Your Future Genealogy Practice

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Generated by Bing Image Creator 2 August 2024


This post is for all of you who do not want to use AI. 

If you're hesitant about using AI, you're not alone. Many people are wary of handing their privacy over to a machine. However, AI can be a powerful tool for genealogists, and you may find it more helpful than you first thought.

You may have felt the same about spreadsheets and calculators, yet now they are tools in your daily life. Just as calculators and spreadsheets revolutionized how we handle numbers and budgets, AI chatbots and large language models (LLMs) are transforming our interaction with language and information.

So you may eventually use AI to help you do your work in research, document transcription and analysis, writing, research reports, timelines, DNA analysis, emails and other record-keeping. Some can analyze photos and other images or to pull out family connections from a will, and draw a family tree. Of course, you must check the work, as you do your income tax return before you sign it. There is always a human in the loop.

You might be surprised to learn that you’re already using AI. For instance, genealogy websites use AI for indexing. The rapid availability of the 1950 US Census was thanks to handwriting recognition software paired with human correction. And 'hints' from genealogy sites improve as the AI learns from what we accept and what we dismiss.

When writing a story, article, or email, do you use the spelling and grammar suggestions from Word or Google Docs? Those are AI-powered too. When you begin to type a question into a web search engine, and it seems to guess what you will ask, that is AI. While these tools save you seconds in writing, AI can save you minutes or even hours in more complex tasks, boosting your efficiency and accuracy. This post used suggestions from ChatGPT to tighten up some sentences, for instance.


AI Will Save You Time

Consider the time it took to locate and read through a county history for references to your relatives. AI can quickly scan and analyze such documents, finding connections you might have missed. Even when you bought the book and had it on your shelf, have you remembered to search it for every new name in that locality you encounter as your research continues? Imagine a private LLM which uses your own databases to suggest connections you could not see years ago.


AI Will Improve Your Research 

These days, many genealogy books are available online and can be searched or downloaded. AI can summarize and analyze these texts, helping you find leads in secondary sources that lead to primary sources like probate, land, and tax records. These records provide excellent evidence which can help answer your research questions.


Get Prepared

Each of us can get a head start on the future by spending some time experimenting and playing with these new tools. What cost $20 per month just a short while ago is now free, and there are new and updated tools all the time. The best hint I've heard so far is, "chat with the bots!"

Engage with chatbots, ask for corrections, and feed them data you have. For example, paste the text of a will and request an analysis. You'll soon see how you like to work, and what they can do for you. In fact, if you tell them that you do genealogy and ask how they can help, they will tell you. 


Use the Best Tool for the Job


Many tools are available, some highly specialized. For example, Transkribus, developed by European archives, offers excellent transcription services and is free for up to 500 pages daily. 

And the Tech User Group, TUG, Monday 19 August topic is Trying Out Transkribus. To prepare, here are some short videos to watch and posts to read:





For research, consider using Perplexity, https://www.perplexity.ai/. When asked how it can aid genealogy research, it provided a detailed answer with source citations, crucial for verifying and documenting findings.

Try AI-assisted search in FamilySearch Labs, which uses reliable sources like Help Center, the FamilySearch Wiki, and RootsTech, ensuring safe and accurate results.


ChatBots / LLMs

Here are links to the top three AI tools as of August 2024:


OpenAI offers ChatGPT4o: https://openai.com/



Anthropic's Claude's recent improvements has led many genealogists to use it more often than the former leader, ChatGpt4o. https://www.anthropic.com/


Google's Gemini has now been built into most of Google's products. To use it, look for the symbol and click it, or: https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini/





Chat with your bot! Have fun, and discover how much time you can save.

For more insights, listen to The Family History AI Show by Steve Little and Mark Thompson. And be sure to register for our September meeting, featuring Steve Little on "Today’s Limits Are Tomorrow’s Breakthroughs."



Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org

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Valorie Zimmerman


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