My Trails into the Past

This past week I have attended the Texas Institute of Genealogy Research (TIGR), held virtually via Zoom. I'm taking the AI course coordinated by Nicole Dyer and her co-instructors Angela McGhie, Diana Elder, Mark Thompson, Steve Little, Jan Joyce, Alice Childs, Mark Humphries,   and Katherine Schober. It has been an action-packed class, with lots of hands-on practice using many pre-written prompts, as well as our own, in several different AI platforms: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, AI Studio, and Gemini. I have practiced many different uses. I want to share one of those in this post. In the past, I wrote nine blog posts about my husband's father, George Joseph Gorrell, who was an Army Air Corps mechanic during WWII in England. In one exercise where we were to learn about our writing style and create a writing style guide, I used a project in ChatGPT, uploading the nine Word documents. The AI analyzed the writing and said:  "The style is ideal for a family history blog: war...

Amos Gorrell was born on 12 February 1837 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania to Amos Gorrell and Leah Wollam. He married Catherine Elizabeth (Shotts) Sayre, widow of Lemuel Sayre, on 6 February 1866 in Ross County, Ohio. They moved the next month to Missouri. Amos kept a diary he purchased yearly that fit in a pocket. His daily entries were short and somewhat cryptic. This year's diary was found in the effects of William Amos Netherton, grandson of Amos, through his daughter Linnie Sarah (Gorrell) Netherton. Karen Netherton and Carolyn (Netherton) Clark transcribed it in 1982. They had not yet moved to Cooper County and were living in Saline County. The nearest town was Arrow Rock. Examples from the 1868 diary are below. Misspellings are Amos'. Wednesday, Jan. 1s t. Weather clear and pleasent New years day (of ears). Mr. Collins and wife comes down to our house. We have an Egg Nog and dinner here. We are engaged Salting away our meat, rendering lard, making Sausage, etc. Mrs. Colli...

The day I met my future mother-in-law I knew it would be a good relationship. I had been seeing her son for about a year or two. We met at the trolley museum off Highway 12 when I came up with friends from the train club. We all loved volunteering there: running streetcars, maintaining the track, and working on rebuilding cars in the shop. He lived on the museum site as a sort-of caretaker and worked in Rio Vista during the week as a welder. Later, he took a job closer to where I lived and moved to Pleasant Hill. I do not remember the exact circumstances that led us to visit his parents at their home. His mother welcomed me warmly. She gave me a tour of the house and when I saw a bookcase in the hall, I knew I had found a kindred soul. Books can reveal a bit of one’s personality. She was an avid reader of fiction. Many of the books on her shelf were also on my shelves. She had a whole collection of Louis L’Amour books, and he was one of my favorite authors then. She also had the Mrs. P...

What does one write when our families do not have cultural traditions? Are our family traditions cultural at all? Hork Family Traditions When growing up, we had some holiday traditions. Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were always at the Hork house, as our house was large enough to seat everyone. The maternal grandparents and great-aunt came to us, bringing salads and dessert. Mom cooked the rest: turkey for Thanksgiving and a ham for Christmas. The side courses were always candied yams, mashed potatoes and gravy with giblets, cornbread stuffing, and peas with onions. Hors d′oeuvres consisted of potato chips with onion dip, carrot, celery, radish, and green onion sticks, and smoked baby oysters. Dessert was a variety of pies: pumpkin, mincemeat, pecan, or apple. My mother made us recipe books when we married and here is her recipe for the turkey and stuffing. Gorrell Family Traditions At the Gorrell house, they also had turkey on Thanksgiving with a sage stuffing, mashed potatoes, gr...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has an assignment for us tonight:  1)   Form a research question and ask an Artificial Intelligence agent to create a genealogy research plan for you.  2)  Share the plan. How well did AI do? Is the plan useful or too basic? [thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]  Here's mine: Since I have a paid subscription with ChatGPT, I used version 4o. This is my prompt: You are a certified genealogist. Your research subject is Amos Gorrell, who was born 12 February 1837 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, married Catherine Shotts on 6 February 1866 in Ross County, Ohio, and died on 31 March 1928 in Cooper County, Missouri. I would like a research plan to locate his parents. This is the bot’s reply (in blue) and my comments about the plan (in black): Creating a solid res...

In 1988, we were invited to a Gorrell Family Reunion being held over the Memorial Day weekend in Odessa, Missouri. We decided to go. Most of the attendees were there on the first day, May 28. The party was held at the senior center in Odessa. Those invited were the descendants of Amos Gorrell and Catharine Shotts’ five children: Louella Gorrell, who married William E. McMahon Linnie Sarah Gorrell, who married William P. Netherton Joseph Norman Gorrell, who married Matilda P. Davey Ada Leah Gorrell, who married John Whitlow Arthur L. Gorrell, who married Minnie Gillespie Of the five children, only three of the children had offspring. Arthur died in 1916 and left no children. Lou & William McMahan also had no children. The Nethertons had five children, with only two living to adulthood. Linnie & William had five grandchildren. The Gorrells had four children, all living to adulthood. Joe and Matilda had thirteen grandchildren. My husband is one of those grandchildren...

We are fortunate that family saved the letters that my father-in-law, George J. Gorrell, wrote during his service in England and Germany during World War II. These letters have been passed onto me and it’s time now to get them transcribed and shared to the rest of the family. I have written other posts about George’s service. George J Gorrell Served in the Army Air Corps During WWII US Army Air Corps Base in England Where George J Gorrell Served Letters Home, Using V-Mail George J Gorrell's WWII Service at Burtonwood Air Depot He served in the Army Air Forces at Burtonwood, a base northwest of Warrington in Cheshire, England. He was a landing gear repairman and served there from August 1943 until the war’s end, when he was shipped to Germany to do the same work there. In a letter to his oldest sister, Bertha, dated 17 September 1945, he described the trip to Germany from Montescourt, France aboard a train. It is ten pages but I will share only the parts where he descr...

In the 1880 Lamine, Cooper County, Missouri, household of Amos and Catherine Gorrell is stepson, May M. Sayre, age 19. [1] He is one of three children Catherine Shotts bore with Lemuel Sayre in the late 1850s. Mary Adela, born about 1857, died in 1858 George, born about 1859, died in the same year. [2] Only May Mansfield Sayre, born on 19 November 1860, lived to adulthood, dying on 22 February 1927 in Marion County, Ohio. [3] Catherine married Lemuel on 14 January 1857 in Ross County, Ohio. [4] Private Lemuel J Sayre died on 9 May 1862 in Hamburg, Hardin County, Tennessee, while in Company B of Ohio 63 rd Infantry Regiment. He died from inflammation of the lungs. [5] May’s mother married Amos Gorrell on 6 February 1866 in Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio. [6] It was not a marriage approved by his parents and he decided to leave for Missouri. However, before doing so, Amos took care of business with the probate court to become the guardian of May’s estate. On 28 February, he too...