Hi Michael
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Yes indeed. I was an organizer and also spoke at a War of 1812 symposium in Baltimore on Saturday and we heard an interesting talk by Ellen Wilds on "Holes in History" in which she was talking about difficult it is to separate verifiable fact from legend and distortions of the truth. Whole reputations have been built on claims that can't be verified. For example, the symposium I was talking about was at the museum of the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House in Baltimore where flagmaker Mary Pickersgill made the flag that flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore. What she did is documented and yet the better known flagmaker is Betsy Ross, with some million or so Google hits who cannot be shown to have made the first American stars and stripes... it was apparently all made up at the time of the centennial in 1876 by a descendant.
Chris
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