Wives and children of George

As in, George, son of Thomas, and father of Ruth who was wife of John Hawthorne and ancestor of Nathaniel, the author.

I pulled this image from the TAG (30, McCracken) article referenced by Anderson in his Great Migration write up about George. In that same TAG article, there was discussion of the wives of Thomas and the Shattuck family.

... more coming ...

Remarks:  Modified: 11/10/2015

11/10/2015 -- 

Wikipedia

This is one of several projects (also, Sherborne, Dorset) about which we will have a regular status update.

About a year ago, an issue tag (multiple) was put on the Thomas Gardner (planter) page on Wikipedia. See the Talk page for some discussion of this and for subsequent changes. The image shows the current state of the page.

There will be more editing. For one thing, the text is based upon Dr. Frank's view. Since his time, there has been a lot of research some of which has been covered by this blog. So, another section will be added to bring in the other viewpoints.

Remember, all things need (ought) to be sourced with good citations.

Too, we will be going to other informational sites, such as Quora (related post).

Remarks:  Modified: 10/23/2015

10/23/2015 -- See Talk page on clarification of unreliable references. Wiki doesn't like Higginson published works (which includes Dr Frank's books), family-oriented sites, blogspot, ... So, there is some work to do to find replacements. A lot of Dr Frank's stuff was quoted in Sydney's History of Salem. So, that will work. The others will take a little more effort. C'est la vie.  

Miscellaneous status

Last year, about this time, we had a diversion to Charles Olson. He was the Gloucester poet. Also, in that same post, we mentioned paleoichnology. These themes concern relating to prior times.

Of late, I ran across Alberto Rios. One (The Who That I Am) of his poems struck several chords. I have attached an image, from Mesa Arts Center.

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For a couple of months, I have used Quora. It has a question/answer format (see examples). I need to collect those answers related to New England history and other TGS interests. Several times, I have seen answers that were lifted from elsewhere on the web, with no attribution. That type of copying seems to be taken as okay, as if plagiarism is the norm and acceptable.

Yet, one has to think that some type of structure could be built there. Wikipedia has a policy of no original research. Quora does not have that NOR restriction. They do have the neutral tone policy which is not hard to adopt.

Remarks:  Modified: 09/23/2015

09/22/2015 --

Unique ancestors

As we dig for ancestors, we can think about lots of things, of which numbers (example) is one. How many ancestors do we have and how many can we identify?

We know that intermarriage between families reduces the number since an ancestor will appear in more than one part of the tree. So, how common is that situation? Using Dr. Frank, in one of his ahnentafels, there is no duplication until the immigration time.

These types  of question has been posed many times. And, they have been looked at in various ways. Of interest is a 1978 paper by Kenneth Wachter, titled "Ancestors at the Norman Conquest." This paper has been referenced in a lot of subsequent work. Too, we find statisticians and others weighing in.

I ran across this question on Quora: For most of us, how far back in time do we have to go before we no longer have unique ancestors in every generation? There are several answers. One was given by David Joyce who does genealogy well. I have run across his work several times and considers those who have colonial ancestors.

There was a book in 2002 by Steve Olson, titled "Mapping Human History" (USA Today story) in which he discusses a common ancestor for all of us. We have all heard of Lucy. But, is there one closer in time? Olson claims that around 1,200 years back we could find an ancestor who appears multiple times (as in, 1000s of times) in our tree.

Using the generational count, we could figure that there are a trillion people on the tree. At at time, there were 200 million on Earth. So, we know that each person, if they had children, would appear multiple times. But, many did not have children. Too, many had lines that died out long before we got to the present.

There are many more studies that we could discuss. But, in terms of Thomas, we do not know his ancestors, yet. Our goal is to find out who they are.

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We are looking to build some knowledge about Thomas using Quora. But, more, we hope to fill in information through this type of crowd sourcing.

Remarks:  Modified: 03/14/2019

09/03/2015 -- David Joyce's site.

09/22/2015 -- A related question: Is-there-anyone-for-whom-all-1-024-of-his-her-10th-generation-ancestors-are-traceable-all-of-them-separate-individuals

03/14/2019 -- Added image so that we can index at our portal to truth.

Where isThomas? III

Context is:

Where was he and is he?

-- Where is Thomas?: Initial question with material from Dr. Frank and from Harmony Grove Cemetery. The brochure of the HGC mentions the land modifications caused by the road work and gives some indication of who was moved (put image from their brochure).
-- Where is Thomas? II: Follow-on post with a Bing map of the area. In there, where?
-- Where was he and is he?: Finally, I used a Perley (did good work, knew Dr. Frank) map along side Google (properly aligned). Partly, it was to show that these sketches were done well given that people were not yet able to have a neighborhood view. Aside: John Gardner's work with the Merrimack mapping crew still stands.      

Saturday, last, someone, on Wikipedia (see Status of page), changed the Burial section on the Thomas Gardner page as follows ("Before edit" was the original status; "Change" was the modification that had no source added; "Correction" is the current state until edited):

Before edit: Thomas was buried on Gardner Hill near present-day Boston Street and Grove in Salem. His daughter Seeth and his grandson Abel are also buried there.[16] Abel's wife, Sarah Porter Gardner, whose mother was the sister of John Hathorne, was buried with her husband. The remains of Thomas and many others were moved from the old burial ground to Harmony Grove Cemetery in the 1840s. 

Change (in italics): Thomas was buried on Gardner Hill aka Gardner Burying Ground near present-day Boston Street and Grove in Salem. His daughter Seeth and his grandson Abel are also buried there.[16] Abel's wife, Sarah Porter Gardner, whose mother was the sister of John Hathorne, was buried with her husband. A 1692 map of the area shows that the Gardner Burying Ground was in the same location as present day Harmony Grove Cemetery, which was incorporated in the 1840s.

Correction: Thomas was buried on Gardner Hill aka Gardner Burying Ground near present-day Boston Street and Grove in Salem. His daughter Seeth and his grandson Abel are also buried there.[16] Abel's wife, Sarah Porter Gardner, whose mother was the sister of John Hathorne, was buried with her husband. The remains of Thomas and many others were moved from the old burial ground to Harmony Grove Cemetery in the 1840s.[55] A 1692 map of the area shows that the Gardner Burying Ground was in close proximity to Harmony Grove which was incorporated in the 1840s.   

One of my remarks to the "Change" was that "same" is not congruent. Of course, we are talking the same area. The bodies were not moved very far (we can have a contest to determine the actual distance).

Let's get serious. As well, this change had no supporting material. That is a no-no on Wiki. See status of the Thomas Gardner page. Someone put tags (ignore unless you want to help). After that, I did some changes (such as not reference pages done by families, etc.). Also, some "politically incorrect" sections (I know, I was spouting off as a newbie) were removed. The page now is good. I'm waiting for someone else to remove the tags.

To us, this burial issue is open and needs to be resolved before the 400th, if not sooner.

Remarks:  Modified: 05/16/2019

08/17/2015 -- We will put an image of the HGC brochure on the blog.

08/12/2018 -- Thomas, with others on Gardner Hill, was left where he was. Stones were moved over to Harmony Grove Cemetery. A few of those withstood the move, say that for Seeth. Most did not and are piled somewhere. At the burial site, though, the road was cut through. So, the remains? Well, moved to God only knows. Or, if the burial was away from the road, it is beneath some structure. Lots to think about. Reflect on. How to proceed into this mire?

11/13/2018 -- With a new twist, as bodies and stones were also moved to the Trask site. Add in Sidney Perley's map of Gardner Hill.

01/04/2019 -- This topic will be followed more regularly this year (344th of 29 December 1674). We will initiate a discussion on WikiTree (see link in sidebar) in support of the research.

02/28/2019 -- Gardner's Beacon, Vol. IX, No. 1 gives an overview of what we know after looking at the issue of missing graves. Then, there are more missing graves, we see.

05/16/2019 -- The map that compares Sidney's walk-about with Google is way off. That is because I was looking at landmarks and not paying attention to details, like distance. So, see this update: How close is close ? II. Here is the updated graphics.

Oh yes, we are now honing into the area. 

Cape Ann settlers

We know that Thomas came over with a group that was trying to establish commercial activities in New England, at Cape Ann, in the sense of being able to send product back across the waters. The Zouch Phoenix list suggests who was there. However, there were other participants. Crews had been visiting the area for a while; among these would have been fishing interests from the other Cape.

One person was Woodbury (namely, John). See Nutfield's post about meetings of John's descendants. John had a brother, William, who came over, too.

Anyone with an extended tree with Essex County, MA ancestors may find some one who was at Cape Ann. Some of these are listed as Old Planters (Conant, Balch, Woodbury, Palfrey and, sometimes, Trask). Others stayed around, too, such as Allen, Norman, and Gardner. Too, we cannot forget Tylly.

400th, again

Aside: Dr. Frank tried to expand upon the "Old Planters" with an illustrious group of collaborators, but he didn't get far. We need to recognize the Balchs and Woodburys and others for meeting together all of these years on a regular basis.

Now, our intent is to gather information about the Cape Ann families and present this in a coherent manner. The interest in these things will grow as we go toward the 400ths (BTW, early 400th, 1941, Quivira, in Kansas).

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So, we will find descendants, hopefully, of all of the Cape Ann group. As an example, in one tree, I found these Woodbury lineages which shows how families can relate and interrelate.

John --> Lydia (Woodbury) Herrick
John --> Peter --> Priscilla (Woodbury) Ober
John --> Humphrey --> Isaac --> Robert --> Thomas --> Ruth (Woodbury) Ober
William --> Hannah (Woodbury) Haskell
William --> Nicholas --> Abigail (Woodbury) Ober
William --> Nicholas --> Joseph --> Hannah (Woodbury) Masters

Those strings terminate at a daughter (I'll do another view later to show the wives at each generation) and can be brought forward.

Remarks:  Modified: 03/14/2019

03/14/2019 -- Another look: Cape Ann Retrospective. Added this to the image index on our portal to truth. 

Gardner, KS

Earlier, we looked at places with the Gard[i]ner name. Then, we took Gardiner, OR and wrote about the person for whom the town was named, Henry Dearborn Gardiner (pg 31, v 35, no 1, TEG; pg 6, v II,n I, The Gardner Annals). That same family was the inspiration for Gardiner, ME.

So, talking of Oregon, there is a town on the trails (see next) in Kansas, named Gardner. It may have been named for Henry Joseph Gardner, Governor of Massachusetts (1855-1858) as there were many pioneers from Massachusetts in the area.

First, about the town. It was where three trails split into two: Santa Fe Trail, Oregon/California Trails. The Santa Fe Trail ended up in a city in one of the oldest areas of the U.S. The other two trails were coincident until much further west where the California Trail headed south; after going west out of Gardner for awhile, they headed up to Nebraska then west to what is now called Wyoming.

Now the Gardner was Henry Joseph Gardner who was a descendant of Richard Gardner of Woburn who is on the list provided by Dr. Frank (the Gardners and Gardners post is the most popular all time).

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The mid-west and central parts of the country are full of displaced New Englanders. A little up the road from Gardner is Lawrence whose main drag is named Massachusetts.

Remarks:  Modified: 06/24/2022

04/02/2016 -- Map showing Gardner Junction and the split of the trails west of Gardner, KS.

08/13/2017 -- Posts on Lawrence (and surrounds): Trails West, Westward Ho, Blogging and such, Final Migration, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Kansas and Lawrence. 

10/26/2018 -- Map of Gardner Junction. 

08/07/2020 -- In this post, we are looking at two disparate spots that share a name, however there are many points in-between. Like Eudora, KS. Where "The Wakarusa meets the Kaw" is on their history site and is an example of local lore getting some attention. See "Along the Western Trails."

06/24/2022 -- Updated links to Eudora's website as topic continues to be of interest: A Ride to Kansas.