Family Locket

From Chaos to Clarity: How Merging & Separating Identity Techniques Identified David Dewitt’s Father

When I encountered David Lynn Dewitt in my family, I had a straightforward research question: who was his father? David was born in Maryland in 1801, married Sarah Headley in Holmes County, Ohio in 1827, had seven children, and lived his entire adult life in Richland Township, Holmes County. Simple enough, right? Then I discovered dozens of Dewitts all of whom had Ohio connections. In the 1820s-1840s, central Ohio—specifically Holmes and Knox Counties—was crawling with […]

By Jan Joyce February 24, 2026 Research Tips

RLP 398: FamilySearch Wiki with Virginia Pratt

This episode features Virginia Pratt, who brings decades of expertise to the discussion, including five years on the FamilySearch Research Wiki Team and a bachelor’s degree in Family History from BYU. Virginia joins Nicole and Diana to discuss the essential, free online genealogical resource: the FamilySearch Research Wiki. Nicole asks Virginia to explain the Wiki’s purpose, access methods, and how to navigate the main page, noting that it should be used for finding information on […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer February 23, 2026 Podcast

From Spreadsheet to Research Report: Using Claude’s Custom Skills for Genealogy

Claude.ai has been one of my favorite apps for genealogical writing for the past couple years. When I first started experimenting with Claude, I was curious if it could transform my spreadsheet research log into a research report. The process proved more challenging than I expected, requiring numerous chain-of-thought prompts and a good deal of fine-tuning. In April of 2024, I tested this task with a research log I created several years ago about Baldy […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer February 21, 2026 Artificial Intelligence, Research Tips

Overview of the Merging and Separating Identities Course

How many John Smiths [insert your ancestor’s name here!] lived in your ancestor’s county? How do you know which William Jones married your great-great-grandmother? When two or more people share the same name, live in the same place, and appear in records during the same time period, how do you prove they’re different people—or the same person using different names? If you’ve ever asked these questions, and I know you have, you’re facing one of […]

By Jan Joyce February 18, 2026 Education, Research Tips

RLP 397: What Genealogists Can Learn from Colum McCann’s TransAtlantic: Writing Family History

The episode opens with Diana and Nicole catching up on their latest work, focusing on testing AI models for accuracy in handwritten-text transcription tasks. The hosts then discuss the novel TransAtlantic by Irish author Colum McCann and what family historians can learn from its structure to write better family narratives. Diana explains that the novel views the immigration story from the Irish perspective, following the fictional character Lily Duggan and three subsequent generations, with the […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer February 16, 2026 Podcast

Testing AI’s Ability to Map Historical Land Records: ChatGPT Compared to DeedMapper

About a year or two ago, I asked ChatGPT to convert a metes and bounds land description into a land plat drawing. It was not able to do so correctly. Yetserday, I tried again and the results were astounding! I compared three scenarios: ChatGPT 5.2 Auto with a short, simple prompt ChatGPT 5.2 Auto with a longer meta and chain-of-thought prompt ChatGPT 5.2 Thinking with a short, simple prompt I used a deed I […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer February 13, 2026 Artificial Intelligence, Research Tips

Transforming Court Records Research with AI: A Case Study from Colonial Virginia Part 2: Analysis

Claude 4.5 Sonnet assisted with organizing and writing this blog post based on my research report and a syllabus about using AI for court records. In part 1 of this series, we learned how AI assisted my research on finding, logging, and organizing a series of court orders between Samuel Daniel and my Roystons. In this blog post, we’ll go through the cases and see how AI helps us understand the legal context of court […]

By Diana Elder February 13, 2026 Research Tips

RLP 396: Visiting My Love County, Oklahoma, Roots

In this episode, hosts Diana and Nicole share a personal and informative journey as they visit their Love County, Oklahoma, roots to walk in the footsteps of Diana’s ancestors, Richard and Nancy (Briscoe) Frazier. Diana recounts the lives of her 2nd great-grandparents, discussing their survival through the Civil War in the Ozarks, Richard’s service as a teamster for the Confederacy, and their eventual migration from Missouri to Texas and then across the Red River into […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer February 9, 2026 Podcast

Transforming Court Records Research with AI: A Case Study from Colonial Virginia Part 1 – Finding and Logging

Claude 4.5 Sonnet assisted with organizing and writing this blog post based on my research report and a syllabus about using AI for court records. For generations, genealogists have known that court records contain some of the richest genealogical information available—and some of the most challenging to access. Unlike vital records or census enumerations, court records rarely come with indexes. The researcher faces the daunting task of browsing court books page by page, deciphering cryptic […]

By Diana Elder February 6, 2026 Research Tips

RLP 395: How to Use Ancestry DNA Custom Clusters in Your Research

This episode focuses on the exciting custom clustering feature now available in Ancestry’s Pro Tools. Diana introduces the tool, explaining how it allows for the strategic targeting of specific ancestral lines, offering more flexibility than the original clustering tool. She describes Ancestry’s process, which looks for matches sharing 65 cM to 1,300 cM with the user, and then finds those matches that also share at least 20 cM with each other. Nicole discusses the key […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer February 2, 2026 Podcast

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