Category Archives: Writing

Genealogy, Projects, Writing

Descendants of John Thayer

WGRCAlogosm

I wrote this piece for the Genealogical Archive.

~FBJ

505 years has transpired through this 16 generation descendancy, five centuries, half a millennium. When I inherited the genealogy project from my mother, generations 16 back through 10 where in the research files my grandmother had compiled. When I discovered the Chase family bible among the files and memorabilia, I found a few clues that helped me track down nine more generations to John Thayer.

John Thayer was born in 1503 in Thornbury, Gloucester, England. The Thayers, from John to Cicely where all from Thornbury. Cicely came across the Atlantic to set up hearth in Haverhill Massachusetts. The family stayed in Massachusetts (Haverhill, Rehoboth, and Swansea) until Benjamin Chase and Abigail Mason moved the line to Wisconsin where the family lived until Mortimer Wanzer and Virginia Rogers moved to Kansas. Robert Wanzer and Wanieta Sullivan moved from Kansas to California where the rest of the line resides to this day.

Efforts to keep moving back in time are presently at an impasse. I am stuck at the very beginning of the 16th century. This will give me time to fill in some of the blanks and check citations and get copies of documents.

The family names that span the 5 centuries are Thayer, Davis, Barney, Davis, Saunders, Chase, and Wanzer.

1. John Thayer (b. 1503 d. 1562)
sp: Constance (b. 1507 d. 1576)

2. John Thayer (b.1531 d. 1584)
sp: Mary Roberts (b. 1537 d.1611)

3. Edward Thayer
sp: Katherine Eddys (b. 1578 d.1658)

4. Cicely Thayer (b. 1600 d. 1673)
sp: James Davis (d. 1676)

5. James Davis (b. 1620 d. 1694)
sp: Elizabeth Eaton (b. 1625 d. 1683)

6. Constance Davis (b. 1674 d. 1721)
sp: Joseph Barney (b. 1673 d. 1731)

7. Esther Barney (b. 1706 d. 1778)
sp: Daniel Davis (b. 1697 d. 1741)

8. Mary Davis (b.1739;d.1799)
sp: Benjamin Saunders (b. 1736 d. 1808)

9. Constance Saunders (b. 1758)
sp: Jacob Chase (b. 1758 d.1818)

10. Benjamin Chase (b. 1782 d. 1847)
sp: Abigail Mason (b. 1793 d. 1853)

11. Melvina N Chase (b. 1836 d. 1919)
sp: Andrew Jackson Wanzer (b. 1837 d. 1889)

12. Mortimer Leroy Wanzer (b. 1878 d. 1947)
sp: Virginia Mary Rogers (b. 1892 d. 1974)

13. Robert Wheeler Wanzer (b. 1920 d. 1962)
sp: Wanieta Ruth Sullivan (b. 1916 d. 2004)

14. Virginia Louise Wanzer (b. 1942 d. 2006)
sp: Lester leland Raines (b.1924)

15. Jonathan Wheeler Wanzer (b. 1967)
sp: Tammy Irene Veloza (b. 1972)

16. Zachery Patrick Wanzer (b. 1995)

Filmmaking, Media Production, Writing

A Book Project

Motion Picture Budget Book and
Motion Picture Budget Workbook

topsheet

This is a set of books I have been working on for some time now. The books are intended to help film students and new producers understand the budget process and provide a foundation for budget development. The Workbook is available here in its preliminary format for your perusal.

Even if you are not involved in production this workbook will give you an idea as to what goes into making a major motion picture.

Please feel free to post any comments you may have on this project.

~FBJ

Development, Writing

Daedalus Development

Writing, for me, is a complicated process. Alternate history requires a knowledge of history, alternate technology requires a knowledge of period technology, add historical figures, and this brings on a whole new level of study.

As you can most likely imagine I have been immersed in research for the last couple of days for the Daedalus project. One thing that kept me up last night was an idea for a steam powered mechanical/electrical power generation system.

The power generation system is a single boiler plumbed to multiple, steam turbines, lined up in series. The turbines have a direct drive gear with a flywheel and clutch, below the turbine is a gear box that allows an operator change gear ratios or to a different PTO (Power Take Off ) system, gear, screw, belt, or directly to a rotor/stater generator for electrical power generation. This provides a modular configuration making it easy to add engines or change the configuration of power transfer without shutting down the entire system. Very flexible, and maintainable.

With turbines lined up in series, pairs could be assigned to critical tasks, it would then be easy to pull one engine down for maintenance. Clutch the engine in need of service out, and its mate in, now you can switch back and forth and disassemble and service ether one without loosing a beat.

By introducing a secondary boiler you can create a level of redundancy that provides a maximum of reliability, efficiency and mechanical/electrical power output. This whole operation could provide mechanical and electrical power for a large facility with only a few people in the engine room.

A different configuration using the same components would be a distributed drive system moving the engines close to the equipment requiring power and plumbing the steam to the engines. Although this reduces the mechanical complexities of power transfer it is inherently more dangerous. Running high pressure steam pipes and steam turbine engines throughout the facility is just asking for trouble.

In ether case, the most complex part of the system is the delivery of the mechanical energy to the equipment in need of it. The placement of the engine room and the layout are totally dependent on the operations of the facility.

Ah, Industrial Revolution period engineering. Looks like fun to me.

~FBJ