SNGF -- Write a 100-Word Life Sketch of One of Your 2X Great-Grandparents
Calling All Genea-Musings Fans:
It's Saturday Night Again -
Time For Some More Genealogy Fun!!
Our assignment tonight from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:
1) "Write a 100-word life sketch of one of your 2x-great-grandparents."
[thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]
Here's mine:
A one-hundred-word story is not very long, but here goes. I did not use AI.
Reuben Mack Johnston, born 18 April 1841 in Alabama, son of Samuel and Elizabeth Johnston, lived in Mississippi as a boy and moved to Titus County, Texas when twenty. He married twice, first to Catharine Skull and they had four known children. He married second to Olivia Jane Jones on 23 Dec 1879 in Comanche County. They had 13 children. Rueben worked as a farmer, growing Indian corn, cotton, flax, and potatoes, and raising swine, poultry, and cattle. He died on 4 May 1924 at 83 years. The paper said “Uncle Mack” had been of feeble health and he was “not a member of any church but lived an exemplary life.”
Well, that is 111 words and I cannot shorten it any more. It is hard to keep under such a low limit. I probably could have done better if I had chosen a woman, whom I don’t know much. I had originally had nearly 200 words before cutting out the names of his children and other extra words.
So here is a female’s biography and I might get it under 100 words.
Martha Jane Coor was born on 10 May 1873 in Copiah Co, Mississippi, the ninth child of James Madison Coor and Melissa Ann Welch. She lost her mother at the age of three and was raised by older siblings. She moved to Texas with her father in 1881 and became an orphan when he died in 1889. She married William Carl Lancaster on 19 March 1892 in Erath County, where they farmed. They had six children. She died on 15 September 1942 at age 69 and is buried at Upper Green’s Creek Cemetery. Carl died on 17 December 1946.
That is better at 99 words.
When I wrote these paragraphs, I had sources cited, but something happened in Blogger and they were stripped. I apologize.
Well done. No need to apologize - there is no judgment about the finished product. The sources these days would be about 100 words each, it seems. Or about the word count. I liked the 200-word result better - a bit more detail, but only a minute in normal speech.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Randy that the 200-word bios are better, because it's nice to have the extra detail. But I can cut at least eight words from your 111 and still have it read fine.
ReplyDeleteI'd be curious how you could eliminate 8 words.
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