Nicole Elder Dyer

About Nicole Elder Dyer

Nicole Dyer is a professional genealogist specializing in Southern United States research and genetic genealogy. She is the creator of FamilyLocket.com and the Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast. She co-authored Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist's Guide and Research Like a Pro with DNA and is an instructor for the study groups of the same name. She lectures at conferences and institutes and previously served as the secretary and publicity chair of the Pima County Genealogy Society. Nicole holds a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University in History Teaching. At Family Locket Genealogists, Nicole is a project manager, editor, and researcher.

RLP 322: Review of “Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI”

Sep 9, 2024

In this episode of the Research Like a Pro Genealogy podcast, Diana and Nicole discuss the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in genealogy. Diana shares that she took a course on AI and read the book “Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI” by Ethan Mollick, finding it to be helpful and informative. The book discusses the history of AI and how it can be used. The author emphasizes the importance of experimenting with AI to...

How to Find DNA Test-Takers with Descendancy Research

Sep 8, 2024

One of the challenging parts of using DNA evidence in genealogical research is that it involves discovering information about living people. These living people are the sources for the DNA information we would like to use as evidence. They take a DNA test, then we analyze the match information and use it as evidence to answer a genealogical research question. As we go about finding DNA evidence for our research questions, there are at least...

RLP 321: Using Airtable AI Tools to Evaluate DNA Matches

Sep 2, 2024

In this episode of the Research Like a Pro Genealogy podcast, Diana and Nicole discuss using Airtable AI tools to evaluate DNA matches. They explain that Airtable AI can make writing about DNA much more efficient and explore how these cutting-edge features can be integrated into genealogical workflows. The hosts focus on Airtable AI’s capabilities in long text fields, where users can write paragraphs, summarize information, and extract details into lists. They provide step-by-step instructions...

RLP 320: Using AI to Find Research Questions and Write Objectives

Aug 26, 2024

In this episode of the Research Like a Pro Genealogy podcast, Diana and Nicole explore using AI to find research questions and write objectives. They discuss how AI can analyze your family tree data and suggest potential research questions. Diana shares her experience using a GEDCOM file with a custom GPT to analyze her pedigree for the Isabella Weatherford project. She explains how to create a GEDCOM file and use the Family Tree Expert custom...

RLP 319: Uses of AI in Genealogy with Steve Little

Aug 19, 2024

In this episode of the Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast, Nicole and Diana interview Steve Little, the National Genealogical Society Artificial Intelligence Program Director. Steve explains what Large Language Models are and their strengths, including summarization, extraction, generation, and translation. He discusses how AI can be used in genealogy to extract names, dates, and relationships from text, assist with genealogical writing and translating documents, transcribe printed and handwritten text, and transform text to different...

RLP 318: AI Photo Analysis with Mark Thompson

Aug 12, 2024

In this episode of the Research Like a Pro podcast, Diana and Nicole interview Mark Thompson, a professional genealogist specializing in digitizing and archiving family memorabilia and genetic genealogy. Mark shares his expertise on using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to analyze family photographs. Here are some key points from the interview: Benefits of AI face tagging: AI face tagging is a huge time saver and makes it easier to find photos in your digital archive....

Create DNA Descendancy Diagrams with AI

Aug 6, 2024

In our Research Like a Pro with AI workshop last week, I taught a lesson about using AI to help with writing. Part of that lecture focused on writing proof arguments, and the example I used was a DNA proof argument. I’m excited to share a discovery I made about using Claude.ai to generate descendancy diagrams of DNA matches! These diagrams are an important part of any proof argument incorporating DNA evidence. In the process...

RLP 317: Transcribing Document Images with ChatGPT and Claude

Aug 5, 2024

In this episode, Diana and Nicole discuss the advancements in AI tools for transcribing handwritten text. They highlight FamilySearch’s new full-text search feature that uses AI to transcribe deed and probate images, and they demonstrate how ChatGPT and Claude can quickly transcribe uploaded images, significantly reducing the time needed for such tasks. They explain that before May 13, 2024, file upload capabilities were exclusive to the paid version of ChatGPT, but the newly released...

RLP 316: DNA Confirms a Father for Clemsy Cline

Jul 29, 2024

In this episode, Diana and Nicole discuss Diana’s research identifying Clemsy (Cline) Weatherford’s origins despite record loss in northeastern Arkansas. She began with extensive documentary research, identifying Clemsy’s likely family: father John C. Cline, siblings Jacob, John, and Mahala, and half-siblings Jesse, Abner, Ann, and Amanda. She then incorporated DNA evidence, using tools like the Leeds Method and network graphs with Gephi software. Nicole clustered DNA matches for her cousin Lucretia, confirming Mahala (Cline) Shockley...

Using Airtable AI Tools to Evaluate DNA Matches

Jul 28, 2024

In the ever-evolving field of genetic genealogy, researchers are constantly seeking innovative ways to analyze and interpret DNA data. Airtable.com, a versatile database platform, is a flexible solution for logging DNA evidence in a genealogy research project. Airtable introduced AI tools for paid users earlier this year, and now, as of July 2024, AI tools are also available for free users! Update: the “generate text” Airtable AI feature is not for the free plan, but...