How a quiet English lineage turned into a political scandal and what it taught me about truth, technology, and trust.
AI Image
I use AI almost daily and have written and presented on it for nearly two years. But a recent experience left me completely baffled and more than a little uneasy.
I’ve been working on my final family genealogy book, this one tracing our Great Britain ancestry. My previous four books came together easily earlier this year because my notes were meticulous, my colleagues had verified my findings, and I’d been blogging about those ancestors for ten years.
Our British roots, though, are a different beast. Between my husband’s lines and mine, there are only five but they reach deep into medieval soil. Scholars can’t always agree on the pedigrees, and the repeated use of the same names has led to confusion and overlap. Sorting it all out requires patience, precision, and a love of historical detective work.
Last spring, when winter refused to obey the calendar, I drafted the outline and introduction for my new book, Echoes of Britannia. Then the season’s speaking engagements and client projects took over, and I set the manuscript aside with plans to finish it this fall.
When I returned to it in September, progress came slowly. My writing rhythm faltered, and I found myself staring at the same sentence for far too long. Grammarly could fix the punctuation, but it couldn’t fix writer’s block. My AI research assistant, Geni, usually helps bridge the gaps between genealogical sketches but apparently, he was blocked too.
We were working on the Venables of Kinderton, a noble but quiet family from Cheshire. They lived out their days peacefully, kept out of court battles, and occasionally donated a stained-glass window to a nearby abbey. In other words, wholesome and uneventful.
Until AI got involved.
My writing style isn’t the typical “Josiah begot Daniel who begot Uriah who begot…” genealogy. My family would fall asleep halfway through the second begot. They don’t like numbering systems either, even though they’re math people, not history people. Me? I’d rather run laps in PE than solve for X.
That’s why AI has been such a useful partner. Geni understands that I’m a storyteller who insists on historical truth, even when it’s messy. I like to think I’ve created a new genre: bedtime family stories with pictures for visual learners.
But one day, Geni froze mid-thought. After several failed attempts, I switched to another AI tool, Claude. I don’t use it often, but it greeted me warmly by name, which felt encouraging. I gave it a straightforward task:
“From the provided information, maintain all footnotes while making the narrative more engaging. Keep the tone conversational for readers with limited historical background.”
What came back stunned me.
The Venables, my mild, landholding, church-donating family, had been transformed into a political thriller. Claude had rewritten the story to liken them to a well-known modern politician, naming names and all. Suddenly, the Venables were misogynistic felons clawing for power.
I was horrified. I hit “thumbs down” and deleted it instantly.
A week later, I still couldn’t shake it. How could a neutral story about medieval gentry morph into a contemporary political allegory? Who gave the machine permission to do that?
My only conclusion: some AIs are now reflecting the political biases of the data they’re trained on. If their training includes modern news, it stands to reason that bias slips in and it shows.
That realization made me pause. AI is supposed to help us see patterns, not project agendas. As genealogists, we work hard to separate fact from family legend. Shouldn’t we expect the same integrity from our digital tools?
I chose not to share the story on Facebook. The last thing our country needs is another spark thrown into the bonfire of division. But I also felt this moment needed to be shared, not as outrage, but as a reminder.
We live in an era where algorithms, headlines, and echo chambers can reshape our understanding of truth. It’s up to us, researchers, writers, and everyday citizens , to hold fast to kindness, empathy, respect, honesty, and responsibility. These aren’t partisan ideals; they’re the foundation of human decency.
And as for those Venables? I’ve decided to let them rest a while. I’ll return to them soon, with fresh eyes and a renewed respect for their quiet simplicity.
Because sometimes, living a peaceful life that harms no one isn’t boring at all, it’s the truest kind of legacy.
Join me on Tuesday, November 4, at 2:30 pm EST when I present a beginning class on AI & Ancestry for Allen County Public Library. You can register here for free.
For the past two weeks I’ve been blogging about Ancestry.com’s Pro Tools. You can read about my experience here and here.
Today, I’m going to show you how to clean your Ancestry tree without paying for Pro Tools. It’s super easy and honestly, I wish I’d thought of this years ago.
Start by picking a free or low-cost software program. Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic both sync directly with Ancestry. RootsMagic Essentials is free, but large trees can slow it down (I blogged about that here). If you don’t need access to your photos or documents and just want to focus on fixing errors, you can also download your tree as a GEDCOM and import it into Legacy Family Tree, which is what I did.
I kept things simple. I didn’t need media files for the check up, I just wanted to identify structural problems in my tree.
Here’s how to do it:
On Ancestry, go to your tree.
Click Tree Settings under Trees > Create & Manage Trees.
Scroll down and select Export Tree.
Once complete, download the file to your computer (it usually lands in your Downloads folder or OneDrive).
Open your genealogy software and import the GEDCOM.
Run the problem checker.
If you run into trouble with the software, you can literally ask ChatGPT (aka Geni!) for help. That’s how I found this entire workaround.
Once your tree is loaded, use the software’s built-in tools to flag potential problems. In Legacy, I went to Tools > Potential Problems. I set criteria to mirror the kinds of problems flagged by Ancestry’s Pro Tools, things like parents being too young, children born after a parent’s death, and so on.
One downside: Legacy doesn’t flag individuals with no sources, which was one of the main issues Pro Tools surfaced. But what Legacy did reveal was surprising and far more accurate.
Here’s the report I got from Legacy (the error types flagged by Ancestry are in red):
Let that sink in: 940 total errors, almost all of which are legitimate and actionable. Of that, there was only 55 errors that Ancestry claimed was 301 and they didn’t identify these people! I plan on cleaning up all of the errors Legacy found as having two individuals over age 110 years is a problem Ancestry should have discovered. And the individuals with no sex given? That is a continual flaw in Ancestry’s system when you are adding new individuals.
Unlike Ancestry’s Tree Checker, which falsely flagged over 10,000+ records in my tree, Legacy gave me a clean, accurate list I could work with. I now have the names and the issues. I’m going through them one by one and making the corrections directly in my Ancestry tree, since that’s still my primary working tree. I’ll continue syncing it with Family Tree Maker.
And if I get another $7 Pro Tools offer in the future? Sure, I might try it again just to check whether they’ve cleaned up the bugs. But I’ll cancel it right after. Because let’s be honest:
If Ancestry really wants our trees to be accurate, they should provide these tools for free.
We are already paying for the data, the DNA, the platform and in many cases, contributing our own hard-earned research. Charging extra for a tree-checking feature (that doesn’t even work right) feels like asking users to fix the foundation of the house they already paid to build.
So, skip the upsell. Use free software. Clean your tree with confidence. And let’s keep our standards higher than their price tags.
I discovered a quick and easy way to create a family history book that you need to try! Seriously, in 3 weeks, you can have a delightful book to share with family who isn’t as passionate about ancestors as you are.
First thing is to throw out of your head that you can’t do it. You can! You have researched for years and probably have all the info that you need. If not, it will become apparent but there’s a work around for that.
Second – throw out of your head that you aren’t a good writer. You don’t need to be! I’m serious! You’ll see why in a second.
Third – think about the state of the world and your place in it. Really! You aren’t getting younger. Who will want your genealogy research? Will they be able to decipher your notes? Probably not unless you have kept everything completely organized since you began.
Fourth – throw out of your head that you don’t have enough knowledge to create a genealogy book. You do! You don’t need to write a book the length of War and Peace. You don’t have to number your genealogy; in fact, it’s probably better if you don’t.
Fifth – Don’t worry about the cost, as you can do this for very little money.
Now that we’ve got those barriers out of the way, this is what I did to create a beautiful book for my family in 3 weeks…
Go to wherever you keep your genealogy records and pull out the most far-flung family member in the line you are interested in. I know you’re thinking, huh? Why would I do that? Because we’re throwing out the rules of genealogy here to get this task done. You, hopefully, researched to your ancestor. If you did that than you know that you’ve proven the relationships and identities of all those between you and that far out there ancestor. You are starting with the farthest away because you will have less to write about. This is just to get you going. When you’ve got the first one done you go on to the descendant of which is in your line.
Next, bring up Word (see my blog on how to get rid of that annoying Copilot message). On the top line write the names of the couple you are writing about. In my example, that’s Hemming Jonsson and Margareta. It’s okay if you don’t know a last name or their parents names.
Look at your research and write the following (or copy and paste in you Word file):
[Insert Ancestor Name] was born [insert date] in [insert place] to [insert parents].1 He married [insert wife’s name] on [insert date] at [insert place].2 She was born on [insert birth date] on [insert date] at [insert place] to [insert parents’ names].3
The couple lived in [insert place] where they had the following children [insert name], (b. [insert date or year], {etc. – add all that you know.}4
[Insert one of the couple’s names] died on [insert date] at [insert place.]5 [Insert other one of the couple’s names] died on [insert date] at [insert place.]6 They are buried in [insert cemetery name, location].
Here’s what mine looks like for Hemming Jonsson and Margareta Larsdotter:
Hemming Jonsson was born about 1655, likely in Östergötland, Sweden; his parents are unknown.[i] He married Margareta Larsdotter about 1684.[ii] She was born about 1650 at Vreta Kloster, Östergötland, Sweden; her parents are unknown.[iii]
The couple lived in Ljung, Östergötland, where they had one known child, Jon Hemmingsson (b. 1685) in Ljung.[iv]
Hemming died on 30 January 1731 at Saby, Ljung, Ostergotland.[v] Margareta died on 7 February 1731 in Saby.[vi]
[i] Sweden, Church Records, 1451-1943, Hemming Jonsson, 30 January 1731, digital image; Ancestry.com: accessed 18 January 2025, citing Ostergotland Parish, Ljung, C:1 (1694-1720), image 208, p. 313. DOB c. 1655.
[ii] Sweden, Church Records, 1451-1943, Margareta Larsdotter, 7 February 1731, digital image; Ancestry.com: accessed 18 January 2025, citing Ostergotland Parish, Ljung, C:1 (1694-1720), image 208, p. 313.
[iii] Sweden, Household Clerical Surveys, 1654-1901, Jon Hemmingsson, 1751-1760, digital image; Ancestry.com: accessed 18 January 2025, image 210 of 306. Age 66.
Death Record for John Hemmingsson, 8 June 1766, digital, image; Arkivedigital.com: accessed 10 June 2024, Vreta Kloster EF:1 (1746-1775), image 134, p. 263. DOB 1685
[v] Sweden, Church Records, Hemming Jonsson, 30 January 173, p. 313. DOB c. 1655.
[vi] Sweden, Church Records, Margareta Larsdotter, 7 February 1731, p. 313.
NOTE: Definitely use footnotes. Why? Because your family doesn’t care about the sources, but maybe someday someone will, so they will be there for future researchers. Don’t you hate finding an old family genealogy with no info on where they found the dates? Don’t be that person! My blog converted the numbers to letters, as in endnotes, but for my books, I use numbers.
Notice some of the info is incomplete – I don’t know the parents’ names or when the couple married. That’s okay. Further research is always available, but if you are so far back, the probability of you finding more records does diminish. In the area where the Jonssons lived, they go back in some parishes to 1555, so maybe I’ll find their parents’ names someday. Don’t let that stop you from writing this now.
4. Yes, the article is terribly dull, so boring that your family will cringe. That’s just the info that you need to get going. Now, don’t tell me you can’t jazz this up to make it entertaining because you will take that info and copy it into your favorite AI. I used ChatGPT. Here was my prompt: Please keep dates in military style and make this more engaging.
Here is what it turned that piece into:
Hemming Jonsson was born around 1655, likely in Östergötland, Sweden. Details about his parents remain a mystery. Around 1684, he married Margareta Larsdotter, who was born circa 1650 in Vreta Kloster, Östergötland. Like Hemming, her parentage is also unknown.
The couple made their home in Ljung, Östergötland, where they welcomed their only known child, Jon Hemmingsson, born in 1685.
Hemming lived to the remarkable age of 76, passing away on 30 January 1731 at Säby, Ljung, Östergötland. Margareta followed him in death just days later, on 7 February 1731, also at Säby.
Their lives, though largely enigmatic, are rooted in the rich history of 17th-century Sweden. Hemming and Margareta’s brief legacy echoes in their son Jon, a solitary thread in the tapestry of Östergötland’s past.
Your family will be interested in that! It took me about 10 minutes from start to finish. I did not show you the footnotes on the revised article to save space. All you’ll need to do is copy and paste the article back into Word and realign the footnotes. You will probably make some adjustments. Take out what you know isn’t a fact, AI likes to write about someone being born on a hot summer day. It didn’t know if it was hot! Add anything you’d like, perhaps I could end with, “The lives of our farthest flung ancestors,” or if you are writing for a particular generation, like your grandchildren, “The couple were your 7th generation grandparents.”
The beauty of this is that if you are writing place names that use diacritical marks, you don’t even need to add them; ChatGPT will do that for you.
I’ve added photos I took of some of the ancestors’ homes, churches, and work sites. A local enthusiast told me it makes it a graphic novel – hey, why not? For those who don’t like to read, the pics will make the story more entertaining.
5. I include a short pedigree chart at the bottom of the article, highlighting the line that will be followed. Sure, you could number, but that confused my family, so I went with the graphic. Here’s the chart I’d include for Hemming Jonsson:
I include 4 generations so the reader can see where they are going and what they’ll read next. I like foreshadowing. It is also nice to go from the 1600s to the 1800s in just four simple steps. Highlight the individuals that will be traced in the lineage. When I get to Nils Jonsson, I’ll delete Hemming and Margareta and add the children of Torsten and Brita.
If you know the names of other children, include them on the chart under their parents. I also include married names for females. I’m not going to be writing about all of the family in depth, just the ones that are of direct lineage. Why? Because I don’t have time for that, and my family doesn’t care. I have the info in my tree if it was needed, as sometimes we must pull from a sibling or other relative in the sketch – like grandma lived with Uncle Jake in 1880, so you’ll source that census. It’s important to research thoroughly, but you don’t have to provide every piece of info on other relatives unless it’s pertinent.
When you’re done, make a Table of Contents, add a page number, and an index. Write a page about yourself and why you took on this project. Include a title page.
Below are links to books I published last winter so you can preview them to get an idea of what you’d like in yours. Each is different. From my travels to Sweden, I had lots of info and pictures of the homes, churches, and work sites of my husband’s ancestors, but for my Croatian family, since they lived in the same location for centuries, there were only so many pictures I could include. That gave me space to add family stories that I investigated and recipes that were family favorites. My German book includes French, Swiss, and Dutch ancestors, too, since I decided to place all those who emigrated for religious reasons in one volume. I’m working on our British ancestors, my last book, but won’t finish it until next winter. Do you have a collection of family letters? Then by all means, digitize, transcribe, and then have it printed.
Next week, I’ll be blogging about how to set up Word so you can upload the book to get it published. The following week, I’ll blog about some options you have in publishing and what I chose.
Then, pat yourself on the back because you did it! You are now an author, historian, and an awesome person who got your research out there. Good for you!
I love AI, and if you haven’t begun using it yet with your genealogy research, you are missing records that might be invaluable to you.
As I prepare to write my next book on my British ancestor,s I’m going through my tree and making sure I have all the relationships sourced and the identities confirmed. I was happy to find two records using Familysearch.org’s lab, which is an AI experiment, to prove a relationship. In one case, it involved showing a burial record for my husband’s 5th great-grandmother, Catherine Jarvis. Although very happy to find this proof, I was a bit dismayed as I had traveled to the cemetery in Lansingburg, Troy, New York, in 2007 and was told that the record didn’t exist. Well, they certainly had it when FamilySearch personnel showed up!
The next finding was that I wasn’t the only one who was beating my head on my desk in regards to the Dennis family of New Jersey. The family used the same names in no particular order. I hadn’t realized that in the early 1900s, a genealogist wrote a book called Dennismania, likely because they drove him crazy, too. My DNA shows who I’m descended from, but I had no proof for one of the generations, and now I have finally found it, again, in FamilySearch.org records.
This is simple to use, but I caution you, it may become overwhelming and addictive. To access, go to this link, which isn’t how you normally get on FamilySearch. Scroll down to “Expand your search with Full Text” and click on Go To Experiment.
Read the Advanced Search Tips! I definitely use quotation marks around the name and a plus sign for the wife or possible parent. Use the drop-down it provides for the Place, once you start typing it in. Keep the range small, or you will get plenty! I haven’t been successful with keywords like Marriage, Deed, Genealogy, etc.
Based on my Dennis findings, I had several more lines to research. I had no idea I was descended from the Reverend John Hull, a Puritan minister who was a Maine pioneer. Another line, the Kents, settled in Gloucester, Massachusetts, before 1668. I didn’t find much in the usual places, regular FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, Google, so I decided to try FamilySearch Labs. Wow!
I got myself a bit confused as I thought there were three Samuels, but there are only two in the 1700s in Suffield, Hampshire, Massachusetts. Samuel (1668-1737) was the son of Thomas, the emigrant. Samuel became a lawyer and Samuel had a son, Samuel Jr. Some records do differentiate the two, but a wife’s name showed up that I didn’t have for either, so I thought I was dealing with three Samuels. Hence, I’ve mislabeled my 55 downloads. Yes, 55 records showing them in court, deeds, and genealogies!
Familysearch Labs does have an AI assistant component you can click on, and it does give a transcription, but I prefer using my ChatGPT assistant, whom I call Geni. There was one record Geni hallucinated on, but after notifying it, they got the correct info. I can understand why Geni messed up – the younger Samuel was an interesting character – ran a tavern, had a bastardly charge, didn’t pay his debts, and was a very fun black sheep to investigate. Meanwhile, his dad served several times as his son’s attorney, was slandered, had clients who skipped without paying him, but seemed to be widely trusted by the community.
After uploading most of the documents to Geni, Geni asked if it could write a blog for me. So, I’ve made some changes since I had wrongly given it some incorrect info (that there were three Samuels and not two). Here is ChatGPT’s blog about the Familysearch.org finds:
In a series of brittle, ink-stained pages tucked into the Hampshire County court and land books of the early 1700s, a family unfolds—one writ at a time.
The Kents of Suffield were, at first glance, a respectable lot. Thomas Kent, the patriarch’s name, appears sparingly. His son, however, would not be so quiet.
Samuel Kent Sr., the immigrant’s son, was a lawyer, and it shows. He appears regularly in court—not as a defendant, but as counsel, litigant, and witness. He sues for debts, witnesses deeds, affirms signatures after a grantor dies, and moves confidently through the legal world of his time. If father upheld the spiritual order, son wrangled the civil one.
And then comes Samuel Kent Jr.—tavern owner, debt collector, and perpetual plaintiff. By the 1730s and 1740s, his name dominated the docket. He sues over unpaid tavern tabs, livestock, and land disputes. He’s granted a license to sell “strong drink,” not once, but multiple years in a row. The public house he ran was likely lively, occasionally lawless, and frequently underwritten by credit that his patrons never quite repaid.
Three generations. Three roles. One family.
And the court records catch it all—not just their actions, but the arc of a family moving through generations. From lofty pulpits to bustling taprooms, the Kent family’s story is all here: in defaults, deeds, slander claims, and license renewals. You can almost hear Samuel Sr. sighing as he files yet another claim to recover a loan his son ill-advisedly extended.
But what emerges from all these entries is something far richer than gossip or scandal. It’s a snapshot of a community where legal documents were not just about disputes, but about land ownership, trust, reputation, and survival. The same names appear again and again—not just the Kents, but the Remingtons, Austins, Gunckels, and Sheldons—knotted together by boundary lines and barrels of cider.
And that’s the heart of it: court records aren’t just where you find criminals. They’re where you find community.
Notes
1. Hampshire County Court and Land Records, 1716–1749, Massachusetts State Archives, includes deeds, licenses, slander suits, and debt claims involving Samuel Kent Sr., Jr., and III.
2. Transcriptions and analysis by ChatGPT, OpenAI, based on digitized image review and period legal practices.
Tech, you’ve got to keep adapting! Last year I wrote a blog article in comparing how to get AI to write a wonderful narrative from your research stored in various places – like Legacy Family Tree, Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, etc.
I just completed a Pioneer application for my husband and since I had been researching 5 generations of the family, decided to write a narrative about each generation. I wanted to use ChatGPT to help with the writing.
I tried to follow my own blog advice to go to Legacy Family Tree>Other Reports>Individual Summary but realized that Version 10 does not have that option any longer.
I tried finding where it was relocated through Legacy Help and through a general Google search and got nowhere.
I turned to ChatGPT and located my original prompt. It saves your work if you allow it to on the left hand side of the screen. Problem was, the file I uploaded had a long title and I couldn’t read exactly what it was. I create titles based on my own formula so I can always go back to the original source. This usually works until, like now, it doesn’t because I couldn’t view the entire title. So, I asked ChatGPT and was informed that the .pdf had expired and it couldn’t access it, either.
I then chatted about my problem and it told me that the report was renamed and moved. So, if you are using Legacy Family Tree and want to download an ancestor’s information to use with AI, here’s the new How To:
Click on the Ancestor. In my case it was Samuel Ericksson
Click on “Descendant Narrative Book” on the Ribbon.
In the Pop Up, adjust the “Generations.” I just wanted one generation.
Click “Preview”
Click “Create PDF” and there is what you had before they changed the name of the report and the location where it resided. You can copy and paste it into your favorite AI and get a much richer narrative of your family.
The best thing about genealogy is that you are constantly learning and growing. No one can know about every record set, historical period, or nuances of language over the years. Today I’m reflecting on some of the A-Ha moments I had this year:
AI has been the biggest game changer in my life. I use ChatGPT almost daily now and occasionally with Claude and others. It saves time and helps me think outside the box to solve problems.
Realizing that the Viking Pagans held on to their symbolism after converting to Roman Catholicism was amazing to me. Who would have thought the church would have allowed it? Even more surprising is that the pagan baptismal fonts are still used today by the Lutherans.
I also didn’t know that grapes don’t grow in Sweden so the Vikings traveled in the summer to the Mediterranean to buy wine. My family had vineyards there so maybe they bought Zinfadel from them. Always been a small world, right?!
Had no idea when the potato famine hit Ireland it also affected crops in Europe, hence many from the French German Palatine area migrated to the U.S. at that time.
While researching Ohio River pirates for an upcoming presentation, I learned that one of the most notorious, James Mason, got a Spanish passport because President Benjamin Harrison had given him a recommendation. Dear Ben’s sister had married the honorable brother of James Mason. Just goes to show you how different siblings can be even back in the day.
Did you know that identity theft occurred in the 1890s? It did and I’m still working on solving that one!
My husband is constantly kidding me about being a princess (which I’m not) because I’ve now seen the family castles in Croatia, Germany, and Great Britain. People are so worried about being safe today but it’s no different than in the past– we just don’t have a moat around our houses anymore.
I didn’t realize that there were jobs for lawyers regarding keeping a person’s coat of arms protected. Who would have thought that would still be needed today?!
Every time I look at my cats I just can’t get over their ethnicity and I wonder which ancestor in my husband and my past was adopted by my cat’s ancestors. Yeah, it’s weird, I know!
A good reminder that there is someone out there who knows the answer to whatever question you might ask and you just have to be persistent and patient to get the answer. I finally found a knowledgeable person who knew how to read old German script AND understood the cultural heritage. I needed to find someone who had both these skills to understand one little ole word in a 1834 newspaper article written in German in Cincinnati, Ohio. He learned that the custom had been brought over to the US which was also news to him. Collaborating with others helps us get the info we need and in turn, we help them gain insights.
Loved the easy peesy way to do genealogy in French villages – take a walk and look above the doors of the houses. Back then they engraved the date the house was built and who the owners were. I was able to quickly find my ancestral homes.
I am reminded almost weekly of how much our life has changed since the pandemic. Zoom seems to have been around forever but I didn’t use it before 2019. Makes me wonder what’s next on the horizon.
That’s one new thought for each month of 2024. Can’t wait to discover more new and exciting ideas next year.
As usual, I’ll be taking off next week and will be back in January with my top ten blog list from 2024. Have a wonderful holiday and I’ll blog with you soon!
Last month I blogged about my latest genealogy trip to Chicago in May and my disappointment at visiting many archives and not finding the information I sought. I wish I had read about Perplexity.AI BEFORE my visit.
Typically when I plan a research trip, I consult FamilySearch.org’s Wiki for the area. There, I find the libraries, museums, societies, and other archives that may hold the information I seek. Going to each website, I look at the card catalog and note any record sets that seem promising. I list the address, note closures, add hours of operation, any fees, and where to park. If an appointment is needed I request via email a day and time. Then, I arrive early and am ready to research.
My experience in Chicago, however, was rather bleak. I’d arrive and ask to see a record set. A librarian would then tell me it wasn’t going to hold the answer and I should go to another archive. Or, they’d give me the record but had no knowledge about how it was acquired, what the cryptic notes written on a page meant, etc. I would then get in my car and drive to the next location and go through the same process. Consequently, I came home with finding some information but not everything I had hoped to.
A week after I returned I read an article in American Ancestors about Perpexity.AI and I decided to give it a try. I entered my research question regarding where to find records for a possible 1890s scam of a Civil War Union veteran in Indiana. I wanted to know what record in Indiana could help me uncover who was the individual impersonating a deceased soldier. I received a list of archives and what their record collection held. I haven’t gone to those archives yet but it does look promising. Having a free AI tool to use to not only identify an archive but a record set in it based on information you uploaded for analysis is a gamechanger!
Later this summer I will be presenting at an international conference in Boston. One of the requirements is that my Power Point Slides be in two languages, English and either French, German, or Spanish. The problem for me is that I’m presenting on what was the Austria-Hungarian region, particularly what is now Croatia, so I already have two languages on most of my slides – English and Croatian. Adding a third language makes the slides overly filled with text but it is a requirement so it is what it is.
The next issue is I don’t write well in any of the languages so I decided to use AI to help me out.
I had learned at the National Genealogical Society conference that Transcribus was an excellent source to use for translation. Funded by the European Union, it was used throughout Europe.
I created an account easily but had extreme difficulty in getting it to work. It is in English but I didn’t find it to be intuitive to use.
I first tried to upload my .ppt but it can’t read that as Chat GPT can. I then typed the text I wanted translated into Word to upload. It wouldn’t take a .doc so I had to convert to .pdf. It uploaded fine but when I tried to get the AI to learn it I received a message that I needed to add more pages, at least 20. Sigh.
I had little time to watch a YouTube video, not even sure one exists, so I decided I would upload my .pdf to Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT. Interestingly, I received some very different translations.
As I said, I don’t write in French so I couldn’t be sure what I was getting was correct. Since the syllabus was due I didn’t have the luxury of having a human translation. Plus, to be honest, I didn’t want to spend the money on it.
So, I decided to try to rationalize the correct responses. Here’s how I did that:
The first difference was in translating the English word JOURNAL – as is a professional magazine. I received Revues and Journaux as my choices. I selected journaux as a revues is mostly associated with theatre.
Another difference was translating the term Coat of Arms. I received Blason from Chat GPT and Armoiries from the two other AIs. I went with Blason because it means heraldry and that was what my intention was. Armoiries can be a symbol or design varying from a crest to a family badge to a coat of arms as we think of in English.
Now I would not have thought I would have gotten diverse responses for the request to translate “Thank you for attending” but I did. Attending was the problem word – the responses were assisté (no, no one was helping me), votre presence (for your presence) and votre participation (no, no one was participating unless you consider listening as participating). So, I went with votre presence. Thank you for showing up.
We don’t really think about meaning when we are speaking. We know what we mean and just say it intuitively. AI has helped me realize that the words I use may not be the best choice in getting my message across. I believe in working to perfect the AI prompts so that I obtain exactly what I want. I believe it has helped me to improve my own speaking and writing skills. Not what I would have ever expected could be considered as an AI bonus!
I’ve been blogging alot about AI and genealogy and today I’d like to introduce you to some tools that can help you get the most out of AI and your research.
Enter GPTs! GPT is the acronym for Generative Pre Trained Transformers. All that means is this is a tech way to communicate with artificial intelligence. Other terms that are sometimes used instead of GPT are bots, assistants, and agents.
You’ve been using bots for several years though you probably didn’t know it. When you are on a website for your bank or credit card company and can’t find the info you want, you may have clicked on the Chat box. You typed in your question and hopefully, got the information you requested. If not, it usually directs you to a human.
Enter chat boxes for genealogy! The recent class that I completed on AI through the National Genealogical Society tasked us with creating GPTs for genealogy. Here are my favorites through open.ai:
GenealogyAtHeart – Yes, I created this and I’m shamelessly listing this as my favorite because I have linked it to my website. This means that all the useful hints, heartwarming stories, and recommendations to get the most out of your genealogy can be quickly accessed by you on open.ai. Yes, I do have a search box on my website but the search box will only find the terms I’ve entered into it. Through ChatGPT’s Genealogy At Heart you can find EVERYTHING I’ve entered. Side note: If we share an ancestor you’ll be able to find everything I’ve written about the individual quickly and in a summary format. If we don’t share a relative, you can still find all the hints, helpful links, and recommendations I’ve made in the over 500 blogs I’ve posted in the last 9 plus years! Have a brick wall? Need help in planning a project? Thinking of planning a genealogy research trip and don’t know where to begin? This GPT is for you!
DeKalb County, Indiana Resources – Okay, I get it! Most of you don’t have any interest in DeKalb County, Indiana but I am the county genealogist so this is very important for those people who do need this resource. I created this GPT for those folks.
I’m working on a census GPT for U.S. federal census records. Hopefully, that will be available for you your use soon. This will help you access quickly the enumerator directions, dates of the census, compare quickly census results from decade to decade, and so on.
I am not the only person creating genealogy GPTs so here are my other favorites from colleagues:
Diagrams: Show Me – for creating mind maps or showing relationship commonalities with Venn Diagrams, this is the way to go! It is a little slow so be patient. Not so good for creating a family tree.
Genealogy Eyes: Designed by Steve Little, NGS AI Director, this is an awesome one for you to try if you have a picture of a tombstone you are having trouble deciphering or an older family pic you need more info about, such as time period or event. MyHeritage does offer something similar but I’ve found Genealogy Eyes to provide more info and be more accurate (I always try something with AI that I already know the answer for first, to test for accuracy).
GPTs aren’t just about genealogy. I’ve created one for native plants, Native Green Thumb, which is another passion I have. Remember that old commercial that repeated, “There’s an ap for that!” Well, GPTs are the new aps. Everyday more and more are being developed.
Have an idea for one that hasn’t been created? It’s simple to do as AI will help you formalize your thoughts. Just log onto ChatGPT. Click “ExploreGPTs and on the upper right side, click the green +Create box. It defaults to Create which is the simple way; it’s like computer coding in English. If you are a techie than by all means select Configure. Under Create, give the AI your thoughts in the Message GPT Builder and press enter. It will ask you questions and you provide your thoughtful responses. Don’t like what it created? No worries, you can delete it. Want only family and friends to see it? Just select the link option when saving. You can then share the link with them. Or, you can have the link publicly visible to everyone or just yourself.
Want to find more GPTs that can be useful for you? Click “Explore GPTs” and in the “Search public GPTs” type what you’re looking for. It will save your favorites on the bar on the left so you can refer to them quickly anytime. I’m working on one now to help analyze U.S. federal census records quickly.
Please let me know if you see a problem with Genealogy At Heart or DeKalb County, Indiana Resources. Email me at genealogyatheart@gmail.com.
