To date, mainly

TL;DR -- This post looks at two major themes: origins and technology. There will be others to look at later. The issue of origins came about due to additional digitization of records which is an advance in several technologies. Going forward, technological improvement will be more generally available and useful to the point of being problematic since the matter of complication always lurks.  

--  

Right now, as we pull Gardner's Beacon, Vol. XIII, No. 1 together, we are looking at themes from this year's work and at major themes from the beginning. We have two huge changes coming. One deals with origins which has been a puzzle. This year we have need information to process which requires that we rework the story. The other category needing attention is our future focus in a world of increasing technology. Of course, the principal portions will deal with family and country. But, there is also culture and the roles of the U.S. Included here will be technology. 

With regard to origins, we applied a rule that we saw early: those here need to focus on U.S. records and do it right; that related to the other side of the big water is the responsibility of those there. With technology now, we can broaden our scope. In fact, we need to in order to fill in the pieces that have puzzled for centuries. Sherborn records have been quite helpful albeit shaking the foundation. Gardner research will step up to helping with the work and related discussions. We have used the WikiTree Magna Carta project as an example. However, ancestry's work on images is to be acknowledged. 

In terms of the second point, we have the colonial times to research, including New Spain: Hernando de Soto, for example. Then, there is the time of the colonies leading up to the Revolution whose remembrance is coming up in 2026 (247th of the U.S.). Along with the development of the country, we can look at education (Harvard and its Leaders, for example). 

After the Revolution, we have subjects like the frontier and lost generations to research. This came up while researching applicant heritages for DAR/SAR. Research now will have heavy computer assistance that will continue to get better over time. Noticable prowess that increases is one piece of evidence, such as we saw the the November of 2022 release of ChatGPT.  

---------

One of our recent posts has gone up the list of reads to be second overall since the beginning which was back in 2010. We went to look at the numbers by time and confirmed the report. The image shows the first five posts on the list (see the menu area on the right of the blog). The most popular is still about the marriage of Thomas and Margaret (2014). Since then, we have seen the baptism of all of the children come to the fore due to digitization. The second item is this post: A(rtificial) I(ntelligence) researched properly (2021). The occasion was the usual review that we have done with respect to choices along the way with respect to how we handle and manage technology. The thing to note is that the post was over a year before the arrival of ChatGPT. Later, posts cover the topic of the generative approach. We will use the term xNN/LLM as we discuss this further. Then, we have the one from yearend of 2011 where were going back over the activity of the year. The 2013 post (Plus or minus the arrival) was from our research dealing with origins. Turns out that this topic is still on the plate. Then, early on, we looked at Gardners of various types. That was in 2010. Again, this is a recurring theme.  

Remarks: Modified: 08/22/2023

08/22/2023 -- Added image and verbiage about technology, especially AI.