Sir Christopher Gardiner

TL;DR -- Winthrop and New England disliked Sir Christophere Gardner. We were intrigued by the bad-boy aspects. Can a modern approach help us make a better determination of the facts of the case which was handled 400 years ago in favor of the power that were? This case is not unique. But, the tie-in to the technology fiascos of late cannot be ignored. 

-- 

When we first started, our attention was on Salem, MA and the crew that came into the area of Cape Ann in the timeframe of 1623/24. Later, we learned of another Thomas Gardner, who was of Roxbury in MA. Turns out that Ann is descended from both. 

But,we heard from lots of Gardner families such that we defined a category: All things Gardner. We still had an early New England focus but had to modify that to cover other times and places. Turns out that Dr. Frank had a list of Gardner families in his 1907 book which was updated in the 1933 book. 

Sir Christopher Gardner was an early name of interest. We had place his name of the "todo" list and can finally get active in the necessary research. Earlier, we ran into details about his life as told by others such as that told by John Winthrop (on Christopher Gardner). As one can see by the image, those in power in New England did not like the guy. 

Now, along the time of our research, we were contacted by David T. Gardner (DTG) who had researched his family for decades. They came into the Philadelphia area in the latter part of the 1600s. 

DTG started a blog with the title of King Slayer's Court. He wrote articles for the Gardner Beacon and The Gardner Annals. Recently, DTG has been using various GenAI/LLM systems for research. His findings are interesting. This post provides some information on one. 

In general, the use of these systems have been both of the bone and the bane type. Which is stronger? Depends. At one time, things looked dire from the systems generating "hallucinated" results. How would one know is a proper question? 

---

David had been pulling records from old English files, getting them transcribed, and building a database with which to look for correlations as one would expect. Earlier (prior GenAI/LLM), that was doable but slow. The AI part offered the potential for improvement. But, when a good majority of the results are bogus, analysis stands no chance. 

After a good start in the spring of this year, the realization of the problems with provenance of the data caused some headache. David took a break. We on the other hand kept sloughing through the issues as they will be important to eventual resolution of the messes. As mentioned, there are pros and cons. The world seems to be split. 

One factor in success would involve proper control for controlling the wild potential that is as destructive as not. How to handle this matter has had a lot of attention. Enough reports of some good quality have come out this year. 

So, months later, David is attempting again while using multiple systems. The results are interesting with respect to the original study of Gardner relationships with the Tudor dynasty. However, another topic came forth today that offers us something that we can get our teeth into. Namely, Sir Christopher Gardiner who was on the "list of infamy" of Winthrop. 

David posted this recently: The Enigmatic Knight of the Wilderness: Sir Christopher Gardiner Revisited Through Modern Eyes. 

Our approach will to use the different stories to build a more complete picture of Christopher Gardner. While doing that, we expect to learn about the systems, the peccadilloes of each plus gain some insight into the "control" aspects that seem to be missing. 

This is a cursory look and is about a beginning. Stay tuned as we march further down the road. 

Remarks: Modified: 11/23/2025

11/23/2025 --

Emphasis, technology

TL;DR -- BBC talked about AI to one of its providers. Irrationality was raised. Yes, we used "AIn't" to describe the vacuous conditions (many senses) from about 2019 with respect to these types of approaches to knowledge handling and intelligence pretending. 2025 saw these things pushed out to the world. Ramifications will become rampant in 2026. With our technology focus, we will look at truth and what that means to us and our computational playthings. 

-- 

BBC talked to Google who spilled some beans. Here is an interesting summary. 

Google and irrationality

Of course, the use of irrationality got my attention and the use of "some" which might be considered an understatement. Also, it was Google who forced Gemini on us this year; analysis of the ramifications of that choice of theirs pends. 
-----------

Now, to the BBB video: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct6s7l. 

You all, remember that Newton got pulled into some hyped positions in is day whose ramifications were unpleasant? 

---

Youngsters gone awry is one way to look at this. Two generations or so. But, it did not have to be done this way. We can trace decisions over three decades in order to set a tone for analysis. But, we need to go back 200 years in mathematics, from a technical sense dealing with what it means.  

The Thomas Gardner Society will focus on providing summaries over time with regard to what is what, at our "truth" portal, defined about 2017. We were waiting for data to arise of sufficient sense, beyond that related to the mania of a decade with the past three years being especially burdensome to rational thinking.

----

We were late in paying attention to the Nov of 2022 release from OpenAI as we had spent a decade plus looking at the going-ons from a distance and continually as the series of choices became more troublesone. 

Finally, we did a post in Feb of 2023: ChatGPT. What got us to look were reports of failing at algebra by the systems. Later, the use of "hallucination" became in vogue. But, the whole issue was the misuse of mathematics which could have been foreseen; reports of this type of problem started to rise to the surface after about a year. We will look at that in depth. 

To be fair, Wolfram (of Mathematica fame) took ChatGPT under his wing, tamed it, and made it contributory to his system and products. There are other examples. There are few. 

Meanwhile, in 2025, these systems were cast out everywhere. A technique called "vibing" with regard to code came into vogue using these systems. It needs a serious look with respect to issues. There is not much about the past three years that is exemplary. On the other hand, neural nets were given attention by the Nobel Prize committee in terms of its contributions to mathematical physics. That topic is on the table, too. 

We have our work cut out for us, as the world tries to recover from the ramifications. More on that later. 

Remarks: Modified: 11/23/2025

11/23/2025 --

Charlotte (Coffin) Gardner

TL;DR -- On FB, I saw an article that reminded us that the author had created a related blog which contains very good articles. On browsing, we ran into Charlotte (Coffin) Gardner. She kept a journal on her 3-year voyage with her husband and son. Along the line, she mentions New Englanad folks and natives as well keeps record of their progress along the continents to the Cape and back up. Names overlap our earlier research. So, we will recoup the interest level. 

---

An article today on Facebook got me to looking at the articles of Melissa Berry on her blog. Here is an example article in American-Archives. The topic is a wive who went on a three-year voyage with her husband from New England around Cape Horn and up to San Francisco and Washington State. 

These links point to pertinent material about Charlotte and to a Journal that she kept during the voyage. She is a descendant of John son of Thomas and Margaret. Her husband is a descendant of Richard, brother of John. 

• Journal of Charlotte (Coffin) Gardner
• Charlotte's profile on WikiTree

One thing that is of interest would be to use Google's map to follow her on the voyage. The next link goes to a view of the western hemisphere with a location marked.  

• Google map to find and link to locations noted in the Journal 

There were many stops mentioned in the book. Here are three Wikipedia articles. We will have more. In addition, Charlotte marks her location on a regular basis as the above Google map shows. 

• Isla_de_los_Estados
• Strait_of_Juan_de_Fuca
• Port_Ludlow,_Washington

In the articles and in the blog, there are many names mentioned lots of which are familiar from our studies of New England with some being kin of various sorts. Too, we have a theme of the long reach of New England which our posts on Bunker Hill West which is in Downtown Los Angeles show. 

A few years ago, we did posts on the barque, Bostonian, that was owned by Hentry Gardner and his brother. In that material, we learned a little bit about the nautical ways after spending lots of time looking a movements across the middle of the vast area of the U.S. The Bostonian wrecked in 1850 along the Oregon coast. The pilot was noted as Capt. Boyling. 

Charlotte, in her blog, mentions Capt. Boyling which got our attention. So, as well as studying her Journal, we will pick up our study of the barque, Bostonian. Again, here are a few related postts. 

• The Gardiner that was
• Some info on merchandise handled by the Gardners -- 
•           Gardiner’s Rheumatic and Neuralgic Compound
• General search on the Bostonian

Several themes were mentioned here. What this represents is that the 250th has lots of open research pending. But, in general, here is no end to the study of  New England.    

Remarks: Modified: 11/13/2025

11/13/2025 --

400ths, in Massachusetts

TL;DR -- As the Siege of Boston continues its slow course, we can look at other areas which need more attention. Such as, the celebrations of the Massachusetts start will go until 2073. 

--

Of late, GenAI/LLM has gotten our atttention. That will continue under the theme of technology as we look at the mathematical underpinnings of phenomena (multiple variants) as well as get into the psychology and human interest aspects of the big chimera which we termed by buckets'o'bits (replacing AIn't which was misunderstood). We see a serious map/territory problem. 

But let's get back to history of both a family and regional nature. 

200 years ago, New England was still in the Siege of Boston stage which started back in April. Winter ws setting in. Washington had arrived in July. In September, he sent Arnold north on an attempt to make some headway in Quebec. Knox, in November, took his men to get artillery and supplies from Fort Ticonderoga. We have yet to see the Declaration of Independence.

Some reading material:

• Wikipedia, per usual, has a marvelout collection of information: Siege of Boston. This post has a good overview with secondary material. 
• An example is the post on Knox's effort: Noble train of artillery.  

The 200th of the Siege continues until March of next year. That gives us four more months to learn about the events and to appreciate the efforts of the colonials who got the U.S.A. started.

For instance, once the artillery arrived, in March, Dorchester Heights was fortified. 

---

While we have paused to reflect on the 250th, we need to remind about the 400th anniversaries that will go on for a while. This post provides a list of the towns and villages that will be celebration. For instance, Salem is on the list for next year (2026). Cape Ann (Gloucester) had theirs in 2023. Before that, the Mayflower arrival was celebrated in 2020. Here is the timeline for celebrations. 

Timeline of Settlement

These go on until 2073. In 2026, Beverly (one of the places known as the birthplace of the U.S. Navy) shares the same settlement year as Salem. 

 Remarks: Modified: 11/09/2025

11/09/2025 --

King Slayer's Court, I

TL;DR -- King Slayer? That's a huge no-no rule, broken in both England and France. But, on the battlefield, is it allowed? This post looks at research of several decades that has been facilitated recently, in new ways, by computing done right (for the most part - until buckets'o'bits ran amok). 

---

We will have a regular series on the King Slayer's Court blog as work continues on that research. The following has links to recent material and other material provided for background and discussion. 

• About - a Gardner family of PA, before and after the venture across the pond. 
• Bosworth - what Ricard III knocked off his throne by a Welshman? Thoughts about the data and more. 

Social media, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI/LLM) and this work. There is a lot more to discuss, but these two post bring attention to the situational aspects. 

•  Eyes of technology - we could use lens, as well; but, we are emphasizing the organic granularity and gauges of knowledge. 
• King Slayer's Court, Redux - here, we touch upon some of the technical aspects that will be expanded upon through time and as the need to know grows. 

(BBC London) A 16th Century
Welsh chronicle charting the history of
England and Wales between
1066 and 1552 is now online

Background. We wrote of this blog earlier in the year. But, we had our first interchange back in the day with our first post in 2016. 

• Introduction - In our searches from 2009 on, we ran into Wyllyam Garydnyr several times, including on Wikipedia. Lots of those pages/sites have disappeared, though we have some posts that we will go back and review and add here. 

We published an ariticle on this in The Gardner Annals (Bosworth and Gardners, Vol III). 

---

Adage, moral proposed for the TGS, Inc: there AIn't no critter involved with the buckets'o'bits that people are chasing seemingly mindlessly. That is, phenomena are involved that we can know more; lots of it involves mathematics that got too big for its britches. 

Aside: we had an image link (it disappeard - so, that might represent getting some notice, or not; we will try to find something suitable). 

Remarks: Modified: 10/29/2025

10/29/2025 --

Illumination

TL;DR -- Machine learning, as AI, grates with the increasing hype of three years duration, so far. How  much longer? This post points to work that has plenty of potential to help right the ship that founders. 

---

This is a brief technical overview about necessary work. 

Real but unseen. Mostly ignored, for reasons that we can discuss. Basically, the psychology of the modern era that has gone off course. 

The LLM (and their GenAIs associates) can be useful. I wish to introduce them to a big brother they ought to have known. 

https://lnkd.in/gECn-HrX  KBE used ICAD and demonstrated truth engineering 

"For example, at Airbus UK, the design of Wing spars was reduced from 480 man weeks to 12 - a 97.5% lead-time reduction. Similarly, Jaguar Cars saw a 94% lead-time reduction in XK8 body panel development, and their collaborative headlamp program was reduced from 8 weeks to only 2 days."

And, this was precision work. Not mindless pretend by misusing mathemtical computing.

CAD to KBE (ICAD) to ...
(dated but meant to show a point and an
example for saving machine learning

How does machine learning fit in? That was shown decades ago which lessons apply now. To discuss? KBE would have kept AI on track; several themes along this line deserve discussion and experimental attention.

---

Wait, was my initial reaction. Kant is key. We can't Kant enough which will be on the table for discussion here (and demonstration). At the time, I started to remind people that there was no "critter" involved. This was applied mathematices which is centuries old. 

Okay, I will now back that up. We'll focus on Cambridge for a bit, but in general consider that Lagrange was a cohort of Kant. The former ran down perturbations of diff eqs; the latter ran down perturbing our brains with his "classical" summary of the western way. 

Right now, here are links that will kick things off. 

1 - Littlewood on the 1st Wrangler guantlet - quoting him: Preparation; Incubation; Illumination; Verification. https://lnkd.in/grC5tnNz Littlewood's take on the Tripos challenge 

... https://lnkd.in/gk5BShm7 What is Enlightenment? 

2 - Kant's answer to what is enlightenment - https://lnkd.in/gJzUNjVS 

---

Hint: normalization gone mad (it's not spring break, yet). And, this applies in a few other areas, too. Not just the wannabe intelligence. 

Remarks: Modified: 11/09/2025

11/09/2025 - A few typos fixed. 

Siege of Boston, I

TL;DR -- We will do a series on the Siege in the next few months. It dragged on for almost a year. 

---

For those who have not heard of the 250th of the U.S., we are in the first year of the Revolution as it started in the Boston area in Spring of 1775. Usually, people talk of 1776, but that is for the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July which is when the 250th year will end and when we start the 251st year. 

Of the remembrance of a long war. It started before 1775. Then, Cornwallis surrendered in the fall of 1781. However, hostilities continued and the treaty was not signed until 1783. We have lots of material to cover, related to families personally. 

For this post, we will do a few looks at the Siege of Boston. Today, let's look at a few past posts on the subject. These are in order that they appeared in the blog with the year of posting noted. 

• Regimental History, Seige of Boston (2015) -- Last Issue, Massassachusetts Magazine (2018) -- the first and last of 4 articles per year for over a decade. 
• Elizabeth (Gardner) Blanchard (2019) - look at families and their contribution. 
• Boston first (2024) - on the evacuation that ended the Siege of Boston.
• George Washington in Boston (2025) - he was up there for several months, long enough for Martha to visit. 
• Southern Campaign (2025) - after the British left Boston, they were in PA and NY. At some point, there was a choice to get the southern colonies on their side.
• General Nathanael Greene (2025) - he was at Boston, under Washington. More on him later. 
• ...
• Bunker Hill West, 1873 (2025) - we have had a lot of posts on this hill in DTLA which can be used to watch the changes in the U.S. over the time of the area post New Spain's rule. 

At this time, in late October, we have five months before the Siege ended. April was a long while ago. People were coping and organizing. 

Remarks: Modified: 10/23/2025

10/23/2025 -