I wrote an AI-assisted couple biography for my third great-grandfather John Richman (1788-1867) in ABC Biography of #40 John Richman (1788-1867) of Hilperton, Wiltshire, based on my genealogical research over 37 years.
I wondered what John Richman might say in a life memoir to his grandchildren in 1867.
1) Based on the genealogical sketch, I requested Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 to create a memoir told by Torger Leland about his life in 1932. The prompt was: "Please write a life memoir for John Richman based on the attached biography, as he might tell to his grandchildren in 1867."
2) The AI Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 memoir (lightly edited for accuracy) is:
The Remembrances of John Richman
As told to his granddaughter Rosa Thompson in Hilperton, early 1867
My dear Rosa, and all you grandchildren who may one day read these words, I am an old man now, nearly eighty winters have I seen, and my bones grow weary. I sit here in our cottage in Hilperton Marsh, the place where I have spent the whole of my long life, and I feel the weight of years upon me. Your grandmother Ann has been gone these eleven years now, God rest her soul, and I miss her voice in the evening and her hands at the loom. But before I join her in St. Michael's churchyard, I would have you know something of our lives, of where you come from, and of the world that made us.
My Early Years
I was born, so far as I can reckon, in the year 1788, right here in Hilperton. My father was John Richman, a laboring man, and my mother was Mary Parsons before she wed. We were not grand folk, you understand—we worked with our hands, as our fathers had done, and their fathers before them. Sometimes the name was writ down as "Rich" instead of "Richman," but it's all the same family. We Richmans have been in these parts for generations, working the land and the looms, living by the strength of our backs and the skill of our fingers.
I had brothers and sisters—Thomas, Joseph, Mary, Ann, William, and others who didn't survive their childhood, as was common in those times. We grew up knowing that life was hard, that hunger was never far away, and that a working man must take whatever labor he could find to keep his family fed.
I cannot write my name, Rosa, as you well know. When the curate asked me to sign the parish register on my wedding day, I could only make my mark—an X, same as your grandmother. We were not schooled as children are now. Our learning was in the work—how to card wool, how to work the loom, how to judge the weight of a sack of coal or the quality of a joint of meat. These things I know well, even if letters remain a mystery to me. So thank you for writing these ramblings down.
Courting and Marriage
I first knew your grandmother Ann Marshman when we were both young folk in Hilperton. She was born over in Devizes, but her family—the Marshmans—lived here after that, and her father John was a weaver like so many of us. Her mother Anne died when Ann was still young, which taught her early what sorrow was. Ann was a good, steady girl, hardworking at the loom, and I thought myself fortunate when she agreed to become my wife.
We were married by banns on the eighth of February, 1811, at St. Michael's Church just up the way. It was a cold winter day, I remember, but we were warm with happiness. Ann's brother Thomas stood witness for us, and the curate Bailes performed the service. We both made our marks in the register—two X's side by side—and became man and wife. I was not yet twenty-three years old, and Ann was near twenty-seven. We had nothing but our youth and our willingness to work, but it seemed enough.
Our Children
The Lord blessed us with eight children, though not all of them lived to grow old. Your grandmother and I, we did our best by them, working every day to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.
Our firstborn was Elizabeth, born in 1811, the very year we wed. She's living still in Hilperton, married to Thomas Hogan, and she learned the weaving trade from her mother. Then came Sarah in 1814, who married James Thompson and went to live in Bath for a time. They have four children, you and your sisters. John, our first son, was born in 1816 and married Maria Matthews—they had seven children and live nearby in Bradford on Avon.
We had another daughter Ann in 1818, and then James in 1821—ah, James! He was always a restless one, that boy. Married Hannah Rich in 1845, and they had nine children. But England was not big enough to hold James's ambitions, and in 1855 he took his whole family across the ocean to America. They settled in a place called Connecticut, in a town named Putnam. We got letters from him for a time, telling of the new world, the opportunities there. It pained your grandmother terribly to see him go so far away, knowing she would never lay eyes on him or his children again. But a man must make his way in the world as he sees fit.
Thomas was born in 1823, a fine strong boy. But he took sick and died in 1844, only twenty-one years old. We buried him in St. Michael's churchyard. That was a hard blow for your grandmother and me. You raise a child, you watch him grow, you imagine his future—and then he's taken from you. Your grandmother wept for weeks.
We also had two little girls both named Mary. The first Mary was born in 1823, same year as Thomas—they were twins, you see. She lived only a year or so before the Lord took her. We named our next daughter Mary as well, in 1825, but she lived only two months. Two little Marys in the churchyard, their graves marked with small stones. Those losses—well, they were not uncommon in those days, but they were no easier to bear for being common. Your grandmother never spoke much of them, but I know she carried the grief of those babies all her days.
The Work of Our Lives
I have worked many trades in my lifetime, Rosa. When I was young, I learned weaving, as most folk did in these parts. Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon and Hilperton—all these towns lived by the wool trade. The great mills with their machinery have changed things, but in my youth, many homes had looms, and the sound of the shuttle was as common as birdsong. Your grandmother Ann was a skilled weaver all her life. Even when I had turned to other work, she kept at the loom, her fingers quick and sure.
But weaving alone didn't always put bread on the table, especially as the mills grew bigger and took away the work from cottage weavers. So I labored as well—digging, hauling, whatever was needed. For some years I was a coal hauler, carrying sacks of coal from the boats on the canal to homes and shops. It was hard work, Rosa, dirty work that blackened your clothes and your lungs, but it paid.
Later, I learned the butcher's trade. I had some skill with animals and with the knife, and butchering was steadier work than hauling coal. By the time of the 1851 census—when the government man came round asking questions—I was able to say I was a butcher. It's honest work, providing meat for folk's tables, and I've done it these past years as well as I was able.
Life in Hilperton Marsh
We have lived all our married life here in Hilperton Marsh, in this cottage and these lanes. Marsh Lane, they call it, for the wet ground hereabouts. It floods when the rains are heavy, and in winter the cold seeps up through the floor. But it has been our home, and we have raised our family here.
The cottage is small and plain, but it has sheltered us through fifty-six years of marriage. When the children were young, it was crowded—eight children in these rooms, with the loom taking up space, and all the noise and bustle of family life. Now it's quiet, perhaps too quiet for an old man alone.
We've seen changes in the village, Rosa. The great families come and go from their estates, the canal brought new commerce, the mills grew bigger. But for folk like us, life goes on much the same—work and worship, birth and death, the turning of the seasons.
Hard Times and Faith
I will not pretend to you that life has been easy. There were years when work was scarce and food scarcer. There were winters when we went to bed cold and hungry. There were times when your grandmother and I wondered how we would feed all those children, how we would keep them clothed and warm.
After your grandmother died in 1856, I fell on hard times. In the 1861 census—that's six years ago now—I was listed as a pauper. It's not a word that sits easy with a man who has worked all his life, but there it is. An old man alone cannot earn what a younger man can, and the parish had to help me. There's no shame in it, I tell myself, though sometimes the shame is there all the same.
But through it all, Rosa, we had our faith. St. Michael's Church has been the center of our lives—we were married there, our children were baptized there, our lost ones are buried there, and your grandmother lies there now. Soon I shall lie beside her. The Church has been our comfort in sorrow and our joy in celebration. Whatever else we lacked, we had that.
My Thoughts as an Old Man
I've seen much in my nearly eighty years, child. I've seen England change—the wars with France when I was young, the coming of the railways, the great mills that have transformed the wool trade, the reforms in Parliament, the Queen's long reign. I've seen inventions and improvements that would have seemed like magic to my grandfather.
But I've also seen that some things don't change. People still need food and shelter. They still fall in love and marry. They still have children and watch some of them die too young. They still work hard for little reward. They still find joy in simple things—a good meal, a warm fire, a kind word from a neighbor.
Your grandmother and I, we were ordinary folk. We never had wealth or position. We could not read or write. We worked hard all our lives and had little to show for it but our children and their children. But we loved each other, Rosa. We raised our family as best we could. We stayed faithful to each other and to our God. We lived honest lives, harming no one.
I wear in this photograph the old smock that was made in Keevil—the traditional Wiltshire smock that marks me as a working man. My neckerchief is red, as a countryman's should be. My hat is old-fashioned now, I know—it was fashionable when I was young, and I've kept it all these years for Sundays and special occasions. These clothes tell who I am: a Wiltshire man, a working man, a man of this place.
For You and Your Children
Rosa, my dear, you're nineteen now, and you work as a servant. Life has not been easy for you either, I know. But you come from strong stock, from people who endure, who work, who love their families.
Remember where you come from. Remember that you have family across the ocean in America—your uncle James and his children. Remember that you have aunts and uncles and cousins all through this part of Wiltshire. The Richmans and the Marshmans, the Hogans and the Thompsons and the Matthews—we're all connected, all part of the same web of family and place.
When I am gone—and it won't be long now, I feel it in my bones—remember your grandfather John Richman, who lived all his life in Hilperton, who worked with his hands, who loved your grandmother Ann, who did his best in a hard world. Remember your grandmother Ann, who worked so skillfully at the loom, who bore eight children and buried three of them, who kept our home and our family together through good times and bad.
We were not important people by the world's measure, Rosa. But we lived, and we loved, and we left children and grandchildren behind us. That is not nothing. That is something to be proud of.
Tell your children about us someday. Tell them about their great-grandfather who wore the Wiltshire smock and worked as butcher and weaver and coal hauler. Tell them about their great-grandmother who made her mark with an X but whose hands could work magic at the loom. Tell them we lived in Hilperton Marsh, in this green corner of Wiltshire, in England, in the reign of the good Queen Victoria.
Tell them we were here.
And now, my dear, I'm tired. These old bones need rest. Help me to my chair by the fire, there's a good girl. Soon enough I'll rest forever beside your grandmother in St. Michael's churchyard, but for now, let me sit here in the warmth and remember.
John Richman died on the 26th of April, 1867, in Bradford-on-Avon, at the age of 79, and was buried at St. Michael's Church, Hilperton, where his long life had been marked by marriage, baptisms, and burials across more than half a century.
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3) An Audio Overview (essentially a podcast) created by the Google NotebookLM AI tool) describing this memoir of John Richman in 1867 is here (click on "Audio Overview" and wait for it to load).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
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