Christopher Gist came to the surveying profession naturally.  In 1736, his father, Richard surveyed the western shore of Maryland and the town of Baltimore. Though there is little information about Christopher’s childhood, it is thought that Christopher learned surveying profession from his father.

James Cook was born in the Yorkshire town of East Marton in 1728. Although his father was a farm laborer who hadn’t traveled far from his native Scotland, James’s life took a radically different path. When Cook was eight years old, he attended a local charity school where he got a good foundation in mathematics. By the time he was 17, Cook was on his own and began an apprenticeship at a coal shipping company transporting coal by sea between Newcastle and London in a four-week round trip.

British land surveying traces its roots back more than a thousand years to a king in desperate need of funds to pay for defending the empire against Viking invasion. In 1086, William the Conqueror commissioned a survey of the entire country to assess the extent of the land and resources in England at the time, so that he could tax them properly. The information collected over a years’ time was recorded by hand in two huge books – the Domesday books.