The Artificial Intelligence tools (like ChatGPT4, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Meta, CoPilot, GenSpark, DeepSeek, 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.
1) I wondered if the FREE AI tools could provide me with a genealogical sketch and social history for my second great-grandfather Devier James Lamphier Smith (1839-1894), based on the timeline events, relationships, dates, places, and notes in his RootsMagic profile.
(image from family collection)
I created a timeline in RootsMagic for Devier, including events for his parents, spouse and children. By adding descriptive notes for each event on the RootsMagic "Person" screen, those notes appear on the timeline.
I saved the timeline in a Notepad text file and edited it a bit. I eliminated source citations from the Timeline file. Then I saved the text file so that I could copy it into the AI tools.
2) Here is my prompt for this task: Please create a summary of the life of Devier James Lamphier Smith (1839-1894) that includes the information below. The information is in a list of events with text of age, date, notes (sometimes missing) and place. Here is the information: TIMELINE LIST FOR DEVIER JAMES LAMPHIER SMITH (1839-1894) ... (many lines of information!)
3) The ChatGPT4 response to the request was pretty good, but left out the fifth child for some reason. So I asked ChatGPT4 to add that child, and it incorporated him into the genealogical sketch.
Then I asked ChatGPT4 to tell me: What important events occurred in the places he resided during the times he resided in those places?
The ChatGPT4 response was pretty good, and it asked me if I wanted that information integrated into Devier's profile. I said "yes, please."
Here is the modified response from ChatGPT4:
Devier James Lamphier Smith was born on May 7, 1839, in Jefferson County, New York, to unknown parents, though one was likely a Lanfear. Around 1840, he was adopted by Ranslow and Mary (Bell) Smith and lived with them in Henderson, New York. By 1843, the family moved to Rolling Prairie, Dodge County, Wisconsin, where he remained until after his marriage.
In the 1850 Census, Devier was recorded as an 11-year-old male born in New York, residing in Burnett, Dodge County, Wisconsin. By 1860, he was a 21-year-old farm laborer in Oak Grove, Wisconsin, with $1,232 in personal property.
On April 4, 1861, Devier married Abigail A. Vaux in Rolling Prairie, Wisconsin. They had five children: Abbey Ardelle (1862), Devier David (1863), Mary Ann (1866), Agnes Bell (1868), and Lucian H. (1875), who passed away in 1878. Agnes Bell also passed away in 1870. During this period, Devier was a farmer and hotel keeper in Rolling Prairie. In 1866, he legally changed his name from Devier Lamphier to Devier J. Smith through an act of the Wisconsin Senate.
By 1867, the family moved to Bedford, Taylor County, Iowa, where Devier engaged in farming, land speculation, and horse trading. He acquired and sold several parcels of land between 1867 and 1873. During this period, Iowa was experiencing post-Civil War economic growth, with expanding railroads and increasing settlement due to the Homestead Act. After his father Ranslow Smith died in 1873 in Andrew County, Missouri, Devier settled his father's estate before relocating to Concordia, Cloud County, Kansas, in 1874, where he became a liveryman, farmer, and cattle trader. Kansas was recovering from the 1874 Grasshopper Plague, and the cattle industry was booming, making it a prime location for his business. The 1875 Kansas Census recorded him in Lincoln township, Cloud County, working in the livery and sale stable business.
In 1885, Devier moved his family to McCook, Red Willow County, Nebraska, purchasing land for a livery stable. McCook had been founded just a few years earlier as a railroad town along the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, making it a strategic location for trade and business ventures. The 1885 state Census recorded him as a foreman in McCook and a speculator in Clyde, Cloud County, Kansas. During this time, his daughter Abbey Ardelle married Henry Austin Carringer (1887), his son Devier David married Leava A. Smith (1889), and his daughter Mary Ann married George Miles Chenery (1889). Devier also patented 160 acres of land in Cheyenne County, Kansas, in 1889 and 1890.
Devier continued his real estate and business ventures in McCook, Nebraska, until his death on May 1, 1894. This period saw the economic impact of the Panic of 1893, which affected land speculation and business. He was buried in McCook, Red Willow County, Nebraska, leaving behind a legacy of entrepreneurship and land speculation across multiple states.
4) This genealogical sketch is very different from my earlier genealogical sketch. It summarizes events rather than providing detailed information about each event. It is appropriate for a broad view of Devier's life and times that I might add to a book or compendium for my family to read about their relatives or ancestors, with a photo, and perhaps a poem and/or song (heh heh!).
The descriptive notes I added to each event on the RootsMagic "Person" page helped to add significant detail to the genealogical sketch created by ChatGPT4.
If I had provided the information in Devier's newspaper article summary, the deeds and patents that I summarized, his obituary and perhaps his Bible entry, there would be more human interest involved in the sketch. I can take the ChatGPT4 sketch above and add those elements to an improved sketch. I may see if ChatGPT4 can do that for me.
However, my goal here was to see if the RootsMagic timeline with descriptive notes would work to create a genealogical sketch, and if I could weave social history into the sketch. I think it worked very well.
I did ask the same questions of Claude Sonnet 3.5, X Grok 2, Google Gemini Flash, and Perplexity, but I thought ChatGPT4 did the best job of this task.
5) NOTE: The free ChatGPT4 tool works differently now. If the user wants additional information added, the prompt window is on the left-hand side of the screen, and the response in the right-hand part of the screen is modified to include the information that the user wanted included. Earlier responses are not shown on the list on the right-hand side of the screen in the AI tool. On the screen, I can see all of my prompts on the left-hand side and then only the final product of the response on the right-hand side.
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My blog posts, and those of other genealogists, using Artificial Intelligence tools are on my AI and Genealogy Compendium page.
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