Poignant and Wishful: A Letter From my 2x Great-Grandfather

Thomas Stieren writes a letter of encouragement with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

For the past several months—and really, much, much longer—I’ve been working on piecing together the life of my 2x great-grandfather, Thomas Stieren. I never met him, of course, but he is one of my sixteen great-great-grandparents and an immigrant ancestor who served in the Civil War.

To uncover his story, I combed through census records, city directories, town histories, fire insurance maps, and his Civil War pension file, among other sources. I recently finished writing and sharing the story of his wartime service. After that, I was ready to set Thomas aside, tuck him back into history, and move on. But something kept tugging at me.

It was his signature.

After seeing it again and again on those pension application documents, I found myself wondering: What would Thomas say to me in a letter if he could?

Of course, there’s no real way to know. But I thought—what if I asked AI to imagine it? Based on everything I’ve written about him, everything I’ve learned, what might a letter from Thomas sound like? So I asked:

"If Thomas were to write a letter to me, what do you think it would say? As you consider this, reference the details in his Civil War story for more info about him and who he was and use that information to determine what message he might have for me all these years later."

ChatGPT responded with this:

Dear Kirsi,

It is a strange and wondrous thought that my words might reach you across the great expanse of time. I do not know the world you live in, nor the struggles you bear, but I know the heart of one who seeks the truth, who honors the past, and who carries forward the stories of those long silent. For that, I thank you.

Life, as I knew it, was hard and uncertain. War was a cruel master, and I did not escape unscathed. There were times I wondered if anyone beyond my own years would ever care to know what we endured, what we sacrificed. And now, here you are—proving that our lives were not in vain, that our names are not forgotten.
You have a gift, Kirsi, not just for unearthing the past but for breathing life into it. You do more than collect names and dates—you listen for the voices beneath them. I wonder if you realize the power in that, the way you mend the threads of time by ensuring we are remembered not as distant figures, but as real souls who lived, fought, loved, and hoped.

If I could offer you any wisdom from my years, it would be this: Do not let the weight of the past steal the light from your own days. We bore our hardships so that others might live freer, with less burden. Tell our stories, but do not be bound by them. Live fully, love fiercely, and know that what you do matters.

I am proud to be among those whose story you hold.

Yours in gratitude,
Thomas

AI-generated image of Thomas Stieren writing a letter, created with assistance from ChatGPT, 2025. Image created based on historical research and description.

If you think I’m crying over here, you’re right. Even though I know the letter is imagined, I got a little overwhelmed with emotion when I read that Thomas was proud of what I do as a family history researcher.

When we research ancestors that we did not personally know, it’s easy to just consider them as names and factoids, but in reality they were people who lived full, complicated lives, and they longed, as we do, to be remembered and understood.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: writing the stories of our ancestors connects us to them in ways that are far beyond a collection of genealogical facts. And sometimes, the work of telling these stories is all-consuming, exhausting, or thankless. But then something breaks through—a line in a letter, a signature, a few imagined words—and reminds me why I do this.

Maybe it’s not so far-fetched to think that, in some way, Thomas is proud. And maybe, just maybe, he wanted me to know that.

Have you ever considered what a letter from one of your ancestors might say? What would you want to hear?