Hi Mike and List, Sorry to be slow in replying to yours of Sunday regarding sources for Thomas Beard. Have looked into the matter and have this to report: The 1629 reference to a Thomas Beard who was recommended to the Massachusetts Bay Company by Mr. Simon Whetcombe and who, as part of the deal, would receive a grant of 50 acres of land, took place in England, not in New England. Because no one of the name is seen in New England until the 1640s, it is considered that the 1629 man did not come (Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Records of The Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Vol. 1 [1628-1641], published in Boston, 1853, pp. 404-405). It would be extremely unlikely that someone could spend that many years in New England and not appear in some record; it would also be unlikely that he would be here until 1643 before becoming a freeman enabling him to vote, especially if he was a property owner. Consequently, I am confident that we are dealing with two different individuals unless it can be shown at some point that the 1629 man stayed in England, then later rekindled his interest in the Colonies and came some years later after all. That he came in 1629 leaving no record of himself for well over a decade is virtually impossible. As to the Topographical Dictionary of 2885 English Emigrants to New England, 1620-1650, this is not considered a reliable source, and indeed anyone using it will see that it contradicts itself in many places. One needs to understand how this was produced. After Col. Banks died, Mr. Brownell, a friend of his, took Banks's scattered, unedited notes which he had made over the years for his own amusement as clues to English origins of early New England settlers, and just put them together and published them in Col. Banks's name, thinking he was honoring his friend. Probably Banks would have been horrified if he knew that all those rough notes were out there for the world to use, as he must have known that they were internally inconsistent and had just been made for his own use. No editing of them was done at all. I have not seen the Family Tree Maker or Winthrop Society www notes you mention, so cannot comment. If these are submissions by subscribers, then one would have to look at their sources to evaluate them. Savage and Pope were both major accomplishments for their time, but newer research over the years has shown that they cannot be relied on too heavily for accuracy any more. They were brilliant accomplishments back then, but do not pass the tests required now for authoritative scholarship. Nevertheless they are good for clues, but should not be used as sources; statements found in them always need to be studied further and verified. "Primary sources" refers to original records, as opposed to published copies or extracts of them, or any form of synthesized material based on them. For example, an original will or probate file is a primary source, whereas a genealogy or computer database which claims to have seen and used the will or probate material is a secondary source. Some secondary sources are very carefully done, but many others are not, and one can always misinterpret evidence. Therefore, recourse to the original, primary source is always advised when there is conflicting information or any doubt whatsoever about conclusions. Fortunately many original source records are now available on microform and in scholarly record series (such as Shurtleff, mentioned above), so it is not always necessary to handle the fragile old papers themselves. I hope this is of interest to you and others on the list. Sorry to post all of this to the list at large, but since the previous e-mails were sent to everyone I thought I should continue to do so with this. The Thomas Beard who surfaced in the 1640s, and almost certainly had not been here long when he did, showed up in Dover actually, rather than Strawbery Banke (see Noyes, Libby and Davis, The Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, p. 85). In fact, I do not see any connection between him or any of his children and what is now Rockingham County, except that one of his sons was jailed in Hampton at one point for hitting his wife in the head with a stave and threatening her life! Best wishes, George F. Sanborn Jr., F.A.S.G. The Great Migration Study Project New England Historic Genealogical Society Boston