High Street, Edinburgh

 

J. M. W. Turner. High Street, Edinburgh. 1818.

Travel by Ferry

 

Made with Ideogram 3.0.

Another image created using Ideogram, this time in the style of a travel poster. I think travel posters are pretty great, and I've regularly featured them on the blog. There's even a super cool Poster House museum you can visit in New York City.

For this particular example, as I share this post I'm taking the Stena Line ferry from Belfast, Northern Ireland to Cairnryan, Scotland. I'll have photos from the voyage when I return.

Leaving Valparaiso

 

Gabriel departing Valparaiso. Made in Ideogram.

I know there's a wide variety of opinion about using AI in genealogy and family history circles. As I continue testing image generation for various scenes in my family's branches, this tool is growing on me and I'm impressed with what it can do. The example above is an imagined scene of my 3rd-great-grandfather Gabriel Vasquez, departing the port of Valparaiso, Chile in 1858 for a new life in Mexico.

Gabriel was likely about 20 when he left Chile. He reported in his informacion matrimonial in 1863 that he had been in Altar, Sonora for the past five years, providing an estimated arrival in Mexico of 1858. It's possible he arrived in Mexico even earlier, but I don't know. I certainly don't have a photo, he died in 1873 at the age of 34.

My prompt was pretty simple, "a twenty-year old merchant boarding a ship in Valparaiso, Chile in 1858, looking back at the harbor. He has dark hair and a moustache." I like that Ideogram returns four options. The other generated images didn't quite fit the time period or the look that I was expecting to see for a representation of Gabriel.

At the time, this journey from Valparaiso to Guaymas, Sonora (Gabriel's likely landing spot) would have taken 3-4 weeks, maybe longer, with multiple stops along the way in locations such as Peru, Panama, and south of Guaymas on the Mexican coast. According to a query with Claude, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company sailed along the coast from October 1848, and some of those records are preserved through the Pacific Mail Steamship Collection through the Huntington Library. 

In the summer of 1880

 

Made in Ideogram. Agnes in Hancock, Michigan, 1880.

An imagined scene of Agnes Atherton O'Brien, walking outside her hotel in lakeside Hancock, Michigan in June 1880, created using Ideogram. Agnes was listed as a performer in theater in the 1880 US Census for Hancock.

Ancestry. 1880 US Census. Hancock, Michigan.

I know this isn't a perfect representation of 1880s fashion, but this one turned out well enough.

Hancock, 1873

 

A. J. Cleveland, 1873. Hancock, Michigan.

A birds-eye view of Hancock, Houghton County, Michigan, on the Upper Peninsula. This is where Agnes Atherton O'Brien performed in June 1880. Below is an engraving of the town, taken from History of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (via MIgenweb).

MIGenWeb. 1883.

A good fight

 

Source: NBA

It was a magical run throughout the Playoffs, but in the end the Pacers fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder last night, 103-91. Losing Tyrese Haliburton to injury in the 1st quarter proved to be too much. Like the 2000 Pacers team that went to the NBA Finals, this 2024-25 team will be long remembered for how they fought, eliminating the Bucks, Cavaliers and Knicks, and taking the Thunder to Game 7. 

A sad way to end the season, for certain, but this team earned a lot of respect and gained new fans for their exciting, high-energy play throughout their run.

RootsTech 2026 proposal submitted

My proposal for a 20 minute recorded session for RootsTech 2026 is in. Now I wait to see if the talk gets accepted, and continue to collect potential images and information for the materials. One I won't be using is below.

Made in Ideogram.

Entering the convent

 

Generated in Ideogram 3.0.

Above is a visualization, made in Ideogram, depicting the moment the three O'Brien girls entered the convent school run by the Sisters of Charity at St. Patrick's in La Salle, Illinois in 1860. The girls can be found in the 1860 US Census listed among the pupils of the school - Anna Maria, age 8; Isabella, age 7; and Agnes, age 2.

I'm testing out creating scenes with prompts in AI tools for a potential talk at RootsTech. The other examples were "too happy" but the late fall/early winter scene above seems to fit. The nun also is an approximation of Martina Connolly, 25 in the 1860 Census.

A distant connection

 

Ancestry. WWI Draft Card. 5 June 1917.

I've been looking at Amado DNA connections as part of my DNA research questions. One small match on my Mom's results is a granddaughter of David Amado, who arrived in the US through the port of Baltimore in 1911 and found his way to Chicago. According to his WWI draft registration card, David was born in Calafat, Romania, on the Danube River across from Bulgaria, on 27 March 1889. From looking at other records on Ancestry, I can see David was from the Sephardic community. The 1920 US Census places David and his wife Sophie in the home of Sophie's brother Sam Siprut. Although these people were from Ottoman Türkiye, Bulgaria and Romania, according to the Census, they all spoke Spanish.

Ancestry. 1920 US Census. Chicago, Illinois.

The DNA match to my Mom only shares a minimal 9 cM. From Ancestry's Shared Matches of Matches, I can see this person has a first cousin whose father was a Sephardic immigrant to Chicago from Türkiye, and mother from Bulgaria (just across the Turkish border, relatively close to present day Istanbul). This makes me wonder how distantly this group of possible Amado matches may be related to the Izmir Amados who settled in Los Angeles, and potentially to my own Amado branch that moved to Mexico.
 

One more time

 

NBA.com. Game 7 set for Sunday.

A pause from my regular family history blogging to share some appreciation for my Indiana Pacers, winning last nights' Game 6 at home to set up a historic Game 7 on Sunday in Oklahoma City. This team has been so fun to watch. One way or another, the NBA season ends with this next game.

The Pacers won 108-91, and had a 30 point lead heading into the 4th Quarter. Key reserve players Obi Toppin and T. J. McConnell were huge throughout the game, on a night when star Tyrese Haliburton was limited by injury. The lead allowed the Pacers to rest Haliburton in the 4th, saving his energy for Sunday's final.

RootsTech 2026 call for presentations extended

Last month I shared a link to RootsTech's call for 2026 presentations. Yesterday, the RootsTech team shared on Instagram that the call for presentations has been extended by one week to 11:59pm MT on 30 June. If you're on the fence about submitting a talk or idea for RootsTech 2026, you have another week to do so.

Research query on the A2 mtDNA haplogroup

 

Perplexity AI search.

Here's another search using Perplexity, where I asked the tool to collect journal articles featuring research with mitochondrial DNA from the A2 or A2d2 haplogroups. This was a bit better than my open ended query on Agnes Atherton O'Brien, as it returned several journal articles, links to FamilyTreeDNA's page on the A2 haplogroup, a link to Roberta Estes' 2013 blog on Native American haplogroups, along with one I didn't know previously that Blaine Bettinger also has a mtDNA connection to the A2 haplogroup.

The search concludes with "The A2 haplogroup is extensively studied in the context of Native American genetic history, with several high-impact journal articles providing phylogenetic, evolutionary, and population-level insights. Research on A2d2 is limited, but broader studies on A2 and its subclades offer valuable context and data for understanding its significance in ancient and modern populations".

This search did not locate the journal article I shared last month on Ancient DNA at Copán or the 2023 study on ancient DNA from Teotihuacan.

Turning ideas into images

 

Created in Ideogram 3.0.

I'm continuing to try out Ideogram, turning text prompts into images for use with the blog and family history related projects. Above is a wine crate next to a vineyard completely generated with AI from a text prompt. I used the idea of a Spanish winery in the ancestral region of the Campuzano family. Unlike last time, I did not use another photo as a reference. I asked for a "photo-realistic winery crate with the words Bodega Campuzano etched onto the crate and Cantabria on the bottom". Ideogram took that idea and returned four suggested images, including the one above.

Below is another suggested image, showing the crate with wine bottles, perhaps in the tasting room at my fictitious Spanish winery. I like this one with the simulated Cantabrian shield or family crest on either side of the box. These look pretty good for being AI generated.

Created in Ideogram 3.0.

A long time ago (around 2002 & 2003), before I moved into my current profession, I had developed a wine label, including the domain names and prepared trademark clearances. I was even talking with a European producer on the label concept, and attended an industry tasting event at the exclusive Athenaeum Club in London. Ultimately life took another path, and I ended up in the Internet industry instead of the wine business.

Playing around with this AI tool on this Spanish winery idea above brings back memories of the old wine labels and the crazy experience of our whirlwind trip to London for the tasting. One of these days I may write more about that experience on the blog. Maybe I'll use Ideogram and bring back some images of the labels, showing how they would look today.  

Source material

While conducting my extensive 10+ year search to break down the mystery of my 2nd-great-grandfather John O'Brien's siblings placed in the care of the Sisters of Charity convent in La Salle, Illinois, I used a variety of sources, primarily focusing on Agnes Atherton O'Brien. I'm placing this here as a reminder and potential guide in case I build a proposed talk for Rootstech 2026. I used these sources to write her obituary in October 2023.

US Census Records

• 1860 US Census in La Salle County, Illinois (2 years old in the Sisters of Charity convent)
• 1880 US Census in Hancock, Houghton, Michigan (actress)
• 1910 US Census in Cincinnati, Ohio

Marriage and Divorce Records

• Indiana Marriage Record (Marion County) - 20 October 1881
• Davidson County, Tennessee divorce decree - 24 September 1887 (via the Metro Archives in Nashville)
• Michigan Marriage Records (witness, 27 November 1883 in Wayne County, Michigan), via Ancestry

Newspapers

• Newspapers.com - extensive newspaper articles and advertisements mentioning Agnes performing throughout the United States and Canada between the late 1870s until her death in 1910.
• GenealogyBank
• Illinois Digital Newspaper Archive
• Internet Archive (Billboard magazine, 1914; multiple issues of NY Dramatic Mirror and NY Clipper)
• Quebec Newspapers, banq.qc.ca (1890 and 1906 tours in Canada)
• New York State Historic Newspapers collection
• FamilySearch Full-text search

City Directory for Cincinnati, 1910

Death Records

• Cook County, Illinois Deaths Index (Ancestry)
• Findagrave
• Mount Carmel Cemetery, Chicago (via Catholic Cemeteries of Chicago website) 

Trans-Mississippi International Exhibition website (see blog post from September 2023) for photo by Frank Rinehart from Kirchner's German Village

American Vaudeville Museum archives

I also inquired with the La Salle County Genealogy Society, and wrote to the Diocese of Peoria about the Sisters of Charity and Saint Patrick's Parish in La Salle, Illinois.

Searching with Perplexity

Another recent AI answer-generation tool for genealogists and family historians to try is Perplexity (link). It offers a free option and "pro" membership (currently $20 per month). As I have been testing other AI tools such as MyHeritage's AI photos, Ideogram, Claude and Runway, I decided to go ahead and try out Perplexity using the free option.

I made a simple query, asking for sources on Agnes Atherton O'Brien Gillette (sister of my 2nd-great-grandfather), telling the tool she was an actress who lived between 1858 and 1910. The tool returned an initial response that "Agnes Atherton O'Brien Gillette was an actress and performer active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While direct, detailed sources on her are scarce, there are several archival collections and historical theater resources that may contain relevant materials about her life and career." It then suggested that I look at archival and theater collections, such as the Chamberlain and Lyman Brown Theatrical Agent Records at the New York Public Library, general theater and performer archives, and digitized playbills and programs from the era.

Perplexity gave related questions to ask as prompts, such as "what is known about Agnes Atherton O'Brien Gillette's family and personal life". This prompt returned limited sources, and pulled from my own blog when describing her family and early life. I guess that's a good sign that my blog is available as a source.

I'm going to have a separate post detailing the sources I have used to date on Agnes' life, and this list of sources is more along the lines of what I might have expected Perplexity or another search tool to suggest. 

Crossroads

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Prague. 12 June 2025.

The shot above is part of a larger wall near the Prague Congress Centre, titled Crossroads. The installation is connected to a series of pieces located around the city by the Praho Project. This thoughtful wall caught my attention as I was taking a break from meetings. It asks questions: "Who or what has led you to your current path?" and "What are your hopes right now?", and is written in a mix of Czech and English.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Prague. 12 June 2025.

Happy Fathers Day

Proud moments with the kids this week as I traveled with Sophia in Prague after she flew solo internationally for the first time, and Silas starts his first job today. These are big life achievements. It definitely feels like we reached a parenting milestone this week.

Other things in the news on this Sunday - a fascinating set of articles about a Viking boat burial discovered in Norway with a prominent Viking woman buried with her dog (see original article in Science Norway).

Rock legend Billy Idol discovered he had an unknown son, after his daughter took a 23andme autosomal DNA test and saw a mystery match (NJ.com 15 June 2025).

It looks like 23andme founder Anne Wojcicki will be taking control of the company once again through the bankruptcy proceeding (Yahoo, 13 June 2025). Her larger bid topped the previous one submitted by Regeneron. A hearing is scheduled for this coming Tuesday to decide on the bid.

Back from Prague

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Prague. 12 June 2025.

We're back from the week in Prague. It was great to experience the city again, 12 years after my initial visit, and to create some new travel memories with Sophia at my meeting. The Mucha Museum was a highlight for us both. I'll have more photos and observations to share in another post.

Connecting through Ireland

 

Museum.ie Collections. 1950s.

Historic Prague

 

Charles Bridge, Prague. Karl Postl. Albertina Museum.

Shifting branches

 

Warren County, KY. 1809.

Ahead of a visit to Edinburgh later this summer, I'm returning attention to the McIntosh branch of the tree. Above is a screenshot from the Warren County, Kentucky land records courtesy of FamilySearch Labs' full-text search. This is part of a land record involving John and Sarah Sally McIntosh, my 5th-great-grandparents.

Prague, 2012

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Charles Bridge, Prague. 20 June 2012.

I'm back again in Prague for meetings. I was last here thirteen years ago. Newer photos to follow once I'm back.

Connections to Teotihuacan

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Teotihuacan. 4 Mar 2009.

In March 2009, I had the good fortune to take a day trip to the historic site of Teotihuacan during a break from meetings in Mexico City. It was an amazing experience, and I was able to climb to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun. I'm not sure one can do that now (another thing I'm lucky I've done, along with climbing to the top of the Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza).

Reading the study last week on ancient DNA at the Maya city of Copán reminded me to take a look at a study I had previously missed published in Human Genetics in October 2023 on mitochondrial DNA from ancient Teotihuacanos. Two of the individuals recovered at Teotihuacan had the A2d1 haplogroup (13-Lav and 14-Lav). See also this summary from Archaeology News (9 Jan 2024).

Fly to Germany

 

TESSA/LA Public Library.

Testing AI tools

 

MyHeritage. Enhanced Photos tool.

MyHeritage has a number of tools using artificial intelligence, from colorizing old photos, an AI Time Machine (displaying how you or an ancestor might look through different eras), photo enhancing, and DeepStory (allowing photos to "talk" through animation) and Deep Nostalgia editing (bringing photos to "life" without sound). This is my first attempt at using the tool. I've uploaded to MyHeritage's Enhanced Photos a cropped portion of the photo that I believe shows Agnes Atherton O'Brien performing at Kirchner's German Village pavillion in Omaha, Nebraska in July 1898. The result is a little off.

MyHeritage. After AI enhancing.

I've begun using more AI tools with family history. Anthropic's Claude has become a really useful tool. Yesterday I used Claude to help generate a photo editing prompt, which I took over to another platform called Ideogram. This platform does text to image conversion, and allows you to "remix" an uploaded image with the prompt. I tried to see if I could use the cropped portion from the Omaha performance, combined with an image generation prompt, to create a suggested image for how Agnes might have appeared on stage in the 1890s.

Claude was useful for suggesting descriptions for the time period and setting, her costume and appearance, pose and expression, the visual style, and a sample complete prompt. I made some edits to the wording, then copied the prompt over to Ideogram. Ideogram has a feature that interprets the language with its "Magic Prompt" to "optimize and embellish" wording, to add variety and beauty to images generated.

The suggested prompt from Ideogram became: "A sepia-toned vintage portrait photograph captures a captivating vaudeville actress poised on stage, showcasing her timeless beauty and grace. She wears a flowing stage dress from the 1890s featuring a loose art nouveau bodice, bare shoulders adorned with a delicate floral pattern, and a full-length skirt that cascades elegantly around her ankles. Her hair is meticulously styled in the fashionable curls and waves of the era, framing her face as she gazes directly at the camera with a subtle, enigmatic smile. Behind her, a large window with grid panes casts a soft, diffused light across the scene, and a single velvet curtain is partially drawn, hinting at the grandeur of the theater setting." Using this prompt, Ideogram returns four photo options.

"Agnes", Ideogram.AI

Another option might be closer to an early 1880s version of Agnes. This suggestion looks more like my grandmother Blanche in high school.

"Agnes" via Ideogram.

While I haven't been able to make work just yet on Ideogram, I could use the Omaha snapshot as a base and see what the AI does using my grandmother Blanche O'Brien's high school senior photo as a facial influence. As Agnes' grand-niece, there may have been a facial resemblance.

There's yet another AI tool called Runway, which generates amazing video from image prompts. This will need to wait for another day, and I may try it once I'm back from upcoming travel.

More signs point to Longford

 

AncestryDNA. Ancestral Journeys, Central Ireland.

Looking again at my Dad's DNA matches, I am checking closely at those who have Ancestral Journeys connected to Central Ireland (specifically around the Longford and Roscommon area). I've looked at these off and on as part of my DNA research questions. I am starting to see some patterns in a small cluster of matches with names tracing back to Longford.

There's a bubble group, using the terminology in YourDNAGuide's Shared Matches of Matches course, of people who are definitely connected to each other with strong cM amounts, although they have small amounts in common with my Dad. These people have surnames Farrell, Casey, Donlon and Devlin linking back to Longford and appear in the Central Ireland group for AncestryDNA's Ancestral Journeys. There's quite a bit more work to see how these people might be connected to my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget's families, but it seems promising that these may link to her mysterious lines. Something I'll pick up further when I'm back from upcoming travel.

Immigrant Heritage Month

June marks Immigrant Heritage Month. I've traditionally used this as a reminder for donations to groups supporting immigration causes. This takes me back to a post I made in June 2016, highlighting the work of Liga Protectora Latina in 1915, when my 2nd-great-grandfather Vicente Campuzano was active in the organization.

Photo by Patrick Jones. DC, 18 Jan 2021.

Research Progress June 2025

Much like last month, progress on my DNA research questions has slowed to a crawl. I have completed a first-pass through the mtDNA for genealogy course with YourDNAGuide, so that's something. I need to revisit the Shared Matches of Matches course. I've also been thinking about how to organize a possible RootsTech 2026 talk.

Research posting will be really slow this month as I'll be in Europe quite a lot. Some exciting things are scheduled now for Edinburgh, where I'll get to view historic documents at the Edinburgh University Library and Archives on my 5th-great-grandfather John McIntosh. He was a medical student at the university in 1775-1776, before joining the British Army. I'll be very interested to see what they have, and will share the results here after I get back.

On to the Finals

 

Washington Post. Justin Casterline/Getty Images. 31 May 2025.

The Indiana Pacers beat the New York Knicks last night, 125-108, winning Game 6 of the Eastern Conference series to book a spot in the NBA Finals for the first time since 2000. It was a great game to watch as a Pacers fan. This team plays such a fun style of basketball. They may be underdogs against Oklahoma City, but we'll be watching and cheering them on.

New in family history TV

Another new family history series is kicking off this week, with BBC America/Acorn TV's Relative Secrets premiering on 2 June. This series takes more of a true crime angle with genealogy. The trailer is available here (via YouTube). Jane Seymour is the host.

From time to time I share posts on family history-related series (see here from February). I'm not sure I'll watch this one, I don't have Acorn, but maybe it will interest some who might stumble onto this blog. It might be available for viewing while I'm traveling in Europe & the UK later in June.