One of the things I really enjoy when working on family histories is coming across a sensational newspaper article about an event in someone’s life. I therefore thought it would be a fascinating idea to find a dramatic newspaper article and then research the story and people around it. And the place to find interesting news reports is, of course, in Victorian newspapers, which are not only quite graphic but provide a lot more information than current newspaper reporting. That way too, of course, the stories don’t concern living people!
So my aims were to find out more about the people and events behind mysteries that had laid dormant for 150 years or more, and I also wanted to find out more about what the story tells us about Victorian England – which is often the key to understanding the events.
So, I first find a suitable newspaper article – it might involve death, murder, suicide or bigamy, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a major event it might just be something that triggers an interest to find out more. In fact I try to avoid the big cases – although I sometimes stumble upon them inadvertently – I am looking for something a bit different and with a human interest story behind. I then research the story using all available online data – parish records, censuses, civil registration, wills, etc, and even other newspaper articles, etc – to find out more about the case.
But there are two things makes this project different.
Firstly, I am working on this project together with ChatGPT. As I research the case I upload my discoveries into ChatGPT, who helps me analyse my findings, transcribe documents like wills and letters, and generally provides guidance and support in my research. After we reach a natural point to close the case, ChatGPT produces a summary of my findings, and analyses what the case tells us about Victorian attitudes and values, which I make use of to create a write-up of each case. ChatGPT then generates images of the key people involved together with an image that visually summarises each case that we have worked on, which provides the finishing touches to each case.
But secondly, and more significantly, I am using my Victorian alter ego, Jemima Hartford to front this collection of mysteries, which I have now called Jemima Hartford Investigates Victorian Mysteries,
Jemima is investigating these mysteries around the end of the 19th century (1890-1900), which of course necessitates quite a bit of artistic licence because she wouldn’t have had access to online records or seen census records (like we can today) or, in fact, know of anything that happened in the early 20th century. But I don’t want that reality to spoil the fun and enjoyment of using this wonderful Victorian looking lady sleuth!
So who is Jemima Hartford?
At first, Jemima was just a ChatGPT-generated image that I used to give a bit of colour to my work, but she has now taken on a life of her own. I decided to develop Jemima’s character and understand her background, to explain her interest in researching Victorian mysteries, and how and why she was tackling them.
Jemima lives in Canterbury, Kent. She was born in 1855 to a country doctor, Dr Henry Kingsley and his wife Mary Ann. She was the third of four children, and at an early age she discovered a love of learning and history. There were a number of influences in her life, but the major one was her maternal uncle, Samuel Mead, who was a local schoolmaster.
Then, in 1878, she married an eminent archeologist Edward Alexander Hartford who opened her eyes to an even wider world of historical research. Unfortunately, he died in an archeological dig in Mesopotamia in 1881, only three years after their marriage.
Although Edward left Jemima financially secure, she decided to continue her love of history and began to help out in The Cantium Museum of Historical Antiquities and Folk-Lore in Canterbury, where she started work on cataloguing their extensive collection of Kent artefacts. This is the place where she began and honed her skill in family history research.
After a donation of a large newspaper collection to the Cantium Museum in the later 1880s, Jemima began to take a closer look at Victorian mysteries that seemed forgotten in the closely-printed text. She wanted to uncover what happened after a reported event and who the people were behind the stories.
Her younger sister, Arabella, who was born ten years after her, and who became an actress, professionally known as Bella Mead, stays with her between theatrical engagements, and has became fascinated by Jemima’s work, so together they discuss some local Kent cases that Jemima is working on. These cases are presented in another collection called The Curious Cases of Jemima Hartford and Bella Mead.
Once again – behind the scenes – I find a relevant newspaper article and ChatGPT helps me with the research, but it is ChatGPT who generates each story of how Jemima and Bella have worked on the case together. I check through it and edit it as necessary to make sure it makes sense to be written around 1900, but once again we have to use artistic licence in terms of what the sisters could have realistically known at that time. Finally, ChatGPT generates a striking image of the two sisters talking or walking together, discussing the case.
So what is the difference between the two series?
Jemima Hartford Investigates Victorian Mysteries. This focuses on the rigorous historical investigation: newspaper reports, census returns, parish registers, wills, birth and death certificates, and all the wonderful genealogical twists and turns. Jemima is the researcher, weighing evidence, testing theories, following elusive family connections and being honest about what can — and cannot — be established. The question: What can we discover about what really happened?
The Curious Cases of Jemima Hartford and Bella Mead. This is the storytelling strand. We meet Jemima and Bella as people, watch them discuss a case, challenge each other’s assumptions, follow promising leads and wrestle with the human dilemmas behind the newspaper headlines. Their conversations bring the evidence to life. Bella’s theatrical instincts and understanding of people complement Jemima’s genealogical expertise, and together they decide what they believe the evidence tells them. The question: How might two remarkable women have made sense of this mystery together?
So, although I have got my own work cut out finding and researching stories for Jemima, as well as finding Kent cases for her to discuss with Bella, my next idea is to create short documentary videos of Jemima presenting her research and conclusions on each of the Mysteries she has investigated. I’ve already found a lovely voice for Jemima on the ElevenLabs AI-voice generation platform, so that’ll happen pretty soon.
And there’s more to come …
More will be revealed about Jemima and her life in due course, as I flesh out her life and her background, This will be presented as Jemima Hartford’s Memoirs, where she reflects on the different stages of her life – first as the child, Jemima Kingsley, and how she became Jemima Hartford, the researcher and investigator, and so on. I envisage at least the following Parts to her Memoirs.
- My childhood in Kent (1855-1876): Jemima’s childhood in the Kingsley family, her life in a Kent village, her parents, siblings, grandparents and uncles and aunts – and their interactions and influences on her – good and bad (written 1881)
- My Marriage to Edward (1877-1881): Jemima’s chance meeting and subsequent marriage to Edward Alexander Hartford (1877-1881) and their trips together to archeological digs and sites of historical interest (written 1881)
- My Work (1881-1900): Jemima’s work in the Cantium Museum, and how she got started with family research as well as her newspaper investigations on her own and with her sister, Bella Mead (written early 1900s)
- My Life with Beatrice (1901-1910) this is the new Edwardian era, and will be able what happened when Bella’s daughter unexpectedly arrives on the scene, and how Jemima juggles her research work with being a hands-on aunt whilst Bella is away in the theatre (written 1911)
- My life in the modern world (1911-) this will focus on the changing world of the early 20th century; the First World War and the effects on society afterwards, and what it meant for a young woman like Beatrice and an older Victorian woman, like Jemima (written in the 1920s)
A series documenting Jemima’s own family research:
This will show how Jemima uncovered family stories from her paternal Kingsley line, her maternal Mead line, and her 2 grandmothers’ lines – the Kirbys and Fairfaxes – and what secrets she found along the way. It will also show how she discovered more about her husband’s line, the Hartfords – which she hadn’t known about whilst he was alive.
And, who knows, where that will take us; there may be more to Jemima’s life that we are yet to discover.
Jane Hart