Friday, October 17, 2025

Added and Updated Ancestry.com Record Collections - Week of 11 to 17 October 2025

 The following genealogy record collections were added to the Ancestry.com Card Catalog page by Date Updated during the period from 11 to 17 October 2025:

The ADDED and Updated collections include:

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The complete Ancestry.com Card Catalog is at https://search.ancestry.com/search/CardCatalog.aspx.  

By my count, there are NEW record collections ADDED this past week, per the list above.  There are now 33,874 collections available as of 17 October, an INCREASE of 1 from last week.  

                              ==============================================

Disclosure: I pay for an All-Access subscription from Ancestry.com. In past years, Ancestry.com  provided a complimentary All Access subscription, an autosomal DNA test, material considerations for travel expenses to meetings, and hosted events and meals that I attended in Salt Lake City.

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2025/10/added-and-updated-ancestrycom-record_031654179.html

Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com. Please note that all Comments are moderated so they may not appear immediately.

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Ask AI: "Please Describe the Life of Sarah (Fletcher) Kemp in 1845 in Prince Edward County, Ontario"

  The Artificial Intelligence tools (like ChatGPT, Claude, CoPilot, Gemini, Grok, Meta, Grok, and Perplexity) can provide much useful and nearly instant information about subjects in a concise format, especially when they have been pre-trained on a large volume of information about the subjects.

I wondered if the FREE AI tools could provide me with information about a middle-aged wife andm other in Prince Edward County, Ontario in 1845.  My 3rd great-grandmother, Sarah (Fletcher) Kemp (1802-before 1850)  was age 43 in 1845.  I attached my genealogical sketch for Sarah ( 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 54: #61, Sarah (Fletcher) Kemp (1802- before 1850).

(AI ChatGPT5 image of Abraham Kemp family in about 1845)

1)  I chose to use the response from free Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 (as of 8 October 2025) today.  

My prompt was:  "Please describe the life of Sarah (Fletcher) Kemp in 1845 in Prince Edward County, Ontario "

2)  The Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 response was:

A Day in the Life: Sarah Fletcher Kemp in 1845

The Kemp Household in Prince Edward County

In 1845, Sarah Fletcher Kemp was forty-three years old and living in Prince Edward County, Ontario, with her husband Abraham and their large, bustling family. After twenty-seven years of marriage, Sarah had given birth to ten children, with her eleventh and final child, Wesley, still two years away. The Kemp household that year was filled with activity, spanning multiple generations and ages.

The Family in Residence

The Kemp farm home in 1845 would have been crowded and lively. Sarah's oldest daughter, Waity Catherine was married to John T. Rose three years earlier in 1842 and probably had their own household.  The rest of Sarah's children still lived at home:

  • Mary Ann, age 22, certainly was helping her mother with the cooking, preserving, gardening, cleaning, laundry, needlework, and child care

  • Stephen J., age 19, was likely helping his father with the farm work in the fields

  • William Henry, age 16, strong enough to do a man's work in the fields

  • James Abraham, age 14, growing rapidly and learning the farming trade

  • John L., age 11, old enough to handle chores and tend animals

  • Peter Evans, age 8, still young but eager to help

  • Andrew Hait, age 5, playing around the farmyard

  • Sarah Jane, age 2, a toddler requiring constant attention

  • Charles W., born just that September 14th, 1845—a newborn infant

Sarah's Daily Life

As the mother of a large family on a working farm, Sarah's days began before dawn and ended long after sunset. Her responsibilities were endless and exhausting:

Morning Tasks

Sarah would rise in the darkness to stoke the fire in the wood stove, the heart of any farmhouse. She'd prepare breakfast for her large family—likely porridge or cornmeal mush, perhaps eggs from their chickens, and bread she'd baked the day before. With Abraham and the older boys heading out to work the fields, they needed substantial meals to sustain them through hours of physical labor.

Caring for the Youngest

With two-year-old Sarah Jane and newborn Charles W., Sarah's attention was constantly divided. Infant Charles would need to be nursed multiple times throughout the day and night. Little Sarah Jane was at that adventurous toddler stage, requiring vigilant supervision to keep her safe around the farm's many hazards—open fires, farm animals, tools, and the water pump.

Household Management

Between caring for her young children, Sarah would have been responsible for:

  • Cooking three substantial meals daily for a household of ten or more people

  • Baking bread several times a week in the wood-fired oven

  • Preserving food for winter—in 1845, this would mean canning, pickling, drying, and salting

  • Laundry for the entire family, done by hand with water hauled from the well, heated over the fire, and scrubbed on a washboard

  • Sewing and mending clothes for her large family, as ready-made clothing was not available

  • Spinning and weaving or at least managing the household's textile needs

  • Cleaning the house with handmade brooms and soap

  • Tending the kitchen garden where vegetables and herbs grew

  • Caring for chickens and possibly dairy cows, churning butter and making cheese

  • Making soap and candles from animal fat rendered on the farm

The Farm and Community

Abraham Kemp worked as a farmer, and the family's livelihood depended on the land. In Prince Edward County in 1845, farms were primarily subsistence operations with some surplus sold or traded. The Kemps likely grew wheat, corn, oats, and hay, raised cattle, pigs, and chickens, and maintained an orchard. The entire family would have participated in the farm work according to their abilities.

Methodist Faith

The Kemps were Wesleyan Methodists, and their faith was central to their lives. Sundays meant church services, likely involving a lengthy wagon ride to the nearest Methodist chapel. For Sarah, Sunday was not truly a day of rest—she still had to prepare meals, care for the children, and manage the household, though the heavy labor ceased.

Community Connections

Prince Edward County in 1845 was a well-established community of farmers, many of them Loyalist descendants or British immigrants. Sarah would have known her neighbors well, and women often helped each other during childbirth, illness, and harvest times. Social gatherings might include church socials, quilting bees, barn raisings, and harvest celebrations.

The Changing Seasons

Spring

In spring 1845, Sarah would have been in the late stages of pregnancy with Charles. Despite her condition, the work continued—spring meant intensive cleaning, planting the kitchen garden, and preparing for the farm's busiest season. The older boys would have been helping Abraham with plowing and planting.

Summer

Summer brought the birth of Charles in September. Sarah would have been attended by a midwife, possibly a neighbor woman, and perhaps her married daughter. The birth of her tenth living child at age forty-three would have been both joyful and physically demanding.

Fall and Winter

Autumn meant harvest—all hands were needed to bring in the crops before the frost. Sarah would have been recovering from childbirth while simultaneously preserving the harvest for winter. As winter approached, the family prepared for months of cold, with Sarah ensuring they had sufficient food stores, warm clothing, and firewood.

Challenges and Realities

Life in 1845 was not easy for a farm wife and mother:

  • Physical exhaustion was constant, especially with a newborn and toddler

  • Medical care was limited; infant and maternal mortality were real threats

  • Isolation could be profound, especially in winter when travel was difficult

  • Economic uncertainty meant the family's survival depended on good weather, successful harvests, and everyone's health

  • No modern conveniences—no running water, electricity, refrigeration, or labor-saving devices

A Woman of Strength

At forty-three, Sarah had spent twenty-seven years as a wife and mother, bearing and raising children in the demanding environment of 19th-century rural Canada. She had married at fifteen, and by 1845, she had been pregnant or nursing for much of her adult life. Yet she persevered, managing a complex household, supporting her husband's farming operation, raising her children in the Methodist faith, and maintaining the countless threads that held frontier family life together.

In 1845, Sarah couldn't have known that she had only a few more years to live, or that her youngest son Wesley would be born in 1847. She lived day by day, season by season, doing the necessary work with the quiet strength that characterized pioneer women of her era. Her life was one of service, sacrifice, and steady devotion to her family—a life lived without fanfare but with profound impact on the generations that would follow.

Historical Context of 1845

The year 1845 was a time of transition in Canada West (as Ontario was then known). The province was still recovering from the Rebellions of 1837-38, and discussions of responsible government were gaining momentum. In Prince Edward County, the community was well-established, with roads, mills, churches, and schools serving the farming population. The county's limestone quarries were becoming economically important, and the surrounding waters of Lake Ontario provided fishing and transportation routes.

For women like Sarah, however, these larger political and economic developments were distant concerns. Her world was bounded by the farm, the family, the church, and the community of neighbors who shared her daily struggles and triumphs. It was a life of hard work, deep faith, and enduring love—a life that, though largely unrecorded, laid the foundation for all that would come after.

3)  The Google NotebookLM Audio Overview about Sarah (Fletcher) Kemp's life in 1845 is here.

The Google NotebookLM Video Overview of this post is below.

4)   I have no easy way to double check on these responses from Claude. I don't have many book resources for the subjects and the locality,  but there are published books available for this time period and general location. The AI tools have been pre-trained on historical events, social history, geography, education, occupations, literature and other disciplines so they can provide information for questions like this one, and now have the ability to search the Internet for website articles.

5)  As genealogists, we can often find the later19th century vital and census records for Ontario families, and we may find occupation, immigration, land and probate records.  The family mentioned is my ancestral family and I have significant information about their lives from the available records, but I know nothing about their daily lives other than what the records tell me.  

6)  After I read these types of social history summaries, I wish that I could be a time traveler for one day to visit the Kemo family in Ontario and witness their daily lives.  I'm glad that the general lifestyles and occupations are known from historical records and witness accounts.

==============================================

Links to my blog posts about using Artificial Intelligence are on my Randy's AI and Genealogy page.  Links to AI information and articles about Artificial Intelligence in Genealogy by other genealogists are on my AI and Genealogy Compendium page.

Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver


Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.  Note that all comments are moderated, so they may not appear immediately.

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Findmypast Friday: Explore New Burial and Workhouse Records

   I received this information from Findmypast today:

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Delve deeper into life's highs and lows with these new additions.

We've added a new collection of workhouse registers from Dorset this week, meaning it's easier than ever to trace the toughest chapters of your ancestors' lives. We've also added over 16,000 burial records and bolstered our newspaper archive with new pages.

Dorset Adult Paupers Workhouse Register 1860

This new collection consists of 119 records from the year 1860.

Sussex Burials, Eastbourne St Mary

We also bolstered our Sussex burial collection this week, with 16,014 records from the 19th and 20th centuries.

New pages from Longford to Leeds

257,228 pages joined our newspaper archive this week, with five brand new titles and updates to some historic publications.

New titles:
  • Charity Record, 1881–1921
  • Ironworkers’ Journal (Darlington), 1884–1885
  • Longford Leader, 1916–1917
  • Seren (Bala, Wales), 1891–1892
  • The Highlander, 1877
Updated titles:
  • Belfast News-Letter, 1749, 1826
  • Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 1981, 1986–1991, 1993–2004
More on this topic:     english records

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See all of my posts about Findmypast at https://www.geneamusings.com/search/label/FindMyPast

Disclosure: I have a complimentary subscription to Findmypast, and have accepted meals and services from Findmypast, as a Findmypast Ambassador. This has not affected my objectivity relative to Findmypast and its products.

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2025/10/findmypast-friday-explore-new-burial.html

Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com. Note that all comments are moderated, and may not appear immediately.

Subscribe to receive a free daily email from Genea-Musings using www.Blogtrottr.com.

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Added and Updated MyHeritage Record Collections - 10 to 16 October 2025

  The following Record Collections were ADDED or Updated in the MyHeritage Collections Catalog during the week of 10 to 16 October 2025:

                                       =========================== 

There is 1 ADDED record collections in the list this past week, and MyHeritage now has a total of  7,502 record collections (an increase of 1 collection from last week), with 36,667,105,262 records or entries (an increase of about 329 million entries  from last week).   

The number of entries in the family tree collections were last updated twelve weeks ago.

See previous Genea-Musings posts about MyHeritage record collections and features in https://www.geneamusings.com/search/label/MyHeritage.com.

                          =========================================

Disclosure: I receive a complimentary subscription to MyHeritage, and have received other material consideration in past years. I uploaded my autosomal DNA raw data to their DNA product. This does not affect my objective analysis of MyHeritage products. I am a paid subscriber to Family Tree Webinars and love it.

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2025/10/added-and-updated-myheritage-record_01774734139.html

Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on X, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.  Note that all comments are moderated, so they may not appear immediately.

Subscribe to receive a free daily email from Genea-Musings using www.Blogtrottr.com. 

Ask AI: "What Was Life Like for Alma Bessie Richmond At Age 10 in 1892 in Putnam, Connecticut?"

 The Artificial Intelligence tools (like ChatGPT, Claude, CoPilot, Gemini, Grok, Meta, Grok, and Perplexity) can provide much useful and nearly instant information about subjects in a concise format, especially when they have been pre-trained on a large volume of information about the subjects.

I wondered if the FREE AI tools could provide me with information about a young Connecticut girl's life in Putnam, Connecticut.  My paternal grandmother, Alma Bessie (Richmond) Seaver  (1882-1962)  was age 10 in 1892.  I attached my genealogical sketch for Bessie (see https://www.geneamusings.com/2024/06/my-paternal-grandmother-alma-bessie.html). 

(Thomas Richmond family in about 1888, from family sources)

1)  I chose to use the response from free Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 (as of 8 October 2025) today.  

My prompt was:  "What was Bessie's life like in Putnam, Connecticut as a young girl of 10 in 1892? What did she learn at school, what duties did she have at home, and what fun did she have with family and friends?"

2)  The Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 response was:

Bessie Richmond at Age 10: Life in Putnam, Connecticut (1892)

The Mill Town Setting

In 1892, ten-year-old Alma Bessie Richmond—known to everyone as Bessie—lived in Putnam, Connecticut, a thriving textile mill town along the Quinebaug River. Putnam had incorporated in 1855 and grown rapidly with the establishment of large cotton mills that transformed the rural landscape into an industrial center. The rhythmic clatter of looms and the shriek of factory whistles marked the daily rhythm of life for everyone in town.

Bessie's father, Thomas Richmond, was an immigrant with his family from Wiltshire in 1856, and had worked his way up from the mill floor to become an overseer—a position of responsibility and respect. This meant the Richmond family lived more comfortably than many mill workers' families, though they were far from wealthy. They had a proper house with enough space for their large family, and most importantly, Thomas earned enough that his wife Julia and their children didn't have to work in the mills.

Bessie’s maternal grandparents had died by 1890, but her paternal grandparents, James and Hannah (Rich) Richmond, were living on their dairy farm in Putnam with Bessie’s aunts and uncles nearby.

A House Full of Music and Children

The Richmond household at this time included seven children, making it a bustling, noisy home. Bessie was the fourth daughter and seventh child overall. Her older siblings included Annie (age 22, already married and away from home), Everett (17), Grace (16), Emily (13), and Charles (12), while younger brothers Edwin (9) and James (6) completed the family at that time.

What truly distinguished the Richmond home from other mill families was the constant presence of music. While exhausted mill workers in neighboring houses might collapse in silence after their long shifts, the Richmond home rang with scales, hymns, and practice pieces. Thomas Richmond, despite his demanding work as a mill overseer, was the choir director at the local Episcopal Church and possessed a beautiful tenor voice. Julia Richmond was an accomplished organist, piano player, and alto singer who brought both technical skill and deep musicality to the household.

For young Bessie, this musical environment was as natural as breathing. By age ten, she was already showing exceptional talent at the piano, practicing daily under her mother's expert guidance.

School Days in 1890s New England

Bessie attended the local public school with children from various mill families. Schools in 1890s New England mill towns typically had one or two rooms with students of different ages learning together, though larger towns like Putnam might have had more organized grade divisions.

The Curriculum -- The educational focus was intensely practical, designed to prepare children for useful citizenship and work:

  • Reading and Literature: Students progressed through graded readers, starting with simple primers and advancing to more complex texts. They read moralistic tales, patriotic stories, Bible passages, and poetry. Much emphasis was placed on oral reading—standing before the class and reading aloud with proper expression and enunciation.
  • Writing and Penmanship: Penmanship was considered a crucial skill. Students practiced elaborate cursive scripts using steel-nib pens dipped in inkwells. Bessie would have spent considerable time copying passages into her copybook, striving for perfectly formed letters and avoiding the dreaded ink blots that could ruin a page.
  • Arithmetic: Mathematics instruction covered the "three R's" essentials—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, along with fractions, decimals, and practical problem-solving related to money, measurements, and commerce. Students often worked problems on slates before transferring final answers to paper.
  • Geography: Students learned about Connecticut, New England, the United States, and the wider world through textbooks, maps, and memorization. They could likely recite state capitals, major rivers, and important geographical features.
  • History: American history dominated, with emphasis on the Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and great patriotic moments. History lessons reinforced moral lessons about citizenship, duty, and American exceptionalism.
  • Spelling and Grammar: Weekly spelling bees were common, and students memorized grammar rules and diagrammed sentences.
  • Music and Singing: Most schools included group singing, which would have been Bessie's favorite part of the school day. Students learned patriotic songs, hymns, and folk melodies.

The school day typically ran from early morning until mid-afternoon, with a break for lunch (which students either brought from home or walked home to eat). Discipline was strict, and corporal punishment was still common, though children from respectable families like the Richmonds were often treated with more leniency.

Home Duties and Daily Work

When Bessie returned home from school each afternoon, her education in domestic skills continued. In a household of nine people (seven children plus two parents), everyone had assigned duties, and ten-year-old Bessie was expected to contribute significantly to the household work.

  • Kitchen Work -- Bessie helped her mother with meal preparation—peeling vegetables, stirring pots, kneading bread dough, setting the table, and cleaning up afterward. Cooking for ten people required planning and substantial effort. She learned to make stews, roast meat, bake bread and biscuits, and prepare the simple but hearty fare that sustained working families. Her older sister Grace, at sixteen, would have had even more responsibility, but Bessie was learning all the skills she'd need to eventually run her own household.
  • Laundry -- Laundry day (typically Monday) was an exhausting all-day affair. Water had to be heated on the stove, clothes scrubbed on washboards, wrung out by hand, and hung to dry. In winter, frozen laundry would be brought in stiff as boards to thaw near the fire. This was backbreaking work that left hands raw and red.
  • Cleaning and Maintenance -- Bessie swept floors, dusted furniture, made beds, and helped maintain order in a house full of active children. Keeping a home clean without modern conveniences required constant effort.
  • Childcare -- As an older sister, Bessie helped watch her younger brothers, particularly six-year-old James. This might include helping with homework, breaking up fights, and keeping the younger children out of trouble and away from danger.
  • The Exception: Music Practice -- Here's what made the Richmond household different: no matter how much work needed doing, music practice was non-negotiable. Every day, after supper, Bessie would go to the piano for an hour or more of serious practice. Her father would listen, offering corrections and encouragement. Her mother would demonstrate difficult passages, showing her how to achieve the right touch and expression.

This daily discipline was building not just skill but also identity. Bessie was learning that she was more than just a mill overseer's daughter -- she was a musician with a gift that deserved cultivation.

Fun, Friends, and Childhood Joys

Despite the work and responsibilities, Bessie's childhood included play and pleasure:

  • Outdoor Play -- When freed from duties, children played in the streets and open spaces of Putnam. Common games included tag, hide-and-seek, hopscotch, and jump rope accompanied by singing rhymes. In summer, children might venture to the river to wade, catch tadpoles, or throw stones, though mothers constantly warned about the dangers of the water and the mill machinery.
  • Dolls and Imaginative Play -- Girls played with homemade rag dolls, creating elaborate family scenarios and stories. They might also play house, mimicking the domestic world they were being trained to enter.
  • Sibling Companionship -- With six siblings, Bessie always had playmates at home. She was particularly close to Emily, just three years older, who shared her bed and became her confidante. They would whisper together in the dark, sharing secrets, dreams, and the particular observations that children make about their world.
  • Music as Play and Passion -- For Bessie, the piano was both duty and joy. While she had assigned practice time, she also stole moments to experiment at the keyboard, picking out melodies she'd heard, trying to figure out how harmonies worked, and simply enjoying the magic of creating sound from silence
  • Social Life at Church -- Sunday wasn't just worship -- it was the social event of the week. After services at the Episcopal Church, families would linger, children would play together, and adults would exchange news and gossip. Bessie would see school friends, hear her father's choir performances, and absorb the beauty of the liturgy and hymns that would shape her spiritual and artistic life.
  • Special Occasions -- Holidays, church socials, family birthdays, and occasional town events provided breaks from routine. These might include ice cream socials, church bazaars, Fourth of July celebrations, and Christmas festivities that brought the community together.

The Episcopal Church: Center of Family Life

The Richmond family's involvement in St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Putnam was central to their identity. Bessie attended services twice on Sunday -- morning and evening—dressed in her best clothes. She watched her father direct the choir with his expressive conducting and heard his beautiful tenor voice soaring above the congregation. She observed her mother at the organ, fingers dancing across the keys, pulling stops to make the pipes speak in different voices.

This weekly immersion in sacred music and liturgy was shaping Bessie's artistic sensibility. The Episcopal service, with its formal beauty, poetic language, and emphasis on music, appealed to something deep in her nature. She was learning that music wasn't just entertainment or even just art -- it was a form of prayer, a way of connecting with the divine.

Social Class and Mill Town Realities

Living in Putnam meant living with stark social divisions. The mill owners occupied fine houses on the hill, enjoying wealth created by the labor of hundreds of workers. Skilled workers, foremen, and overseers like Thomas Richmond occupied a middle position -- better off than ordinary mill hands but still dependent on factory wages. At the bottom were the mill workers themselves, often living in crowded tenement housing, with entire families -- including young children—working long hours for low wages.

Bessie would have been aware of children not much older than her sister Grace already working full shifts in the mills, their educations ended and their childhoods abbreviated by economic necessity. Thomas Richmond's position as overseer and his determination to give his children—including his daughters—proper education was somewhat unusual and spoke to his ambitions for his family.

At school and church, these different classes mixed, but everyone understood the hierarchies. Bessie was learning her place in this world—neither at the top nor the bottom, but in that respectable middle ground of skilled workers and middle managers who formed the backbone of industrial society.

The World Beyond Putnam

In 1892, the wider world was changing rapidly. The United States was industrializing at a breakneck pace. Immigration was transforming American cities. New technologies -- electric lights, telephones, new transportation systems—were emerging. But in Putnam, much of this felt distant. Life revolved around the mills, the church, the school, and the rhythms of work and family.

For ten-year-old Bessie, the future was unimaginable. She didn't know that within a few years, the family would move to Leominster, Massachusetts, following mill work opportunities. She didn't know that she would become a church organist as a teenager, that she would marry Fred Seaver at eighteen, or that she would have seven children and live to be eighty years old.

She was simply a girl in a mill town, blessed with musical talent, living in a family that valued both hard work and artistic beauty, preparing for an adulthood that would blend domestic duty with the pursuit of music that fed her soul.

The Seeds of Future Life

Looking back from 1962, the elderly Bessie Seaver could trace the threads that connected that ten-year-old in Putnam to the woman she became:

  • The daily piano practice that built the discipline and skill that would sustain her through decades as a church organist

  • The example of parents who insisted that art and beauty had a place alongside work and duty

  • The Episcopal liturgy that would be the framework of her spiritual life

  • The experience of being part of a large family that prepared her for motherhood

  • The lessons in household management that would serve her when she had her own home

  • The understanding that music wasn't frivolous but essential—a way of making sense of life, of offering something beautiful to God and neighbor

That little girl practicing scales in Putnam in 1892 was already becoming the woman who would play Chopin after dinner while her own children listened from upstairs, who would find solace at the piano during the hardest years of motherhood, who would return to the church organ after her husband's death and find that music still sustained her.

The seeds planted in that mill town childhood—discipline, faith, artistic passion, and family devotion—would flower throughout a long life marked by both joy and sorrow, but always, always accompanied by music.

3)  The Google NotebookLM Audio Overview about Bessie Richmond's life at age 10  is here.

The Google NotebookLM Video Overview of this post is below.

4)   I have no easy way to double check on these responses from Claude. I don't have many book resources for the subjects and the locality,  but there are published books available for this time period and general location. The AI tools have been pre-trained on historical events, social history, geography, education, occupations, literature and other disciplines so they can provide information for questions like this one, and now have the ability to search the Internet for website articles.

5)  As genealogists, we can often find the 19th century town and church records, and the later census and vital records, for Connecticut families, and we may find occupation, immigration, land and probate records.  The family mentioned is my ancestral family and I have significant information about their lives from the available records, but I know nothing about their daily lives other than what the records tell me.  

6)  After I read these types of social history summaries, I wish that I could be a time traveler for one day to visit the Richmond family in Connecticut and witness their daily lives.  I'm glad that the general lifestyles and occupations are known from historical records and witness accounts.

==============================================

Links to my blog posts about using Artificial Intelligence are on my Randy's AI and Genealogy page.  Links to AI information and articles about Artificial Intelligence in Genealogy by other genealogists are on my AI and Genealogy Compendium page.

Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver


Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.  Note that all comments are moderated, so they may not appear immediately.

Subscribe to receive a free daily email from Genea-Musings using www.Blogtrottr.com. 

Treasure Chest Thursday -- 1688/9 Baptism of Johes Lavor in South Petherton, Somerset

   It's Treasure Chest Thursday - an opportunity to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history research and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is the 1688/9 baptism record of John Lavor in the South Petherton, Somerset Church of England parish records.


The baptism entry for John Lavor  is the third record for January 1688 on the right-hand page:


"[1688] [January] 19 Baptizatus fuit Johes filius Samuelis Lavor"

I think "Johes" is "Johannes" in Latin, since he was called John later in life.

And January 1688 in the records is January 1689 in modern calendar terms.  

The source citation is:

South Petherton, Somerset, Church of England records, John Lavor baptism entry, 19 January 1688/9, imaged, "Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriage and Burials, 1531-1812," Ancestry.com  (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60856/records/2621778 : accessed 15 October 2025), South Petherton > 1670-1737, image 9 of 45; Original records in Anglican Parish Registers. Somerset Archives & Local Studies, South West Heritage Trust, Taunton, England.

John Lavor (1689-1755) was baptized on 19 January 1688/9 in the South Petherton (Somerset) Church of England parish, the son of Samuel Lavor and his unknown wife.  He married Joanna Axe (1682-1748) on 15 June 1709 in the South Petherton, Somerset parish. 

John and Joanna (Axe) Lavor are my 7th great-grandparents, through their son John Lavor (1722-1799) who married Elizabeth Wills (1730-1796) in 1750 in Lopen, Somerset, England.

                               ===========================================

Disclosure:  I have a paid All-Access subscription to Ancestry.com now.  Ancestry.com has provided a complimentary subscription and material considerations for travel expenses to meetings, and has hosted events and meals that I have attended in Salt Lake City, in past years.


Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on X, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.  All comments are moderated, and may not appear immediately after posting.

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Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Genealogy Education Bytes - Week of 9 to 15 October 2025

  Welcome to Genealogy Education Bytes, posted on Wednesday afternoon for the past week, where we try to highlight some of the most important genealogy and family history education items that came across my desktop since the last issue.


1) Upcoming Conferences and  Institutes 

Conference Keeper Calendar - has many links to register for and/or view conferences and institutes.

*  2025 New England Regional Genealogical Conference (NERGC) ($$, In-Person in Manchester, NH) -- 29 October to 1 November 2025. 

*  2025 Texas State Family History Conference (TxSGS) ($$) -- 7-8 November 2025 - Virtual.

*  RootsTech 2026 ($$, In-person in Salt Lake City, Free Virtual) -- 5 to 7 March 2026.

2 ) Upcoming Seminars, Webinars and Online Classes (times are US Pacific):

Conference Keeper Calendar - has many links to register for and/or view seminars, webinars and classes.

*  FamilySearch MonthlyWebinars (Free)

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinars (free for one week) - Friday, 17 October, 8:30 a.m.:  Resolving Conflict: A Key to Sound Genealogical Conclusions (a 2025 Reisinger Lecture) by Jennifer Zinck.

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinars (free for one week) - Friday, 17 October, 9:45 a.m.:  Cluster Research Using the FAN Principle (2025 Reisinger Lecture) by Michelle Goodrum.

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinars (free for one week) - Friday, 17 October, 12:30 p.m.:  Assembling Indirect Evidence to Locate the Mother, Siblings, & Slaveowner of Freedman Arthur Braud (a 2025 Reisinger Lecture) by Jari Honora.

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinars (free for one week) - Friday, 17 October, 1:45 p.m.: Mapping for Research Success (a 2025 Reisinger Lecture) by Kimball Carter.

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinars (free for one week) - Friday, 17 October, 3:00 p.m.:  ¡Eureka! Confirmación del Lineaje Ancestral: DNA and Documents Prove a Mexican Ancestral Line (a 2025 Reisinger Lecture) by Karen Stanbary.

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinars (free for one week) - Tuesday, 21 October, 5 p.m.:   James C. Ward’s Eldorado: A Coast to Coast Identity Case by Nicole Gilkison LaRue.

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinars (free for one week) - Wednesday, 22 October, 11 a.m.:  Early British and Irish Census Project by Amy Harris.

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinars (free for one week) - Friday, 24 October, 11:00 a.m.:  Organize Digital and Digitized Photos & Documents Using AI  by Art Taylor.

3) Recent Podcasts:



*  Family Tree Talk:  ‘Yes, I already know that!’


4) Recent YouTube Videos 

*  Aimee Cross - Genealogy Hints:  Need EASY Ways to find records in EVERY U.S. State?

*  Allen County Public Library:  The British Home Children Canada s Forgotten Legacy


*  BYU Library Family History Center:  AI Opens Court Records – Marilyn Thomsen (8 October 2025)



*  DearMYRTLE's Archive:  Mondays with Myrt - 13 Oct 2025
*  DearMYRTLE's Archive: BookClub: Albion's Seed
*  DearMYRTLE's Archive:  Connie Knox Interview - 10/10/2025

*  Ellen Thompson-Jennings - Family History Hound:  Family Myth Monday - Solving Family Myths







*  Genealogy Quick Start:  Probate & Pensions (w/ Sandra Rumble)



*  Italian Roots and Genealogy:  Unearthing the Untold Stories of Campania's Nobility


*  NC Ancestry for Genealogy:  NC Colonial Records Online



*  Randy Seaver, Geneaholic: Alexander Sovereen's (1814-1907) Biography



5) Did you miss the last post in this series - Genealogy Education Bytes -  Week of 2 to 8 October 2025?


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NOTE:  If  I missed an upcoming conference or webinar, or a useful podcast or video, in this time period, please let me know in a comment or an email. 

Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share your comment on X, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at   randy.seaver@gmail.com.  Note that all comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. 

Subscribe to receive a free daily email from Genea-Musings using www.Blogtrottr.com.