For most of my family’s history, this prompt points to a single occupation—farming. “Off to work” usually meant getting out of bed and heading to the barn or the kitchen. With so many generations to choose from, where to begin? Farming shows up in colonial times—in places like Massachusetts Bay Colony or the tip of Manhattan—in the early years of our country on the frontier, and later as families spread westward. For this post, I chose to focus on the late 1800s, when my ancestors settled in Barton County (and surrounding areas) in Missouri. This period allows me to use U.S. Census records, especially the Agricultural Schedules, which list crops grown and their value.
I was fortunate to find the Missouri Agricultural Schedules readily available online. All I had to do was download the PDFs and scroll through by township. Using the 1870 and 1880 census records, I located many of my ancestors and entered their information into an Excel spreadsheet. I then uploaded this data, along with household information, to ChatGPT to help analyze what was happening on these farms. With so much detail, there’s almost too much for a single post—so this is just an overview.
On my maternal side, the family tree includes the Fasts (3rd- and 2nd-great-grandfathers), Benjamin McWilliams (2nd-great-grandfather), S. D. Reed (2nd-great-grandfather), and Anthony Gilmartin (2nd-great-grandfather). One good example is John Jay Fast, born in Ohio in 1814. Before the Civil War, he moved first to Fulton County, Illinois, and then to Barton County, Missouri. The census snapshots catch him in his mid-fifties and mid-sixties, showing a productive and diverse farm with a mix of grains, hay, and livestock. By 1880, with two of his sons striking out on their own, he hired extra help and still managed to increase both output and value. His farming skill was passed down to his son William Marion. By that same year, B. C. McWilliams also had a productive farm, while the earlier census shows him just starting out, breaking sod.
On my paternal side (Cassatt, Houseworth, Yount), I wasn’t able to compare 1870 and 1880 as completely because not all Agricultural Schedules were available. Still, the combination of Population and Agricultural records shows that these families, too, maintained respectable farms with grains, hay, potatoes, wood lots, and livestock.
The household data also helps paint a fuller picture. With AI’s help, I could see who was available for chores. It also highlights how often families were blended—widowed heads of household remarrying, sometimes to other widows who brought children into the family, or adult children returning after the death or separation of a spouse, often with children of their own.
These records help bring farming families to life, moving them beyond just names and dates. They also reveal the larger forces that shaped their lives: the extension of railroads, the Panic of 1873, swarms of locusts, and falling commodity prices brought on by the abundance produced as farms began to mechanize. There is so much more history—and so many more records—to explore. By organizing these details of marriages, births, deaths, and residences into timelines, and then using generative AI to connect the dots, I can keep building the narratives of these families. More blog posts to come—stay tuned.
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