Interesting.

I have been using internet explorer and now Google chrome which is much faster, at least on my six year old laptop.

I have researched the gambrel roof and here is the bottom line of what I know. The origin is not known but was used by Pierre Lescot on the Louvre in France around 1550. Often credited to Francios Mansart but not correct. Mansart did however popularize the style and thus France is the popular origin of the gambrel since about 1625. The earliest gambrels I have found in America were on mansions and truly architectural buildings like the second hall at Harvard College (built between 1672-1682, burned 1764) and the Peter Tufts house of 1675 in Medford, Massachusetts, possibly the oldest brick house in the USA. I have found about fourteen ways to design a gambrel roof in historic carpentry texts, mostly in French books and some German.

Jim