardner Society, Inc. as well as our interest in All Things Gardner. 

With this listing, we have to take little side trips (with curating being done a little later). There have been several studies being done that were disparate for the most part but had overlap, too. That, folks, is how life is. And? The computer has messed things up. Why? It'll provide a nice, beautiful numeric overlay that almost looks real. We can talk two senses, for now: where simulation reigns and appears as if to mimic nature (not, folks, as even with a tightly bound, smart sensor/reactor scheme, there is residue from the operational mathematics underlying the computational - basically, a rephrase of what the academics (CompSci) talk about, but not); or, in robotics, where we have seen the evolution come to machine learning, there is still that reliance upon the numeric/compute dynamic which looks very smart with its quick, huge abacus collective - marvelous -  which by no means approaches intuition of the talented human. 

Now, that's a mouthful, but it's offered liked Halloween candy, yet not. Our problem is how to bring more than hermeneutics into the technical experiences of now. And, we can learn from the past. Need to. The issue, though, is that the past five decades have us now in a bind of unknown proportions and types. This is not a political observation. No, of course, human affairs are complex. And, people have to make decisions. That's the point; offloading our responsibilities to a computer (with origins in Silly Valley or China or elsewhere) does not wisdom make (think Emerson, for one - yes, we have 400 years to look at in terms of the U.S. experience). 

Now, those two studies? One was look at John Gardner's relationship with Giles Corey. That covered a decade where the changes through that time were in parallel with those in the technology world. But, too, we were learning. What lesson cropped up? Curating. We need to start to spend time with that; however, it will be done in the context of content and configuration. Right now, we'll say this: one person's content is another's configuration. There are plenty of computer examples to use. Later. 

Now, the other deals with an adage and breaking it. Namely, we blokes here (norte of the americanas) ought to handle our own stuff. Let us tell you, the frontier experience of the U.S. is even worse than that of the Great Migration for various reasons. Yes. England had no parallel with this. You might see it elsewhere; however our experiences (US) after the Revolution can be a huge wealth of data. So, we look at our stuff here and let the Brits do their thing on their side. But, the focus on Margaret is forcing us to look at the Fryer/Friar family which is not here. The context: Editing Margaret's past. When one looks at Sherborne, there are many Gardner families (Dorset region). Friar seems to be lesser in size of the data set. So that is one motivator. 

However, we are using technology to do this, in a manner that was not available a decade ago. The first notion of this area, beyond reading John's comments (about his talks with his father), was in 2014. There has been some indexing of a slew of images. But, people have warned of these. A lot of the work might just be stepping through images (not unlike scrolling the pages on the micrograph device), except that it's easier. 

How might we say this? Looking at some of the frontier records this past summer was just that. It's astounding that we can do this work and be so blasé about what's under the covers. That is one of the reasons for this type of discussion. We need awareness that is attuned. 

It's funny. we see people realizing that html/css/js is sufficient for a whole lot of stuff. In fact, there are some additions that drive a whole lot of work. Myself, we've gotten to where Julia looks good. It's Python'ish but with extensions that do serious stuff (Lisp'ish). And, it handles the front and back ends. Given the above, of course, we want to discuss the middle out. So much more to look at. 

So, we'll be back to this theme on a regular basis. Curating? It applies to both content management and configuration control. Mind you, both of those have lots of other characterizations. The one truth? Roles are; the needed hat differs by role; balancing hats is what capable people do; the computer comes in and screws up the thinking with its 'magical' chimera'ish nature; many get hurt, led astray, even almost maimed, or driven into slavery (debt, for one); solutions will come from stepping back; we have lots of lessons pending that have been ignored, way too long; independent people will the the key to the future where one needs to know for oneself - 'trust but verify' is part of the solution; knowing how to do this with technology versus people are not the same skill set.  

Remarks: Modified: 11/03/2020

11/03/2020 -- Added image for our portal (https://TGSoc.org). Also, More than fiddling is more on the subject. 

Giles Corey

TL;DR -- Giles Corey deserves our attention and respect.  

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We have had a few references to Giles. Ever since we read of his ordeal, he has been on the list of heroes. We, recently, heard from a descendant of Giles who had some questions. More on that below. 

First, some of the references to Giles Corey:

• Pressing Day (19 Sep 2018) -- Giles died on that day in 1692. 
• Howard Street Burial Ground (18 Feb 2020) -- Giles was buried in an unmarked area in this cemetery which is in very poor condition, from what we heard. 
• Afterthoughts & Modifications (29 Oct 2012) --- In our first fall issue of Gardner's Beacon (Vol I, No 4), we mentioned Giles and his sons. We ought to have referenced Giles' daughters and his sons-in-law. Also, we mentioned that Giles wife had been hanged, but that was three days later (Martha Corey). 
• Gardner's Beacon (Vol I, No 4)  (21 Oct 2011) -- So, the error was a year before where we look at Silly Salem and its yearly bowing down to those who want to turn real stuff into Disneyland'ish fare. Last year, at last, they restricted access to one cemetery (Charter Street) which was being destroyed by the yearly on slot. We also mention that the Court asked John Gardner to talk Giles out of his fervor. But, he was trying to save his property for his progeny. 
•  Ruth Gardner (11 Sep 2011) -- While writing of Ruth who married George Gardner (son of Thomas Gardner and Margaret Fryer), we made several additional comments, such as this: 10/19/2011 -- Need to mention Jonathan's son, George, as seen from the Corey side (stale pointer - coryfamsoc.com): The only person who seemed to profit from the witchcraft hysteria was Sheriff George Corwin who confiscated property and pocketed fees collected from the accused and their relatives.
• South (east and central) Essex County (9 Jan 2011) -- we mentioned four people and site. First was Sidney Perley about whom we have written a lot (like figuring out the lynching site - and how Gallows Hill relates - over 100 years earlier than the modern mind). And, then the Trials of 1692, we mentioned that recognition of Giles Corey ought to be universal. There was this thing called "This week in Salem" (defunct?). Finally, John Goff who contributed a lot. 

As noted in 2011, we need to pay more attention to Giles Corey. 

Some questions were about John Gardner: identity, why was he there?, and such. Finally, we got around to trying to document all of the progeny of Thomas and Margaret Gardner to about 1900. Until now, we have been sampling for each child: Descendants of John. An example, we have had several topical post about John, such as being on the crew that mapped the Merrimack. But, we have done the same for each child; we will pull these together like this post for John Gardner. It was John who got us to focus on Sherborne, Dorset, England in the context of origins (latest post on work at WikiTree - Margaret Friar). So, lots of continuing work. 

But, we have questions, too. For instance, how long was the trip (miles and time) from Salem to Nantucket in the 1600s? There are more. 

Remarks: Modified: 10/31/2020

10/31/2020 --