Author: Steve Little

Steve Little is the AI Program Director for the National Genealogical Society and the founder of AI Genealogy Insights. I trace my deep roots to one Appalachian county, where, by 1820, all 32 of my 3rd-great-grandparents had settled—many even earlier than that. In fact, 60 of my most recent ancestors were born, lived, and died there, in Ashe County, NC. My passion lies in AI & genetic genealogy: with a keen interest in endogamy, pedigree collapse, and the art of deciphering multiple relationships through DNA segment triangulation, and an insatiable curiosity to explore beneficial uses and current limits of artificial intelligence in genealogy. Beyond genealogy, I wear many hats: I'm a husband and a dad, a Methodist pastor, and a Virginian. My hobbies span from bird watching and sky gazing to chess and film. Additionally, I'm an avid reader, writer, photographer, and regex script hacker.

AI Genealogy Use Case Guide: How-to Get from Story to Structured Data, 2: Create GEDCOM (family tree) files from obits, articles, & announcements

Go directly to the step-by-step walk-through. This detailed how-to is a follow-up to the use case announcement from March 17, 2023 titled “Using ChatGPT to Write Stories from Family Trees, Create Trees from Stories“. This is Use Case Guide #3 and builds upon: Use Case Guide #1: How to Clean Raw and Poor OCR Text, … Continue reading AI Genealogy Use Case Guide: How-to Get from Story to Structured Data, 2: Create GEDCOM (family tree) files from obits, articles, & announcements →

AI Genealogy Use Case Guide: How-to Get from Story to Structured Data, 1: from Text to Table Data, from Stories to CSV files

Go directly to the step-by-step walk-through. This detailed how-to is a follow-up to the use case announcement from March 22, 2023 titled "Using ChatGPT to Glean Info from Obits, Articles, and Announcements". This is Use Case Guide #2 and builds upon Use Case Guide #1: How to Clean Raw and Poor OCR Text. This Use … Continue reading AI Genealogy Use Case Guide: How-to Get from Story to Structured Data, 1: from Text to Table Data, from Stories to CSV files →

AI Genealogy Use Case Guide: How to Clean Raw and Poor OCR Text

Go directly to the step-by-step walk-through. This detailed how-to is a follow-up to the use case announcement from March 22, 2023 titled "AI Genealogy Use Case: Cleaning-up OCR Text" This preliminary step prepares the AI Genealogist for other valid use cases today; cleaning your OCR text help eliminate "garbage in, garbage out" information processing. Introduction: … Continue reading AI Genealogy Use Case Guide: How to Clean Raw and Poor OCR Text →

Genealogy and Artificial Intelligence: Falling Off the Dunning-Kruger Cliff

What do we call the disappointment that first-time users feel when AI tools fail their expectations? I know I got burned last year and I had my own WTF moment. I certainly don’t blame folks for feeling misled. For SO many reasons. The most harmful may be the hype that likely draws many first-time users–that … Continue reading Genealogy and Artificial Intelligence: Falling Off the Dunning-Kruger Cliff →

Hello world!

Welcome to AI Genealogy Insights, where we explore how artificial intelligence can assist genealogists and family history researchers, with a particular focus on: discovering the advantages and limitations of AI, and how genealogists can apply this knowledge. As someone with training and a background in applied linguistics (natural language processing and computation linguistics--foundations of artificial … Continue reading Hello world! →

AI Genealogy: Text to GEDCOMs: Surprises, Cautions, Discoveries

I had an opportunity today to experiment a bit more with using artificial intelligence to create family trees (GEDCOM files) from narrative texts. My goal was to see how much I could limit the AI's creativity to insert information into the GEDCOM file that wasn't in my prompt. (Earlier, I had discovered two constraints that … Continue reading AI Genealogy: Text to GEDCOMs: Surprises, Cautions, Discoveries →

AI Genealogy: Value of Trusted Critics, Skeptics

I've been an enthusiastic explorer of artificial intelligence-assisted genealogy for the past several months. My 35-plus year interests in linguistics and language, computers and programming, and genealogy and family history converged in November 2022 with the release by OpenAI of ChatGPT to create new possibilities like a supernova creates new elements such as gold, silver, … Continue reading AI Genealogy: Value of Trusted Critics, Skeptics →

AI Genealogy Tip: Don’t Get Burned by Spicy Autocomplete

I enjoyed and recommend yesterday's livestream "Genealogy & AI: Unlocking Family Secrets" by FindMyPast, featuring Jen Baldwin interviewing Blaine Bettinger. The discussion delved into the potential of AI and chatbots like ChatGPT in the field of genealogy. However, as with any powerful tool, there are potential pitfalls that genealogists should be aware of when using … Continue reading AI Genealogy Tip: Don’t Get Burned by Spicy Autocomplete →