A new image

 

Made in Ideogram. "Bridget, 1850".

For a while I've been using the image on my post from March 2024 as a visualization for Bridget, my 3rd-great-grandmother. Above is a new likeness, made in Ideogram, with the prompt of "a young Irish immigrant, about 26 years old, preparing to marry in 1850 Illinois. She has long dark hair and strength in her blue eyes." 

Bridget likely married my much older 3rd-great-grandfather John O'Brien, who was probably about 56 when they met in La Salle County, Illinois in the late summer of 1850 or 1851, sometime after the 1850 US Census entry on 24 August 1850 and before their first daughter, Anna Maria O'Brien, was born in 1852. They certainly purchased land together in May 1854 in La Salle. I have not yet found a marriage record for them in La Salle County.

I do not know that Bridget had blue eyes, I'm making an assumption. There's a similarity to how I imagined Bridget's daughter Agnes, arriving to perform in Hancock, Michigan in June 1880, or Agnes in the AI tools from MyHeritage as she may have looked performing in Omaha in 1898.

Taking the image above and using the remix feature in Ideogram, shows a younger version of Bridget, departing Ireland for America probably around 1842 to 1844. I think these visuals are helpful for putting these distant family members in context with their journeys, as I did with the visual for my 3rd-great-grandfather Gabriel Vasquez, leaving Valparaiso, Chile in 1858.

Made in Ideogram. Bridget around 1842-44.