Bringing Albert Hutchinson’s Story to Life with Music and Video

One of my genealogy goals is to preserve family stories in formats that make them accessible and engaging for future generations. Traditional biographies are an important part of that effort, but I’ve also been experimenting with ways to combine genealogy research with modern technology.

Recently, I completed an ABC Biography for my second great-grandfather, Albert Hutchinson (c.1836–1896). Albert’s life took him from New York to Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas. Along the way he served in the 1st Iowa Cavalry during the Civil War, raised a large family, and helped settle the American Midwest.

After completing his biography, I decided to take the project a step further.

Turning a Biography into a Song

Using the information from Albert’s biography, I asked ChatGPT to create song lyrics that told the story of his life. The resulting lyrics followed Albert’s journey from his childhood in New York, through his Civil War service, and into his years as a farmer, husband, and father.

To bring those lyrics to life, I entered them into Suno, an AI music platform that can create original songs from user-supplied lyrics and style prompts.

The style I selected was a folk-country ballad, which seemed appropriate for a nineteenth-century pioneer whose life was shaped by westward migration, military service, and farming. Suno generated a song that captured both the historical setting and the emotional tone of Albert’s story.

Creating Visuals with NotebookLM

While the song provided the audio component, I also wanted visual elements for a video.

For that purpose, I turned to Google NotebookLM. Using information from Albert’s biography, NotebookLM generated an infographic summarizing key events from his life. The infographic provided a visual timeline of Albert’s journey and highlighted important milestones such as his marriage, military service, migration, and family.

The infographic served as the visual foundation for the video.

Combining the Pieces in Canva

Once I had both the song and the infographic, I used Canva to assemble the final project.

The audio generated by Suno was placed over the infographic, creating a simple video presentation that allows viewers to listen to Albert’s story while viewing highlights from his life.

The result is something quite different from a traditional genealogy report. Instead of reading several pages of narrative, family members can spend a few minutes listening to Albert’s story unfold through music.

The Finished Video

You can watch the completed video below.

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Reflections on AI and Family History

One of the things I enjoy most about these projects is seeing how different AI tools can work together.

For this project:

• RootsMagic provided the narrative report.
• ChatGPT helped transform the research into a biography and song lyrics.
• Suno created the music.
• Google NotebookLM generated the infographic.
• Canva combined the audio and visuals into a video.
• YouTube provided a platform for sharing the finished project.

None of these tools replace traditional genealogy research. The records, documents, and evidence still form the foundation of the work. What these tools do provide are new ways to present and share family history.

Albert Hutchinson lived nearly 130 years ago. Thanks to a combination of historical records and modern technology, his story can now be experienced not only through documents and photographs, but also through music and video.

I suspect Albert could never have imagined such a thing, but I like to think he would be pleased that his story continues to be remembered.