Thomas and Margaret (Fryer) Gardner of Salem, MA

250th, 400th

2026-05-31T16:53:46.497-07:00

TL;DR -- 250th? It's comiong up. We have looked for this for over a decade. Usually, a commemoration is an ending. The day comes; then the morrow bring reality back to mind. However, be aware that we have been doing post for the last year (having started ealier); the 250th will be the start of deeper dives into the history and events, with respect to people and families. That is, the door opens for a period that runs until 2083.

A year ago, we started to have more posts on the 250th as we mentioned the U.S.Army. Before that, we wrote of the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 2024.

In 2021, we had a list of celebrations, from 400th and then the 300th down to the 100th. For us, the 250th in July starts long years of review and recall as we contemplate the contributions of Patriots (say as defined by D.A.R and S.A.R.

Earlier, we had a map that showed the changes over those long years of the Revolution which we have brought into this post. Since the web/cloud technology is a superb platform for information, we will cover a slew of topics with respect to families and their contributions to the founding of the U.S.

We have to end the day with a nod to the Marines: 250th, U.S. Marines. There are many themes to cover, and we will be back on a regular basis.

Remarks: Modified: 05/31/2026

05/31/2026 --

AI and AIn't or 'tAIn't

2026-05-30T16:58:01.073-07:00

TL;DR -- So, we have seen three years of wannabe attempts, one after another, wasting, essentially, precious resources. When will it end? It will not for reasons that were known prior to this unnecessary excursion. Oh? That is a topic that will go longer than the eight years of war started 250 years ago. Yet, we will pause to honor the 250th (have for years now, look at the posts here of that theme).

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The title is not being silly as I have claimed with silly-con-valley. The TGS, Inc.. takes truth, knowledge, code, and such seriously for reasons that we have already discussed but will keep doing so.

The goal? Bring the current AIn't and 'tAIn't toward something that is rationally sound. Many people are working in this area with valid viewpoints, yet there has been no success in any type of cohesion. That is, we can differentiate all that we want; it's the integration that provides the power. And, such has been the case almost from the start of computing.

Okay, in 2001, I wrote a white paper with respect to what is known as truth maintenance (link later). As such, I had spent over a decade using the facilities of (KBE) knowledge based engineering to handle the complicated software dealing with nose to tail algorithms related to a large system, from its original thought all the way to being used (hint: 777 was the initial project). Along that line, being in engineering support (where physicists and mathematicians and such hang out), I touched upon a lot of the systems and worked to manage lots of the dynamics.

For one, systems that are of the differential type (many modes) require serious management of the pre and post conditions. As an aside, we will address modal logics from a view of driving all of the activity via an axiomatic modeler (details to be brought out). As such, the efforts of KBE allowed the compan's superb mathematical and engineering libraries to weigh in to support (essentially immature) COTS stuff and did so with remarkable results.

Also, there are almost innumerable other data and system activities all of which need to be tied together. Again, there are more mature notions now (we're talking four decades -- but, guess what?, I see issues -- humans have to be in the loop to notice, discover, ponder, and help tame the beasts of computing (recently, clear evidence of immaturity has spread itself around the world - ah, don't get me started here; I have blogged on this for 20 years now.

In any case, this post throws out 3 pages. This will be discussed. The main note now? Some are venturing down what we can call the "agentic" ways as if it's new. Well not. KBE prototyped and pioneered that stuff in the '80s and '90s even to the point of having production systems running. Too, we even had our own internet with local, regional, national and international servers and systems tied to support the needs of the systems. TCP, that gift of the Uncle Sugar?

Of course, it came along. Our stuff converted easily. Want to know something? I have complained since that time to how immaturity to hold. Oh, doubt me? You think that the "wild west" events where healthy which are still extant but drowned out by the noise of recent mischief. Again, this post has one purpose. All of that other stuff will be covered ever by bringing to attention prior work or pointing to recent activities.

Needless to say, TGS picked up technology as a focus specificially since I saw this coming (even decades ago) and kept aware of changes, their ramifications, and important factors. At the same time? I kept my feet out of the slop - while partaking in crapology which is study of the slop (all aspects).

The pages. There will be PDFs later. This is merely to get a browsable copy in place for discussion.

There were many more activities during that time that need attention, as well. In fact, a few years ago, I found it hard to find any reference to KBE. Then, there started to be nibbles as people became aware. Now, I will state that KBE splintered into a millions pieces which then evolved into something that is of use now and doing well.

Guess what? Everyone has heard tales of Xerox Park (need to check the name) where things like the mouse and improved interfaces, and graphics of sorts, and more were developed. And, then these were used almost universally. Well, consider Jobs' gift of the little device that thinks that it's a phone.

Well, KBE is even more of an example, as the algorithms have the qualities that we need for serious work. Not knocking gaming nor entertainment. But, when you fly, you expect a lot. That comes from good engineering. Right now, the computer is more of a baddie than a goodie. Okay?

Remarks: Modified: 05/30/2026

05/30/2026 -- Let's focus on the issue of the "agentic" style which is all a rage right now with respect to the current basis for this approach which is a "slop" generator. What will come of that with respect to furthering the technology. Oh yes, which we pioneered and prototyped four decades ago.

Natural progression led from the object-oriented methodology as it was exemplified by the Lisp Machine to "agents" almost without any second thought. We had the notions of web/connections and behavior and all of those type of things, minus one of importance. Which was? We had no motive to bring in the modern SciFI-addled pre-occupation with critters in the box and the anthropomorphic associations that arise from such thoughts.

Interest and attention

2026-05-28T16:11:45.422-07:00

TL;DR -- Interest is as old as the hills; the LLM brought attention to attention of late. So,we will pay attention. We allow our indeces for posts which are an iconic representation for the post to play the role of carrying meaning.

Of late, or since 2023, we have heard a lot about attention which was brought into the public discourse by Google in the context of machine learning that became known via ChatGPT, Gemini, and the like. And interest has been a concern for a while.

In Apr, we had two post related to the subject. The last one (30 Apr 2026) looked at images related to the report on popularity that is on the "right" column of each post in this blog. In the image reporting the images, we compared two dates, namely the 3rd and 30th of Apr of this year.

Contimuing this type of lookback for a while, we split out the three types of comparison: all time; recent; and last week. The following images are from those types. In the "all time", there was no change. That's understandable as those earlier post had a larger count. But, things do come along and shuffle their way into the top crowd. For instance, in the 3rd and the 30th, the posts were the same. But the order of general genealogy (royal types) versus the theme of "all things Gardner" switch. Generalities won out. How as this? Mainly through the efforts of David Todd Gardner (DTG) who has been working with a LLM on the documenation of the long history of Gardner and variants.

Now, going with the next group (Recently popular), there was a lot of change. The attention on the Gardner Family Trust by DTG carried a few posts, such as Attainder grudge. Posts related to Memorial Day got more notice. Since are now back on WikiTree, the attention related to the "marriage news" came back into vogue. We will be doing more updates of the related material.

Finally, at the weekly look, it might be considered as to be expected. The newer information would generate more interest. But some of these posts are older, such as Semper paratus which is about the 235th anniversary of the Coast Guard in 2025. Of interest to us was the role that Marblehead played which is in Essex County of Massachusetts. But an older post got attention, namely the "marriage news" which is from 2014. We also featured a hand edited, bespoke, site that transcribes local data so that it is availalbe on the internet. Remember that word, bespoke, which we will use a lot.

This review was of a brief time period. We will dive deeper in the next goaround, as the 250th is a month away so that both interest and attention will be higher than normal. Except, as we mention, the 250th kicks off an eight-year perriod. That will be interestintg to watch.

Remarks: Modified: 05/28/2026

05/28/2026 --

Genealogy Trails

2026-05-25T17:56:37.703-07:00

TL;DR -- Memorial Day will be a main theme for a while, especially as the 8+ years associated with the 250th unfold in the foreseable future. We ran into Genealogy Trails today (again) and were intrigued for many reasons that we discuss. Of course, we love the "retro" look which isn't; rather, this site has been consitent over the years which we hope continues.

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We may have run into this website before, in our 15 years of research. But, we honored there request for not using their data beyond personal research. Of course that brings up the question of including the site in the reference list.

As described below, looking at an Honors list for a State with casualties expeience during the Vietnam conflict found this site and got our interest. So, here is a link to the site prior to further exposition here: Genealogy Trails. Also, we note that we found this link via searches and backtracked at the site back to the starting page. Too, we noted the 2026 update of the Copyright.

Incidently, we love that they have continued the older format. Why? The cute methods brought by the use of 'tAIn't methods is irritating. Underneath, there are table-like structures that get filled in. Then, there is some rearranging (within limits) for some semblance customization. But all of the sites using the ML approach look and feel the same. Actually, the convergence to a norm seems to be an apropos description.

On the other hand, our portal notes our intent to foster and support "bespoke" methods in software. So, we're slow about it. Well, that's the human way. Those that run after the quick modes allowed by computation are perpetuating something that will not be pleasant in the future once the underlying errors start to creep up and bear out their potentials for negative influence.

Okay, this year the discussion on Memorial Day was about service during the time of the Vietnam conflict. In particular, known casualties were identified. And, "known" means classmate or other, as this is that time of year for classes from the past to meet (this year, it's the 50th of the class of 1966.

Where were you then? As we were searching using names, we were gathering reports, such as the "Honors" listings for Counties and their States. Given our normal approach, we then looked at New England heritage with a focus on Essex County of Massachusetts our ground zero.

Will not point to anything specific yet, but as we looked at the names New England families popped up. Lots of them. Well, let's use one example: Katy - western railroad. That was motivated by a postcard from early in the 1900s which was prior to the horseless approach. And, some of the buildings in the view had legible names. One name (Holbrook) popped out as it's part of an extended familythat we know. So, we followed up and reported the name of the owner/builder.

We will do the same for some of the Honorees that ought to get attention on Memorial Day. We might merely have a table of the name, location and the information from New England about ancestors. There is no specific plan as of now. This post is to raise the link to the site plus attempt to use it for research when we help people with the family history that matches up with names on the Honores lists.

Site: Genealogy Trails - this is sponsored by the

Genealogy Trails History Group

Their search engine: Our Freefind Search Engine

Page we landed on when doing our search:

U. S. MILITARY FATAL CASUALTIES OF THE VIETNAM WAR

FOR HOME-STATE-OF-RECORD: KANSAS

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This weeks
finds ...

Finding this site is encouraging for many reasons. My favorite site was one from UCalRiverside and dealt with "weekly finds in mathematical physics" which looked 1995ish for a long while. It's still there for reference even though a new site has taken up prominence with updated material handled wisely with updated methods.

The new site (Azimuth) points to lots of modern discussions (What are atoms made of?) and new data points.

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We will be using this genealogy trails site on a regular basis to check out material in the early stages of research where we would use Wikipedia and WikiTree early on just to see what work has been done on the topic. What we know of the modern computational system is that, done right, it will be a great boon. Unfortunately, there has been more bane than boon in my view for the past two decades. However, there are signs that some effort at maturity might be at hand.

Remarks: Modified: 05/25/2026

05/25/2026 --

Memorial Day, 2026

2026-05-22T17:14:24.102-07:00

TL;DR -- Memorial Day is just what it claims that it is. We try to do a task related to Find A Grave for a family during this time. This year, we follow up on an in-law family, the Kallens.

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Since 2019, we have had task of updating FindAGrave for a family. Our first year for this, 2019, filled in some missing information about a Civil War vet buried near Logan International in Boston. His name was Walter A. Ingalls who married a Lunt in-law. As we were getting the links in order, we looked at the siblings of that generation and found their profiles. Too, we did several posts: Problems with Find A Grave; Resources and work; and Henry Lunt lot. That last post was to tie into the 1634 arrival of the Lunt forebear. But, we had seen many of these maps while researching Sidney Perley who walked around Salem and reported measurements so that we could look back at the 17th Century with facts from the 19th Century.

The Jewish Herald
4 Mar 1938

A few weeks ago, we looked to document an American who went to Israel after the First World War in order to help build the country. Deborah Kallen was an educator and had audited classes at Harvard where her brother was a student as well as classes at Radcliff. We will be looking for more material, but add this article to today's post: Untold Stories, American Jewish Women in Yishuv and the Early State of Israel.

In our post, we mentioned her brother, Horace Kallen, who was a philosopher. He spent some time in Israel which we will write about. But to set the context of his sister's efforts, this paper is an overview: Horace Kallen’s Expanding Vision of Cultural Pluralism: Nationality, Race, and Democracy on the World Stage, 1918–1939.

The image is from an interview with Deborah who was visiting her brother and looking for support for her educational activity in Israel which was under a British mandate in the 1930s. She is asked about the Arab Uprising and its effect on her educational efforts. Deborah noted that "We need scholarships for our school -- American will provide them." She returned to Israel where we will pick up the story in a later post.

We have found the grave profiles for her family. Deborah and her siblings are listed in the order reported in Horace's obituary.

Our post for Memorial Day, 2025 has a listing of the prior posts.

Remarks: Modified: 05/22/2026

05/22/2026 --

Educational Pioneer, Deborah Kallen

2026-05-14T16:00:03.250-07:00

TL;DR -- After WWI brought the U.S. to the world's attention, organized activity spread from the U.S. to the world. This is one example. Deborah Kallen, ventured to Israel to found a school. We learn a little about her with some information coming via her brother, Horace Kallen.

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The Jerusalem Post, in 2023, had an article: Which American Jews helped establish Israel?

In 1920 Deborah Kallen, sister of famed Zionist thinker Professor Horace Kallen, moved to Palestine. Prof. Hillel Blondheim was brought to Eretz Yisrael by his mother in 1928 for eight months. She enrolled him in Miss Kallen’s School. He wrote about his experiences in his autobiography. He told me once when we met, “Every week we had a trip somewhere in Eretz Yisrael near Jerusalem. As I walk around Jerusalem today, I see streets bearing the names of our guides back then.” Blondheim made aliyah in 1951 and lived in Jerusalem until his 100th birthday. He became a noted scientist and won many prizes.
Kallen’s goal was to establish the Parents Educational Association School. Immediately, housed in old Arab building in Jerusalem, she made her educational theories come to life through the creation of classes in painting, carpentry, and athletics. Daily gardening, crafts were part of the regular curriculum, and nature walks. Yigael Yadin, the world-renowned archaeologist, was one of her students.

This post, on Deborah Kallen, is introductory as we will have more information on her and her brother, Horace Kallen, the philosopher.

Deborah Kallen
courtesy of The Forward
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.

For now, here is an article that provides information from several sources, including Horace talking about his sister.

Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues

Deborah Kallen and the Palestinian Yishuv: The Personal Tragedy of an Educational Pioneer

DEBORAH KALLEN AND THE PALESTINIAN YISHUV: THE PERSONAL TRAGEDY OF AN EDUCATIONAL PIONEER Sarah Schmidt A Personal Note

The first time I heard the name Deborah Kallen was in 1972, while interviewing her brother, the social philosopher Horace M. Kallen. Our subject was his contribution to the formulation of a specifically American concept of Zionism, and he began by telling me, with evident pride, of his most meaningful Zionist connection , his sister Deborah, who had moved to Palestine in 1920 and had contributed her American perspective to building the system of education there. A quarter of a century later I was teaching a course on "The Israeli Woman: From Myth to Reality" to North American students at Tel Aviv University and looking for material on American women who had contributed to building the yishuv, especially those American women who had tried to extend the American value system to the model society they assumed was then in the process of formation.

Aside from works by and about Golda Meir and Henrietta Szold there was little to be found. And so I decided to look for Deborah Kallen.1 Nashim:A Journal ofJewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues, no. 4. © 2001197 Sarah Schmidt

The Beginnings Deborah Kallen, born in Boston in 1888, was one of eight children in a large Orthodox Jewish family that had recently emigrated from Germany to the United States. She was educated in the public schools of Boston and, hoping to develop a career as a painter, as a young adult attended classes in drawing and painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. As a way of rounding out her education she also audited courses on art and design at Harvard College and on education at its then sister school, Radcliffe. Her studies there proved to be the decisive influence on her life, for early on she became an exponent of a new system of art education for children, one that emphasized her conception that the key to character building lay in teaching young children the principles ofgood design. As a result, she was appointed to the staff of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, responsible both for classes for children and for instructing other teachers in her methods of teaching design.

In 1920 Deborah took a two-year leave of absence from the museum and accepted an invitation from the Va'ad hahinukh, the official supervisory body for education in Palestine, to help train students at the Zionist teachers' seminary in Jaffa and at the British government seminary for Arab teachers in Jerusalem. Since she had previously shown no particular interest in Zionism, what impelled her to take this step is not entirely clear. A contributory factor was surely the struggle she had waged in the United States to have art accepted as part of the elementary school curriculum. In order to prove the worth of art in the school curriculum as quickly as possible, many art teachers began by having their pupils copy pictures from textbooks, often without any consideration of the picture's intrinsic artistic value. Art instruction focused not on what the children saw but on what they saw in picture books, on exercises in copying without any aesthetic or creative contribution on the part of the student.

Deborah Kallen developed her own system in direct opposition to this, stressing that children, rather than being required to copy, must be helped to develop their powers of observation. She considered this the most appropriate means to guide them in learning how to think critically and express an independent point of view. But she found herself waging a lonely fight, isolated in her perspective regarding what art education was about.

Deborah Kallen and the Palestinian Yishuv Deborah had also come to realize that her goal of becoming an artist in her own right was unlikely to be realized. Her talent was not distinct enough, and she lacked the requisite forcefulness to bring her work to the attention of the public. Possibly most discouraging was the evaluation of her art teacher and mentor at Harvard, Professor Denim Ross, who (as she recalled almost a half century later) told her that he...

Several themes motivate this post. Per usual, we have the 250th and 400th as motivation as we look at American History from the start to now, while celebrating an important event. On July 4th, with the commemoration finally coming about, we will have seven years to review all aspects of the U.S., New England, Massachusetts, and Essex County with its Cape Ann. People arrived here over the whole time. Some left to go back to the Old World. Others took off for the interior or for any of the locations accessible by water since New England was a nautical region.

Remarks: Modified: 05/23/2026

05/15/2026 -- Did post on Lunt in-law, Deborah Kallen on our Henry Lunt blog.

05/23/2026 -- Minor edits.

Attainder grudge

2026-05-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

TL;DR -- Gardner Family Trust has produced its research results and allows us an opportunity to vet this with regard to provenance and other criteria. It is a first, in a sense, as the computer algorithms (associated with AI) are to be scrutinized, as well. We are fortunate to be using historic data which has meaning beyond the normal.

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As we saw with the recent visit of King Charles to the White House, the U.S. and the UK have a history which we all know from our American history. Some families have more stories than others. We recently pointed to a post in the blog Gardner Family Trust dealing with the western U.S. From the TGS view, we got reminded by the movie (The Revenant) that was of the mountain man era.

There was a Gardner in the area and the new blog has some information about that part of the family. Another post was about Silvester Gardner and a namesake who owned the ship, Barque Bostonian (see the Gardiner that was), that sank and caused Gardiner, OR to come to be.

With respect to provenance and other dutiful notions, we need to establish links to documents that are of value themselves with respect to what information that they provide. Of late, we see projects using GenAI/LLM, about which we have had many things to say, for research, analysis and presentation. In fact, when you look at coding (programming), some teams generate huge systems and only check via test.

Note: A bit of progress to now has been proving programs so as to establish some notion of stability, maturity, and such, usually with respect to requirements that come from the world of humans. That side of things has gotten ignored; expect that it will come back into vogue.

In the meantime, while we are verifying Gardner data on this side of the pond, let's look back. We will use this post: The Merchant-Coup Thesis: The Gardiner Syndicate and the Tudor Usurpation of 1485. The notion is that a grudge led to the involvment of the Gardner family with the conflict at Bosworth. But, of interest is additional history gathered from a new look at historical records. This conjecture will be looked at in detail.

Accompanying the referenced thesis post is one with more clarification: The Fenland Grievances: Lancastrian Merchants' Reckoning and the Yorkist Toll, 1461–1485. The intriguing thing is that we know that history is written topdown. And, we know how personal insights or reports on occurrences do not survive the cuts that force everthing into some envelop of generalization.

The computer can help us change that limitation. At the same time, we have to be careful so as to not introduce error through lack of proper knowledge which is the case due to those events being past any potential of redo as one would expect in the laboratory situation.

Before going on, there is a third site that lays out a historic view of the London area while considering the existence of a middle class that persists across generations. And, "Gardner" as a name can represent such threads which is seen as plural as no one line exists across time that we know of. Even modern genetic processing has its issue with respect to using biological markers to bring such a feat to reality.

See Merchant Coupe Thesis. This site provides an overview of the approach and the basic rationale for the choices that are being made in this retrospective. The scene is London for the culmination of a long series of events, but the overview covers many countries and generations.

After two U.S. themed posts, we have our first one focused across the pond. So, let's now pull out our pencils and papers and make notes. Meanwhile, TGS will get deeper into the technical aspects with a balance of ensuring timely release of information that can show some type success after undergoing a bit of exercises related to vetting.

A last remark? We have many posts about the Magna Carta which was celebrated more by Americans than by the Brits in the past; that is, until the Americans made the effort. Queen Elizabeth II gave land to the widow of Pres. John F. Kennedy, after his assassination. That site was the focus of the 201 commemoration which was attended by a TGS representative.

Remarks: Modified: 05/04/2026

05/04/2026 -- In commeration of Erik W. Gardner (1965-2025). His father and mother attended the Magna Carta event.

What's of interest

2026-04-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

TL;DR -- The Heads of State of the UK and US had dinner this week. English was remembered this month, as a language and culture. We update an image showing what is getting read of TGS posts.

April, as a month, has a long of list of remembrances. Earlier this month, we used the theme of "English" to look at the count of posts read by three categories.

This week, at a State Dinner, both King Charles of the UK and President Trump remarked upon the upcoming 250th on July 4th having to do with the Revolution that split us from the "mother" country in many ways. But, the relationship continued in many other veins, such as being ally nations. Topics associated with this will be regular over the next few years.

The U.S. peaceful entry into the world as a Nation did not occur until 1783.

When we honored "English", we made an image which has been updated to show the same report as of today, 30 Apr 2026.

We will do these more often over the year to get some notion of interest.

Remarks: Modified: 04/30/2026

04/30/2026 --

Gardner Family Trust

2026-04-26T11:01:00.000-07:00

TL;DR -- This post announces the Gardner Family Trust site and provides notice of the first post which deals with Gardiner, MT which is a historic site near Yellowstone National Park which saw a lot of history that we can and will study. But, the choice of this example deals with the history of the Gardner family over more than a millenium and is a U.S. example which represents continuing work in the history the U.S. presented in a modern way through progressive means.

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In an earlier post this month, we wrote of our joint efforts with David T. Gardner: On Gardners, redux. We here at the TGS, Inc. are fairly new to this work. David on the other hand as been at this since his youthful days. Prior to our contact with David, we had applied this adage to our work:

Americans need to focus on their side of the pond and get their several generations of genealogy documented to be correct. In other words, let the orginis be done by those over there. For one thng they have better access to records.

Even though we had a late start, by that time the influence of the internet was growing as the industry kept the thing going while supporting work of millions of users. One large impact was that the ISPs were digitizing documents and records. Our results of our 2014 work on the marriage of Thomas and Margaret was a result. At the same time, we had posts on the subject of Origins and What we know (see FAQ).

Recently, we looked at an organization started after the 2nd World War by members of the FASG (Society of American Genealogist). One of their members wrote the background whose first paragraph covers some of the historic dynamics as shown in this image (left - a page from the paper; right - transcription).

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In that same spirit, we are supporting the efforts of David to publish his work with respect to history and the Gardners: Gardner Family Trust. As we have mentioned, we had looked at the battle of Bosworth and about the death of King Richard III. The news at the time was loaded with reports on a body being found and identified. At the time, we loosened our American focus to provide information that we thought was pertinent to our work.

Last year, David was able to start to use one of the GenAI/LLM to assist in his work. For one thing, lots of that work is transcribing old documents into a workable shape while ensuring that the fidelity of the representation is sound which task includes fixing things as necessary and then doing OCR on the updated image of the document.

Along that line, the TGS interest in technology comes into play. We published an overview in December of 2025: Research, using the internet and AI. David has collected a lot of material. Our focus will be to help him with his analysis of provenance and general truth of the newly digitized as well as documents from earlier work.

There is a lot to do which we will raise the priority on. So, going back to the theme of over there and/or here, we will take the latter for a while. As David provides new posts, we will be doing a regular walkthrough and discuss the ins and outs to emphasize, for one thing, the 250th and its significance.

This post is an introduction. We will follow with regular reporting and commentary on methods and ways to handle the new information going forward in order to leave a proper legacy for Gardners and their progeny everywhere.

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For his 1st post, David writes of Gardiner, MT through which Gardner River flows. We have had many posts on rivers including Gardner River and the area, Yellowstone, plus. It is a beautiful area with lots of history. We are grateful to have David's contributions.

Gardner Family Trust

Gardiner, Montana:

The Living River Machine

Still Operating in 2026

There were several reasons for chosing this site. We are dealing in endless history, in a sense, where technology will allow us new views to hopefully fill in missing information. But, the choice of this example deals in particular with the history of the Gardner family over more than a millenium and is a U.S. example which represents continuing work in the history of the U.S. presented in a modern way through progressive means where people rise to attention.

Note: More detail will be forthcoming as we shadow David's work with the Gardner Family Trust with documentation of provenance, method, annd tradeoffs that might have been made.

Remarks: Modified: 04/26/2026

04/26/2026 --

Illegitimates, Royal family

2026-04-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

TL;DR -- We ran across the one heritage group in the U.S. that claims the most stringent application process which keeps their membership small. We will use RBs here. After a brief review of technology of late, we look at heritage societies as they exist in the U.S. Many of these go back to the colonial era. At the same time, there is a huge chunk that goes back before the moment of "origins" into the far reaches of the History of Britain and of Europe. The 250th has direct bearing on those studies, such as the interest of the ABA in the heritage of the Magna Carta. Our contribution to history will be via the Gardner Family Trust with its focus of 2,000 years.

We have seen so much sillyness the past few years that one might wonder if there is more or have we seen everything of that nature. There was a time when we took computation more seriously.

But then, GenAI/LLM happened. It has been only a little over four years now, but the related work goes back one decade for the main focus and back to the 1950s altogether with interesting progress throughout the whole of those seven decades.

One of those areas of work was Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) the public awareness of which was never known or was lost in the shuffles of time.

But, the lessons of KBE were not lost, as my survey over the past few years has shown. The phenomenal world contains lots of remnants from that period ('80s, '90s) in various shapes which include academic involvement and classes plus companies representing operational knowledge improvements of various types through their intellectual property and activity.

Phenomenal? I use that a lot with a meaning related to things that we can sense in the world. That is, these are "real" and not our mental images. As if, their presence conveys that something is there in the world. Of late, there has been attention given to "twins" which are digital models of the "real" thing which is then represented in bits and heated moments by circuits processing such things. We call those circuit conglomerates computers. Much to discuss.

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Now with respect to this organization, we see people as phenomenal. They are here, have a history in terms of their genetic lineage, can name some of their ancestors, and then leave us (some having then a phenomenal legacy for us to consider). We have mentioned the Hereditary Society Community which consists of groups with different historic and genealogic focus. Each of these Societies have an application process and an associated list of people. If one is a descendant of one of those people, then one can join if an application shows direct lineage from the applicant to the person of the past.

Many groups have a U.S. or colonial theme. Examples of this are the Daughters of the American Revolution, The General Society of Mayflower Descendants, The Society of Cincinatti, and such. With regard to the group honoring Cincinnatus, there are two houses that are associated with Ann's family: see TGS post, Two Houses.

Some groups use "Gateway" to represent the bearer of heritage information that continues on the other side, as in prior to their immigration to the colonies. We recently wrote of that: see post, Gateway Ancestors, redux. Here, the Magna Carta groups stand out.

The rest of this post is about one of those groups.

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We recently were reminded of this group as they had their annual meeting in Washington, DC. We took a little time to look at their website (Illegitimates or RBs) and found an on-line tutorial about the application process involved which is one of the stringent. Many early members were associated with the Society of American Genealogists. So, it is no surprise that that they would start an effort to firm up the application process.

Having done tons of applications over the years while helping people join societies, we are sensitive to the arguments which we will be looking at in more detail in later posts. Today we want to introduce the video that is quite interesting with its coverage of historical issues as well as the discussion of the research and documentation process as well as a look at how things are evaluated.

The video --- Webinar: Finding Your Bastard and Your Line: Tuesday, November 18, 2025.

Let's start with a discussion related to American History. In the video, go to 12:33 and find the first page of the "Background" overview. The story of Americans visiting England is quite instructive as those here were thought of as "rustics" mostly. Whereas, the list of Gateways shows that many families had a heritage worth looking into. Well, everyone's family has that quality. Rather, people here have the same genetic involvement with the history of England as do folks there.

But, the U.S. offered more which we expect will be more publicly discussed during the long run of the 250th celebration. Frankly, we are still over two months from the Declaration of Independence. After that, expect a continual review to be part of our days until after 2033.

With technology and mature computing, the amount of new documention to be attained will be without limit, with quality material rising to the top of the heap of attention.

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The Royals (all over Europe) are (have been) an interesting bunch. With respect to "Gardner" and command/control, we have stumbled around the "origins" aspect for a bit and will be more focused with the advent of David T. Gardner's new site: Gardner Family Trust. His theme is "2000 Year History".

Remarks: Modified: 04/19/2026

04/19/2026 -- Changed links that did not copy corrrectly: Two houses, Society of Cincinnati.

On Gardners, redux

2026-04-11T16:33:00.000-07:00

TL;DR -- David T. Gardner has made progress in his work and now has a timeline that is interesting for several reasons. One is the scope, back to the BCE era. But, it brings up twists to Gardner history that are going to be fun to study. Say, one that ties Rome and London.

We have mentioned the work of David T. Gardner a few times: Welsh poems; Research, using the Internet and AI; Sir Christopher Gardner. These are from late 2025. There are earlier posts that will come into play, as well.

After several false starts related to getting GenAI/LLM to act right, David has been working now bringing out the content of long-lost material that has been digitized. The tools from GenAI/LLM can be remarkable, from a distance. I say that since my computer career dealt with things requiring precision from the data side of things and from algorithms, especially routines supporting the form, fit, function requirements of engineering of critical parts for major systems.

Then, loosy-goosy GenAI/LLM came along. The head of one prime company shrugged the other day when he was asked about his tool not being able to calculate time functions, not even to the extent of establishing the current time at a locale. That's one small issue; huge ones have been documented.

On the other hand, David is pulling out materal, using OCR to get it digitized, and various analysis methods to determine the content, significance, and possible ramifications of the data.

I have been watching loosely as the work progressed. David is keeping the necessary requirements in mind, such as establishing provenance. Anyone who works knows that it takes energy and is tiring. Even brainy work. And, long hours in surgery? (I know, having been introduced by working in the surgical side of an Army hospital in my late teens - in the operating room. But, I can talk about digging ditches and doing concrete - in the old days of manual labor.).

David has produced a timeline: Guardians of Liberty: Kingslayers of the Counting House. Guardians? With a millenial view? Yes, consider the Latin phrasing and a new view of Gardner comes to fore. One of particular interest ties Rome to London in the early days of legionairre prominence. We will be looking more closely at this.

Right now, I want to mention a couple of entries in David's timeline that we looked at earlier; when I saw the new material being brought out, it caught my attention.

Sir Christopher Gardner -- 1625. 1630 on the timeline. Let's just say that the story from John Winthrop does not match up with some of the newer material. Pending further research on David's material.
Johnson Gardner -- 1820s, 1830s on the timeline. Naturally, the movie Revenant got our attention. With all events and places in the interior of the U.S. over the 1800s, we look for potential New England or Gardner links.
...

There are more events from the time of "origins" which are actively under study and from even before. We appreciate the breadth of David's scope in this regard.

Remarks: Modified: 04/11/2026

04/11/2026 --

Some notes on AI/ML

2026-04-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

TL;DR -- GenAI/LLM has been on the scene for over three years. Lots has happened which we have participated in and watched. Things are getting interesting on all of the sides to the story. This post stops and posts a few links related to using Spinoza's thoughts to ponder this modern puzzle.

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AI/ML (known too as GenAI/LLM) has been on the scene now for over three years. In terms of the total picture, the history and data are there for us to study. What's happened in 2026 is a type of acceleration. The split of 'yeah' and 'nay' is still there. But, other dynamics came into play that changed the game this year.

We're still using "AIn't" to depict this wannabe attempt. I quit using any of these systems in early 2025 when the "agentic" came prominent. Why? We prototyped lots of the ideas of that approach four decades ago (in the "knowledge" era) and did good stuff within the constraints of the time. So, I will get to documenting that from my experience and according to what I observed. What we learned there is apropos.

For instance, the NNN is known as a general function approximator. And, functions are a focus, say from the work related to the functional software approach (Haskell, et al - but, Lisp early, okay?); functions are mappings as we see with category theory; automated processes (basis for the web and SAAS) are from the knowledg era and encapsulated the behavorial/active aspects of objects/classes within the computational sphere; ...

What follows is a list of links related to technical and philosophical themes. These are not disjoint concepts. For each, there is a little comment.

DeepAI -- this is their GitHub site which collects some of the offerings behind some of the work that we will be refrencing. GitHub is an on-line system for managing information that is continually be updated and managed, such as code (but some have used its facilities for a collection of technical, topical essays.
What Kant and Spinoza can teach us about AI -- Two of Demis Hassabis’s favourite philosophers, Spinoza and Kant, help illuminate the conundrum: can AI turn chaotic data into intelligible, structured reality? ... I have mentioned these two philosophers quite a lot in posts on Linkedin of late. And, my use of AIn't comes directly from agruments by these guys. And so, there are discussions still pending.
One view of many on Spinoza by an artist -- interesting take on things; lifting us out of the technical for its own sake.
..., will be splitting this list --- Spinoza (Wikipedia) ; Spinoza (SEP) ; Gutenberg (text) ; Gutenberg (Ethics) ;
Mapping Spinoza's Ethics -- offers mean to visualize the "argumentative structure".
DeepAI on Spinoza -- they have several philosophers covered which we will get to.
Chat Spinoza -- when we first saw this, we thought that it was cute; but, we also like how things are interconnected so as to allow analysis.
...

Uriel de Costa

This post will be a reference for us, too, as we go forward with the 400th, 250th, and the history of the U.S. and technology (say remembering Gibbs, the American, who cntributed to thermodynamics and caught the eye of the illustrious James Clerk Maxwell of Scotland. But, taking things into the 20th Century, we will have to bring up Planck. Why? His early thermodynamics work that quoted Gibbs and also explained the basics from a chemical sense.

Remarks: Modified: 04/11/2026

04/10/2026 -- Added words and links.

April Awareness Day - English

2026-04-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

TL;DR -- Awareness is a good thing. Days abound with respect to official recognition. Women's History month just completed. Black History month was before that. Besides looking at history and current affairs over the years, we can be aware of the reads that are taking place daily.

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We have been paying attention to awareness months for a few years. For each month of the year, the focus can be on many themes. For instance, one theme in March was Women's History (06 Mar 2026 post). We have a post that we will be updating each year: Awareness months.

So, April has Mathematics/Statistics. But, it also includes the English Language Day on the 23rd which is related to the birth and death days of William Shakespeare. Another day is Easter Sunday was this past weekend but can occur as early as March 24th. In April, it can be as late as the 25th.

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Now, we would like to switch to another type of awareness which relates to readership counts with respect to our blog and other publications. The image comes from a snap of three views that are always updated with presentation of the information (position in image and title): Left - All time, popular; Middle - Recently popular; Right - Last week.

Post read count
by period

In order to support our Portal to Truth (to be defined and described), we have been adding an image to each post. This helped us determine an icon for the post to use in lists. The order relates to the number of reads. Starting from the left, "All time, popular" goes back to the start of the blog. For a long time, the post "Posts of interest - 2011" was the most read. It summarizes the status of the blog at the end of the 2nd year or the 2st full year. But, in 2014, after the discovery of the marriage record for Thomas Gardner and Margaret Fryer, that post slowly crept up and has been most read for quite a while.

In the middle column, "Recently popular" looks at the same collection of posts but only counts reads within the past month. It is a different list. Early on, there was an overlap between all time and recent. But, of late, things have changed so much, and we have new readership due to Linkedin posts, the lists are different. We are happy to show that "Women's History Month, 2026" is on this list.

On the right are the posts most read in the past week. So, these are mostly topical. One that we want to call attention to is "Truth, what is it?" which is also on the "Recently popular" list and deals with technology's (TGS focus) recent influence that mostly caught everyone by surprise. Even the vendors had no clue. But, from our view, we immediately saw the potential unwanted side-effects. That is a long story which will be even more of interest as the hype gets tamed down a little. "knowledge" systems have been really effective from day one. That is AI with an emphasis on expert humans as opposed to a general search for machine intelligence that might compare with what humans do.

There is a lot of work to be done in this regard. Our basis goes back to a project that accomplished the first digital design of a major airplane (this was in the '80/'90s - the Boeing 777). We will only touch upon a few details as our focus is not the plane; it's on the process that got the work done which resulted in a plane that astonished those who saw it up close (this we'll briefly touch upon, too).

Jumping ahead, though this has already been expressed, the run after AGI and its issues would not have been troublesome at all had the "knowledge" proceeded a few decades ago. We will tell the tales in that regard about decisions and their ramifications. This will be from a general viewpoint mostly presented in terms of a "dialog" covering the whats and what ifs.

In the "Last week" list as well are two older posts: Descendants of Sarah; Old Planters, Beverly. These relate to the Salem 400+ theme for 2026. Sarah married Balch who was an Old Planter. Some of Thomas' children and grandchildren married Conant. There were other families who intermarried, as well, at that time.

There is a theme to readdress. Thomas was not on the "old planters" list. One family suggested that he had returned as some moved from Cape Ann to Namkeag. Other tales need some attention. Our recent work involves the timeframe for the family that will show that Thomas and Margaret had the time to come over here for the year plus. What are those specifiics? Well, finally, we have a starting point and will use that to begin again in looking at Origins.

In terms of topic and focus, we will do a more regular periodic look at these lists this year.

Remarks: Modified: 04/06/2026

04/06/2026 --

Salem 400+

2026-03-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

TL;DR -- During the time that we look back at the years from 1626 to 1629, the Thomas Gardner Society, Inc. will focus on the story of Cape Ann as well as that of Salem.

It's here. Another 400th in the timeline of Massachusetts. This time? The movement from Cape Ann to Naumkeag which was renamed to Salem in 1629.

Salem 400+ on Facebook

We have a lot of reseach to do that is related to this theme in terms of the stories accumulated over the years. In 2023, a thorough study of digitized records from Dorset, UK showed that Margaret and Thomas had all of their children in the UK, except for the last child, Seeth, who was born in Salem.

The WikiTree page has a record of the research and discussion. The Thomas Gardner profile was split into two: the Thomas married to Margaret is one: the other refers to an unknown person. We have made many comments about what supports the notion that there was one person involved as Thomas Gardner.

So questions abound: how long were he (or they) here?; if they, what conditions did they face?; ....

An example is the gap between the births of John and Samuel which was sufficient to allow Thomas (with or without Margaret) to be here. Notice for John, there is a "minor" extra marking which may have indicated a later than normal report. As in, John was born here and was introduced into Dorset records when the family returned.

John and Samuel Gardner

In any case, the Thomas Gardner (and Margaret) of Salem was here in 1636 and documented by many over the years, including Dr. Frank. Their children are in the records.

Remarks: Modified: 03/22/2026

03/22/2026 -- Clarified the TL;DR section.

Salem, 1626

2026-03-07T16:33:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- The 250th is well-known by now. So, it's time to get back to the 400th.

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The 250th is everywhere now getting attention which is great. We are not yet to the Day of the Declaration of Independence so ought to be paying attention to the events that came before July 4 of 1776. Our last post on "Knox Sunday" is an example. We will have more posts with the team but have been covering the 250th for over a decade.

May we step back to the 400th? With regard to Essex County of Massachusetts, the initial settlement attempt was in the 1623/24 timeframe. Gloucester celebrated their 400th in 2023.

As the story goes (told by many), the crew that came over with attempt of Thomas Gardner, for a couple of years, made a go of it without much success. For one thing, the land was not suitable for farming. Evidently the fishing and some planting/forging went well for subsistence. But being a commercial enterprise, the "money" behind the effort expected early returns.

Roger Conant came to town to get things right but could not overcome the obstacles; he got permission to move to what became Salem.

Roger and some of his crew did that move in 1626. So, we have been waiting for this year. We wrote of the transition earlier in a post about Massey's Cove in 2019. We included this painting which was done in the 20th century to accompany an article on the perils of this attempt.

Of course, later there were various criticisms of the painting. For one, the houses were better configured than we know from reality. We wrote of that recently quoting the reaction of Anne Bradstreet as she got off the ship that was with the Winthrop Fleet. This was her introduction to Salem.

Anne noted that some in London had mislead them: Hype, 1600s. What we got out of the stories was that Winthrop was feated in the "Governor's" great house. Anne and others went to Cape Ann to pick wild strawberries. The Governor would have been John Endicott who came in to replace Roger Conant.

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Where was Thomas? Evidently, he had returned after his intitial effort to London. He and his family returned sometime before 1635 as his last child was born here. At the time of Cape Ann, it would have been Margaret and the older boys. See "Themes that persist" to watch for particulars as we go along.

We have mentioned Roger Conant several times and will relook at the start of Massachusetts this year as we continue with the 250. As the commemoration of the Revolution continues through 2033, we will step through the early years of Naumkeag which became Salem in 1629. The next year, Winthrop came through and did not like the area. So, he went further down the coast to Boston.

So, for the next few years, we will focus on the origins of the crew at Cape Ann plus resolve the issue of the unkown Thomas Gardner who was a Cape Ann in light of the Thomas Gardner who came over in the mid-1630. Ann is a descendant of Roger both Conant and Thomas Gardner. Those relationships will be looked at as well, as we go forward.

With technology as a major focus, we will use some of the modern stuff. Mainly, it would be to discuss the issues related to use and misuse which is a common characteristic of people and their involvement with all matters of life, it seems.

Remarks: Modified: 03/21/2026

03/08/2026 -- Some correction of typos and phrasing mishaps (as in, touch typist - fingers walking the keys following ruminations in the mind - one reason that publishing processes have proofreading - rather than the know-it-all-ish nature ot the buckets'o'bits).

03/21/2026 -- Made link with Salem 400+.

Women's History Month, 2026

2026-03-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- We provide information about Women's History Month for this year as well as a link to an article on women of the Manhattan Project.

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March 8th is International Women's Day every year. We have had a post related to the theme of this day since 2022. The theme in 2022 was motivated by the Gairdner Foundation awards that year as well as their reminder of the day's focus. We also mentioned Drew Gilpin Faust and Prof. Emmy Noetther plus provided a link to the StreetsofSalem (blog) which listed "Books for Women's History". A listing of our posts can be found later in this post.

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This year we are pointing to the website for the primary organizing group. Plus we link to an article on the women scientist who supported a major project during WWII.

Theme -- with a theme of 'Give to Gain' the focus is on the "power of reciprocity and support".
Events -- a website allows search for events or for the registering of events. To quote the site, their intent is to "Support the Supporters" for "forging women's advancement worldwide".
Manhattan Project -- written by a retired physicist, the work of many women is noted including that of Leona Harriet Woods (pictured second from right in the middle row).

March is Women's History month in the U.S. and many other parts of the worlds. The following are our posts since 2022.

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Since the TGS, Inc. has a technology focus, coverage of work by women will be technical for the most part.

Remarks: Modified: 03/06/2026

03/06/2026 --

Knox Sunday

2026-03-04T17:08:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- Coming up is Evacuation Day which closed out the Siege of Boston that had started in the Spring of 1775 and continued until March of 1776. A blogger in Salem, MA attended a relook at the role of Knox in bringing success to the event by obtaining and transporting cannons from upper New York.

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We have enjoyed the StreetsofSalem blog since our research brought it to our attention. It is time to add to review the blog again (our earlier posts) as there are many overlaps of our points of interests.

Today we looked at their posts from the past few months and found one on Gen. Knox and his cannons (our posts on the subject - latest - Nearing the day of the Evacuation). Washington suggested to Knox in late 1775 that the troops needed armament and powder. Fort Ticonderoga had been captured earlier in the year and had military pieces available, if they could be moved. Knox volunteered. After going to upper New York, he made preparations. There were tons and tons to move through western Massachusetts late fall.As we mentioned, the feat requires regular attention which we will provide through the next few years. We have a few, as peace with England was not obtained until 1783. The map was drawn 150 years later and shows the distance traveled while pulling tons of metal.

The Knox Trail as laid out
in 1926/27 by the
States of New York and
Massachusetts

The blogger had gone to relook in early February. Below, we provide a link to her post from which we obtained links to the images of this blog.

"Knox Sunday" - "... I’ve been watching online as commemorations of Knox’s Noble Train of Artillery moved across large swaths of New York and Massachusetts on its way to relieve the besieged citizens of Boston but had not made it to one live event—and Evacuation Day (better known as St. Patrick’s Day to those of you not in Massachusetts) is only a little over a month away. So I decided to drive out to Framingham to see some cannons and Patriots before the other Patriots took the field. ..."

" ... Knox Trail 250 is an initiative of Revolution 250, which bears the motto: Your Town, Your History, Our Nation so the commemorative events of the past few years have always been community-based in terms of organization and participation. This particular event was a Middlesex County affair, with representatives from all the towns surrounding Framingham (Marlborough, Southborough, Wayland ) present. ..."

Remarks: Modified: 03/04/2026

03/04/2026 --

IEEE 2874 - 2025

2026-03-01T17:44:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- In the midst of the hype and uncertainty, IEEE does its thing of standards definition and documentation. This latest one deals with AI (many aspects) and represents a very good start to keeping a focus on mature approaches to technology.

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We have talked about technology over the past few years as we adopted it as a theme for going forward. But, what is technology? We have had the topic discussed on a daily basis for a long while now. As technological improvements came about, the pace of change increased as did the talking.

For the past three years, we have had an accelerated bit of declarations about progress or other state of affairs, seemingly disjointedly provided to us. People have reacted in various ways. Lots of the discussion came with flavors of what might be called hype while at the same time we saw people reacting as if we had a new being on the planet. Many saw the potential bad effects.

Much of the above was related to the emergence of GenAI/LLM (AI/ML) in a manner that allowed free access to anyone with the knowhow to exercise the systems. OpenAI was first on the block with their efforts, of which ChatGPT got the most exposure. We look at it first in February of 2023 and reported on the experience in this blog.

Since then, we have looked at other systems, one of which Gemini (formerly Bard) of Google. For a couple of years, we experimented, analyzed and wrote about the issues.

One change in the past year has been the appearance of things related to "agentic" modes on the scene. This includes discussions as well as demonstrations.Our response, initially, was to fall back a few decades and bring forward information about earlier attempts that were successful, under the guise of KBS and KBE. We wrote several articles and have more planned.

But, for now, let's stop, look and listen (as they did in the olden days for trains at unmarked crossings. While the attention went with the glories of AGI and such, work continued along the lines of progression that accompanies engineering. Last year, there were Standards agrees upon that pertain to the future of computing. This will involve the current modes but actually deals with new stuff that is more dream than reality which is fine.

The IEEE 2874 - 2025 (The Spatial Web Standards) decision deals with what is called by some as Web 3.0. That usually goes along with the concept of the web of everything. But, actually we are dealing with the totality of what can be considered now.

An organization with the purpose of seeing the new capaibilities developed was founded in 2025 and is known as the Spatial Web Foundation. We will be looking further at that.

IEEE's Spectrum had an article about this in its latest issue: Here Comes the World Wide Web of Everything The Spatial Web standard connects devices, robots, and AI agents.

As expected, we will have a historic view on all of this stuff while keeping up to date on progress. As such, the TGS will offer 400 and 250 year views of technology. After all, major thermodynamics work was done here (Josiah Willard Gibbs) as well as academic influence had a basis in the U.S. (Charles Sanders Peirce and his father).

Those two examples are Thomas Gardner descendants. And, after all of this, is AIn't still apropos? Yes. Maturity is still a necessity; engineering knows this to its core. Biologists pushed the current craze. Lots to discuss.

Remarks: Modified: 03/01/2026

03/01/2026 --

Nearing the day of Evacuation

2026-02-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- 1776 is the official year. July 4th is the day. Of the start of the U.S. Prior to that, 1775 was full of activity which wound down in March of 1776, however the conflict went on for several more years.

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We are nearing the end of the months from Lexington & Concord to the Battle of Bunker Hill and then to the Evacuation Order. Lots went on during that time from sheer boredom to heavy work to training and some conflicts. An example of work is Knox's movement of cannons from Fort Ticonderoga to the Boston area.

We can use Siege of Boston for this period which goes from the altercation at Lexington and Concord. During the past eleven or so months, we have had many posts with themes of events from 1775.

This post is to close out February and open up March where we can then expect July 4th to kick off the 250th which runs for several years. The topics to look at are unending. An example might be our look at the Southern Campaign during which the Revolution was completed successfully and the final wrappings were put upon the peace agreement.

But, people are the main interest. Col. Thomas Gardner who was killed at Bunker Hill was a descendant of the Thomas Gardner of Roxbury who was of unknown relations with Thomas Gardner of Salem. The progeny of both of the men spread the Gardner name over the country. The image shows the names of Gardiner and Gardner families here at that time.

Mass Soldiers and Sailors

Finally, our interest will be in the people and families of the 250th as well as the issues of origins that need a clear resolution to remove confusion and conflicting opinions. We look at the Roxbury family as Ann is a descendant of this Thomas as well as the one of Salem.

Remarks: Modified: 02/28/2026

02/28/2026 --

Truth, what is it?

2026-02-20T06:30:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- Knowledge systems were (and are to be considered) a primal step in the advancement of computational intelligence. Recent issues notwithstanding, we know how to handle the slop. Part of the ways and means will deal with experience.

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So, if one gripes, one ought to have a solution. In fact, the glories of progress, if things are done right, rests with those who can show the way. But, slop as mentioned in the last post?

Walk and not talk. The trouble with AIn't is that it talks. Very well. Do? Not so much. So, the kids of the valley went after "agents" as if they offer miracles for the following: you cannot train out the slop after the fact. Good people know that quality is built in during the process.

At Linkedin: KBE (and MBSE).

Want to fly a plane that was done by one of these current buckets'o'bits? Seriously.

This post leads to an article that I am writing on Linkedin. The topics will go back to the '80s which is when there had been a two-decade effort at AI after the Dartmouth meeting in the '50s. And, it deals with the Lisp of John McCarthy which had been packaged into a workstation (Lisp Machine). Coming forward, the world followed DoD (now DoW) into the "quant'" world of numerics.

Lisp was ported to Unix. Well, the SUN networking workstations were great. But, they were not the qualitative expert as we got with the Lisp Card (to be discussed). Anyway, after a solid grounding in the use of the Lisp Machine where we did prototypes in all sorts of disciplines that worked phenomenally well, I went to Boeing and worked on the 777 digital definition project.

This is introductory. But, the engineering support work for a major design effort was at the time that solid modeling was getting mature plus the accumulation of mathematical routines (all around) was making the computer more of a tool to replace the slide rule (which was a remarkable little thing).

That led to "truth engineering" as a pursuit of the middle-out truth that bridges the Suites (uppers, C, G, ...) and the trenches where matter hits the road.

Where is the "truth" of the matter? Well, it'll take some time to discuss. But, demonstration via computational examples is a good way to go. After all, we have not yet learned what is necessary to be adept generally with complex systems.

Remarks: Modified: 04/06/2026

04/06/2026 -- Refreshed image representing progress made in 1995 and forgotten which need some attention now with regard to the future. The whole of the "knowledge" realm outside of the usual focus points, such as academia, needs to be brought to bear now with respect to AI/ML. There is some indication of that happening.

Slop. How did this happen?

2026-02-20T05:39:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- What could have been great turned out to be similar to a stadium after a concert. What? Yes, there are many sides to the story which we will be looking at thoroughly as people consider ways to recover from the binge of bad choices.

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This post is informational, only. Somehow, the glories of mathematical computing descended into the state of a concert site after the tens of thousands depart (say even, Times Square on New Years Day).

In 2026, in a mere two months, we have seen rapid change in the landscape of computing (in particular, that to which I have been referring to as AIn't and buckets'o'bits and such). The splitting of the fields of view are growing.

We have those who are enthralled with the new way brought by advanced mathematical computing having the ability to supposedly communicate with us via our natural language. So, that is great for the creative bunch. Well not, as now we have mimicing brought to a new level.

We have those who are not into computing at all and wonder about the hype. Except, go to about any company now and look at their website. After DAVOS (meeting of the uppers in the land of watches in Europe) this year, everywhere CEOs said, go AI big time.

Except, go to the trenches. It stinks down there. But at the upper reaches of busyness? Ah, the glories seem to waft. From where?

Then, there is a middle view that is lifting mathematics to view. That is interesting. But, people, let's go to the core and look at the issues that never get discussed due to the age-old aura of the mathematical discipline. Well, it took bad turns last Century.

There are other views which will be the subject of discussion all year and beyond. The TGS, Inc. chose a few years ago to have technology as a focus motivated by the coming of this age of slop. We saw that a decade ago as an extension of foolhardiness of a decade or two before that.

Maturity was thrown out the window for something related to what unrestrained young men want. Like one bragged, move fast and break things. Yeap, young guy, for us (the users), it has not been great (I have notes on this back to the beginning of the web's downfall).

So, we'll use slop, as opposed to what some use with respect to crap (and the necessary crapology): The age of Enshittification; Wikipedia's page; ...

Poor choices? Matters of perspective? There are so many ways to view and unknowns to try to learn about. We have been using Linkedin to try to establish a reporting voice with respect to how the 250th of the U.S. might get us to relook at the history of technology.

Remarks: Modified: 03/25/2026

02/26/2026 -- Recover image.

03/25/2025 -- Denning of the Naval Postgraduate School does a good job of delineating the pros and cons of the LLM crowd. The Conundrum of LLMs -- With LLMs, the goods are really good and the bads are really bad.

Hype, 1600s

2026-02-14T08:56:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- Anne Dudley Bradstreet is well known, as is her husband Simon Bradstreet. We can use her experience to consider hype over the centuries to the present, as we find now with technology. In Anne's case, she showed up on the Winthrop fleet in 1630 and found out that the colonial life in New England was not what she had told about (or experienced) in England prior to her departure. When she died after enduring several decades in New England, her husband moved into and lived in the house of his new wife which house had a history back to Cape Ann and which house came to bear his name.

Anne Bradstreet

Hype? As old as mankind. Let's look at an example.

Many know of Anne Bradstreet. She was a Dudley and came over with her husband, Simon. We have had lots of posts about the couple. There will be more as we start to explore a theme related to technology. So, please continue past this reflection on how we can learn from past times beyond the generalized view of the historical records.

Simon and Anne came over with Winthrop in the 1630 fleet. Simon was heavily involved in the guidance of the development of New England and Massachusetts. So, they lived in Boston as well as Essex County. When Anne died in 1672, they were in North Andover.

Subsequently, Simon married the widow of Capt Joseph Gardner, son of Thomas Gardner who is the subject of our research and namesake of the organization. Joseph had died in a military conflict with a local tribe of Native Americans.

At that time, Ann Downing Gardner was living in the Salem house given to her and Joseph by her parents. We featured Joseph and Ann in a February 2012 post in which we mentioned that Ann had Simon sign a "what was essentially a pre-nup. Was this the first of its kind on this continent?" We also featured The Downings in 2022. Her brother is the namesake of Downing Street in London.

Also, we have looked at houses. The Downing house was an extension of the original house brought by the Cape Ann crew. Our post on the 1st Year has images that show the progression in house technology over those decades in the 1600s. Ann Downing's family's house became known as the Bradstreet's Salem Mansion.

Anne Bradstreet's
comments, 1630

That earlier post looked at what was available in those early years. Anne Bradstreet provided us a description of her first view of Salem, which gets us to the gist of the post. They arrived with more than could be handled in 1630 as they had been promised that there was a house ready for them. At the time, there was one house of substance which had been brought by the 1623/24 crew and assembled at Cape Ann. Later John Endicott had the house brought to Salem. The Downings did some renovation.

What Anne saw, largely, would have been huts. Their configuration would have been a modified wigwam with the interesting addition of a stone fireplace which would have provided more structure.

English wigwam

The Governor's Faire Mansion was the house that the Cape Ann crew put together which later was moved and then extended to the "mansion" that Ann and Joseph enjoyed until she became a widow and married Simon Bradstreet.

Governor's Faire Mansion
Great House (Cape Ann)

Winthrop was feated in this "Faire Mansion" when he arrived with his fleet. Some of the party went to Cape Ann to pick strawberries. So, Anne would have seen the future.

We will look further into the technology of the time as points in contrast to discuss modern variants of age-old issues. That is, we have the 250th of the U.S. But, we really need to understand better the colonial period from the perspective of the real people who lived through the involved periods and sent their DNA down to the present time.

Remarks: Modified: 02/14/2026

02/14/2026 --

Gateway Ancestors, redux

2026-02-01T12:41:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- Hereditary societies co-mingle regularly. Technology comes in and complicates matters. We cope with whatever in this sense, but there are ways to ease the burden. We look at the update of the HSC website and its list of gateway ancestors.

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We have had a lot of posts dealing with things going back to former times as this search on "Hereditary Society" shows. Our first one was in 2013 (Hereditary Society communities) when we had come back from attending meetings for the third year.

There are two things to look at today. The HSC has a new website and an updated page for Gateway Ancestors. As we might expect with continuing research, their list has been and will be kept up to date. People are added; sometimes, they take a name off the list.

Also, Heritage is nothing new to the U.S. or the colonies from which it sprang. A list of the organizations under the HSC includes one from 1637: Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts (A&HAC). It's the oldest chartered military organization in the U.S. Last year we had a post on this organization.

AHAC in London with
English Peers
1896

The A&HAC was founded in England in 1537 (during the time of the long bow) by a royal charter from Henry VIII under the name of Honourable Artillery Company (HAC). "It's the oldest regiment in the British Army." And, it "can trace its history back as far as 1087." Many colonists were members before coming over and sought to preserve the heritage.

An associated organization is the Order of Descendants of the AHAC which is open to males who have a genealogical lineage back to one of the original members of the AHAC. The group for women is National Society Woment Descendants of A&HAC. This is the list of the "eligible ancestors" from the colonial times.

There are other organizations related to the start of the U.S. that we will get back to in the near future, such as D.A.R and S.A.R. The 250th of the Revolution has been in the news for a year. Come 2033, we will be looking for the start of peace which was broken by the 1812 event but eventually the two sides of the English heritage settled their differences.

Now, to the second item, way back in 2010 (in our third month of blogging for TGS), we had this post: RD example, using gateway. This is an old post and needs some update, but looking at the HSC's updates brought this to mind. The post mentions the Brookfield Ancestry Project which deals with the Magna Carta legacy. We liked this site. However, nowadays, one finds that on WikiTree, the Maga Carta Barons have been getting attention. The project has been proving "gateways" who formerly were identified by independent research and publication. Some of these books became out of date; many might be in need of some moderization.

But, we can compare these two efforts, as in Brookfield and Wikitree side-by-side. We know of some newer names on the gateway list that come from recent findings. On the removals, there is no place to go to find out the final story. Right now, the HSC can be considered up to date. On the other hand, the in and out of the situation is situational. A publication on the Plantagenets, for instance, will have many who have a wide-range of ancestors. However, those who do not have as much right to look for confirmation via publication.

With technology changing and the emergence of AI/ML (or GenAI/LLM), it will be interesting to see how things like provenance play out in terms of necessary source references. We are neutral on that at the moment and conform to the organization's wishes.

But, we also did our "portal to truth" with respect to tackling now only the gateways, but heritages on this side of the waters. I got shot down for suggesting a national database. D.A.R. provides one with respect to their membership. And, they do have a "Passenger to Patriot" project (Mayflower). We started one titled "Cape Ann to Patriot" to go back further.

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As an aside, we looked at the Society of Cincinnati which is U.S. based and founded right after the Revolutionary War ended. We have had several posts on different subject. For instance, two of the houses of the organization are associated with Ann's family.

Remarks: Modified: 02/01/2026

02/01/2026 --

Kansas Day, 2026

2026-01-29T17:42:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- 29 Jan 1861. That was the day that Kansas came into the Union. We look at some information about the history. But, other States will get some attention, too.

In this blog, we have mentioned many states, mostly those of the colonial period. But, the state of Kansas has been mentioned a lot, for various reasons. Its neighbor, Missouri, has featured as well. Then, Calfornia has had more than its share of mentions. Of the other states, Texas has come up several time. And, there are many others that we ought to consider.

Well known area that impeded
the travel along the Sante Fe trail
(courtesy of the Friends of Flint Hills)

A category related to States would not be a bad idea. We'll add it. Meanwhile, here are some of the posts with a Kansas theme.

Kansas and Lawrence (2017) -- This post reminds us that the State was a project of New England. Some of those involved are mentioned, such as Col. TW Higginson. Another post describes the trip from New England of the folks who came here and got Lawrence and the University of Kansas going.
Kansas Day (2024) -- Theme of the 29 Jan 1861 entry of the State into the Union.
3 Trails (2019) -- This post was about Gardner, KS where the trails split after having started in Independence, MO. They went in different directions to Sante Fe, Colorado, and Oregon (California). Hundreds of thousands of persons passed through the site.
KATY- western railroad (2021) -- Looks at the spread of the railroad through the southeast corner which has its own history. Several New England families who passed through or settled are mentioned. Holbrook is one example.
Coronado of the early times (2023) -- The Spanish explorers were into northern Kansas back in the 1540s. So, the 400th of this place happened almost 100 years ago. A related story involved Arkansas and its river. As well, Pike of the peak passed through.

What is this about? We will look to celebrate State anniversaries. Perhaps, we might look at the Northwest Territory first. That's the area around Michigan, by the way. In The Massachusetts Magazine published by Dr. Frank and friends, there was a regular report of families that moved to the area.

Remarks: Modified: 02/28/2026

02/28/2026 -- Chased down the image which disappeared.

Knox, again

2026-01-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

TL;DR -- Knox and his crew spent 56 days in the late fall and early winter of 1775/76 bringing tons and tons of gear from Fort Ticonderoga to the Boston area. Of late, a large swath of the U.S. has seen winter weather which might make appreciation of this deed a little easier. The British left Boston, shortly after this. We have several years to look at details in the modes allowed by technology hoping that we do more of the good than badish (as evidenced by the past three years of AI/ML).

Anyone in the US who was under the long 2,000 mile storm of late ought to appreciate what Knox and his crew did. They left the Boston area so as to arrive in upper New York by 9 Dec 1775 and selected military equipment at Fort Ticonderoga to bring back to Boston. This equipment included 59 artillery pieces that together weighed about 120,000 lbs.

The 56-day trek back to the Boston area was over 250 miles through rain and mud and snow and ice using boats, sleds, ox carts with oxen, horses, and men doing the heavy pulling. The last of this train arrived back in Cambridge on January 24. Then, the focus was to get the equipment in working condition.

On March 4th, Knox placed his heavy guns on a hill overlooking Boston. Out of sight, he had armed many others. The Patriots fired some of these which covered "the sound of the construction, American cannons, besieging Boston from another location, began a noisy bombardment of the outskirts of the city." This the attention of the British. What resulted then, on March 17th is called the Evacuation of Boston.

We wrote of this earlier which was before the start that is celebrated at the 250th this year. Also, we wrote of the ending through our recent study of General Nathaneal Greene who was so overlooked that the effort to gather his papers did not gain any speed unto 1976. That's 200 years of being ignored.

1775 to 1783 or so? There were activities before. And, we all know of later, say 1812.

But, there is a wrinkle now. We will bring provenance to the front of concerns and take extra care to keep the historical perspectives and facts thereof within the bounds of truth representations.

Remarks: Modified: 01/27/2026

01/27/2026 --