By Alan Burke
Staff writer
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MARBLEHEAD — Ever dig down beneath your family tree to see where the roots lead? A kid from Jacksonville, Fla., plans to do just that here in Marblehead, and the Disney Channel will be along to record it.
Noah Gerry is 12 and a descendant of patriot Elbridge Gerry, the revolutionary, Massachusetts governor and vice president of the United States under James Madison. Producer Bob McGinness of B2 Studios in Hollywood is bringing Noah and his whole family back here Aug. 27 to produce two minutes on the family's ancestry for a Disney feature called "My Family Tree."
The plan is to videotape them in front of Gerry-friendly sites, like the Gerry School and Gerry playground. (Abbot Hall, where Gerry's bust looks sternly down on the "Spirit of '76" painting, might be included, too.)
Of course, Gerry's most lasting achievement — he would have hated this — is the creation of the fishiest creature in the history of democracy, the gerrymander. It appears whenever authorities carve a voting district into bizarre shapes to maximize their party's strengths.
Gerry later moved to Cambridge, notes local historian Don Doliber, so his ancestors might be scattered far and wide. But he was born here, in contrast to Marblehead hero Gen. John Glover, who was born in Salem. For that matter, Doliber notes, the current chief justice of the Supreme Court is John Glover Roberts Jr.
Yet, according to one online source, the court boss traces his Glover ancestors to Britain in the mid-19th century, long after John Glover was ferrying George Washington across the Delaware River.
What's he saying in Beverly?
Yesterday, Congressman John Tierney, D-Salem, attended Gov. Deval Patrick's signing of a bill recognizing Salem as the birthplace of the National Guard. Unbidden, he weighed in on one of the longest-running controversies on the North Shore.
"When it comes to the Navy," he quipped, "we have to be real careful what we say in Marblehead and what we say in Beverly."
Both communities claim bragging rights as the birthplace of the American Navy — though, of late, Beverly has been less than diligent in defending its claim.
More on the Hamiltons
He's 70 years old, but Tyler Hamilton's dad, Bill, plans to join his son's MS Global 2010 fundraising bike ride Sept. 13 to 19 in New Hampshire and Vermont. Marblehead Cycle is raffling off a ticket for any biker who wants to go. Others will ante up a substantial entry fee.
All the money goes to fighting multiple sclerosis. At last year's event, the Hamiltons raised $60,000. This year's charity is the Accelerated Cure Project for MS.
Some of the event participants are MS sufferers.
Bill Hamilton explains that this is not a race. Groups of bikers will begin the course at different times, allowing the slower cyclists to get a jump.
"I'm in the slow group," he says. "Oftentimes, Tyler will end up pushing me."
Tyler Hamilton oversees it all. "No one ever, ever rides alone," Bill Hamilton says. If anyone has difficulty keeping pace, "Ride leaders go back to ride with them." And Tyler spends some part of each day riding with each and every person.
The event is expected to attract serious recreational bikers.
Remembering a genocide
It may seem more volatile than ever, but the Middle East has almost always been a place of conflict. Apo Torosyan of Peabody will make that case on Marblehead's MHTV, Channel 10 (Comcast) and Channel 28 (Verizon), on Monday at 7:30 p.m. and Tuesday at 1 p.m.
An artist and filmmaker, Torosyan has devoted much of his work to illuminating the Armenian Genocide, a 20th-century event he traces to much earlier in Turkish history. In an interview with Robert McAndrews, Salem University professor and president of the Holocaust Center Boston North, he reviews the little-remembered Red Sultan Abdul Hamit, accused of responsibility in mass killings during the 19th century.
Torosyan traces that, in turn, to the "discrimination against minorities that was embedded within the Turkish Sharia."
