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. 

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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? 

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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. 

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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. 
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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? 

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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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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 --