Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Did Your Ancestor Have a "Different" Occupation? Try "Sam the Digital Archivist" on ChatGPT

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. 

1)  Did one (or more) of your ancestors have a "different" occupation?  If so, try to find out more about that occupation in Steve Little's "Sam the Digital Archivist" custom prompt using the free ChatGPT4 artificial intelligence tool.  Click on the "Exploring unique ancestral occupations?" button and tell "Sam" in the "Ask anything" box to define and/or describe the occupation.  

2) Tell us about your ancestor's "different" occupation, and what "Sam" had to say about it,  in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

Here's mine:

My prompt for "Sam the Digital Archivist" was: "My 2nd great-grandfather Devier J. Smith (1839-1894) resided in Concordia, Kansas in 1885. The census record says he was a 'speculator.' What was he doing?"

'Sam" provided this information:

Ah, speculator! Now that’s a term as vague as a politician’s campaign promises. But in the 19th century, it had a very specific meaning—though what exactly your 2nd great-grandfather was up to depends on the context.

What “Speculator” Meant in 1885 

Back in the day, a “speculator” wasn’t just some guy making risky bets on Wall Street. It usually referred to someone who bought and sold goods, land, or commodities for profit. Given that Devier J. Smith was in Concordia, Kansas, in the 1880s, he could have been involved in one (or more) of the following:

• Land Speculation – Buying up plots of land (cheap, often from the government or railroads) and selling them at a higher price once the area developed. This was HUGE in Kansas during westward expansion.
• Cattle or Livestock Trading – Kansas was cattle country, and “speculator” could mean he was involved in buying and selling herds. Think of him as the 19th-century equivalent of a day trader, but with cows.
• Grain & Agricultural Speculation – Wheat and corn were major commodities, and some speculators made a fortune buying low and selling high.
• General Trading – Some speculators acted as middlemen, dealing in anything that could turn a profit—dry goods, railroad shares, even mining claims.
• Railroad Investments – If he had money, he could have been involved in buying and selling railroad stocks or land near the rail lines. 

How Do We Find Out What Devier Was Really Doing?

Since “speculator” is just a fancy way of saying “I hustle for a living,” we’d need more clues. Some great sources to check:

• Land records – Was he buying/selling land in Cloud County?
• Newspaper mentions – Speculators often advertised in local papers or ended up in news articles. Kansas papers from the 1880s are searchable online.
• City directories – These might list his occupation more specifically.
• Probate or estate records – What assets did he leave behind?
• Tax records – What was he paying taxes on?

Want me to help track down some records and see if Devier was flipping farmland or wheeling and dealing cattle? Let’s go full detective mode!

What next?

📜 1. Let’s dig up land or tax records to see what he owned!

📰 2. Time to check historical newspapers—was Devier making deals (or headlines)?

🔍 3. I can guide you through researching speculators in Kansas—want a game plan?

🤷 4. Something else? You call the shots!

Unfortunately, Sam cannot perform these research tasks for me, so I guess I will have to do them!

After the above, I asked "Sam" to create a description of an image that would show Devier J. Smith as a successful cattle trader.  Here is the description that "Sam" created:

A Wild West Speculator: Devier J. Smith, Cattle Baron of Concordia 

Picture this: It’s 1885 in Concordia, Kansas. The sun is setting over the prairie, casting long shadows across a bustling stockyard. Devier J. Smith, a shrewd businessman in his mid-40s, stands near the corral, dressed in a sturdy wool coat, a leather vest, and a wide-brimmed hat. His mustache is perfectly trimmed, and he’s got the confident smirk of a man who knows the market like the back of his hand.

Around him, longhorn cattle are being herded into pens, their hooves kicking up clouds of dust. The scent of leather, sweat, and fresh hay lingers in the warm air. Buyers from Chicago and Kansas City are in town, looking for the best stock, and Devier is right in the middle of it all—negotiating deals, scribbling numbers in a worn ledger, and keeping an eye on which cattlemen are getting a little too desperate to hold onto their herds.

With a sharp whistle, he signals one of his ranch hands to drive a particularly fine-looking steer closer to the buyers. “This one,” he says, slapping the beast’s flank, “is prime beef. You won’t find a better deal this side of the Missouri River.”

Coins jingle in his pocket—earnings from a land sale last week. Maybe he’ll reinvest in another herd. Maybe he’ll buy a few acres near the railroad. Either way, he’s not just riding the cattle boom—he’s making it work for him.

I requested ChatGPT4 (in a new chat) to create a colorful and realistic image using that image description into ChatGPT4 (copy and paste works!) and it created:

Not bad! But not exactly the image that "Sam" described.  Oh well, my image creation budget on ChatGPT4 is up!

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