RLP 366: Using AI to Add Historical Context – Boston Union Workhouse and Sarah Jane (Miller) Creer

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro, Episode 366: Using AI to Add Historical Context – Boston Union Workhouse and Sarah Jane (Miller) Creer. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (42s):
Let’s go. Today’s episode is sponsored by Newspapers.com. Hi everyone, welcome to Research Like a Pro, and hi to you, Mom.

Diana (51s):
Hi Nicole. How are you doing?

Nicole (53s):
Doing great. Just working on all the lectures and preparations for the institute we’re doing next week. It’s going to be so fun.

Diana (1m 1s):
I’m excited to learn all about AI from other people as well to teach about AI. And of course, as we’re preparing, we’re always learning new things and new capabilities, which is so fun,

Nicole (1m 12s):
Right? I know I have learned some new things and it’s been pretty busy getting 10 lectures ready, and I’m not finished yet. And at the time we’re recording this, it’s June and Texas Institute of Genealogical Research is coming up next week, and we’re teaching about AI. So of course there’s a lot of things that need to be updated because AI changes so quickly. And it’s been fun trying out the Claude research capabilities. And I just made some new discoveries about ways that I can use AI and research logging, and I made a new custom GPT for that where you can just paste a screenshot that includes a URL and you can get some of the stuff automatically added to a research log that you can then update with additional things that you notice in your analysis.

Nicole (1m 55s):
So that was kind of fun.

Diana (1m 57s):
Oh, that’s exciting. I think that the only hindrance to using AI is our imagination sometimes and just trying to think what we can have it do and then trying it out. And you, every time you do that, you learn. So that’s great that you are experimenting, so you can teach us in the institute course.

Nicole (2m 16s):
Well, I’m excited for our announcements. The next Research Like a Pro webinar in the series for 2025, is going to be by Yvonne Fenster, Untangling Family Networks: Using Documentary Research and DNA Analysis to Search for Glen Hopper’s Father. So she’ll talk about using YDNA and autosomal DNA evidence combined with documentary research to explore Glen Hugh Hopper’s paternal origins in early 20th-century Tennessee. Y-DNA established the Daniel surname for Glen’s father, but which of Marcus Daniel’s sons could be Glen’s father? What documentary evidence, from census records to Civil War pension files, could provide the geographic and chronological context needed to evaluate each Daniel brother as a potential father candidate?

Nicole (2m 59s):
How could Banyan DNA analysis help navigate the complex genetic relationships between the Daniel Brothers when their families were so heavily intermarried? So it will be great to hear from Yvonne. I enjoyed working on this project with her. It was a client project we collaborated on. And so of course, Yvonne is one of our Family Locket researchers, and she is really skilled with DNA evidence, so it’ll be great to learn more about that from her. She’s also a professional genealogist accredited through ICAP Gen in the upper South region of the United States States, which includes Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina. And she has been through our Research Like a Pro and RLP with DNA study groups, and has served as a mentor for both groups.

Nicole (3m 43s):
And she actually has a background in science. So her degrees are many and varied, and Associate of Nursing from Onondaga Community College, a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Bridgewater State College, a Doctorate of Philosophy in Neuroscience and Physiology from SUNY Upstate at Syracuse, and Post-Doctoral training at Cornell University in Ithaca. So she has a lot of training in academia, and when she’s not uncovering family histories, Yvonne enjoys quilting, cooking, and spending time with her grandchildren and husband. Well, our next study group will be in the fall of 2025, beginning August 27th, and registration is ongoing and ends August 21st.

Nicole (4m 26s):
So make sure you sign up soon, and if you’d like to be a peer group leader, let us know. There’s an application on our website. And finally join our newsletter. Every Monday we have new posts or videos, podcast episodes that are linked in the newsletter.

Diana (4m 42s):
Thanks for going through all those fun announcements. Well, our topic for the day is talking all about our ancestor, Sarah Jane (Miller) Creer and her time in a workhouse in England, and how I used AI to help me write a summary of her life and to learn a little bit more about the workhouse. So, you know, it’s disturbing when we discover our ancestor was in an institution. It could be something like an asylum or a prison, or in this case a workhouse. But we can learn so much about their experience in that institution by researching the actual institution. And in this case, Sarah Jane was in the Boston Union workhouse in Lincolnshire, England at the age of 10.

Diana (5m 26s):
So she was just a little girl, and I wanted to learn more about the specific workhouse, so I queried AI and I was really happy with all the information that came back from Claude. For this experience I was using the 3.7 sonnet model, which was the most advanced at that time. And I just have to say that AI is amazing with helping us with this historical research, and it can save us so much time in learning and writing about our ancestors. Nicole had researched Sarah Jane several years ago and wrote a biography, and that was uploaded to Sarah Jane’s profile on FamilySearch.

Diana (6m 8s):
So I wanna just, you know, a pretty short summary of Sarah Jane’s life based on that biography. So I will read what AI gave me, which was really nice. ‘Sarah Jane Creer (née Miller) was born on July 1, 1841, in Swineshead, Lincolnshire, England. Born into poverty to unwed parents, Ann Miller and Thomas Bradley, Sarah Jane’s early life exemplified the hardship typical of the era. By 1851, at just 10 years old, she lived with her mother in the Boston Union Workhouse as “pauper inmates.” Sarah Jane’s life changed dramatically when she joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), being baptized on February 22, 1856, in the Surfleet Sea’s-End Branch.

Diana (6m 56s):
Her devotion was evident when she donated 5 shillings to the church just a month after baptism, a substantial sum for someone of her means. At age 14, Sarah Jane emigrated from England with her mother, Ann, and stepfather, James Warner, sailing on the ship Samuel Curling in April 1856. Upon reaching America, they joined Edmund Ellsworth’s Handcart Company, walking 1,300 miles from Iowa City to Salt Lake City. During this arduous journey, Sarah Jane often pulled the handcart while her ill mother rode upon it, her feet frequently bleeding from the difficult trek.”

Nicole (7m 33s):
That’s interesting, the AI added that part. In my biography, I talk about how one of the descendants wrote that, but I don’t know that it was like based on sources or if that’s just something that they all assumed, who knows? But it could have been passed down in the family,

Diana (7m 51s):
I would imagine she would tell that, you know, I’m, that probably was part of her narrative, you know, saying, yeah, I walked so much, my shoes wore out, my feet started bleeding. That was actually really similar with a lot of the pioneers reporting that. So whether that really came from Sarah Jane or it just became a story we don’t know,

Nicole (8m 11s):
Right. Yeah, it’s hard to know with these narratives that are passed down and they want, they always portray, especially with the Utah pioneers, I feel like a lot of the time the Trek, the Pioneer experience, is kind of painted in like this light of it was so difficult, but they did it, and that kind of thing. And when I learned about the Treks, like the pioneer, I got the book about the hand carts that was like, you know, focused on historical sources. I was like surprised to read that the Edmond Ellsworth company didn’t really have a lot of hardship. It was successful, and they did a great job crossing plains. So I think sometimes just hearing these little vignette about ancestors that, oh, like it was so hard that her feet were bleeding and stuff.

Nicole (8m 57s):
It makes it sound so awful. But I think overall the experience was good, although challenging, but it wasn’t like awful that her feet were like bleeding every day in tons, you know what I mean?

Diana (9m 8s):
Well, we, we have both done reenactments of pioneer treks, and I know I got a blister on one of my feet for during my reenactment, and if I’d had to walk another day, it probably would’ve started bleeding. So there you go.

Nicole (9m 23s):
Oh, it’s so funny if that one thing is the only thing that’s repeated about the experience of pulling the handcart, then it kind of comes off as like, oh, that’s terrible. Feet were bleeding. But it helps to round out the understanding of it with additional sources.

Diana (9m 39s):
Right.

Nicole (9m 39s):
Well, let’s continue the AI summary with the rest of her life. After arriving in Spanish Fork, Utah, Sarah Jane married William Creer on January 21, 1858, when she was just 16 years old. The couple initially lived in a dugout, then a one-room log cabin, eventually building a proper frame home in 1877. Sarah Jane bore nine children, raising eight to adulthood (her firstborn son died in infancy). Known for her orderliness, cleanliness, and devotion to family, she helped establish a righteous posterity while her husband served as choir president, city alderman, and attorney. Throughout her life, Sarah Jane remained faithful to her religious convictions and focused on her family.

Nicole (10m 19s):
She passed away from pneumonia on November 22, 1902, at age 62, remembered as “a tiny black-eyed lady with natural wavy hair” whose legacy lives on through her numerous descendants. Her life journey—from workhouse poverty in England to respected pioneer mother in Utah—stands as a testament to faith, perseverance, and the transformative power of pioneering.’ So I love that. Except for it left out, the fact that William Creer was the Mayor of Spanish Fork, it just stopped at attorney, wasn’t he the Mayor?

Diana (10m 53s):
He was, and he also became a state legislator. So yeah, it just kind of summarized there.

Nicole (11m 2s):
Gotta love those AI summaries where, you know, they get a lot of things but they kind of miss other things that you would think would be included in that list. You know, city alderman, attorney, mayor, and state senator, like you gotta finish the list.

Diana (11m 18s):
Right.

Nicole (11m 19s):
Gotta love that. Okay, A word from our sponsor. Today’s episode is sponsored by Newspapers.com. Break down genealogy brick walls with a subscription to the largest online newspaper archive. Did you know Newspapers.com has over 1 billion pages of digitized newspapers dating back to 1690? Their growing collection includes papers from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and beyond. Discover birth and marriage announcements, obituaries and everyday stories about your ancestors in seconds. Newspapers.com can help you fill in the gaps between vital records and reveal details about your ancestors’ lives that you can’t find anywhere else. Their easy to use search feature lets you filter your results by date, location, specific paper and more. When you find something interesting, Newspapers.com makes it a snap to share it with family and friends.

Nicole (12m 3s):
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Diana (12m 15s):
All right, so now let’s turn to talking about the workhouse. And I decided that this would be a really good use of AI to see what it could teach me. And at this time, there was a good research capability with Claude, and so I asked it to learn more about it. So this was my prompt, and this was the extended thinking model and web search. “You are an expert family historian. My ancestor, Sarah Jane, is listed in the 1851 England Census as residing in the Union Workhouse in Boston, Lincolnshire, England. She is age 10 and a female. Please research the history of this institution and provide me with an indepth report about it.

Diana (12m 59s):
I’d like to know why people were sent there, how they got out, and what the living conditions were like.” So I decided in my prompt that I wanted it to be pretty specific, and it was interesting to watch the process. So as Claude was working on this, it did some initial research. And because I gave it the year and a little bit of information about Sarah Jane, it focused on the Victorian era and the plight of children. So in the blog post I wrote, there’s a screenshot showing Claude’s extended thinking. And so at first it says, I’ll research the union workhouse in Boston Lincolnshire, where your ancestor Sarah Jane lived. Let me gather comprehensive historical information about this institution.

Diana (13m 43s):
Then it shows that it is looking at some sources, and it showed that there were 10 results. And then it says, let me get more specific information about workhouses in general during the Victorian era to better understand the conditions your ancestor would’ve experienced. And there were 10 more results for that portion. And then it said, let me search for specific information about how children were treated in Workhouses during this period and again, 10 more results. And then, let me search for specific information about the Boston Union workhouse and 10 results. And then, let me search for more specific information about how people got out of the workhouse and what life was like for children. So it was neat to see its thinking process and to see that It really was breaking down all those different pieces I’d put in the prompt to gather sources and information about those specifics.

Nicole (14m 35s):
That is a great breakdown of how that worked. Yeah, and when, when it’s doing the research and gathering sources, it feels like it’s taking forever because we’re so used to the AI response being like immediate. So sometimes I’ll sit there and watch it like, and it has a count up for how long it takes. Like, oh, it’s been going for like nine minutes and 30 seconds. It’s still finding more sources, like, oh my gosh,

Diana (15m 0s):
Right? Right, it’s taking some time, but does that very much faster than what we would be doing,

Nicole (15m 5s):
Right? Because we can’t read that fast, right? Well, expanding the results for each statement provided direct links to the sources that were found on the internet. So you can just click the link and go to the source that it read. And so it was really nice that it found some sources about children in the Workhouses. So for the Workhouses, it found such articles as the Changing Face of the Workhouse, Asylums and Everything but… 1834 Poor Law at the British National Archives, Victorian Workhouses, Child Labor at victorianweb.org, Victorian child labor and the conditions they worked in and so forth.

Nicole (15m 47s):
And I like this one, Victorian Era Poor Relief Outside the Workhouse. So kind of even expanding beyond and kind of providing some opportunities for expanding, comparing and contrasting various situations in that time period.

Diana (16m 1s):
Right, I was very impressed with all of the sources, and these were things that probably were readily available on the internet that I could have eventually found, but it was very nice to have everything brought together and sourced. So in the blog post, I have the full report with all the sources that Claude provided, and it has headings, it wrote in an informative style. So you can change the sort of style you would like it to write in. And I have normal as my preferred style, but I could easily change it to concise, explanatory, formal, or historical storyteller. So the nice thing is you can have it issue your story or your report, but then if you decide you want a different format, you just have it, change it over, and it just does it right, you know, as soon as you give it that prompt, it will rewrite the whole thing in a different style.

Diana (16m 56s):
So I thought it would be really fun for this podcast to read through the report that Claude gave us. And you know, we have the sources there. If you want to look at the blog post, you can go to the link sources and read exactly where it came from. But I really appreciated the way it did a nice grouping of all the different sources of bringing together the information. And of course, I did some spot checking to see if it was really just bringing the actual information over and not doing any hallucinations, and it seemed to do a good job. So the first part of it is Historical Background and Establishment, and it says, “The Boston Poor Law Union was formed on September 22, 1836, following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (often called the New Poor Law) which established the Victorian workhouse system.

Diana (17m 51s):
The Boston Union comprised 27 parishes in the Boston Registration District, with a combined population of 29,898 according to the 1831 census.” Wow, that is a lot. Oh my goodness. There was such a need for something to help poor people, but it’s sad that the workhouse system was what they developed. Okay, going on with the summary, “In October 1836, the Boston Board of Guardians advertised for plans for a new workhouse designed to house 300 inmates and costing no more than £5,000. On November 15th of that year, they accepted plans submitted by George Gilbert Scott, a prominent architect who designed many workhouses during this period.

Diana (18m 35s):
The Boston Union Workhouse was built in 1837 at the south side of Skirbeck Road, north of Boston Dock. The capacity was increased to 350 inmates, and the final cost was approximately £8,000. The design followed Scott’s typical layout with a single-story entrance block with an archway at its center, the Guardians’ board room at one side, and a chapel on the other. It consisted of an entrance range, the main workhouse building, and an infirmary situated between workshop and laundry ranges.”

Nicole (19m 7s):
It continues on with the section Administration and Governance. The Boston Poorlaw Union Board of Guardians met on alternate Saturdays at the workhouse. Staff records from 1842 show that Rev. Dr. Roy was Chairman of the Board of Guardians with Richard Calthrop as vice-chairman. Thomas Silvester served as workhouse master, and Philip Brierley and his wife Ann were appointed as schoolmaster and schoolmistress in September 1842. Under the workhouse system, individual workhouses were administered by a Board of Guardians with representatives from each parish within the Union. The Board, led by an elected Chairman, met weekly or fortnightly to discuss issues related to running the workhouse and specific pauper cases.

Nicole (19m 53s):
The daily management fell to various officials: the Master oversaw the entire establishment, while under him were positions such as Schoolmaster, Schoolmistress, and Porter. Perhaps the most important administrative role was the Clerk to the Guardians, who kept records that provide valuable insights into the operation of the workhouse.”

Diana (20m 14s):
So the next section is titled “Why People Were Sent to the Workhouse. The workhouse was intended as a last resort for the destitute who had no other means of support. Several categories of people commonly ended up in workhouses: The people who lived in Victorian workhouses came from all walks of life. They included the very poorest of the poor, as well as criminals, the homeless, unmarried mothers, the elderly, and the mentally ill. Children in the workhouse often included “orphans, or deserted children, or bastards, or children of idiots, or of cripples, or of felons.” So those are all in quotation marks since those are not terms we like to use today.

Diana (20m 54s):
“According to the 1909 Royal Commission, around half the children under care of Boards of Guardians in the nineteenth century were without parents or close relatives. For a child like Sarah Jane, there could have been several reasons for her presence in the workhouse. She may have been orphaned, her parents may have been too poor to care for her, her family might have entered the workhouse together due to destitution, she might have been abandoned or deserted. When a person applied for poor relief, they would be questioned about their place of settlement, whether they had relatives who could maintain them, any income from other sources, and other circumstances to determine their eligibility for assistance. Relief could be given as “out relief” (assistance while living outside the workhouse) in cases of illness, or an “order for the House” (admission to the workhouse) in other cases.

Diana (21m 42s):
The New Poor Law of 1834 attempted to restrict outdoor relief and force people into the workhouse system instead.’ So we know that Sarah Jane entered with her mother and that, you know, they were obviously too poor to live outside of the workhouse, apparently,

Nicole (22m 3s):
Right. They were destitute. And what I saw in the research for this family is just a pattern of illegitimacy. And so I think that contributed a lot to not having the means to care for their family. When all the children were not born to a married woman, there was no father who they had claim on to take care of them. And both parents, you know, I did, we do know who her father was. He was also born as an illegitimate child, and so was their mother. So it was just interesting to find that pattern. And I did a lot of research into the context of illegitimacy, and especially amongst those who are in the poor classes.

Nicole (22m 44s):
Also, I noticed that one of the sources for that section about the children in the workhouse comes from the Workhouses article. And I wonder, that’s probably the same website that I used when I wrote my family narrative for ProGen study group, because I wrote about Sarah Jane and basically her father. And the theme of it was like illegitimacy and this family. And so I did have a section about Sarah Jane in the workhouse, and I probably need to upload this to FamilySearch and make sure that I put it online. ’cause I wrote this back in 2021, and I don’t really think I put it on FamilySearch, so you probably didn’t even remember that I did it, but I had written about some of the conditions and the Poor Law amendment.

Nicole (23m 29s):
But anyway, one of the sources I was using was a British website called Workhouses. So it seems like the deep research found that website too.

Diana (23m 38s):
Yeah, I was impressed with the different websites that are out there that talk about this. There’s a lot of really good information, and those are also, you know, cited, source cited, or they lead you to other websites. So there’s been a lot of study done on the Workhouses.

Nicole (23m 57s):
Right, I think they were kinda more ubiquitous than we know. It seems like what was this? But at the time, I think it was pretty common that everyone knew what the workhouse was and that they didn’t want to go there.

Diana (24m 7s):
Yeah.

Nicole (24m 8s):
So speaking of that, let’s talk more about life in the workhouse. So the ‘Daily Routine, Life in the workhouse followed a strict regimen:’ and once again, we’re quoting back to this report that was done, the AI deep research so, ‘Life in the workhouse followed a strict regimen: Inmates were woken in the morning by a tolling bell, and this same bell called them to meals and other activities throughout the day. The days were strictly scheduled, with specific hours for waking, meals, work, and limited leisure. Conditions were harsh and treatment was often cruel. Families were divided upon entering the workhouse with children separated from their parents. Families were divided upon entering the workhouse, with children separated from their parents.

Nicole (24m 49s):
As a female child, Sarah Jane would have been placed in the girls’ section, away from any male relatives. Living Conditions- The conditions inside Victorian workhouses were generally appalling. Inmates lived in poverty and squalor, with most being malnourished and poorly clothed. Food was scarce and often of low quality. Between meals, inmates had to earn their food and bed by performing assigned work tasks. Living quarters were typically cramped and unsanitary. By the 1830s, most workhouses operated with prison-like conditions. Mortality rates were high, especially from diseases like smallpox and measles that spread rapidly in the crowded conditions.

Nicole (25m 31s):
Accommodations were cramped with beds placed close together, minimal space for movement, and poor lighting. Upon entering the workhouse, Sarah Jane would have experienced a profound loss of personal identity: New inmates were issued uniforms made from durable materials like wool and linen. These uniforms replaced their personal clothes, which were disinfected and stored until their departure. This practice maintained hygiene but also symbolized the stripping away of individuality upon entering the workhouse system.’

Diana (26m 1s):
So that’s such a sad description, isn’t it? About that idea of stripping away individuality, making them wear a uniform. So interesting. Well, let’s talk about the ‘Food – The diet in workhouses was deliberately plain and monotonous, designed to discourage dependency on poor relief: The typical food available in the workhouse was often of very low quality and sometimes rotten. For breakfast, inmates were served gruel, a kind of porridge made from oats and water. The main meal of the day typically consisted of a broth or soup made from low-quality meat and whatever vegetables were in season. While the diet was meager and monotonous, it was regulated and likely provided more consistent nutrition than many impoverished children might receive outside the institution.

Diana (26m 46s):
All right, so what about Work and Education for Children – For a 10-year-old girl like Sarah Jane, life would have involved both work and education: In workhouses, education was considered a primary means to raise children out of poverty and to eliminate “the germs of pauperism from the rising generation.” Despite the workhouse’s reputation as a place of discipline, disgrace, and hardship, it was viewed by poor law guardians as a setting for the “reclamation and future redemption of children.’

Nicole (27m 16s):
Wow, that is interesting that they were trying to redeem the children. They probably treated the children a little different than the adults because they were trying to reform the children and maybe the adults they gave up on already.

Diana (27m 28s):
Yeah, I would think that they would try to educate them and try to break the cycle of poverty, because if you don’t have an education and you don’t have a vision of how you could better yourself, you’re just going to stay in this cycle and it will just get worse and worse for society, I would think.

Nicole (27m 47s):
Right? Well, I think that’s definitely what they believed at the time, and that’s probably why they were doing that. Continuing with the AI report, ‘Workhouse children, especially in the decades prior to the 1870s, may have actually received a better education than children living in very poor families outside the institution. By law, workhouses were required to provide at least three hours of schooling daily. This education covered basic but valuable skills like reading, writing, and arithmetic, along with religious studies. The quality of workhouse education varied considerably. In some workhouses, children’s lessons took place in three daily sessions: 6:30 to 8:00 am, 10:30 am to 1:00 pm, and 2:00 to 5:00 pm, potentially totaling seven hours of education per day, though only a minimum of three hours was required.

Nicole (28m 36s):
Both boys and girls were taught writing in copybooks and on slates, learning arithmetic and reading the Bible. However, gender-specific training was common, with girls taught “sewing, knitting and housework” while boys might be employed in gardening or other manual tasks. Recreation and play time was sometimes allocated between lessons. When not in lessons, female inmates typically engaged in housekeeping duties, while males undertook more physically demanding tasks. As a 10-year-old girl, Sarah Jane would have spent part of her day learning domestic skills that were considered appropriate preparation for her likely future as a servant.’

Diana (29m 12s):
As you were reading that, I was thinking what would be the future for any child that was there, and that’s what it would be, because this was very much an era of the lower classes being the servants to those who had money and wealth, and that would’ve been the next step for them out of the workhouse. Well, a little bit more of information about Boston Workhouse continues, ‘Some records specific to the Boston Union Workhouse that might be relevant to Sarah Jane’s experience include: The Lincolnshire Family History Society has preserved the Boston Workhouse Girls School Admissions/Discharge register for 1850-1872, which would likely contain information about Sarah Jane’s education.

Diana (29m 58s):
This could be a valuable resource for understanding her specific circumstances. By the 1920s, the Boston Union had established a cottage home for 13 pauper children at Brothertoft Road, Boston, showing an evolution in the care of workhouse children over time. According to historical records, in 1842 (just before Sarah Jane’s time), Philip Brierley and his wife Ann were appointed as the schoolmaster and schoolmistress at the Boston Workhouse. By 1872, Thomas Sowden had become schoolmaster with Miss E. Wells as schoolmistress.’ So that’s really interesting that there could be some more information did you ever look into that?

Diana (30m 41s):
If those registers are really available?

Nicole (30m 45s):
I did try to get some original sources ordered from Lincolnshire. I don’t think I ever found that one. So that would be interesting to order from the the Lincolnshire Family History about the Boston Workhouse Girls School. So that would be great. I didn’t know about that.

Diana (30m 60s):
I know it would be amazing to find her name on a roster or to learn more about just what was going on specifically while she was there.

Nicole (31m 9s):
Yeah, that would be really neat. I had some luck in, I believe it was like the police section of the newspaper, because I found an article that talked about how Ann Miller was admitted to the workhouse. So that was cool. Yeah, it was in the Lincolnshire Chronicle and on May 3rd, 1844, it reported that Ann Miller an Inmate of the Boston Union Workhouse was committed to hard labor for 21 days for a misbehavior in the workhouse. So it was actually, while she’s already there, she was sent to a worse situation. I guess hard labor for 21 days is worse than even being in the workhouse.

Diana (31m 53s):
Oh, that’s so sad. It probably had something to do with her child who was there, you know, trying to to see her child or, you know, we don’t know how much they could see one another. They would’ve both been in the the female section.

Nicole (32m 6s):
Right. I don’t know for sure, but after like the research, I kind of felt like she might’ve gone in and out of the workhouse during the 1840s and fifties, and it’s kind of unclear if she and her daughters all went to the workhouse or not, because when she was there during the census, only Sarah Jane was with her, and the other daughters were living as nieces of Ann’s uncle, and one of them was a servant already. So it’s kind of unclear. Hmm. It would be good if we could find some of the records of the workhouse, but I can’t remember if I found that they were unavailable or if I just didn’t pursue it. I’m not sure why I didn’t pursue getting more records from the workhouse.

Diana (32m 49s):
Well, there’s always more to do with our research. We know that much, don’t we?

Nicole (32m 53s):
Yeah. And it seems like once you start really digging into fully understanding a place like this, like you did with this deep research report, you get so many more ideas and you realize so many more sources that exist that you can check.

Diana (33m 7s):
Exactly. And I thought it was really neat that it did point to some additional sources, even though I didn’t really ask it to give me a research plan or to ask for more sources, but just reading through it gave me so many more ideas.

Nicole (33m 22s):
Right. And I found myself wondering, oh, like, well, what does the census say about Sarah Jane? Because it talks about how if she lived in the workhouse, then she would’ve been more likely to have gotten more education just because it was required that they have three hours a day, which is interesting. So I thought, oh, I don’t even remember ever looking in the census at her ability to read and write. I think sometimes we overlook that unless it’s marked that they can’t read and write. You know what I mean?

Diana (33m 51s):
Yeah, absolutely.

Nicole (33m 54s):
So I’m just checking right now, and it looks like she could write, and she could read and write. I mean, the 1860 Census of Utah does not have a little check mark next to her name for cannot read and write. And it does have that for some, well, nobody on the page has that. Everyone could read and write on that page. Even the three year-olds,

Diana (34m 16s):
Well, she would, you know, even if she didn’t learn in the workhouse, but it sounds like she probably did, she married a man who was very much into education because William taught himself to be a lawyer by just ordering books, right? And then studying those and passing the Utah bar, and then becoming state legislator. And so you know that typically as a couple, you are maybe attracted to someone else who has the same drive for education that you do, you know, you typically see people that are kind of on the same page with that. So it would make sense that perhaps she was more educated than not, you know, in that situation or that after she got married, she said, okay, now it’s time to learn to read.

Diana (34m 57s):
Yeah, that does help us know that she probably did get some education before leaving the workhouse.

Nicole (35m 3s):
She probably did, and I’ll have to check and correlate it with the other census. But just reading the heading from the 1860, it says, persons over 20 years of age who cannot read and write, and she doesn’t have a mark for that column. Nobody on the page does so, but there are ditto marks there. So it’s interesting. I don’t know. She was 18, you know, if she lived in the workhouse for a year, that’s plenty of time to learn how to read at age 10. So yeah, she, it’s a good hypothesis that she did learn. Well, continuing on with the AI deep research report, ‘How People Left the Workhouse – There were several ways children like Sarah Jane might have left the workhouse:’ First, ‘Family Reclamation – nmates could leave whenever they wished after giving “reasonable notice” (typically three hours).

Nicole (35m 54s):
If a parent discharged themselves, their children would also be discharged to prevent abandonment. If Sarah Jane had family members who improved their circumstances, they might have reclaimed her. Apprenticeship – The apprenticeship system was commonly used by parishes to place workhouse children with employers, thereby unburdening the rate-payers from supporting them. Under the Settlement Act of 1662, an apprentice took settlement from their place of apprenticeship, which meant the receiving parish would become responsible should they later need poor relief. While boys were typically apprenticed to learn “husbandry” (agricultural work), girls were taught “midwifery” (a term that in this context often broadly covered domestic service rather than actual midwifery).

Nicole (36m 40s):
These pauper apprentices were effectively laborers and household servants rather than learning highly skilled trades. In Shrewsbury, for example, workhouse girls were tasked with spinning, making gloves, and other jobs considered “suited to their sex, their ages and abilities.’

Diana (36m 57s):
So domestic service is what girls were often trained specifically for, ‘as this was considered the most appropriate employment for females. Once old enough (usually by age 12-14), Sarah Jane might have been placed in service with a local family.’ So the Age of Independence was usually 16 or above, and residents could choose to leave on their own to find employment. It’s important to note that the treatment of workhouse children varied considerably: An 1841 report advised that care should be taken in the selection of schoolmasters “lest we introduce a tyrannical despot rather than a father.” While schools inspector Jelinger Symons did not believe that “cruelty or severity of discipline” was common in workhouse schools, he acknowledged such practices existed in some unions.

Diana (37m 48s):
Corporal punishment, while not as widespread as often depicted, was a common means of discipline. Parish apprenticeships for workhouse children were not the same as traditional apprenticeships that resulted in a skilled tradesperson. “Parish apprentices” were often placed with employers simply requiring their “nimble fingers and little bodies” for tasks adults couldn’t perform, with little concern for preparing them for meaningful work in adulthood.’ Well, I think the whole idea of corporal punishment was widespread in all schools, not just in the workhouse from what I’ve read and heard of, just that was the way things were, wasn’t it? Back in the day.

Nicole (38m 28s):
Yeah.

Diana (38m 28s):
So I’m not surprised at that, but it is interesting that apprenticeships were not quite what we think of, you know that when you’re done, you have a really great skill that you can then go get employment. So it sounds more like they were just hired out to be little workers.

Nicole (38m 45s):
Yep. That does sound just like that’s what it is. The conclusion of the AI report says, ‘Sarah Jane’s experience in the Boston Union Workhouse in 1851 would have been characterized by strict discipline, basic education, gender-specific training, and institutional routine.

Nicole (39m 26s):
While conditions were harsh by modern standards, the workhouse did provide basic necessities—shelter, food, clothing, and education—that might have been scarce or nonexistent for the poorest children outside its walls. The most likely outcomes for Sarah Jane would have been either placement in domestic service when she reached the appropriate age, apprenticeship to a trade or household, or being reclaimed by family members if their circumstances improved. Her educational opportunities, while limited, would have provided basic literacy and domestic skills intended to make her employable and self-sufficient.

Nicole (40m 7s):
To discover her specific path after the workhouse, I would recommend consulting the Boston Workhouse Girls School Admissions/Discharge register for 1850-1872, held by the Lincolnshire Family History Society, which might contain details about her departure from the institution and subsequent placement. Further Research Resources – For more detailed information about Sarah Jane’s time in the Boston Union Workhouse, these repositories might be helpful: The Lincolnshire Archives’ which ‘holds extensive records including Guardians’ minute books, Admissions and discharges registers, Schools admissions/discharges for girls, and more, also The Lincolnshire Family History Society, which has published several volumes of Poor Law Miscellany that include Boston Workhouse records, including the Girls School Admissions/Discharge register covering 1850-1872, which would contain information from exactly when Sarah Jane was there.’ So that was a great report, and I think it covered a lot more than I was able to find in my time researching. When I did this for my ProGen class, I did come across an article that talked about how workhouse inmates often had to do backbreaking work, such as picking oakum and breaking rocks.

Nicole (40m 47s):
But now I feel like this has kind of given me more context that that was probably what the men did while the women were more working on domestic type of work instead of the backbreaking outdoor breaking of rocks and things like that,

Diana (41m 5s):
Which makes perfect sense. Well, that’s so interesting that, you know, AI did this research and that you could compare it with the research that you were doing. So, you know, what would you say would be the value for having AI provide something like this for you just to get started on researching something?

Nicole (41m 21s):
Well, it was much more thorough than the research I did, and so it gives a lot more resources. It also found a potential school register that I could have looked at, and my research was a little piece of a larger thing I was working on. So it was just like two paragraphs in a 10 page document. So I was working on a lot of other things, but at the same time, I only found a few things, and I didn’t realize that the women would be doing other types of work. I just put in a little sentence about people in Workhouses did these like backbreaking tasks.

Nicole (42m 1s):
I did have some about the Poor Law, and I had found a little bit about just what a workhouse was, and that they were able to leave if they found work elsewhere, and that kind of thing. I did find an article that talks specifically about the way that the Boston Workhouse looked and how it had an East Wing for males and a West Wing for females with an infirmary, laundry workshops, and a chapel. So, yeah.

Diana (42m 25s):
Yeah, I think that’s so neat. Well, and you know, we do have to think about how much time we wanna spend, and I think that’s one of the challenges for us when we are doing historical context research, because it can be time consuming, and we have to decide, you know, do we wanna do that deep dive into that specific aspect. But I think that it’s really valuable because now having read all of this, we could probably summarize that even more and make it really specific to Sarah Jane. But there’s just so much more information now that we have and so many more ideas. And using AI to speed up the process just really is so helpful to digest all of that information that can be out there on the internet.

Diana (43m 10s):
And in this case of Sarah Jane, I just loved how easy it was to give me details that educated me on the workhouse and summarized and brought together things from so many different sources.

Nicole (43m 25s):
Absolutely.

Diana (43m 25s):
Well, if any of our listeners want to try something like this for your own research, here are a few tips. So first of all, take the time to create a detailed prompt. Include some information about your ancestor and the specifics you’d like to know. And then use a model with deep research capabilities such as ChatGPT, Gemini, pPrplexity, or Claude. And then experiment with different models to see which response you like the best. And be sure you have sources, because AI can provide the sources, but sometimes you have to ask for them if it doesn’t automatically give you sources, because then you really want to go to each article and do some fact checking.

Diana (44m 7s):
And I will just do spot checking with things like dates and specific names and making sure that it’s really taking the information straight from the source. And then, of course, if we’re going to use something like this in our writing or our narrative, we’d want to cite the use of AI, any summaries that it has created, because you know that’s a responsible and ethical use of AI. Well, I hope everyone listening has enjoyed this step back in time to talk about the workhouse in Victorian England for our ancestor, Sarah Jane. And I hope it’s given you some ideas about how you could use AI to help you with some of your family history research.

Diana (44m 50s):
So thanks for listening, and we’ll talk to you next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Nicole (44m 49s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DNA on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com/services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday, subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket.com/newsletter. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.