My ChatGPT Obituary Experiment

Disclosure: This post contains results from ChatGPT 5, The content is clearly identified and presented without edit.

I'm well aware AI is best used as a supplement to regular research. It can certainly do some nice things. I use it extensively for formatting, transcriptions, and even providing a list of the important genealogical facts from newspaper articles, wills, and obituaries (though I still double check it hasn't missed anything). I do not use AI for actual research. The vast majority of records are simply not available to AI. Many data sets require logins and quite often, subscriptions. But even if AI can't answer a question directly, it doesn't mean it can't be helpful in pointing me in a useful direction.

Just for fun, I recently decided to see if ChatGPT could help me locate an obituary. It had been some time since I requested this type of information and I was eager to see the improvements in results. FindAGrave contained the text of an obit for my granduncle, John Burton Leroy. As shown on FindAGrave:

Mr. Leroy was a son of John Leroy and his first wife, Cynthia Cunningham Leroy. John Burton Leroy was survived by his stepmother, Mrs. Addie Leroy, Dalton, Georgia; and his siblings, Ben Leroy, George Leroy, Bertha Henry and Eliza Fowler. 

I previously found and verified everything contained in this snippet, with the exception of one piece of data....his mother's maiden name being Cynthia Cunningham. I know her name was Cynthia from a census record, but I haven't found any other proof of her maiden name. If I could put eyes on the obit, and not just a transcription, I'd happily add this fact to my tree.

So I asked ChatGPT 5, "Can you find any public newspaper articles containing this exact wording 'John Burton Leroy died at his residence on Gadsden Route 4'" the phrase at the beginning of the transcribed obituary. I actually did this search two different times, a couple weeks apart just to see the differences.

For the first response, AI thought for 19 seconds, then replied:

Doris — I searched for that exact string and didn’t find any public newspaper page that matches it verbatim.

What I found

No hits for the quoted phrase “John Burton Leroy died at his residence on Gadsden Route 4” in open web results.

There are near-matches showing the style you’re expecting (Gadsden Times obits often read “Gadsden Route 4, died … at his residence”), e.g.:

“J.A. Pankey, 69, Gadsden Route 4, died … at his residence …” (Find A Grave transcription of a Gadsden Times obituary). (Find A Grave)

Similar phrasing appears in other Etowah County obit transcriptions noting “Gadsden Rt. 4 … died … at the residence.” (Find A Grave, Geni)

You likely have the right person/place: there’s a FamilySearch profile for John Burton LeRoy (1878–1949) tied to Gadsden/Etowah research, but it doesn’t quote an obituary. (FamilySearch)

Why you may not see an exact match

Obituary lines commonly read “at his residence, Gadsden Route 4” (comma, not “on”) or “Rt. 4 / “Rte. 4,” and the surname appears both as LeRoy and Leroy in indexes. Any of those small differences will prevent an exact-phrase hit.

 
Next steps I recommend

Try these exact-phrase variants (including punctuation/casing):

"John Burton LeRoy" "Gadsden Route 4"
"John Burton Leroy" "Gadsden Rt. 4"
"at his residence, Gadsden Route 4" Leroy
"LeRoy" "at his residence" "Gadsden"

Check the Gadsden Times around his death year (likely 1949). Most images are behind paywalls:

Newspapers.com (Gadsden Times) — strongest coverage.

Google News Archive sometimes has scattered issues.

Alabama Dept. of Archives & History and the Alabama Digital Archives indexes occasionally include Etowah items. Wikipedia

Local help: Etowah Historical Society or the Gadsden Public Library microfilm desk can do a lookup if you provide name + month/year of death.

If you want, tell me the exact death date you have for LeRoy and I’ll target the Gadsden Times issues for that week and craft precise queries (and, if you have access to Newspapers.com, I can give you copy-paste search strings to run there)

For my second attempt, AI thought a bit longer at 37 seconds, then replied:

Hi Doris — I searched for that **exact** wording and couldn’t find a publicly viewable newspaper page that contains the phrase “**John Burton Leroy died at his residence on Gadsden Route 4**”. Nothing matching that string (including the trailing double-apostrophes) turns up on the open web or in free Alabama newspaper repositories.

However, context strongly suggests the obituary you’re after would be in **The Gadsden Times** around **December 14–16, 1949**, which aligns with FamilySearch listing **John Burton LeRoy**’s death as **December 13, 1949** (Etowah Co./East Gadsden). ([FamilySearch][1])

### Where it’s most likely hiding (paywalled/onsite)

* **The Gadsden Times** archive (hosted on Newspapers.com / Gannett) for mid-December **1949**. The Times is the local daily that routinely printed “Route 4” addresses and “died at his residence…” language in that era. The paper’s history and coverage area are documented here. ([Wikipedia][2])

* **Northeast Alabama Genealogical Society (NEAGS)** at the Howard Gardner Nichols Memorial Library in Gadsden — they maintain obituary clippings and local indexes; staff/volunteers can usually pull a specific death notice by date. ([Wikipedia][3])

### How to zero in on the exact string

OCR in newspaper databases often renders **Route 4** as *Rt. 4*, *Rte. 4*, or “Route 4’’” (double quotes from inch marks). I recommend trying these exact-phrase variations in the 1949 Gadsden Times:

* `"John Burton LeRoy"`, `"John B. LeRoy"`, and `"John LeRoy"`
* `"died at his residence"` and `"died at his home"`
* `"Gadsden Route 4"`, `"Rt. 4, Gadsden"`, `"Rte. 4, Gadsden"` (with/without comma)
* Search the **issue dates 12/14/1949 through 12/16/1949**; if no hit, expand a week either side.

If you’d like, give me any subscription screenshots/clippings you have (or a narrowed date window), and I’ll transcribe/verify whether the line appears verbatim. Or, if you prefer a librarian route, I can draft a concise request email to NEAGS specifying the date range and phrasing you want confirmed.

[1]: https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LHDR-BP9/john-burton-leroy-1878-1949?utm_source=chatgpt.com "John Burton LeRoy (1878–1949)"

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gadsden_Times?utm_source=chatgpt.com "The Gadsden Times"

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Gardner_Nichols_Memorial_Library?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Howard Gardner Nichols Memorial Library"

I was actually pleasantly surprised with the results. It had been a year or so since I last asked ChatGPT any questions like this. Previous attempts did not provide citations or links. This time, ChatGPT acknowledged it could not find the exact search phrase I entered (and did not appear to make anything up.) But it provided reasonable and solid direction I could take to attempt to locate the information on my own. And most important to me, it provides references, links and citations so I can double check the data presented, and to assist me in trying to find the information I'm after. Both results were helpful, and the slight differences highlight the importance of trying again when you're still staring at a seemingly impenetrable wall. 

While AI is still imperfect, it's starting to become significantly more useful. Over the coming months and years, I fully expect we'll see incredible progress in how it can aid us as researchers, and its integration into websites and programs we already use. I fully realize not everyone is on board with AI. And yes, there are definitely environmental concerns to be considered as larger and larger data centers are required to handle the intense computing demands of AI. But the reality is - AI is here to stay. And in my very limited experiment, it provided useful research direction. In addition to the ways I already us it, I'll continue to check from time to time to discover new advancements in this powerful technology.