Yesterday at the CT Gen. Soc. meeting the speaker was Brian Donahue, Asst. Professor of American Environmental Studies, Jack Meyerhoff Foundation, Brandeis Univ. He is doing a comprehensive study on the land at Concord, MA, and how it changed over time starting in the 1600's. The Brooks family was prominently mentioned ( Noah, Samuel, etc.) Donahue has written a book "The Great Meadow," Yale University Press, covering these earliest times in which he told me that the Brooks are major players -- said they were tanners. I thought that those researching that line might want to be aware of this. At the lecture he had many maps of where properties were owned by the people as the town and environs were settled and began to grow. He talked about why lots were scattered around so that everyone got a piece of particular lands. As a disclaimer, I have no interest in this publication or its author. FYI he has used GIS in working on the land maps and has developed a piece of software for doing mapping that he hopes to put out for general use as he thinks genealogists and others would be interested in it. (Usual obstacle is funding.) Cheshire Jean