One strategy we use in the scibeshops here in this part of NNE, is necessitated by the number of simple mortise and tenon joints scribe allows, which don’t allow the heavy dishing of housings. Instead we do the inverse, backcutting the shoulders ( 2-3 degrees ) along with light dishing around the mortise. Sounds awful, but isn’t an ascetic problem at all, I’ve never known a client to complain.

I would point out that the increasing amount of iron in later 19th century bridge patents was not in response to shrinkage problems but simply making use of a resource which was in ever greater supply while wood was less and less so. The engineers creating the patents were getting better and more formal training ( the transition to engineer as we understand it today was coming into being ) and learning the virtues of iron in that training. In addition. it is far simpler to deal with the massive loads the tensile webs convey with iron. Lastly it allowed for very simple carpentry, reducing labor costs.-
Most Towns have no shortage of bolts, and often iron wind stays.

Our challenge in dealing with shrinkage is greater now than it was for those we follow.
Simply in that it was not possible to condition a home as it is now and shrinkage is now accelerated. This hyper drying often causes the wood to distort to a greater degree than it might if allowed to season at a more natural rate –
All the same I choose to work green wood and consider timber framing green woodworking