It’s time for Saturday Night Genealogy fun with Randy Seaver! We have an AI challenge this week:

1)  Select an ancestor, and a genealogical sketch (or research notes, or a timeline, or Ancestry Member Tree profile, etc.) for that ancestor and create a PDF of the sketch/notes/timeline/AMT Facts page/etc.  

2)  Go to one of the FREE AI Large Language Models (LLM, like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, etc.) and write a prompt (create your own, or modify mine below) for the LLM to create a biography of that ancestor in, say 500 words.  If you want something longer, ask for more words.

I used Claude with Randy’s modified prompt and asked for it to write the biography for my 3X great grandfather, George Rogers Tarbox.

Here is the sketch:

George Rogers Tarbox: A Life in Industry and Enterprise

Early Life and Family

George Rogers Tarbox was born on December 14, 1818, in New Gloucester, Cumberland, Maine, a small town best known as the home of the Shakers at Sabbathday Lake. He was the eighth of eleven children born to William Tarbox and Judith Haskell. Remarkably, all of George’s siblings—Hannah Dennis, Joseph Sayward, Samuel, Deborah, William, John Hubbard, John Stillman, Benjamin Franklin, Susan, and Plummer Chase—survived to adulthood, which was quite unusual for the era. His grandparents, Samuel and Deborah (Sayward) Tarbox, were among New Gloucester’s early settlers, having arrived from Gloucester, Massachusetts around 1760.

Growing up on a farm, George helped with chores and received enough schooling to learn to read and write. The family likely attended the Congregational Church, like most of their neighbors. However, farm life didn’t appeal to George, and like several of his siblings, he set his sights on the opportunities emerging in New England’s growing industrial cities.

Marriage and Early Career

By 1844, George had moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, where he worked in the booming textile manufacturing industry. On March 8, 1846, at age 27, he married Deborah Elizabeth Grover, a young woman from his hometown. Tragically, their marriage lasted barely a year—Deborah died of stomach inflammation on April 12, 1847, at just 25 years old. George sent her body home to Maine for burial.

George remarried on November 29, 1848, to Mary Elizabeth Scripture in Nashua, New Hampshire. Mary was born December 2, 1827, in Mason, New Hampshire, the fourth of eleven children born to Oliver Scripture and Mary Goddard Bucknam. The couple soon moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where George worked as an overseer at Globe Mills. They welcomed daughter Mary Elizabeth on November 24, 1849, but heartbreak struck again when she died of typhus fever on September 23, 1850, at less than a year old. Their second daughter, Elizabeth, was born July 19, 1851.

Business Ventures in Maine

Around 1854, George made a significant life change, moving his family to Washington County, Maine. They settled in rural Robbinston, near Calais, where George partnered with Charles Harrison Newton in a hardware business and purchased the Red Beach plaster and granite quarry. The 1850s brought prosperity and four more children: George Jr. (born 1854), Nellie F. (June 28, 1856), Charles Franklin (May 13, 1859), and Horace W. (April 20, 1861).

George proved to be an enterprising businessman. In 1862, he built the schooner Nellie Tarbox, named for his daughter, which sailed as far as Havana during the Civil War years. He also served as Deputy Inspector and Collector at the Customs House starting in 1863. Though enrolled for Civil War service in 1863 at age 44, he was never called to serve.

The mid-1860s brought more sorrow. Son George Jr. died on July 10, 1864, at age 10. Then on March 11, 1866, Mary died at just 39 years old, leaving 15-year-old Elizabeth to care for her four younger siblings while George worked. George sold his schooner for $9,000 and joined the St. Croix Masons Lodge that same year, perhaps seeking community support during difficult times.

Later Years

George continued working in the stone and monument business for decades, manufacturing gravestones and marble work from his granite quarry. He remained politically active as a Republican, even presiding over a political rally in 1884. By 1880, he was living with his daughter Nellie’s family and her husband Calvin Adams. George gradually sold off his real estate holdings throughout the 1870s, though he continued working into his seventies.

George Rogers Tarbox died on January 27, 1895, in Calais, Maine, of general exhaustion at age 76. He was buried in Calais Cemetery alongside Mary and later joined by son Oliver and Oliver’s wife, Jennie.

Children and Legacy

George and Mary’s six children were Mary Elizabeth (1849-1850), Elizabeth (1851-1928), George Rogers Jr. (1854-1864), Nellie F. (1856-1927), Charles Franklin (1859-1941), and Horace W. (1861-1914). Oliver Scripture Tarbox (July 2, 1863-January 15, 1924) was their youngest child.

Four of their children married and had families: Elizabeth married Charles Stiles Vickery and had five children; Nellie married Calvin Segee Adams and had two children; Charles married Cleantha (Cannie) Cochran and had four children; and Horace married Elizabeth Eugenia Lane and had one daughter. Oliver married Jennie Deborah Mingo but had no children. Through these descendants, George’s legacy continues today.

Not bad with a caveat. This is so close to what I had already written in my ancestor sketch that when Claude told me the task was completed, I had to ask it where the finished product was.

I’m not really one for having AI do my writing for me and I guess if its reply was so close to what I had written then I must be a fairly adequate writer!

Thank you, Randy, for an interesting challenge!