January 2025 Encyclical: In Which AI Cannot Identify My Photograph.

Until it does.

Picture of the Month

Do you ever just need to find something out?

Even when it’s objectively not very important? Even when you have a million other things to do that can’t wait?

Of course you do. You’re a genealogist.

My kids’ 3x-great grandfather was in the U.S. Navy. As his baby sister later wrote, he was a “grand figure, made to be an officer.” He loved boats of all kinds. We have quite a few of his things (no boats) and even more of his wife’s, our 3x-great grandmother. She outlived him by many years. He and forty-three other men died in a tragic accident. I’m a year older than he ever was.

The photograph above was pasted into one of her photo albums. They were married in 1909, and placement within the album suggests it was added (if not taken) around 1911 or 1912.

I saw this photograph, and I needed to figure out where it was taken. Not just because it’s interesting, though I was certainly drawn to the scene: the charming plaza, the imposing colonial church, the elegant gas lamps and wrought iron benches. But because I like to imagine his interesting life. It wasn’t a long life. But he saw the world.

I thought it could be a good experiment for an LLM.

We got to chatting, Claude and I. I like Claude best, primarily because its creator has signaled more than a modicum of token concern about destroying the world. Anyway. Claude, whether or not its own 3x-great grandchildren will enslave us all, was full of interesting suggestions: about the architectural features of the church, about places in Latin America more or less likely to host our colonial plaza. Things like that. I’d already decided the photograph was most likely from Latin America. Our ancestor was there often, it being “America’s backyard” and all.

Claude made a good point. This couldn’t be some provincial backwater. Given the benches and lamps, the photo must have been taken in a prosperous city.

But as the conversation continued, I realized something. I was the one introducing the helpful facts. Claude could help with generalities, and it could help me think, but it was unable—for instance—to simply “look” at the church and match it with other images available online. That’s despite the fact, as we’ll see, that the church does in fact still exist, and is very well photographed. Claude also couldn’t tell me when and where my subject served, what cities he may have visited, or anything else with specificity.

Family history is weird like that. It’s the very opposite of “general knowledge.” I know—and have synthesized—a huge number of facts about people no one else cares to know. So have you. You may not believe me, but what’s to stop a future generation Claude from knowing all that same stuff?¹

Anyway, it hasn’t happened yet.

I looked up his service record. I looked up every port his ships disgorged landing forces. I went methodically country by country, looking up cathedrals. And I, finally, found the snapshot collection of another sailor available online.

That page mentioned that one of the gunships on which my guy served had sent servicemen ashore at Cienfuegos, Cuba.

It looks like a lovely place. I’m glad he got to see it.

As for Claude, you might say it didn’t help me at all. I would have figured this out without the LLM, and it wouldn’t have taken much longer. But something’s stopping me from discounting the whole experience. Claude was helpful. Claude was a thinking partner. Claude was a knowledgeable conversationalist against whom I could bounce ideas.

Epilogue

I couldn’t let this one go. I’ve heard there are AIs trained specifically on geographic data, and I wanted to try one. Picarta.ai is free to try, so I tried it.

I confess I had little faith. So when it gave me the option, I drew a search radius around Cuba, including a good deal of the Caribbean, Florida, and the Mexican coast. And in seconds:

I was impressed enough to make an account. I wanted to see the exact GPS coordinates.

Friends, the age of mystery photographs is nearly over.² Look again at my grainy, blurry family photograph. Now look at the map below. That is exactly where those gentlemen were standing in 1911.

Your mileage may vary. I tried some other photographs, and while it gave me very reasonable guesses, they were all wrong. You really need a landmark to make it work.

Bartlett’s Unfamiliar Quotation

Waldo: McPherson, you won't understand this, but I tried to become the kindest, gentlest, the most sympathetic man in the world.

McPherson : Have any luck?

Waldo: Let me put it this way: I should be sincerely sorry to see my neighbors' children devoured by wolves.

Films

Suspicion (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1941) ⋆⋆⋆⋆
This was released long before you were born. But I’ll make an effort not to spoil it. Let me put it this way. Hitchcock brilliantly subverts studio direction. Cary Grant’s image was untarnished, but Joan Fontaine’s character does not have long to live.

Joan Fontaine and her sister Olivia de Havilland were genealogical celebrities in their day. Or maybe just in my day, I’m not sure. Olivia lived to be 104, so there’s significant overlap. She died in 2020. Imagine having a supporting role in Gone With the Wind and dying in Covid lockdown. Incredible. Their granduncle was a viscount who inherited the title from his uncle, who in turn inherited it from his second cousin, who died in the wreck of the Arniston.

Laura (dir. Otto Preminger, 1944) ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
A great noir, but I have to admit my favorite part (other than Waldo) is the David Raksin’s classic theme song. As fantastic as the film is, was it so head and shoulders over its peers? Grab your dictionary. Look up “haunting.” Laura’s theme is playing, no? It made all the difference.

Did you know the song “Laura” had a kid? It’s “Laura Palmer’s Theme” from Twin Peaks. That’s called musical genealogy. RIP David Lynch.

Rope (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1948) ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
Loved it. Extremely stagey. Just a touch of camp, and it worked. From a bygone age (rapidly passing even then) of adored private school teachers and knowing jokes about “Harvard men.”

Patrick Hamilton was the tragically besotted playwright behind this film. But can you blame him for the incontinent tippling? As a child, he’d been made to endure the unendurable: his father “frequently boasted” of “his genealogical table.” Ahem, yes—he sounds truly insufferable. Not my sort at all. No, sir.

Strangers on a Train (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1951) ⋆⋆⋆½
Very good, but I’m marking it for a second watch. I think all of these Hitchcock films reward second and third viewings. Both of the leads were great but poor Robert Walker, who died in a chemical stupor two months after the movie’s release, was the standout.

Walker’s aunt, Hortense McQuarrie Odlum, is an unjustly forgotten figure. From 1934 to 1940, she was president of Bonwit Teller, formerly one of the most prominent department stores in New York. The store, formerly at 56th and 5th, was demolished in 1979 by some vulgarian.

Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
A rewatch, but it’s been a long time. The colors, Duke, the colors! This is just a sumptuous display. And I love the glimpse into 1950s bohemian downtown culture, even if it was all on a Hollywood soundstage. One of the great films of all time? I don’t know about that. But it’s great.

If you’d like to see a giant beard, I recommend you check out the grandfather of source novelist Cornel Woolrich immediately. How common was a Canada —> Oaxaca move in the nineteenth century? Not sure I’ve seen it before. There are Woolriches in Oaxaca to this day.

North by Northwest (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) ⋆⋆⋆⋆
I’d seen it before, years ago. But all I remembered was Martin Landau dangling Cary Grant from the nose (one of the noses, anyway) of Mount Rushmore. That’s the power of a set piece. James Mason’s final line qualifies as “delicious,” I think. A fine film with an absolutely ludicrous plot. Story isn’t everything. I could have used more screen time from “Mother.”

Eva Marie Saint (who became a centenarian last July 4), was “from a Quaker family,” quoth Wikipedia. That’s no joke. The Saints go right back to a Thomas Saint, whose will was probated in 1759 in the thickly Quaker Gloucester County, New Jersey.

Yentl (dir. Barbra Streisand, 1983) ⋆⋆⋆
Absolutely bananas to me that this was a major Hollywood film. Times sure have changed. Not a single super-hero in this. I’m impressed with her directing but something was off about Barbra’s performance. Too Broadway, maybe? Feels unfair to ding her for that. Michel LeGrand’s music is very hip but entirely lacking in hooks. IMDB trivia tells me that all the songs sounded the same on purpose. Sure they did. All in all a very weird experience. I like that this movie exists. I doubt I will ever seek it out again.

If Geni is to be believed (and its usually pretty solid on Ashkenazi genealogy, thanks in part to Randy Shoenberg), Barbra has a documented descent from “King for a Day” Saul Wahl Katzenellenbogen.

Shopworn (dir. Nick Grinde, 1932) ⋆⋆⋆
A little slip of a film at 72 minutes. I was charmed, I admit it.

A great supporting role for ZaSu Pitts, who I recall my grandmother referencing often. Why? I’m not sure but I think it was in service of an unfavorable comparison of physical appearances. ZaSu was her bona fide name at birth, as befits the daughter of the sturdy Gettysburg veteran Rulandus Pitts.

Beauty and the Beast (dir. Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, 1991) ⋆⋆⋆⋆
Watched with my kids. Probably the first time I’ve seen it straight through since I was a kid myself. Beautiful art. The story does its job, the music is excellent. But if you’re more than knee high on a grasshopper you should really just be looking at this one.

Speaking of Beauty and the Beast, the writer behind this version of the story, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, had her own beastly tryst. That is, with “the Judas of Acadia,” Thomas Pichon—not to be confused with the post-modern novelist—who spied for the English and indirectly gave us such great Acadian-descended Americans as Beyonce and Shia LeBeouf.

Gattaca (dir. Andrew Niccol, 1997) ⋆⋆½
Its reputation precedes it, to its detriment. Better as a concept than as a film. Given its great cultural influence, I was expecting something more unconventional. Have an LLM summarize this one for you.

Hank Schrader turned up about halfway through.

I don’t feel the need to add a genealogical squib here. This movie is about genealogy. It’s about de-randomizing genetic inheritance so only the most formidable genes survive. It’s about the act of turning your descendants into a different species than your ancestors. Imagine that. If your own grandparents were a different species. I’ll be a monkey’s nephew.

The Last Seduction (dir. John Dahl, 1994) ⋆⋆½
Supposed to be a neo-noir cult classic. It had good moments, and the finale was really something. But the overly calculated plot points worked better in the 1940s. What comes across as clever in Double Indemnity comes across as just cute forty years and a million movies later.

Hank Schrader turns up again. It’s like he’s begging me to make a genealogical reference about Breaking Bad. I won’t do it! How about that Double Indemnity, though? You know what James M. Cain said about his Irish heritage?

“I hated Ireland, hated every piece of it, hated everything it stood for.”

Now that’s a man without use for sentiment. But you shouldn’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Right after that, we are informed:

“Cain's maternal grandmother, Brigid Ingoldsby Mallahan, was a descendant of Irish pirate William Ingoldsby, who had captured and ravaged the English colonial city of New York in 1691.”

A classic example of a garbled family tradition getting printed without verification into a published biography. Then Wikipedia republishes it, without verification, because it was in a published, serious biography.

There was no pirate William Ingoldsby. Its pure fantasy. There were prominent Ingoldsbys in the 1600s, and one was even briefly acting governor of New York. But he wasn’t Irish. And the “Irish” Ingoldsbys were Cromwellian soldiers. Not the sort of ancestors Irish Catholics would boast about. Maybe Patrick Hamilton’s father would.

There is in fact a very interesting story concerning the origin of the Catholic Ingoldsbys. Says Patrick Hanks, who I find to be very reliable:

Irish: adopted for Mac an Ghallóglaigh (see Gallogly) by mistranslation of gallóglach ‘foreign warrior’ or ‘galloglass’ as ‘English’. This gave rise to English and Englishby to form Ingoldsby by assimilation.

Monte Carlo (dir. Ernst Lubitsch, 1930) ⋆⋆½
ZaSu Pitts again! Incredibly silly but it’ll get your mind off the Great Depression.

Did you know Central Park is considerably larger than the entire principality of Monaco? I didn’t.

Anyway, that’s not genealogy. Did you know that the “Kelly Homestead” is a tourist attraction in County Mayo, despite “being little more than a heap of stones?” Of course, that’s assuming Wikipedia can believed on matters of Irish history.

My Neighbor Totoro (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1988) ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
Rewatch with my kids. As good as its supposed to be. Profound in the way of a mystical experience. Rewards endless rewatching because of how much of yourself you bring to the movie.

I know this is unsporting, but check out Wikipedia on the Fanning sisters:

Counted among the Arrington family's most notable ancestors is the gentleman farmer William Farrar.

A gentleman farmer! William Farrar’s own Wikipedia page should be the envy of us all. Incredible detail, much sourcing. But if he counts as notable enough for Wikipedia, my ancestors would like a word with the editors. Or, I guess, given it’s Wikipedia, they’d like a word with me. If only.

I was ready to trash the source material (vintage 2014—"So Turns out the Fanning Sisters are Royals”—that’s the title!) But it seems to be basically correct. Other than the “royals” part. Soooo turns out the Fanning sisters have ancestors.

Ponyo (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 2008) ⋆⋆⋆⋆
Cutesier than Totoro and nothing holding the plot together but spit and gumption. But it is very cute. Top marks for that. A great movie for children, especially if they are overexposed to the monolithic Disney aesthetic. And who isn’t?

I can’t read any of this. But it gives me a warm glow to know its out there freely available Not to mention preserved in a nuclear-proof locker under a mountain.

Maestro (dir. Bradley Cooper, 2024) ⋆⋆⋆
So much beauty in this film. But I was left wondering—what was it about? I mean other than Leonard Bernstein. Entirely possible that I didn’t “get” it, but absent external prodding I’m probably not going to find the time to watch it again.

I’ll spare you the Wikipedia trail that led me there, but have you ever heard of a Randfigur? Strikes as a useful term for genealogists. That’s an “edge figure,” like Alma Manon Anna Justina Carolina Gropius, daughter of Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler. I think I’ve used the term “historical footnote” in the past, but I prefer randfigur. Like a minor character in the historical pageant.

You know who else is a randfigur? Freakin’ gentleman farmer William Farrar.

1. You ever hear the one about the guy falling from the Empire State Building? They asked him how things were going as he whizzed past the 40th floor. “So far, so good!” he says.

2. Will a human need to assist? Yes, of course. Do you need an identifiable landmark in your photo, preferably one that still exist? Yes. But this is all temporary.