Telling a Railroad Story Through Song

One of the most rewarding parts of genealogy is finding new ways to share our ancestors’ stories. Census records, city directories, and newspaper articles tell us the facts of their lives, but music has a unique ability to capture the emotions behind those facts.

Recently, I wrote a biography and a “Day in the Life” narrative about my great-grandfather, Judson Foster Crawford, who spent decades working for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway in Dodge City, Kansas. As I researched his career, I found myself imagining the dedication, hard work, and perseverance required of a railroad switchman during the early twentieth century.

That inspired me to try something different.

Using ChatGPT, I created original lyrics celebrating Judson’s life and long railroad career. I then used Suno to transform those lyrics into a folk-inspired song titled “The Strength of Judson Crawford.” To accompany the music, I paired the song with a custom image depicting a Santa Fe railroader—a visual I also created with AI. Finally, I combined the artwork and audio into a simple video and uploaded it to YouTube.

Watch the Video

While the song is a creative interpretation rather than a historical document, every lyric is rooted in the known facts of Judson’s life and reflects the values that defined his years on the railroad—hard work, devotion to family, and quiet perseverance.

Projects like this remind me that genealogy is about more than collecting names and dates. It’s about discovering meaningful ways to preserve family stories and sharing them with future generations. Sometimes that means writing a biography. Sometimes it means recreating a day in an ancestor’s life. And sometimes, it means telling their story through music.

I hope you enjoy listening to “The Strength of Judson Crawford.” If the song encourages someone to learn more about Judson—or inspires another family historian to explore a creative way of sharing an ancestor’s story—then it has accomplished exactly what I hoped.