New Book: ChatGPT and Learning A Language

If you have read this blog or heard my talks, you probably know that I have incorporated ChatGPT into my workflow. The basic version of ChatGPT supports a lot of the mundane tasks I do, and in the “Crash Course on ChatGPT and…” book series, I am sharing lessons I learned and the prompts that were helpful.

This time, the tasks go beyond genealogy and into learning a new language. ChatGPT has the potential to be immensely helpful when beginning to learn a new language. It can also explain the intricacies of a language to an English-speaking person in an understandable manner. I was excited about what ChatGPT could do to help the process, and wanted to share it in this brief book, “Crash Course on ChatGPT and Learning A Language.” (A softcover book will follow soon!)

Have you ever wanted a private tutor to help you learn a foreign language? Have you wished for lessons that were customized just for you? While nothing can replace being part of a community of people fluent in a language, ChatGPT can tap into its vast knowledge to provide you with a patient and tireless personal tutor- all you have to do is ask. It can even map out an entire course for you to follow. You can learn using the suggested lessons, then have ChatGPT test you with quizzes and puzzles, or converse with you (in text). It can even generate written content in a different language for you to read or translate. The book will get you started with the skills needed in prompt engineering when learning a new language. In the sections of this book, you will learn how to get an account and start using ChatGPT. Then you will find ideas on how to use ChatGPT to learn a language. Last comes suggested prompts that are for you to use to get started. Throughout the book there will be privacy considerations and potential limitations you might face.

The Kindle Edition of “Crash Course on ChatGPT and Learning A Language” is available now on Amazon. A softcover version will be available soon!

Generate Images With A Free ChatGPT Account

Did you know that OpenAI allows users to generate images with a free account? At the time of writing this blog post, ChatGPT allows the use of DALL·E to generate two images per day with a free account.

All you have to do is ask, by typing in the prompt.

CAVEAT: Always research the ownership of any images generated in an AI tool before you consider publishing them.

PROMPT: Create an image of an airplane flying over art deco buildings

ChatGPT spent a little time and created an image.

At the bottom of the image, ChatGPT gave me some suggestions on what I might ask it to do next.

You can hover your mouse over the image to see the icons for giving feedback, or downloading the image as a WEBP file.

In one experiment ChatGPT showed me that it was creating an image, and then pronounced it complete, but there was no image. So I asked: where is it?

ChatGPT proceeded to ensure that this time I received the image. This second try to get the image to me did not count against my two images per day.

I tried another experiment. I generated two images. When ChatGPT told me “Let me know if you’d like to modify or add anything!” after the second image, I was not sure if that would count toward my daily limit of two images.

So I asked ChatGPT to modify the image, and was given that modified image. Then I received this alert:

Converting WEBP to JPG file format

You might be wondering how to convert a WEBP file to another format. The simplest way in Windows 11 is to open the image using the Photos app.

Select “Edit.”

An alert pops up that the Photos app can not save in WEBP format (which is what I wanted), so select Save Options -> Save as copy.

The dialog box that opened offers a choice of formats in which to save the image.

I chose the .jpg extension to save the image in a JPEG format.

Give it a try and let me know how you do!

How A WWII Morning Report Can Solve A Mystery

WWII Military Research can have challenges for many reasons. Of course, the fire at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) may have burned an army ancestor’s file. Unlike WWI records. Not many of the WWII records are online. This means a little more work is required in identifying which records will help and then traveling to the repositories.

We had known that my father was stationed in Greenland as a soldier during WWII, and that he traveled to Greenland by ship. He spoke very little about WWII, but that was some of the very little that he had shared.

His Report of Separation contains the date that he departed the Continental United States, in Box 36.

Date of Departure: 1 Aug 43

Destination: Greenland

Unlike the WWI ship manifests, the WWII ship manifests are not digitized and indexed. That means to use them you have to take a trip to NARA II in College Park, MD. The problem is that these records are stored by ship name, so you need to know the name of the ship to find the manifest. (In contrast, we can search using a soldier’s name to locate the ship manifests without knowing the ship names upon which our WWI ancestors traveled.)

Timelines are one of my favorite tools in genealogy. Of course, I have been busy building a timeline and gathering information in a binder dedicated to researching my father’s WWII experience. Without the ships’ names, there was some missing data in that timeline.

A while ago, I located a great ebook online, “Troopships Of World War II” by Roland W. Charles at https://www.80thdivision.com/pdfs/wwii_Troopships.pdf

Having that timeline, I had explored this book for candidate ships carrying him to and from Greenland. I had identified potential ships and eliminated many.

The one clue that has been taking me places was a single sheet of paper found in my father’s personal belongings. It commemorated his crossing of the Arctic Circle. This certificate included his name, superior officers’ signatures, and the latitude of the Arctic Circle. Being concerned with operational security during wartime, this certificate had a blank line for the ship name as well as for the longitude where they crossed the circle. The day of August in 1943 was also blank. But there was one clue, his military organization: Btry ‘A’ 500 AAA Gun Bn

Morning Reports are a wonderful resource. Several years ago, I brought my research team with me to NARA St. Louis to view and copy the Morning Reports for the 51st Pioneer Infantry Regiment, in which my grandfather served in WWI. The WWI Morning Reports are now online, which makes them very convenient to gather and use. However, the WWII Morning Reports have not been digitized and require a visit or the use of a retrieval service.

Here, at last, was information about my father’s outgoing trip. On 1 August 1943, Battery (Btry) A of the 500th Antiaircraft Artillery (AAA) Battalion (Bn) of the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps (CAC) was onboard the SS Yarmouth.

Now, I could learn more about the USAT Yarmouth from Engineer Charles’ book.

These facts also tie in with information about Greenland convoys that are posted here: http://www.warcovers.dk/greenland/geen_main.htm

At this point, it was time to slow down and record the collection of evidence that I had. One of the best ways to understand something is to undertake explaining it to others, so I created a document to share with my brother. This document contains the facts I know, so that they can be summarized in a research plan.

We remembered mentions of the outgoing convoy, and now I can investigate them. I will contact NARA to see if I can arrange to view the Yarmouth’s manifests, and perhaps consider looking at the deck logs. Both should be located at College Park, MD.

Researching Civilian Employees of the Federal Government

Researching Civilian Employees of the Federal Government

This blog post is intended to get you started on researching civilians who worked for the Federal Government. Civilian employment also includes records for those who worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) or Works Project Administration (WPA) employment.

NARA has an older publication that has information about their resources researching federal employees: https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/ref-info-papers/rip110.pdf

(To find other NARA informational publications, see our blog post: Finding Helpful NARA Publications)

Although this is one of the older publications, there is a section about civilian employees of the Federal Government beginning on page 30 of this document:

An important thing to know is that personnel records become archival 62 years after the person’s employment by the Federal Government has ended. This 62-year time is calculated on a rolling date. Before 62 years has elapsed, the records are non-archival.

Prior to 62 years after the end of a person’s employment as a civilian employee of the Federal Government, their Official Personnel Folders (OPF) can only be accessed by the employee or an authorized third-party requestor.  During that time, only limited information may be released to the general public through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The National Personnel Records Center’s (NPRC) Federal Records Center Program maintains the Official Personnel Folders (OPF) of former Federal civilian employees whose employment ended after 1952.

A starting place to learn who can request records, and how to request them, would be the webpage for Official Personnel Folders (OPF), Federal (non-archival) Holdings and Access: https://www.archives.gov/personnel-records-center/civilian-non-archival

Learn how to access archival Official Personnel Folders (more than 62 years after the civilian employment ended) from: https://www.archives.gov/st-louis/opf

Once you know the agency where the civilian employee worked, look for its current website. In some cases, the name of the agency or its organization within the government may have changed, so investigate the history of the organization. Look for information about projects in which your ancestor had been involved.

Good luck researching your civilian employees of the Federal Government, and let me know how you do!

Finding Helpful NARA Publications

Genealogists know to look for all available sources of information when doing their reasonably exhaustive search. We also know to list the resources when creating reports and proof documents.

But how do we know what we don’t know?

The best way is to keep learning. Keep reading, seek out publications about topics of interest, attend webinars and learn from other genealogists.

A great place to look for source material is the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Without knowing what sources are available, searching using the catalog is daunting. With that in mind, this blog post contains some resources from NARA to learn more about a topic you are researching. The topics are discussed from the perspective of records that NARA holds, and they could help identify sources to help solve your genealogical problem.

NARA offers Reference Information Paper (RIP) with illustrated descriptions of specific topics. The descriptions show what can be found in several different NARA record groups (RG).

A list of the Reference Information Papers (RIP) can be found at: https://www.archives.gov/publications/ref-info-papers.

The RIPs that have been digitized and are online will show a link to view web version of the document. If there is a pdf icon displayed at the end of the link, that means that the RIP is available for download.

The RIPs that have no link associated with their description are unavailable. These appear to be those containing dated material.

NARA staff have also authored Research Reports, these are now called Reference Reports. Some are not up-to-date, and do not necessarily reflect everything that is now available online. They can provide good explanations and good ideas for what records might be available.

The Mount Vernon Genealogical Society Inc offers a page about NARA Research Reports. A good place to start would be with the Reference Reports Table. This document contains information about the status of Research Reports, as well as links to where they or similar information might be found. Links to these can be found at: https://www.mvgenealogy.org/fileDownload.php?sid=16