Another Way to Tell James Ricketts' Story

NotebookLM Creates a Video

What happens when you give an AI tool a genealogical narrative report and ask it to turn that information into a video?

After creating my From Indiana to Kansas song and video about James Marshall Ricketts, I decided to try another experiment. This time, I uploaded James's narrative report to Google NotebookLM and asked its Studio to create a video.

I actually created two versions.

Explainer or Cinematic?

For the first video, I selected the Explainer style. For the second, I tried Cinematic.

I really liked the look and feel of the cinematic version. Unfortunately, it included an image of a nineteenth-century couple. Since those people were not James Ricketts and his wife, Rachel, I don't feel comfortable sharing that version as part of their family history.

That's one of the challenges of using AI to tell our ancestors' stories. An image may look historically appropriate and make a beautiful video, but viewers could easily assume they are looking at the actual people being discussed.

The Explainer version avoided much of that problem by relying primarily on line drawings. Although it does include a generic drawing of a man, the illustration doesn't appear to represent an actual historical photograph of James.

Imagining Life on the Ricketts Farm

What I found particularly interesting about the Explainer video was its focus.

Instead of simply moving through James's life one date at a time, NotebookLM concentrated on what life as a farmer with a large family might have been like.

That provides a different way of looking at the records.

James Marshall Ricketts was born in Clinton County, Indiana, in 1847. After serving with the 7th Indiana Cavalry during the Civil War, he married Rachel Elmeda Christy in 1866. They began raising their family in Indiana before moving to Woodson County, Kansas, where James purchased land in 1879 and farmed for many years.

Census, land and other records document those events. But simply knowing that someone was listed as a "farmer" doesn't necessarily help us picture his daily life.

The NotebookLM video attempts to do that.

Watch the Video

James Marshall Ricketts — NotebookLM Explainer

As with my AI-generated song, I don't consider this video a replacement for genealogical research—or even a substitute for a carefully sourced biography.

Instead, I see it as another way to tell the story behind the records.

It may also demonstrate an important lesson about using AI for family history. We need to pay attention not only to what AI says, but also to what it shows.

A generic illustration can help us imagine an ancestor's world. A realistic photograph of the wrong person can unintentionally become misinformation.

For me, that's the difference between the two NotebookLM videos. I enjoyed the cinematic version, but the Explainer version is the one I'm comfortable sharing.

And perhaps it will help viewers imagine what life might have been like for James, Rachel and their family on a Kansas farm more than a century ago.