[Genealogy] Airplane Spooks Horses, My Irish Neills, AI Consultations, and more
Michael John Neill
mjnrootdig at gmail.com
Mon Oct 5 18:50:49 CDT 2026
Genealogy Update 5 October 2026
** The Neills, their Horses, a Cultivator, and an Airplane
** Using AI as a Genealogy Consultant Released--intro price!
** BLM, Newspapers, and Females
** My Irish Neills
** More Land Platting with AI and Getting the Most From the Census
** Recorded Webinars
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The Neills, their Horses, a Cultivator, and an Airplane
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[image: airplane-sam-neill]
<https://rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/airplane-sam-neill.jpg>
New technology frequently causes problems as it did for Samuel Neill in
1920.
An airplane flying near West Point, Illinois, spooked the two horses who
were pulling his cultivator. The horses ran off, pulling the cultivator
behind them and destroying it in the process. In an apparent separate
incident, two horses belonging to Virgil Neill ran off while hitched to a
mower. One of the horses was injured and had to be put down.
There is more to be learned here than that the Neills had horses who were
easily spooked.
I had to do a little digging in my files to determine which Samuel Neill
the article referenced. There were potentially several and I did not want
to immediately assume the incorrect one.
The article does not mention that Virgil is the son of Samuel. That’s
another instance of a newspaper not mentioning the obvious. Most
individuals who knew the family already knew that Virgil was Samuel’s son.
Newspapers are called newspapers for a reason.
Sometimes newspapers or other references may mention two separate incidents
that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. That’s the case here.
These items have in common the Neills and their horses. That’s it. One
event did not cause the other. One needs to be careful to not draw
inferences where those inferences are not supported.
Using AI as a Genealogy Consultant--released for viewing
Our approach is to always use AI responsibly and practically as your own
genealogy consultant.
Maybe you can’t afford a consultant for your own research or you have too
many genealogy problems to hire help with every one. AI can serve as your
own genealogy research consultant.
As with a human consultant, you’ll need to do the initial work on your
ancestor, gather what you have, and familiarize yourself with basic sources
in the area. There is no guarantee that AI will solve your problem.
But using AI as your personal research consultant can help. Not by doing
the research for you, or inventing ancestors that never existed, but by
doing what a good consultant actually does: looking at what you have,
summarizing it, discussing it, and giving you ideas on where to look next
or to help you see things in a different way. It may even tell you where
you need to go to improve your research skills.
After using AI, you still may decide to use a human consultant. The work
you did with AI will help you prepare to get the most from that advice from
a real person and to make the best use of your time and money should that
be necessary. We acknowledge in this presentation and approach that AI does
not know everything, is not perfect, and cannot solve every problem. It’s
just another tool.
You'll see how to frame a research problem so AI gives you something useful
instead of something vague. You'll learn to recognize when it's guessing,
because it will, and how to catch hallucinations and how to use AI in a
discerning fashion.
The goal isn't to replace your judgment. It's to give you a thinking
partner available at two in the morning when you finally realize you need
to get outside your own mind on a certain ancestral problem.
Order now for immediate download-$20
<https://michael-john-neill.dpdcart.com/cart/add?product_id=251529&method_id=274685>--regular
price is $26.99. Save $6.99 by ordering now.
Includes the full presentation, a detailed handout, and a ready-to-use set
of prompts you can adapt to your own research problems.
*==============*
Announcement
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Tract Books and the 2026 BLM Land Patent
Search site update
This presentation will discuss what the BLM tract books are (they keep
track of complete and incomplete federal land transactions), how to search
them on FamilySearch–there are multiple ways (focusing on manual searches
for when the indexed do not work), what clues can be gathered from these
records, accessing additional records suggested in the tract books,
documenting your searches of these books. Also included will be a
discussion of the current iteration of the Bureau of Land Management
Federal Land Patent search site.
Presentation to be released on 18 October–$17.99
<https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=UQKGYQSX63Z3Y>
Researching Female Ancestors
This presentation discusses approaches and techniques for determining an
ancestor’s maiden name and locating “missing” females. Geared towards the
advanced beginner or intermediate researcher, it focuses on American
records and sources before World War I. The content is not specific to any
one time period and many of the approaches can be refined for different
locations or types of records. Concepts discussed will include:
-
overview of women’s legal rights;
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property ownership;
-
inheritance;
-
citizenship;
-
and strategies for making the most from what you can find.
If you are stymied on your female ancestors–and half your ancestors are
female–this presentation may give you the insight you need.
-
Order for immediate download. $19.99
<https://michael-john-neill.dpdcart.com/cart/add?product_id=32846&method_id=32794>--after
29 Sept price is $24.
Researching US Newspapers
This presentation will discuss finding copies of newspapers (digital and
microfilm), searching newspapers (digital and manual searches), saving
images, organizing images and your search process, and creating citations.
-
Order for immediate download–$18
<https://michael-john-neill.dpdcart.com/cart/add?product_id=243621&method_id=266115>--after
29 Sept price is $22.
Michael John Neill has over forty years of genealogical research experience
and has utilized records in a variety of states in the Midwest, New
England, and the Southern United States.
----------------
My Irish Neills
----------------
Like many genealogists with Irish immigrants, I don’t have a great deal of
information on my Irish family in Ireland.
Samuel Neill immigrated as a single man in 1864, arriving in [image:
samuel-neill2]
<https://rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/samuel-neill2.jpg>Canada’s
New Brunswick Province with his married brother Joseph and Joseph’s young
family. The Neills were living in Limavady when they left Ireland for
Canada. Their immigration information appears in Brian Mitchell’s *Irish
Passenger Lists 1847-1871: Lists of Passengers Sailing from Londonderry to
America on Ships of the J. & J. COOKE Line and the McCORKELL Line
*(Genealogical
Publishing Co., Balto., MD. 1988).
Samuel’s brother Joseph was married in Ireland before the family’s
immigration to the United States:
*From the “Quarterly returns of Marriages 1862 Ireland Vol. 9,” LDS
microfilm roll 0101440, page 375.*
<http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_2IZyuH7a88/VQg1BsTxjVI/AAAAAAAAPq4/ulO5bs7Y9Fo/s1600/neills-1890s.jpg>
On 16 January 1862 at the Derrymore Presbyterian Church, Joseph NEIL[sic]
and Ann BRYCE[sic] were married by Wm. [JAMISON?], with witnesses of Wm.
MC INTOSH and John ARCHIBALD. Joseph was of full age and was a
bachelor who lived in [Taques] Hill in the parish of Drumachose. Joseph
was a servant, and was the son of John NEIL[sic] who was a laborer. Ann
was a spinster of full age and was a servant living in White [??] in the
parish of Drumachose. Her father was James BRYCE, a laborer.
Samuel and Annie Murphy were married in New Brunswick in 1865.
Unfortunately there is no additional information on the family in their
marriage record there. Nothing is known about Annie’s Irish origins other
than she was born in the late 1830s/early 1840s and was a native of Ireland.
<http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JJz7omFzX7Q/VQg1Bc3J5SI/AAAAAAAAPq0/749uL7lyDtM/s1600/annie-murphy-neill.jpg>The
Neills moved to near West Point, Hancock County, Illinois in the late 1860s
and remained there until their deaths. Research in Hancock County has not
located any information related to Annie’s Irish origins. The Neills
settled in Hancock County likely because Joseph’s wife, Anne Brice, had
family already in the area.
Annie (Murphy) Neill died in St. Albans Township in 1897. Samuel died at
his home on 17 March 1912.
------------------------------------
More Land Platting with AI
-----------------------------------
This session will expand on the “Metes and Bounds with AI” presentation. It
will include additional and more convoluted examples of metes and bounds
properties, discuss platting out properties in federal land states
involving sections and townships, and include an example of a metes and
bounds description in a federal land state. This session presupposes that
the listener has a basic understanding of land record terminology and knows
how to locate land deed records as those topics are not a part of this
presentation.
Release date: 15 October 2025.
Early order price: $18.99
<https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=C4JG43VE263BW>
Order includes audiovisual file and handout.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Getting the Most from US Census Records
----------------------------------------------------------
This session will help you to get the most from United States census
records–covering from 1790 through 1950. We will start with what you should
do when you find any census enumeration–which is not to transcribe it. We
will highlight the questions asked, talk about using enumerator
instructions, see how to get as much from a census enumeration as possible,
determine when a census suggests other records be searched, and more.
We will cover typical errors and how those arose, concerns about
reliability of the informant (did they just guess at information?), reasons
why people lie, and more.
We will talk about research strategies for people who are difficult to
find, ways names get written and transcribed and how to formulate a census
search plan those individuals who are difficult to locate.
The presentation will last approximately ninety minutes. Purchase includes
media file and handout.
Pre-release order price is $15.99.
<https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=H4MQXGKGGXM9U>
Release date: 16 October 2026.
--------------------
Webinars
--------------------
Ready-to-Go Webinars from Michael–download immediate:
-
Creating Children’s Stories from Genealogy Events
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/creating-childrens-stories-from-genealogy-information/>
-
Creating Families from pre-1850 Census Records
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/creating-families-from-pre-1850-census-records/>
-
DeedMapper webinars
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/deedmapper-intro-and-more-deedmapper-webinars/>
-
FamilySearch Catalog
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/2026/02/19/using-the-familysearch-catalog-webinar/>
-
Farming Ancestor webinars–landowner and non-landowner versions
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/rooting-around-for-farmers-and-tenants-and-laborers/>
-
Full-Text Search at FamilySearch
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/2026/08/05/updated-familysearch-full-text-search-webinar/>
-
Full-Text Search at FamilySearch with Common Names
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/2025/11/04/common-names-at-familysearch-full-text-webinar/>
-
How Errors Get in Records
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/how-errors-get-in-records-webinar/>
-
Illinois Genealogy Research
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/2026/03/10/genealogy-research-in-illinois-webinar/>
-
Metes and Bounds With AI–platting and analysis
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/using-ai-for-metes-and-bounds-deed-analysis/>
-
Unburying Funeral Home Records
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/unburying-funeral-home-records/>
----------------------------------------
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Michael John Neill
Genealogy Tip of the Day
PO Box 17
Henderson, IL 61439
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