Restart, somewhat

TL;DR -- Two events in 2023 were seminal; these carried over into 2024 which is 8 months old. The two relate to each other. And, pending changes to our material has been pending. Time to start that process. 

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In 2023, Gloucester has its 400th. Some felt that it would be 2024. We will look more into that as the closes out. 

Since early 2023, we have adapted to two things: possibly, there are two Thomases; GenAI came on the scene and changed the world in ways that can be taken positively or negatively. Let's look at these two.

• The first was the result of research that the TGS has been doing. In March of 2023, we were looking to have Margaret Fryer Gardner as a focus. But, on looking at WikiTree, we saw that in February of 2023, we saw that research had identified birth records of the children in the records of Sherborne, Dorset, England. Those who discussed the findings decided to split the Thomas Gardner profile into two with the first Thomas being here for the start of the effort by Dorchester Company while the second Thomas was the husband of Margaret and father of the kids. See the post (New not old planter). After a little more reading, we decided that we see these two as one. However, we will make the demarcation (two profiles) now, in our records and websites. Further research then will be documented. At some future point, the hope is to have sufficient information to make a decision. In the meantime, we can discuss why we think it's one guy. 
• In November of 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT to extreme acclaim and got millions of people to sign on. We missed that event for several reasons that might be of interest. It was not until February of 2023 that we became aware of ChatGPT. In our first session, we told ChatGPT about Thomas Gardner and Roger Conant (at the same time, the research at WikiTree was progressing). Since then, we have interfaced with various GenAI systems (we like Bard and still are using Gemini for testing), reviewed the mathematical basis for the claims, discussed means to get maturity brought to the action, and a lot more. Basically, this goes along with our decision to focus on technology.  
  
  
  

So, now, we will restructure. Per usual, we will continue to have the FAQ which will be brought up to date. Also, we will release issues of Gardner's Beacon periodically, hopefully with more of a regularity. 

Remarks: Modified: 09/015/2024

09/15/2024 -- People will always be the focus, rather than technology.