Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Ask An AI Chatbot to Create a Realistic Family Story

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:

1)  Did one of your ancestors make a momentous life decision but you don't know how you can tell the story beyond the bare facts?  Who, what, when, where and how?

2)  This week's challenge is to ask an artificial intelligence tool to create a realistic family story that might help you understand your ancestor's life decision and his/her experiences. 

3)  Share about your ancestor, the life decision, and your AI-assisted family story on your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack or BlueSky post.  Leave a link on this blog post to  help us find your post.

Here's mine:

My prompt was:  "Please draft a narrative about my 2nd great-grandfather James Richman (1821-1912) emigrating from Wiltshire to New York City, arriving in October 1855 on the ship Calhoun with his brother-in-law Samuel Rich.  James was accused of stealing coal on the Avon and Kennett Canal but was judged innocent, but felt disgraced.  He left his wife and four children behind (they emigrated a year later to join James in Rhode Island).   Describe the crowded ship, detail their arrival in New York, and traveling to Pascoag, Rhode Island where friends awaited as did work as farm laborers."

That's really all I know about this event!  Can AI provide more detail and turn it into a realistic family story?

I asked X Grok 3 to create the narrative to describe James Richman's momentous life decision:

The Voyage of James Richman

In the damp autumn of 1855, James Richman, a broad-shouldered man of thirty-four, stood on the deck of the Calhoun, a creaking emigrant ship bound for New York. The salty air stung his face as he gripped the splintered railing, his heart heavy with the weight of leaving his pregnant wife, Hannah, and their four young children -- Thomas, James, Louisa, Elizabeth -- in Hilperton, Wiltshire, England. Behind him lay a life shadowed by accusation—a false charge of stealing coal along the Avon and Kennett Canal. Though the court had declared him innocent, the whispers in his village of Hilperton lingered like fog, staining his name. Seeking a fresh start, James had boarded the ship with his brother-in-law, Samuel Rich, a wiry man with a quick laugh and a shared dream of a better life across the Atlantic. 

The steamship Calhoun was a floating village of desperation and hope, its decks packed with over three hundred souls—Irish families fleeing famine, German artisans seeking opportunity, and English laborers like James and Samuel chasing redemption. The ship left the docks in Liverpool in mid-September.  

Below deck, the air was thick with the stench of unwashed bodies, damp wool, and sour milk. Hammocks swayed in the dim hold, where families huddled on straw pallets, their murmurs blending with the groan of timbers and the relentless crash of waves. Children wailed, and the constant creak of the ship’s hull kept sleep at bay. James and Samuel shared a narrow bunk, their belongings—a Bible, a few clothes, and a tin of biscuits—stuffed into a single canvas sack. At night, James traced the memory of his children’s faces—seven-year-old Thomas’s curious eyes, six-year-old James’s mischievous grin, three-year-old Louisa’s shy smile, one-year-old Elizabeth’s soft coos—promising himself they’d reunite in America.

After weeks at sea, on a crisp October morning in 1855, the Calhoun docked at New York’s Castle Garden. James and Samuel shuffled down the gangplank, their legs unsteady on solid ground. The harbor buzzed with chaos—stevedores shouting, carts rattling over cobblestones, and vendors hawking bread and oysters. New York City sprawled before them, a maze of brick tenements and smokestacks, its air sharp with coal dust and possibility. James, clutching his sack, felt both dwarfed and electrified by the city’s pulse. The immigration officers at Castle Garden processed them swiftly, noting “James Richman, laborer, Wiltshire” and “Samuel Rich, laborer” in their ledgers. With a few coins and a shared glance, the two men set out, determined to find work beyond the city’s clamor. 

From New York’s Castle Garden, James and Samuel stepped into the chaotic pulse of the city, their pockets nearly empty but their resolve firm. To afford food, a shared cot in a crowded Bowery boardinghouse, and passage to Rhode Island, they took to the docks, where stevedores hired men by the day to haul crates of fish and timber under the autumn sun. For a week, James’s canal-hardened muscles strained against heavy loads, while Samuel’s quick banter earned them favor with the foreman. Their wages—mere dollars—bought stale bread, watery stew, and, crucially, two steamer tickets to Providence. 

Providence was the gateway to Pascoag, where friends from Wiltshire had written of steady farm work. The steamer, less stifling than the Calhoun but heavy with coal smoke, carried them through Long Island Sound. James gazed at the horizon, picturing Hannah reading his letters to Thomas, James, Louisa, Elizabeth, and Emma, his heart buoyed by the knowledge that allies awaited in Pascoag. From Providence, they joined a wagon of laborers winding through autumnal forests and stone-walled farms, arriving in the quiet village of Pascoag by late October. There, their friends—fellow Wiltshire emigrants—introduced them to Ezra Harris, a gruff dairy farmer seeking hands. Over a handshake in Harris’s dusty barn, James and Samuel secured jobs as farm laborers, their canal work in England vouching for their grit. They began the next day, earning a modest wage and a shared loft in the barn. 

The work in Pascoag was grueling—dawn-to-dusk days of mending fences, milking cows, and hauling hay under a sky that turned slate-gray by November. James’s hands, calloused from years on the canal, adapted to the rhythm of the scythe, while Samuel’s quick wit eased tensions with fellow workers. They boarded in the drafty loft, sharing suppers of cornbread and beans, their breath visible in the chilly air. Each week, James wrote to Hannah, his letters filled with promises of a new home for her and their children—Thomas, James, Louisa, Elizabeth—his words smudged by lamplight and longing.

In Pascoag, James found not just work but a flicker of redemption. The villagers cared little for his past disgrace, judging him instead by his steady labor and quiet resolve. He saved every penny, dreaming of the day his family would join him. A year later, in 1856, Hannah and the children arrived, their reunion in New York City at Castle Garden and the journey to a Rhode Island farmhouse, a quiet triumph.  

James’s journey—across an ocean, through a crowded city, and into the fields of Pascoag—laid the foundation for a new legacy, one his descendants would carry forward, rooted in resilience and the courage to begin again.

I realize that this is historical fiction - real people, real events, but the settings and descriptions are fictional based on the AI pre-trained information from reference books.  On the other hand - telling the story with those details may help us better understand the life and times of our ancestor.  

I am a genealogist dealing in facts, but need to tell the stories of my ancestors.  There is no way that I could have gathered this information about the ship, the voyage, the arrival, finding work, and going to Rhode Island in a month or more from reference books.  The AI chatbot gave me this information in minutes.

As you can see, the AI tool can use the limited information that I provided and can craft a realistic story about this momentous life decision with details about what James Richman and Samuel Rich probably experienced on their trip.  After the initial prompt, I asked the chatbot to add the information about New York City and how they traveled to Rhode Island, and the chatbot seamlessly integrated those paragraphs into the story.  I also edited the story a bit to add the wife's and children's names.  

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