Is John Smith My Name?

history, education, society, culture · EN-US

What if the world’s most common name carried a secret? Is John Smith My Name? is part detective story, part family road trip, and part experiment in how emerging AI can bring history to life. Civil engineer John Oliver Smith and storyteller Davar Ardalan set out to confirm his English or Irish roots — only to uncover a hidden German-American story stretching from the Shenandoah Valley to Württemberg, Germany. At the center is CK, Catherine Kessler AI: both a Custom GPT archivist and a Voice AI persona powered by Amazon Polly. Built on transcripts, archives, and research, CK makes history interactive, letting listeners ask questions, hear ancestral voices, and explore German-American contributions in real time. Relaunching ahead of John’s research trip to Germany, the podcast blends genealogy, archives, and cutting-edge AI into an immersive story that asks: What does it mean to truly know y