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!
My aims are then to establish the facts behind the case in order to bring to life a mystery that has laid dormant for 150 years or more, find out more about the people in the case, and what led up to the events that were higlhighted in the article, and then discover.what happened to the people afterwards. But I also want to find out more about what the story tells us about the social history of the times.
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 big life event it might just be something that triggers an interest to find out more.
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 what makes this project different is that 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.
And then, 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 use to create a post about each case.
These posts don’t necessarily go into all the detail of the detective work that has been done nor do they present the facts in the order they were discovered – as we will have already put the jigsaw pieces together. What results is a coherent, logical, sequence of the facts and events.
Finally, then ChatCGPT 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.
I am gradually building up a collection of these stories but my ultimate goal is to publish a selection of the best mystery cases in book form.
Cases
| Case 1: The Wordleworth Mystery – an extraordinary elopement (1850)
Case 2: The Miss Edwards Mystery – the disappearance of a young lady (1879) Case 3: The Elizabeth Stanton Mystery – the disappearance of another young (1849) Case 4: The Richard Evans Mystery – the death of a fiancê (1876) Case 5: The Elizabeth Wynn Mystery – the search for an inheritor (1843) Case 6: The Martha Joachim Mystery – the death of an eccentric recluse (1850) Case 7: The Anne Grace Mystery – the suicide of a publican’s wife (1860) Case 8: The Eastwood Aunt and Nephew Mystery – the elopement of a related couple (1865) Case 9: The Catherine Theresa Riordan and James Franck Bright Mystery – the shooting of an Oxford don (1890) Case 10: The Catherine Malenoir Mystery – the melodramtic tale of a woman threatening a man and his wife (1895) Case 11: The Edward Jones and Elizabeth Elliott Mystery – the disappearance of a bridegroom (1889) Case 12: The Canterbury Music Hall Baby Mystery – the discovery of a dead baby in a parcel (1870) Case 13: The Irlams-o-th’-Height Double Murder Mystery – the murder of a father and brother (1860) Case 14: The Margaret Radford Mystery – the death of a woman on Christmas Day (1880) Case 15: The Fictitious Child Mystery – the attempted supposition of a female infant (1870) Case 16: The Curtis Bigamy Mystery Case – and the wife who became a female husband (1850) Case 17: The Sarah Ann Love (Vitriol) Mystery – a domestic attack, imprisonment and finally a divorce (1893) Case 18: The William Sears Mystery – a drunken act of attempted suicide (1862) Case 19: The Fenterman Mystery – attempted double murder and suicide (1862) Case 20: The Missing Bridgegroom Mystery – a bridegroom fails to turn up for his wedding (1874) |