Four AI Genealogy Research Successes

But I still think of it as "Artificial Inferencing"

Over the last week I’ve tiptoed into the AI end of the genealogy research pool. After wading around a few days, following are four encouraging results concerning:

• how/why colonists would travel between Philadelphia and Baltimore after 1775 (two-part);

• Quaker ‘shorthand’ markings in 18th-century Monthly Meeting minutes (two-part).

My AI tool of choice was the ChatGPT application for Mac using the Sequoia 15.2 operating system. The following recounting starts with my prompt question using the standard ChatGPT chat format, a short description of the context for my question, and then ChatGPT’s response in italics.

Then my response to … its …. response.

Prompt 1a. “During the revolutionary war how much was the area between Philadelphia and Baltimore affected?”

Context: My 5th great-grandparents, Thomas Stockdale from Bucks County, Pennsylvania province, and Mary Patrick from Baltimore, were married on the fifth of December 1776. Thus documented the minutes of the Gunpowder Monthly Meeting Society of Friends (Quakers) just north of Baltimore. Fifty-five Friends of both families witnessed Thomas and Mary joining hands, including at least one recognizable couple who traveled to Baltimore from Philadelphia, Thomas’s sister, Hannah, who had married Abel Fitzwater. Others were likely to have made the journey.

So I wondered … were those people crazy? There was a war going on, or so I’ve read.

ChatGPT’s Response (summarized)

Philadelphia’s Role and Impact:

1. Political and Strategic Hub: … largest city in the colonies, Continental Congresses, Declaration of Independence … viewed by British as key target, captured in 1777 …

2. Occupation and Hardship: … from September 1777 to June 1778, British troops requisitioned supplies, damaged property … strained loyalties among the people.

3. Valley Forge: … northwest of Philadelphia, not a battlefield but place Continental Army encamped, underwent significant training and discipline …

Baltimore’s Role and Impact:

1. Temporary Capital: In late 1776, the Continental Congress fled from Philadelphia to Baltimore to escape the advancing British … temporary capital from December 1776 to February 1777.

2. Military Support: Baltimore’s port played an essential role in supplying the war effort … hub for shipbuilding …

3. Relative Safety: … never occupied, but faced the economic pressures of war.

The Corridor Between Cities:

1. Military Movements: … the area between was frequently traversed by troops, supplies, and communications. Key roads, such as the King’s Highway (modern U.S. Route 1), were vital arteries for the war effort …

2. Local Population: … towns in this region saw an influx of troops and endured requisitions of food, livestock, and supplies by both American and British forces … residents often found themselves caught between loyalties …

3. Havre de Grace and Chesapeake Bay: … a critical resource area … British naval forces patrolled the bay … brought fear and destruction to some parts of the region.

Overall Impact:

• Economic Strain:

• Divided Loyalties:

• Strategic Importance: … [this] area was always under the shadow of war, even if not always directly engaged in conflict.

I was pleased with this general overview information, but I especially locked onto the mention of the King’s Highway – the 18th-century “Express Lane” through the colonies, as it were. Then I asked a follow-up question seeking a broader perspective:

Prompt 1b: “How would American colonists have traveled from Bucks County PA to Baltimore?”

Overland Travel (Most Common): … by horseback, wagon or foot, well-known roads and trails, Kings Highway primary route from Charleston South Carolina to Boston

• From Philadelphia … south to Chester, Pennsylvania, crossing into Delaware and Maryland; stops might include Wilmington in Delaware, Elkton in Maryland and Havre de Grace to reach Baltimore.

• Alternate Route … to avoid major roads due to conditions, tolls or military activity; one route westward to Lancaster Pennsylvania, then south to York, then on to Baltimore. Travel time: by horseback: 3-4 days (~30 miles/day); by wagon 5-7 days

Water Travel: … boat down the Delaware River from Bucks County to Philadelphia … down the river into Chesapeake Bay, portaging from river to bay, then boat to Baltimore Harbor. Travel time: 1-2 days depending on wind and water conditions

Combination of Land and Water Travel: combine travel by wagon or horseback to board ship from Philadelphia Baltimore via Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay.

Challenges and Considerations:

• Road conditions due to rain and mud

• Multiple Bridges and Ferries

• Cost, ships and wagons more expensive

• Dangers – bandits, British patrols and risk of accidents

Conclusion

Most travelers from Bucks County to Baltimore would have taken the King’s Highway, stopping in Philadelphia, Wilmington, Elkton, and Havre de Grace before reaching Baltimore. Horseback or wagon travel was the most common method, though water routes were an option for those with access to boats.

Now, I admit there’s nothing that’s surprising or informative that I couldn’t have found on my own using non-AI resources … like the Apple Maps app.

Apple Maps depiction of walking route from Bucks County PA to the Gunpowder Monthly Friends Meeting House north of Baltimore (granted, not exactly the route in 1776)

But I don’t believe I would’ve considered the land/water combination option. The AI response suggested something like this, perhaps something like this (if the red line was actually on the water all the way to Chesapeake Bay):

Apple Maps showing a water route depicted by the red line connecting the Delaware River to Chesapeake Bay

In my judgment, that’s a solid B for ChatGPT … especially considering that from start to finish (not including my own tortured map-making-marking) no more than 5-10 minutes.

Prompt 2a: In Quaker handwriting during the colonial period in America, what did "afores." mean?

In my attempt to transcribe the happy occasion of my 5th great-grandparents’ marriage ceremony, I had a hard enough time going word-by-word to faithfully (something of a pun, if you make the connection) type letters that were written by hands 249 years, 1 month, 25 days ago. I wasn’t in the mood for abbreviations, and worse. Here’s what I was dealing with:

Report of my 5th great-grandparents marriage in December 1776

Before I move on to the response, notice that I’ve only marked two instances of afores. I had a good idea of what that meant. But check out the three marks in between those two, the checkmark with the back-facing curly-que thing – look at those as either letters or words and ask yourself, “what keys do I press for that?”

ChatGPT’s Response

Yep, they were all aforesaid’s. Don’t get me wrong, I love that at least these two and probably a handful of other of my paternal lines were Quakers (at least for a time) because you really can’t beat the documentation. And in peeking at a few other Monthly Meeting marriage reports, it does look as though there’s a lot of boilerplate, if you’ll excuse the metaphor, so once you transcribe one it’s almost like you’re one-and-done except for the names. And dates. And witnesses.

But there was a second abbreviation that I wanted to clarify:

Prompt 2b: In colonial days were male sons named after their father designated as “Dim” instead of “Jr”?

Check out this example in the list of witnesses, two named William Amos, with one annotated with what looks to be Dim as suffix:

ChatGPT’s Response

(In a word) … No. If you came across “Dim” in a colonial document, it may be a transcription error or an abbreviation for something else. Do you have a specific example in mind?

To which I replied: It's written after the name of a man and above the "m" in "Dim" there is a small enclosed circle.

ChatGPT again:

The abbreviation “Dim” with a small enclosed circle above the “m” is not a common designation for “Junior” or any typical colonial naming convention. However, a few possibilities could explain this notation:

1. “Ditto” or Abbreviation for “Same”

• In some colonial documents, “Dim.” (or similar markings) might have been used as an abbreviation for “ditto” or “the same,” indicating that the person had the same name as someone previously mentioned.

To which I replied, to myself more than Chat, what it could designate is that there were two men there with the same name, whether they were necessarily the same family or not. This would avoid a misconception that the recorder erred, to make sure the count reconciled.

Overall I was pleased and not quite as skeptical about AI, at least in these four specific ChatGPT implementations.

Those good vibes lasted until this morning when ChatGPT failed massively. I’m pondering that one.