ChatGPT and Robert Patterson

I recently performed an exercise using ChatGPT and a couple of my own pages as sources, to see what sort of summary this version of Artificial Intelligence (AI) would produce. ChatGPT is the AI tool created by Open AI and can be accessed at https://chatgpt.com/. I use this AI tool for work related items on occasion, so I use the paid version which costs about $20 per month. I'm NOT an AI expert. But as a Web Technology professional and instructor, I do need to learn as much about it as possible.

In my exercise, I chose three pages on my website as source pages for AI to reference, and asked it to create a 500-word article summarizing the content on those pages. Here is the input I gave ChatGPT.

use the content from the following pages and write a 500 word article summarizing the content. The pages are http://www.wespatterson.com/p/his-mark-r.html and http://www.wespatterson.com/p/patterson-robert-d1775sc-bio.html and http://www.wespatterson.com/p/patterson-robert-d1775sc-will.html

The following article is what the AI tool produced for me, including sources after each paragraph (except for the final conclusion paragraph). I thought I would share this with you to see what sort of inspiration YOU may glean from this.

Interim Project - Buncombe Co NC Deeds

As I continue to work on the George Patterson book, I've determined that I really need to finish another project I've worked on sporadically for several years - that being a more fully mapped set of land records for the area north and northwest of Asheville, NC in Buncombe County.

George Patterson was born in 1800 while his parents and grandparents were living along Jenkins Branch on the West side of French Broad River (FBR). However, over the years I've come to realize how many of their relatives and neighbors that lived on the West side FBR, also owned land and in many cases, lived on the East side FBR as well. Some were initially on the East side and later on the West, and vice versa. 

The deeds of Buncombe Co NC begin in the 1790's and are fully online at https://registerofdeeds.buncombecounty.org/External/LandRecords/protected/v4/SrchName.aspx

Knowing that I will be using much of this research in my books - which includes some of what I want to do in George Patterson's book - I am working through hundreds of deeds. 

I am capturing data about the deeds and tracking in Microsoft Excel for future summary purposes. I am saving the deeds (images of the deeds) as PDF files. 

I am then converting the PDF files (some are 1 image, some 2, some more than 2), into PNG image files, which saves each page as its own separate file. 

I am then using Microsoft Edge (browser) and its unique AI tool (Copilot) that will take a PNG image with cursive handwriting and transcribe it to text automatically. Surprisingly, the transcription process works correctly about 70-98% of the time. And most of the time I'd say it's 85-90% correct. That cuts down the manual process of transcribing exponentially!

I then copy these transcriptions into a Microsoft Word document. If there are multiple pages of the deed, I copy the transcription of all of those pages into the single Word doc, preserving the page breaks of course. At the bottom of each Word doc I have a reference line that I add that makes it clear where this deed was acquired, for example:

Buncombe Co, NC Deeds: Book 3: Pages 231-232

I then copy the text from the Word doc into a text file to reformat in the Deedmapper format. However, I still keep the Word doc as I know I will later copy many of these deed transcriptions into future books, which are written in MS Word. The deedmapper text files require only certain pieces of the transcriptions, and they have to be in a specific format. 

I then copy that deedmapper text from the text file into my DeedMapper program, create a new deed, then paste it in the new deed on the Text View tab. I can then switch to the Plot View tab for that new deed, which shows the deed overlaid on my map. I then drag the deed to the correct place on the map, if I know where to place it.