Origins - motivations

We brushed upon origins a few times: Historical genealogy, How many wives?, and Black death.The first post of this blog asked about the ancestry of Thomas and Margaret.

As mentioned in the last post, we are looking at different periods that relate to lives of Thomas and Margaret. And the period right around the arrival (+/- 50 years) is a current focus.

And, motivation for leaving is always a concern. This post looks at an issue that culminated around the time of Thomas' great-grandfather. The influence from the particular conflict was deep. In fact, about that time, over a century of conflict came to an end.

Of course, after the peace, turmoil continued which we'll get into. For now, let's consider the case of the bickering cousins. In a sense, all the conflicts on UK (and related areas on the continent) soil were of this type. However, this one had very close cousins at each other's throat (extreme sibling rivalry -- gosh, are we any better today?).

So, it was a blood war, but not between rival clans. No, it was cousins vs cousins. There is not any reason to see this as unusual, as we'll also look at many conflicts between brothers before we're done.

People beheaded
War of the Roses

Aside: In looking at origins, this particular topic is important but is not the only one. We're starting with it due to entanglements. I don't know just how much we appreciate the reality on this side of the pond. That gaming has taken up the theme, partly encouraged by the Game of Thrones series (I liked the first two books; am not a gaming type; haven't seen any of the TV stuff), may tell something. Go to Google (or Bing), and look at War of Roses (images) and note the gaming interest.

So, this image has a list of people who were beheaded during the period of the War of the Roses. It's not a short list, by any means (see the Wikipedia page). The two images on the side are the following: Choosing of the roses (below) and The execution of Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset (above). Edmund is in both of these paintings. He's on the right of the Choosing scene and the main character in the other. But, this is only a list of the noble class victims. There were many other casualties, such as the Two Princes. Too, what was the havoc wrought upon the general populace, of all of the classes?

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This is one little example. Does England look to be a pleasant place to be? One can appreciate the dreams of freedom that pushed people off its shores, even if these were illusory at the time (did you know that there were early hippies - Merry mount). Yet, there was a less oppressive nature in group that came with Thomas and Margaret than later (of course, about now, we need to mention that Plymouth's involvement will be covered, to boot). It was not long before a hammer was sent over (another whole story). One can also understand the appeal of the Quaker point of view which figured heavily in Thomas' later life through the influence of his last wife and in the lives of some of the progeny.

So, we've barely kicked off a look at origins with a brief touch on motivations.

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As said before, whatever the motive, Thomas came here, raised a family thereby leaving a legacy, supported the founding of the civilization that became the U.S., and has tales to tell about his life and character. It is for us to discover these and preserve them for posterity.

Remarks:

04/04/2025 -- David T. Gardner has been exercisting Grok with prompts and reports finding documents that support his claim about Wyllym Gardynyr (see King Slayer Court blog). ... We have begun to incorporate changes into the structure and context of the blog. See Restart, somewhat. 

08/11/2020 -- We have used categories in the post. We also have used pages which allow some structure. Then, we have the other media to consider. One thing is definite, we will have lists of important topics. On these, we will find Origins and Motivations.

07/21/2020 -- The theme carries on in our work.

07/16/2016 -- Related work: Gardiners and Gardners.

07/12/2015 -- Okay, turtle speed. But, we get there. Announcing a new project: Sherborne, Dorset. No doubt, it is about time. When finished with the data collection and analysis, we will present the strongest story (the prerogative of the family) that the facts, and abductive reasoning, will support. As such, we hope to demonstrate some very much needed research viewpoints.

02/12/2014 -- The motivations theme will arise, recurrently, as we look at telling the stories.

06/15/2013 -- John Farmer wrote that Thomas was from Scotland. Origins are, and will be, a focus.

03/31/2013 -- The recent Gardner's Beacon issue looks at priors. On the War of Roses, not only were the participants blood relatives, they were Christian, ostensibly. So, an Easter thought is in order: was not their behavior as far from what Christ would have wanted as was possible? Then, again, how close to such an ideal was the Crusader behavior of their ancestors? 

Modified: 04/04/2025

Queen Anne

TL;DR -- Our gal, Queen Anne, gifted us with the Georges through her family. Do we ever stop to thank them? 

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Earlier, we were looking at the spread of our research interests and mentioned the set-to between Rev. Cotton Mather (and his father) and Gov. Joseph Dudley. It was called a Pamphlet War and was of the time of Queen Anne's War. That was of the War of Spanish Succession. So, there was enough of an interest to bear some attention. Hence this post came about. First, a graphic which is a composite from two posts (Plus or minus the arrival, Origins - motivations) both of which are early (2013). 

Beheadings, Reigns

Below is a list of links to further material. But, let's look a little at the time. In the cigarette chart, one see Henry VII (on the left) who was the father of Henry VIII. Then, we see Anne (on the right). This timeline goes from the grandfather (abouts) of Thomas down to his children and grandchildren. And, this is pre-Revolution, by quite a bit. Well, there was turmoil all over Europe which we can get into. It came over here, too, in terms of the French and Indian conflicts which covered decades. 

Now, with respect to the one of the time of Mather/Dudley quarreling, we had the First of these conflicts. Remember, Dr. Frank noted that at the Third one, the 4th generation (our label) was trained by the Crown and later turned against the Crown with the 5th generation bearing the brunt of it all. Wait, the populace had lots of impact, too. We will tell those tales as we learn them. 

BTW, George III is a cousin of Anne (a Stuart, as was his great-grandmother), so that is one connection. 

This was the conflict where Deerfield, MA was attacked. And, those families had moved out west from the eastern part. We just looked at Maine where people went and some returned due to conflicts. We have mentioned a few families in these posts. Now, we mentioned Deerfield as the Neal's look at The History of New England had a brief look at that. Many were killed; over hundred souls taken north as captives. 

We saw another connection earlier, Judge Thompson, who wandered out to the left coast and also helped form Montana Territory, contributed to Dr. Frank's The Massachusetts Magazine. He wrote the History of Greenfield, MA which was split out of Deerfield, MA.

• Queen Anne's War
• Deerfield, MA
• History of Deerfield, MA
  
• Daniel Neal History of New England   
• Raid on Deerfield
  

Now, back to the graphic. We looked at the rightmost part, where we see that Anne gave us the Georges against whom the colonists rebelled. That's coming up to be 250-years ago. Now, let's look at the left part. That is a list of beheadings in England, principally during the War of the Roses which ended with Henry VII. That whole sequence was a war of cousins, some of them fairly close (btw, we never liked the Game of Thrones deal - read the first 2 1/2 books and then got turned off with the improper fantasy - but, what the hey, it's the American way, to wallow, it seems, at times). 

We know of families in Deerfield and Greenfield and will be getting back to this in that sense. 

Remarks: Modified: 04/23/2021

01/31/2021 -- Anne's son died. Her cousin, Sophia (a Stuart), died, too. So, we got Sophia's son, George I. Haven't paid much attention to the details but will given the Continental meddling over here.

04/23/3021 -- Will get back to the continental meddling (well, island off that place) since it seems to not have an end. Oh yes, have to say this. Disney props and Hollywood facades as life and reality; versus, a real existence (many in the U.S. share the same pedigree to a point prior to the casting off) that has centuries behind it (with significant events, such as those related to the Magna Carta as well as the blood letting that seems to be so British). 

Richard III and Gardner

Context: As time goes on and we get more information, this matter will be reviewed: Bosworth and more.

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Before we get to the subject, let's do a review. King Richard III of England was reburied on March 26, 2015. His remains were found on September 5, 2012 after careful analysis suggested where to begin a search. Because of genealogical work that had been done in 2004 to find descendants of Richard's sister, a DNA test was possible which confirmed that the remains were, indeed, Richard's.

This discovery, as would be expected, raised a lot of interest. Who else was related to Richard and how? To descendants of early (and later) immigrants, this type of research means a lot since some of the early entrants did have a documented past. As well, claims of all sorts have appeared on the scene.

So, a moment like this allows a review of what is known and not. As well, we can take a re-look at methods and their findings (to wit, NEHGS on the subject which was posted at the TGS FB site). In the case of the Thomas Gardner descendants, times like this help with motivating, hopefully, the necessary work to collect and to catalog all that has been written.

Some of that work might be exploring the use of modern techniques. To boot, though, these times renew the hope that more substantive material will be forthcoming (to wit, the Thomas and Margaret marriage notice).

--- The question? Did a Gardner knock Richard III on the head?

Before early 2013, there was a page on Wikipedia with the title of "William Gardner (knight)." It told the story of William who killed Richard III and who later married Helen Tudor. Then, their son was Stephen Gardiner who was said to be an ancestor of the Thomas of the TGS, Inc.'s concern. That page was taken down in February 2013 (the delete vote and comments); the main criticism was that the story was of a conflated figure.

Along with the "William Gardner (knight)" page, there was a Wyllyam Gardynyr (get it? Welch-izing the name) who was the same person written up in a story. These pages were there for awhile as I first ran across them in 2010 (when first getting started with the "Thomas Gardner (planter)" page). With the discovery of the remains, though, the discussions quickened (see Richard III Talk page).

Now, notice the criticism. The story of Wyllyam Gardynyr quoted the Wikipedia (sheesh, all over you find sites that just pick up Wiki material - many times not attributing the source) page (referred to, above, as now deleted). That's nice. Write up an encyclopedia article, then quote it as a source.

Well, in essence, the (historic) evidence (as of now) is lacking that a Gardner ancestor of Thomas was at Bosworth Field or that a Gardner was the wielder of whatever caused the demise of the King. There was a comment made to the "Historical Genealogy" post (first written in November 2010) in the time frame of November of 2014 (fairly recent) that says that the story is, at least, 30 years old.

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So, there is still a whole lot to look at, in this and in other regards; re-addressing this topic, and similar topics, is on the plate. In the interest of putting Gardner Research on firm ground, we intend to consider all that has been studied and written up to this point. Future generations and researchers will benefit. Our task is to do it right (or, at least, get the effort started on a good road).

Remarks: Modified: 04/04/2025

04/03/2015 -- The question "Did an ancestor of Thomas help in the demise of Richard III?" has been added to the FAQ.

04/04/2015 -- This is not to say that Thomas did not have ancestors at Bosworth or any of the other battles that occurred during the War of the Roses. We are talking the period from the period from 1455 to 1485 which is 100+ years prior to Thomas' birth. Here are two good graphics that summarize the period.

Wikipedia (War of the Roses) -- Summary of Events. Notice the Lancaster and York columns with battles and outcomes. Margaret of Anjou lost her son (Edward) and died in poverty. Others suffered fates (see beheaded list, section on England).

Threetwoone.org has a nice graph based upon the relationship tree with links for battles and fates.  

As well, here is a pinterest collection (put here as we could use this for material related to Thomas).

07/09/2016 - This year, we obtained further material.

10/10/2018 -- We just printed TGA Vols III and IV (available for purchase) which contains David T. Gardner's articles about the Gardners, Bosworth, and Tudors. As well, historical author, Douglas Richardson, has William Gardner in his books (Plantagenet Ancestry, Magna Carta Ancestry and Royal Ancestry) with his marriage to Helen Tudor (see Our Royal, Titled, Noble, and Commoner Ancestors & Cousins site).

03/14/2019 -- Put image into our index at our portal to truth.

04/04/2025 -- David T. Gardner has been exercisting Grok with prompts and reports finding documents that support his claim about Wyllym Gardynyr (see King Slayer Court blog). ... We have begun to incorporate changes into the structure and context of the blog. See Restart, somewhat. 

Murrey and blue

TL;DR -- We found a new blog, today. 'new' in that it's less old than our own. We expect good things to be read at murrey and blue. Of course, this note being done later, we can fix an oversight: somehow, we forgot to mention William Marshal (without whom we would (might well) be speaking French - having lost the language of King Alfred the Great).

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We had a question recently about motives for people coming to New England, early on. We, more or less, have liked the overview given by the author of Albion's Seed which we first read in 2016 while first exploring all of the ways that New Englanders continued to move after their arrival. We can map out the movement through time. For Virginia, one can see a map that shows the extent of its reach plus the counties defined at the time from the beginning. The expansion was west, at one point, with a limit of the Rockies and points west later on. But, we know that there were eventual constraints, with  West Virginia being one of these.

In Albion's Seed, early New England (Thomas Gardner et al) were reconnaissance. The real deal started with Winthrop who represented on pathway of which were were three more. After the Revolution (coming up 250 years ago), the expansion started in earnest. However, there were facilitating changes, such as the establishment of the Cumberland Pass through which we had people going west. There is a lot to look at. In the case of one family, we found a hanging of an abolitionist minister out in Texas before the major conflict that split the country in the mid-1800s. Three years ago, we looked at the experiences of Col. T. W. Higginson a little further north. There have been conflict and turmoils continually throughout the U.S. history and before.

On FB, recently, we saw a post from the Richard III society. We have had posts about him as it involved the long War of the Roses whose aftermath was of importance. Too, his body was found and re-interned which brought Richard III's life back to attention which got several posts here. Too, other blogs came into existence. One of these is "Murrey and blue." 'Murrey' describes a color that comes from the mulberry fruit.

The post asked: What really happened in 1385, when the Earl of Stafford’s son and heir was killed on a Yorkshire road ...? It was the first time that we read this blog which covers the subject well with illustrations. A name caught our eye: John Holand. The family was familiar for several reasons.

As an aside, it was nice to see history covered, as the whole of the themes related to this was muddied by the Game of Thrones playing loose. We can say that the media, such as blogs, that are coming to fore will allow a more full look at history in ways not possible before technology got off the ground. And this 'murreyandblue' blog gets into detail that is quite refreshing.

Back to the theme, John's father was Henry Holand of a Lancastrian family. Henry married Anne of York. His territory included Dorset which got us to look at the Domesday Book of this region. One of our goals is to keep a long view of history as we proceed with learning more about Thomas, Margaret and others of the Cape Ann venture. So, we expect that we will be looking further at this blog and its cohorts as we pursue our studies further.

There is another view of motivation: The Great Puritan Migration. I like this blog, however, I don't know that we can assume that Thomas and Margaret came here for religious reasons. We had a post dealing with Origins - motivations. One thing looked at were the beheadings associated with the War of the Roses.

Another good one is that from the New England Historical Society. There are a lot more blogs to look at.

Postnote: Back in Holand's ancestry one will find several characters from the time of King John and the MC. We have had posts on those topics. One name to bring forward beyond the interest that has been shown in literature and the arts? William Marshal.

Remarks: Modified: 07/22/2020

07/22/2020 -- Added an image and a TL;DR.

Bosworth through the eyes of technology

TL;DR -- Bosworth? Know about it? This is where the Tudors came to be as the Plantagenets were cut out of the game (of Thrones). Well, only the male lineage. The female portions always live on. Recent abilities allow new insights into the 22 Aug 1485 event which is a mere 125 years from the colonial start (fuzzy numbers suffice). Abilities? GenAI as a mathematical marvel? Finally, we have a chance to look at the capability with the intent to tone down the hype that is missing the point of it all. 

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This post has two purposes. One deals with the latest rage of technology that is commonly known as AI (we will use GenAI). We have argued that the current phenomenal abilities of GenAI are not due to some critter which is "sentient" but that they represent long years of mathematical work culminating in a mode that is suitable to exercise by the circuitry and software of computing. As such, this post will provide the start of a necessary bit of discussion. The second purpose is to point to recent work that uses GenAI and that represents an opportunity to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Let's start with the announcement of genealogical/historical research results. We link to two posts (05/10/2025 - missing URLs removed - search at King Slayer's Court). 

• 1 - Updated Press Release: A 540-Year Conspiracy Unveiled – The Lost Ledgers of Bosworth Rewrite History (Bedtime story; Lost Ledgers; Untold story) 
• 2 - Untold Story: The Death of Richard the III (pdf), By Sir Wyllyam Gardynyr  

The first post looks at decades of research that started from hearing family stories. The topic deals with the Battle of Bosworth where King Richard III was killed. As a reminder, research determined the spot where his remains were placed after the Battle. In 2012, after much research with respect to location, they dug through the surface of a parking lot and found the body. Subsequent analysis indicated that the remains were of the King. 

Too, his skull had been fractured. The tales of the family involved the details of how a member (yoeman - commoner) struck the blow. That has been scoffed at over the centuries and over the decades that David T. Gardner did his queries. 

The second post takes informaton provided by GenAI based upon sources that finally were digitized and pulls them into a narrative as if written by Wyllyam Gardynyr. As we do our analysis, we will help sort the various attempts at presentation into a scheme where veracity is measured and reported. That is, as with most things, we see the tip of the iceberg. That itself will become clear with GenAI as we proceed in a mature manner. 

We first heard from David in 2014 as a comment to our post, Historical Genealogy. That post was from November of 2010 when we had first started doing research. David's comment was in 2014. We noticed and responded in 2016. At that time, we started to correspond and did this post: King Slayer's Court. We started to look at David's work and published a few of his articles. Per usual, he was bumping up against official opinions. Through digging, he kept finding information pointed to his family's tales being right. 

So, let's switch to technology. We have had lots of posts on GenAI. There many of examples of GenAI that are available. Opinions about this phenomenon of the past two years (first released to public use in November of 2022) vary with sides drawn. It has good and bad properties. On the good side, it resonates with people but is thought to lead them astray. But, the best part is that the underlying mathematics is worthy of our attention as it represents what can be done. 

Needless to say, these open issues will continue to be on the radar for several reasons that we have tried to address. But, getting back to David's work, he had made progress hearing from groups like the Richard III Society and from experts dealing with the history of Westminster. But, recently, a GenAI was tried which had digitized sources from the time period and location. 

On honing in via queries (some say, prompts), David pulled out documents that confirmed what he had been looking for. Ostensibly, we will add and explain below. 

In the meantime, David has written several articles that will be released over the few days and weeks. These deal in detail with Bosworth, but there is additional detail that deals with the Gardner family and the unknown dynamics of this Battle that was the last one of the War of the Roses. So, this is significant both for the history of England as well as for the opportunity to look closely at GenAI from a perspective that is serious. 

Genealogy is not an easy study in terms of trying to prove lineage of a person. The U.S.A. will see the 250th this year of activities related to its start. This month, in fact, was when the Battles of Lexington and Concord happened in Massachusetts between English troops and the supposed rabble rousers of the colonials. We have had many posts on that theme: Two houses, for example, looks at one family and their activity from the start (400 year vew) and during the revolution. One house is associated with the Society of Cincinnati whose members are males with direct descendany from a Revolutionary War Officer. There are many such organizations, such as the Daughters of the American Revolution. 

But, the Bosworth event was in the late 1400s which is three to four generations before the colonial effort took place. From a technology sense, this opportunity (for me) is priceless. For one, it shows technology allowing better document handling; then, there is the indexing and search facility that allows documents to be matched up; too, the prose generation abilities are nice. But, that brings up one huge focus which will be to scrutinize all of this and determine where things might have gone awry which puts an onus on creativity as this is an open field of study.  

Definitely, mathematics will be lifted to scrutiny in a manner not available before. How that will work is manifold in scope but overdue for attention. 

Let's use this post as a starting point: 22 Aug 1485. We'll end this post with an image (missing image from Chronical of England site run by Royal Central). 

Note: This activity on the part of our organization pertains to truth engineering. 

Remarks: Modified: 01/03/2026

04/04/2025 -- Press release disappeared; put in other links. 

05/10/2025 -- URLs disappeared at King Slayer's Court. Removed pointers. 

05/11/2025 -- New work starting; created a Bosworth label. 

05/27/2025 -- David T Gardner discovered that GenAI/LLM led him astray. We will let him tell the tale. Essentially, David's work over the decades has resulted in several documents that suggest more work needs to be done. But, the notions related to his theme of Gardynyr killing Richard III have some merit. That work will continue. The confabulations from technology are another matter that have our interest. 

10/29/2025 - Missing image (pointer for site not there; site gone) removed. 

01/03/2026 -- We will be updating the status of this work. For now, here are some posts: Welsh poems; Sir Christopher Gardiner; King Slayer's Court I; ... A new science?; ..., 

A trillion cuts by GenAI

TL;DR -- We saw a Chrome report which featured Gemini with respect to Gardner KS and its role in the trails west, one of which was the Oregon Trail. And, the report was not right. "Who cares?" has been my response to having Gemini spout off. I ignored it like I am very good at doing with ads. But, today, I read and saw errors. Okay. What to do? There is no method now. People are training these things. I say, you will not train out the crap. Okay. I wrote this post as an intro and was going to snap the Gemini report and mark it like a teacher would do an exercise. Oh, Gemini, my sweets, you left without telling me. What?  

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Our purposes are several. An important one we have named as All Things Gardner. There are lots of families with the name Gardner. "What's in a name?", we asked once: Amelia Earhart. 

We have been at this genealogy and history work since 2010, learning as we go. On the other hand, we have decades of advanced computing experience under our belt (mainly, situations requiring precision). So, our work here has been largely abetted by computing which has changed in so many ways in the past 20 years (2 decades of decline in some areas). 

We have striven to be correct as to former work. But, we know that is not sufficient. Technology has aided in the digitizing of old records which have been analyzed via human effort and mechanical means such as OCR. A case in point is that we do not know the origins of Thomas Gardner about whose progeny we know a lot due to records over the past 400 years. So, that is an issue to resolve. 

As we work the solution, we have adopted a category: OpEd (category). That will be used to label any of the former posts that touch upon the subject. The information will not be entirely wrong. So, when we figure out the corrections we will make them. Until then, someone can still follow our approach and analysis as we looked at new material. 

Aside: the genealogy crowd split Thomas Gardner into two guys, one who was at Cape Ann with the Dorchester Company and one who is the ancestor of a whole lot of folks. Myself? I think that they are the same guy or were father and son. Both of those alternatives have some basis. The intent will be to find the truth: A Thomas here and a Thomas there. 

And, we would like technology to be of assistance. And, it can. See Bosworth and Gardner, with new revelations coming about of late through use of the facilities of Grok. How well this will stand up though remains to be determined. The battle settled the 100-year war (some use, War of the Roses - I say, cousin war - needless bickering). 

Anyway, this post will look at Gemini which we have liked. But, it is now on the top of a search report. And, I was trying to look at Gardner, KS being right this minute not far from that place. We have had many posts on the little town which we have buzzed by on I35 for countless times. 

• Independence and Kansas City - this post reported on a recent talk about the trails that split at Gardner KS. For more information, see this search on Gardner KS. 

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Now, that was an intro. Here is the gist of the post. This image was snapped from a Chrome query today. ... Wait, did not snap the earlier search. Now, Gemini has disappeared from its featured position. 

Inserted as placeholder 4/11/25 0457 AM CDT

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Note (04/11/25 0458 AM CDT): the absence stopped the flow. "How to handle?" was the question. The following text is from the post from last night. The image was to show what Chrome was presenting. 

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Actually, earlier, when I read the Gemini summary, I scrolled and found this first on the list which is from the National Park Service. Gardner was a stop on the earlier Santa Fe trail which was largely commercial going from St. Louis as the gateway to New Spain. 

That trail passed through Independence MO. So, Oregon traffic followed that same route to Gardner and then turned to the north and west going by Lawrence KS which is the site of the University of Kansas which was founded by a group of New Englanders who came out, including women, by that same trail through Gardner KS.

Later, young bucks in a hurry figured that they could take the Missouri River north from Independence past St. Joseph MO into Nebraska and head west from there. Guess what? They eventually met up with the travelers who had come up through Gardner. What did the folks in a hurry gain? Maybe, two days, perhaps a little more. 

But, gold gets the blood boiling. Like? Things easily hyped. 

Note (04/10/2025 2100 CDT) - On going to the Google development mode, I see that there is a new button ("Vibe") which I have been reading about. Sometimes, I might add as it sounded like the usual affair of misdirected enthusiasm. Whatever is going on in the background with this problem will settle down. Then, I'll use this topic for a deeper look. In any case, running into a "tantrum" however invoked does not make for stable knowledge processing. 

Remarks: Modified: 04/11/2025

04/11/2025 (about 0500 CDT) -- Put in proxy of the expected image and a note to explain. Something related to "Who moved my cheese?" (when did that become normal?). 

04/11/2025 (0738 CDT) -- It's back, AI Overview. But, buried under a label. The only quibble is the use of intersection for a split. I dealt with precision in highly technical engineering support work (computational modeling). 

Kudos, somewhat. Let's talk.

Historical genealogy

Notes:

• The page on William Gardner (see below) was deleted from Wikipedia on 02/06/2013.
•  See Remarks (02/06/2013 and 06/15/2013) for related discussion. A future post will take a brief look at origins (with a reference to this material).
• See Remarks (10/10/2018) for recap. Some of the links in this post may be stale (will look for those, at some point)
• See Remarks (12/28/2025) with regard to LLM (AI/ML) of so much attention the past three years and the trials of trying to bring this into historical/genealogical research. 
• See Remarks (01/03/2026) pertaining to continuing work using GenAI/LLM plus having a focus on the quality of provenance information. 

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The end of the middle ages can be linked with the War of the Roses. A key event was the Battle of Bosworth. Richard III of the House of York was killed at Bosworth Field; he was the last of the Plantagenet kings.

Battle of Bosworth 1485

Some say that William Gardner was one of the slayers of King Richard and that William later married Helen Tudor who was the granddaughter of Owen Tudor.

There are several questions to ask about William and Helen. Who were their children? What do we know of succeeding generations? It turns out that there are several viewpoints. Let's look at a couple of these.

In the Who's Who of Tudor Women by Kathy Lynn Emerson, we find this about William and Helen (c. 1459-1488). They were married before the Battle of Bosworth. Their only confirmed child was Thomas (c. 1479-1506) who was a Pryor at Tynemouth. Emerson also says that they were not parents of Stephen (d. 1555), Richard (1486-1546), William (1488-1549), or Alice (d. 1588) Gardner.

On the other hand, the Wikipedia article on Stephen Gardiner says that William was his father. Stephen was twice the Bishop of Winchester. Too, he managed to survive the turmoil of the times. Also, Richard and William (mentioned above) were brothers of Stephen.

I thought that it might be interesting to look at the results of the research of several families. There seems to be a common theme. As before, I have provided links to databases at rootsweb.

• Dowling tree, descendants of Stephen Gardiner shows Lionel's line
• Walker tree, descendants of Stephen Gardiner shows the Thomas of Salem's line
• Knowlton tree, descendants of Stephen Gardiner suggests siblings for Thomas of Salem and ties in the Lionel line. The tree quotes Burke's Peerage and some genealogy work by Thomas Richard Gardiner.
• Note: 01/03/2026 -- Rootsweb links to Stephen Gardiner changed. Will edit at some point. 

One goal is to fill in Thomas' and Margaret's ancestry. As well, looking at how the Gardner families relate will continue to be of interest.

Remarks: Modified: 01/03/2026

05/05/2011 -- Did Thomas of Salem have a sister, Rachel?

12/14/2012 -- This has been a popular post.

02/05/2013 -- Recent interest in Richard III has caused a renewed focus on information about his life. This post from about two years ago was motivated by a Wikipedia page whose content is now undergoing scrutiny. Since this discussion pertains to our work, we'll keep abreast of things as they move along. Note: there is a vote going on about the possible deletion of the page on William Gardner.

02/06/2013 -- The William Gardner page was deleted today (see discussion page). Also, see section on Wyllyam Gardynyr (archived 06 May 2013) under Richard III talk. When making the Remarks yesterday, I had not looked at the article since this post was done and was not aware of the expected time for the deletion. The William "wiki" page was one item on a huge pile of material to review that relates to origins (open topic, future consideration). Also, the author (of the William Gardner page) seems to have had more than one page deleted from Wikipedia. At this point, let me put a link to Wikipedia's Five pillars as a reminder about content to be put there.

06/15/2013 -- John Farmer wrote that Thomas was from Scotland. Origins are, and will be, a focus. ... As of today, this is the all-time, most-read post. Coming in second is Old Planters, Beverly.

06/15/2013 -- For the Wyllyam Gardynyr discussion, see prior version (archived 06 May 2013). At some point, I ought to see what the deleted Wiki pages were all about. That is, looking at origins would encompass the whole bit, out of which would then come the real story. That has not been done, that I can see, as of 2013 is not troublesome. Things come forward all the time. Too, has anyone surveyed the work to date in a comprehensive manner (meaning, of course, scholarly)? One goal will be to start, and sustain, such studies that would augment what has already been done as well as explore holes (which have to be defined, for starters). In the meantime, we'll try to document Thomas' life (such as, pulling out things related to character) and progeny. Also, we ought to look more closely at Damaris Shattuck and Thomas. That he married a Quaker and didn't suffer the wrath of the likes of Endicott says something (Mary Dyer was hung in 1660).

09/28/2014 -- A week ago, the record for the marriage of Thomas Gardner and Margaret Friar was discovered in Sherborne by John Cook of Minneapolis, Dorset files. This sets a type of focus. Looks as if some transcription work might be in order.

04/07/2015 -- We have more questions than answers (research raises both).

06/10/2016 -- There is more to the story than I realized: Bosworth and more. We will have more to add to the FAQ.

07/16/2016 -- Related work: Gardiners and Gardners.

10/10/2018 -- We just printed TGA Vols III and IV (available for purchase) which contains David T. Gardner's articles about the Gardners, Bosworth, and Tudors. As well, historical author, Douglas Richardson, has William Gardner in his books (Plantagenet Ancestry, Magna Carta Ancestry and Royal Ancestry) with his marriage to Helen Tudor (see Our Royal, Titled, Noble, and Commoner Ancestors & Cousins site).

10/11/2018 -- Most links work (not bad after 10 years). Resorted the Remarks to earliest to latest as this subject will be an ongoing one. And, we can just append a next comment. Just checked on page for Stephen Gardiner, the archbishop. It mentions William as possible father, whereas before it said that John was thought to be his father.

04/04/2025 -- David T. Gardner has been exercisting Grok with prompts and reports finding documents that support his claim about Wyllym Gardynyr (see King Slayer Court blog). ... We have begun to incorporate changes into the structure and context of the blog. See Restart, somewhat. 

12/28/2025 -- David T. Gardner made several attempts this year to bring LLM (AI/ML) into his work. We are helping to document at effort: Research using the internet, and AI. 

01/03/2026 -- We will be updating the status of this work. For now, here are some posts: Welsh poems; Sir Christopher Gardiner; King Slayer's Court I; ... A new science?; ..., 

Whole views

People have been interested in genealogy for a long time, to wit, the Bible (from 2013, Endless genealogies, quoting Timothy). But one bogs down quickly with more than the mere brick wall. What were these people up to? What were their times like?

Oxford view

Having just gone through Dr. Frank's Massachusetts Magazine (2018, all issues) from cover to cover, I have acquired a little more understanding of one-hundred years ago, more or less. The last post (on Jedediah Smith - true mountain, and desert, man) looked at activities regarding western expansion which was post the jaunt of Lewis & Clark. Also, that post brought up the notion of a larger focus, namely: culture, history, technology (which includes genetics/genealogy). We will be discussing this, however a quote from an Oxford book of 1850, gives the proper view.

A review of posts in this blog will show many devoted to issues of Whence (2014) and What we know (2012 - definitely needs to be updated). Since the start, we have had several of these types of posts on a subject that will still need some attention. One approach will be to gather what has been found so far so as to evaluate the information and sources. Nothing new there. It is work, but fun. There is a lot of material on the web regarding Thomas and Margaret and variations thereof. For instance, did Thomas have a sister named Rachel? In that case, I looked at this and tried to establish sources (2015, Rachel (Nobel) Gardner).

One post looked at the period around the arrival, briefly (2013, Plus or minus the arrival - I call this the cigarette posts as the time view of the reigns look like ascending smoke). That image shows the long reign of Elizabeth I. Her time overlapped the life of Thomas' father and his birth. Recently, I have started to dig deeper. Frankly, I was motivated by seeing an article on Elizabeth and the Spanish armada incident. In other publications, I read of the various players and places. But, I also noticed Dorset (2015, Sherborne) which is where son John said that they had come from. That lead to a bunch of reading, especially to get familiar with the counties involved, Dorset and the surrounding, such as Somerset, Devon, Wiltshire, and Hampshire.

But, too, I got a better appreciation for the geography of the War of Roses (2013, Origins - Motivations). I do not like how Game of Thrones has warped  the story (only read 2 1/2 books - put it down, never watched any of the Hollywood renditions). But, then, I learned today that Shakespeare is considered a propagandists for the Tudors by historians. Nothing new, as the saying goes.

Dorset countryside

Before ending, that is Alfred the Great's territory. Of course, the Romans were there, earlier. There was a Sherborne Castle built in the time of William the Conqueror. I think Edward II had some type of confab there. It decayed and was destroyed during the Civil War. Oh yes, the next county has Stonehenge.

Let's stop with a photo out of Dorset.

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We expect to move this blog to be under TGSoc.org. Once we get the new blog set up, volunteers who want to help to move things over would be gladly acknowledged.

Remarks: Modified: 01/18/2022

07/17/2018 -- As we look at things related to western expansion, we need to remember the ones who were here prior to that event. 

09/30/2018 -- Need to mention Corfe Castle that was in the area. King John used it to starve Maude and her son (Maude de Braose). 

01/18/2022 -- We are now seeing Weymouth in the limelight. Gloucester has is deal next year. And, as always, we need to be looking further into the Dorchester Company, without limit. In another forum, we saw Sir Ridley Scott mentioned. He filmed in Dorset (see image) a time or two. 

Posts of interest - 2011

Did a summary of summaries in December 2019. Started metrics a little later: the metrical.  

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As a means (an attempt) to freeze a point in time (which we know is not possible), the last post of 2011 will list the top four posts in terms of having been read (well, views, anyway). Perhaps, this will be a yearly event.

Aside: As said in Mission and Method, posts are to contribute to a theme, though there may be divergent ones from time to time. Blogs allow categories, but these are problematic since they collect and present in a time order. From time to time, there ought to be a super-post that gives a more coherent view (here is an example - Truth, Fiction, and Finance). Perhaps, that type of thing will be done more often in the coming year.

Of course, I would be derelict if I didn't opine on why the interest.

Posts of interest, as of today:

• -- Gardners and Gardners -- what's in a name? I have found off-spring for a lot of those on Dr. Frank A's list. Some writers have suggested relationships between these Gardners. Of course, there are some not in the book (they now appear in internet searches -- what would Dr. Frank A. think of the new resources?). One of our goals is to look further at these types of things. It cannot be done without going back across the water. Following paperwork can be problematic, as the genealogists know. Conjectures are nice, if supported; in fact, we'll have an example of that shortly in regard to Thomas and Margaret. There are too many gaps, in many cases. We can't just fill these in without some thoughtful reason. Some families have on-going research that is supported by DNA analysis. One that I found to be interesting is the Gordon family's work. 

• Historical genealogy -- it is interesting that a very recent, and popular, series of books (at least, one of these was filmed) by a Santa Fe writer was based upon the War of the Roses. However, the tales were fantasized such as to appeal to the modern mind. Actually, just re-looking with a new eye ought to be very informative. That is one of our goals.

• Welcome -- being a new blog, this post would still pop up. At some point, hopefully, another thread will supersede. Any predictions? 

• Two generations -- we use nine children, as did the Great Migration study (six pages on Thomas). Some have added others. We will include all of the grand-children here, at least in a list, this coming year. We, inadvertently, had one featured this year: Ruth Gardner. That was due to my happening upon Frances Hill's book.  

Recaps: 2018, 2017 (missing), 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011.

Remarks: Modified: 07/30/2021

12/29/2012 --  Summary - 2012.

02/26/2013 --  See Wikipedia for a discussion about William Gardner whose page has been deleted.

12/15/2018 -- Added in links to recaps from the beginning.

12/29/2018 -- This post is the 2nd most read of all time, after the post on the marriage of Thomas and Margaret.

01/12/2019 -- To support an indexing by thumbnails, we needed an image. This post was multi-themed, so none stood out. However, motivations are always on the table as is the 'whence' issue. The image is from a post in 2013, however this post is still on the most-read list and is a good marker for us in continuing our work. The post: Origins - motivations. We started this blog from a blank state; we found out in our research that Thomas is a hard nut to crack. He was here, left progeny, but never left us his writing (beyond a signature). But, he was supportive of Conant when he arrived, Endicott when he arrived, Winthrop when he arrived. But, Thomas could only endure one session of the General Court. That is a story to look further into (we will). Later, changed to the image of Archbishop Gardiner.

Memorial Day, 2023

TL;DR -- Memorial Day represents many things. We will have this as a focus along with other themes as we go forward. This post looks at our thoughts, in May, for the past XII years. 

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We have had a regular postings about Memorial Day since 2019 when we matched up a grave site of a Civil War veteran with his family. That is, using the new means, we got links in place to support further work. As we mentioned in the last post (Three years ago), we are in the post-Covid period where recovery looks to have started, many uncertainties still remain, and we all are watching how the future will develop. 

Normal human affairs, one might add. Carrying on with the review of the past decade's activities, we will look at a post from the month of May for each year. 

• Memorial Day, 2022; Memorial Day, 2021; Memorial Day, 2020; Memorial Day, 2019; 
• Old friends, 2018 -- we wondered what led to the demise of The Massachusetts Magazine which ceased publishing in 1918. We saw two possible factors: WWI; Spanish flu. In two years, we were to find out more about the latter from personal experience. 
• May, 2017 -- we had a couple themes to look at. For one, Dr. Frank's sister, Lucie took over for Sidney Perley who had been involved in Essex County research. As well, we looked at the beginning of The Atlantic in Boston. 
• Virginia, 2016 -- we called the settlement, New England south. There are interesting parallels including the emphasis on the west which was to become a regular focus in a couple of years. 
• May, 2015 -- we had several research themes going from the Magna Carta, to the activities involved with the War of Roses. Finally, Rev. Hubbard got some attention. 
• May, 2014 -- we incorporated and kept origins in mind. 
• May, 2013 -- we considered an early writer, John Farmer. 
• May, 2012 -- we looked at Col. Worth, namesake of a city in Texas, plus Hawthorne's Merry Mount. 
• May, 2011 -- we had seen Prince William and Catherine marry which motivated looks at England. Who were the Gardners? But, a visit to Salem had us asking this question: where was Thomas? 

Before 2019, we had plenty of catching up to do with respect to Essex County of Massachusetts and the families involved in its founding. We expect to recognize the patterns of life as we continue our work adjusting the view to meet new data. 

Was Thomas at Cape Ann? See "In summary" for a discussion. 

Remarks: Modified: 05/23/2023

05/23/2023 --