Today’s Limits Are Tomorrow’s Breakthroughs!
AI Genealogy is a fact-based research and reporting discipline. Yet the large language models powering today’s artificial intelligence (AI) systems are weak with facts though great with words. Their weakness with facts and research, however, hardly renders them useless to genealogists. Knowing the benefits and limits of artificial intelligence empowers genealogists today and helps us recognize breakthroughs tomorrow.
The use cases here illustrate how researchers are successfully using AI Genealogy today.
| Use Case | Researcher | Announcement | On | How-To |
| Clean OCR Text (AI-assisted genealogy guide demonstrates cleaning raw, poor OCR text using ChatGPT-Plus, improving readability while preserving original context and meaning.) | ||||
| Steve Little | AIGI | 22 Mar 2023 | How-to Guide #1 | |
| Story to Structured Data (Extract structured data from genealogically-rich texts like obituaries using ChatGPT, convert to tables, JSON, and CSV files, streamlining research and enhancing analysis.) | ||||
| Steve Little | AIGI | 20 Mar 2023 | How-to Guide #2 | |
| Text to GEDCOM (Use AI to extract genealogical data from narrative sources, convert it to GEDCOM files, streamlining research and improving organization, while considering accuracy and input quality limitations.) | ||||
| Steve Little | AIGI | 17 Mar 2023 | How-to Guide #3 | |
| Translation (Explore five ways to use ChatGPT for genealogy, from worst to best: asking about specific ancestors, literature references, historical context, research strategies, and translations. Potential for both helpful and misleading information.) | ||||
| Yvette Hoitink | Dutch Genealogy | 14 Apr 2023 | Five good and bad ways to use ChatGPT for genealogy | |
| Dictation to Data (Coach Carroll discusses using AI assistants for writing family stories, utilizing a Chrome extension to talk to ChatGPT, and seeking connections between ancestors and famous figures.) | ||||
| Carole McCulloch | Essential Genealogy | 12 April 2023 | Tutorial video | |
| Improving Computer-generated Family History Narratives (Tested ChatGPT to clean RootsMagic-generated Narrative Report; achieved efficient, accurate proofreading. Suggests potential AI integration in genealogy software as grammar tool.) | ||||
| Steve Little | AI-editing a raw RootsMagic Narrative Report | 9 March 2023 | Coming Next | |