After writing Exploring the AncestryAI Feature on Ancestry.com last week, I wondered how detailed and how accurate the historical and cultural descriptions are of my ancestral home towns and cities.
1) I picked Hilperton, Wiltshire in 1848, the time and place of the birth and baptism of my great-grandfather, Thomas Richman/Richmond (1848-1917). Here is a screen capture of part of his Life Story and the AncestryAI description of Hilperton:
2) Here is what the AncestryAI engine provided:
Introduction:
Hilperton, a village located in Wiltshire, England, in the year 1848, was a bustling community with a rich history and diverse population. During this time, Hilperton was primarily an agricultural village, with farming being the main occupation of its residents. Let's explore the various aspects of life in Hilperton in 1848.
Daily Life:
In 1848, the people of Hilperton lived simple yet fulfilling lives. The village was home to a close-knit community, where neighbors supported one another. The majority of the villagers were engaged in farming, cultivating crops such as wheat, barley, and oats. They also raised livestock, including sheep, cows, and pigs. The village had a few small shops where locals could purchase essential goods, and a village pub served as a gathering place for socializing and exchanging news.
Social Structure:
Hilperton, like many other English villages at the time, had a hierarchical social structure. The upper class consisted of landowners, clergymen, and professionals, who held positions of power and influence. The middle class comprised skilled tradespeople, such as blacksmiths and carpenters. The majority of the population belonged to the working class, working as agricultural laborers or domestic servants. Despite these divisions, the community often came together for celebrations, festivals, and religious events.
Education and Religion:
In terms of education, Hilperton had a small village school where children received a basic education. The curriculum focused on reading, writing, and arithmetic. Religion played a significant role in the lives of the villagers, with the Church of England being the dominant faith. The village church, St. Michael and All Angels, served as a place of worship and community gathering. Religious festivals and ceremonies were important events in the village calendar.
Conclusion:
Hilperton in 1848 was a vibrant agricultural village with a strong sense of community. Life revolved around farming, with villagers engaged in various agricultural activities. The social structure was hierarchical, but the community came together for social events and religious celebrations. Education was available at the village school, and religion played a central role in the lives of the residents. Hilperton was a place where people worked hard, supported one another, and found joy in the simple pleasures of rural life. I've enjoyed reading some of the historical and cultural histories of my ancestral home towns and cities.
3) This is certainly more information than I expected. What is the source? It doesn't say; the information at the bottom of the AncestryAI frame indicates that:
This feature is powered by an artificial intelligence language model using public information and locations and dates found in your tree. It may provide incorrect responses.
My guess is that there are gazetteers with local, county, province, state, and country histories with information about specific geographical places in certain historical times that the AI language model was "trained with" that are used to provide the information in these Life Story presentations. I will leave the "accuracy" issue to historians.
This is useful for someone who has not studied local history of a place before and/or is just looking for general information to provide context for their family history. My guess is also that the text will be fairly similar for most small villages and towns in Wiltshire for a specific time period.
A paragraph on county, state/province or country history for the time frame (e.g., type of government, political leaders, military involvement, economics, inventions, demographics, etc.) might be a useful addition.
Now my curiosity is about to get the better of me - I wonder how this compares with, say, 1548, 1598, 1648, 1698, 1748, 1798, 1898, and 1948. I won't compare them here, but I think I've found another rabbit hole to plunge into.
Do you have this AncestryAI feature, which is probably still in Beta development, on your Ancestry Member Tree yet? If so, have you explored it, and what do you think about it?
Disclosure: I receive a complimentary all-access subscription from Ancestry.com, for which I am thankful. Ancestry.com has provided material considerations for travel expenses to meetings, and has hosted events and meals that I have attended in Salt Lake City, in past years.
The URL for this post is: https://www.geneamusings.com/2024/01/ask-ancestryai-what-was-hilperton.html
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2 comments:
Without sources, I'd be leery of using any of the information in my own writing. However, these can be clues to investigate on our own in actual sources. Was it true that the farmers grew wheat, barley, and oats? You have started with a good list of items to read.
A lot of this is just generic stuff lifted from who knows where. The crops listed are also generic. Wheat, almost certainly; maybe a bit of barley for malting for the local brewery; oats - a possible maybe.
No mention, at all, of the textile industry which possibly employed more people than agriculture at that time and was certainly hugely important to the parish economy.
Again, no mention of a sizeable non-conformist element amongst religious people.
The 'social' setup described is very cosy and absolute claptrap. Any historian worth their salt will tell you that life in rural and semi-rural England during the 1840s was hard, with protest and conflict either out in the open, or very close to it. Hilperton would have been no exception.
The hardship suffered by handloom weavers at this time is legendary. There were a lot of handloom weavers in Hilperton but Ancestry AI gives no clue.
Where does the 'simple yet fulfilling lives' come from? How patronising.
I just tried it for several other Wiltshire rural parishes. Almost exactly the same stuff was regurgitated.
I know it's tempting to use these things to fill out a story but ChatGPT (which I think Ancestry uses) ain't the answer.
As for sources, you can ask ChatGPT to provide them (at least outside of Ancestry) and it will produce some really nice-looking citations - all of them entirely bogus.
There's no substitute for the hard slog of actual research. Tools can sometimes point you in a useful direction but then it has to be documents, documents, documents
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