My Trails into the Past

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:  1)  Do you know what activities one of your ancestors/relatives engaged in?  How much detail do you know about those activities? 2)  Use the FREE artificial intelligence tool  Google Gemini 3  to describe what your ancestor or relative experienced in his/her activities (e.g., military service, a ship they migrated on, an occupation, an office they held, etc.).  Here's mine: I started out stating the following to Google Gemini 3: “My father-in-law was landing gear specialist during WWII in the Army Air Forces in England, stationed at Burtonwood. What would his job have been like?” The AI answer is this: That is a fascinating bit of family history. Being a landing gear specialist at RAF Burtonwood during WWII meant your father-in-law was at the absolu...

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...

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...

My husband’s father, George J. Gorrell, served during World War II at the Army Air Force base, Burtonwood Air Depot, as a mechanic. Other posts about his adventures are here: 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 Today is the 75th anniversary of VE-Day (Victory in Europe).  On May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered to Allied Forces. George kept a diary of his adventures during the war. From April 28, 1945 to May 8, he  recorded the news of the war. April 28:    Mussolini reported executed. April 30:    Hitler reported by Germany to have died. May 2:       Italy’s German armies surrender, including South Austria. Heard news at Southport ARC. May 4:       North Germany, Holland, and Denmark Germans surrender. May 7: ...

This is my third year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. This is a continuation of the story of George J. Gorrell’s service during World War II in the Army Air Forces. Previous posts: 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 enlisted in the Army Air Forces on 27 July 1943 in San Francisco. [1] He was part of the group of men who were already working at air depots doing maintenance on airplanes. He was told he would be doing the same work. [2] In 1941, he had trained at Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute in Glendale, California and was awarded a diploma as Master Aviation Mechanic. [3] He also received training at the Sacramento ...