Jan 2017, ..., reorganizing the reports, will have two issues of The Gardner Annals this year, ...,

• As a means to support collecting information about Thomas and Margaret descendants, the ahnentafel (see LWF and CSG) approach offers some advantage. It is terse, can be parsed, and does follow a standard. Many think of it as a presentation method, however the technique can support research.
  
• An example of how to build a strong case that can be verified is the ahnentafel which provides information on each generation going back.
  
• Let's use Benjamin Brown Gardner (please see comment about the table) who was grandfather of Frank A. Gardner as an example. Notice the links to the Eliza Starbuck Barney database at NHA (see below).
  
• One benefit is that each line has a meaningful number. Starting with the applicant (#1), there are the parents (#2, father; #3, mother), then the grandparents (#4, grandfather; #5, grandmother). To this point, the numbers were in sequence, but now there will be splits. #8 and #9 are the paternal great-grandparents. #10 and #11 are the maternal great-grandparents. 
• Notice, that the #10 for the grandmother's father is twice #5 which is her number; grandmother's mother is #11. For each generation, there are two: even and odd. This means that if you see #129, you know that the husband is #128. He is the father of #64 who is the father of #32 who is the father of #16 and so on down to #2.
  
• So, in this case, Margaret is #129. Her son, Samuel, is #64; his son, Abel, is #32. #1 Gardner son is Frank's father.  
• We are working an example of sourcing the material. See Step 1 - so named, as this pass shows first level documents, such as Vital Records. Subsequent steps will complete the process and demonstrate requirement for membership applications. 
  
• See on-going discussions about handling sensitive material and sourcing the lineage.
• The ahnentafel process can be used down to the applicant as a form of membership application. Until we are prepared to handle private data, the support for applications would be required only from the great-grandparents back. That is, we would not need birth, marriage, death information before #8, in terms of the applicant. For now, that is, as the emphasis is on filling in Thomas' tree.
  
• We are doing an example using a Nantucket Gardner line. NHA (Nantucket Historical Association) has a database built from information gathered by Eliza Barney (see above). We will be using Stephen Gardner, and his son Isaac, who are ancestors of Eric Roth. That is, the end result will be a source ahnentafel.