Family Tree I

Eleonore asked me, for about the fifth time, "Where's your family from? You don't know? What do you mean you don't know?".

I guess we just never talked about it much, but I've finally been stirring some excitement to explore it - not to mention I had probably the most incredible AI experience in some time.

I went into ChatGPT, was disappointed to no longer find the explicit "Deep Research" mode because that used to be epic though admittedly I hadn't turned to it in years, and cranked up the effort level to as high as it would go.

I then basically said, "I'm Ryan Aubrey, my family is ..." and gave it all of everything I knew. I was embarrassed to not know my grandparents middle names. I gave some vague detail about how my grandfather on my dad's side I think got recruited somewhere to play basketball. I mispelled my mom's middle name. I gave the wrong hometown for my grandmother on my mom's side. I had no idea where my grandparents on my dad's side (now passed) grew up.

Chat wasn't bothered by the mistakes. It:

• On my dad's side: Quickly found my grandfather's obituary, showing his high school state championship and basketball scholarship to the University of Tampa. The obituary identified my grandfather's parents, and went through sites I'd never heard of like FamilySearch and Find a Grave (yes) to go deeper. All the way back it suggests a colonial Virginia ancestry of "Awbrey's" with a possible (but unconfirmed!) Welsh origin. If you push far enough there's a 1095 "Reginald Awbrey".
• On my mom's side: the line actually got a little lost after my grandparents in West Virginia where my grandfather grew up. He has a biography which might have more info. Going to have to go analog.