2024 was the year the genealogy community embraced artificial intelligence as a useful tool for our work as genealogists and family historians. Nicole and I spent many hours learning and teaching about incorporating AI into our research flow. For this final blog post of the year, it’s only fitting that we look back at where we’ve come. Since we’ve written many blog posts and recorded many podcasts on AI, I’m providing a curated list. If...
As researchers, we often need to reference past research plans, reports, logs, documents, and locality guides. If you’ve done multiple phases for the same research question, you will have a lot of data to use moving forward. What if you had an AI assistant that could help you pull out specific information from your research and use it in various ways? If this sounds appealing, you can check out Projects on Claude.ai by Anthropic. Like...
When starting the Accreditation process through the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen), the first step is to decide on a regional focus and then find four connecting generations to research for the Four-Generation Project. You’ll need to analyze your pedigree to find suitable candidates. Artificial Intelligence can be a valuable tool in this process, helping to overcome common challenges and providing new perspectives on your family tree data. Challenges with Pedigree...
With the holidays approaching, it’s a great time to consider gathering family stories. Although it can seem daunting to start an interview project, a few simple steps will get you on your way. With the new advances in artificial intelligence, we can streamline and personalize the interview process. AI can then help us organize and write the stories. Consider asking a large language model like ChatGPT or Claude for ideas during each step of the...
Tax research involves a lot of data – land, property, associates, amount of tax paid, and more. You may be working with a run of tax lists for several years and dealing with several individuals in those tax lists. Once you’ve carefully extracted the data, the next challenge is analyzing it. I recently wrote about customizing an Airtable research log for tax research to match the headings in the Dallas County, Texas, rolls from 1847...
As genealogists, we constantly seek ways to enhance our research and streamline our writing process. Writing a research report can seem overwhelming, so using artificial intelligence (AI) tools can help us overcome writer’s block. This is the final blog post in my series on how I used AI for a complete project about Isabella Weatherford. Previously, I wrote about writing the objective, transcribing a lengthy pension document for the timeline, making a locality guide, creating...
As genealogists, we know the importance of keeping detailed research logs. Today, I’m excited to share insights from my recent project on Isabella Weatherford, demonstrating how I used both traditional methods and AI assistance to log my research effectively. In previous blog posts, I shared how I used Artificial Intelligence to help me form a research objective, transcribe and organize a 57-page pension file for the timeline, make a locality guide for Dallas County,...
As genealogists, we often get excited about diving into records and searching for clues about our ancestors. However, taking the time to create a solid research plan can make our efforts much more productive. In this post, we’ll explore the elements of effective research planning and how artificial intelligence (AI) tools can assist in the process. Why Research Planning Matters Research planning helps us: Stay focused on our research objective Pick up where we left...
Welcome back to our “Research Like a Pro with AI” series! In this blog post. I’ll explore how artificial intelligence can enhance our locality research process. Using examples from my ongoing Isabella Weatherford project, I’ll demonstrate how AI helped create a comprehensive locality guide for Dallas County, Texas, in the 1870s. Why Locality Guides Matter Before diving into the AI-assisted process, let’s remind ourselves why locality guides are crucial: They provide historical context for our...
Welcome back to my series on Isabella Weatherford! In part one, I used AI to explore research questions and write the research objective: The objective of this research phase is to examine the economic and social conditions in Dallas County, Texas, in the early 1870s and their influence on Isabella D Weatherford’s life and marriage prospects. Isabella was born on 4 Mar 1858 in Missouri; she first married John H. Carpenter on 16 Jan 1874...
