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: Cleaning-up OCR Text

Highlights: Genealogists can quickly generate a cleaner copy of an old newspaper article (not a perfect final draft) from a messy OCR text dump. A carefully crafted PROMPT found and fixed 49 out of 54 errors in an newspaper OCR article text. NO HALLUCINATIONS were introduced into the response. The AI was limited to processing … Continue reading AI Genealogy Use Case: Cleaning-up OCR Text →

AI and Genealogy: Using ChatGPT to Glean Info from Obits, Articles, and Announcements

How to Extract Information from Text Sources Using Artificial Intelligence Three examples: obituary, wedding announcement, newspaper article After my discoveries last week that ChatGPT (model GPT-4) can: (1) create, read, and correctly interpret GEDCOM files, (2) create narrative reports based only on GEDCOM data, (3) match narrative style to location and setting of text, and … Continue reading AI and Genealogy: Using ChatGPT to Glean Info from Obits, Articles, and Announcements →

Artificial Intelligence and Genealogy: Using ChatGPT to Write Stories from Family Trees, Create Trees from Stories

GPT-4: A Revolutionary Tool for Genealogists and Family Historians Introduction I had fun making a couple of discoveries this week while exploring the new GPT-4. As someone with lifelong interests in the worlds of linguistics, language, computers, programming, writing, storytelling, genealogy, and family history, it has been surreal to see these interests come together, creating … Continue reading Artificial Intelligence and Genealogy: Using ChatGPT to Write Stories from Family Trees, Create Trees from Stories →

Genealogical Evidence-based Writing, Organizational Brainstorming, and ChatGPT (OpenAI’s artificial intelligence)

In my SLIG 2023 class today in Evidenced-Based Writing (Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy), we were in a session on writing preparation and organization, so when we were given ten minutes to try an organizational exercise, I thought I'd see what ChatGPT could do in ten minutes. I've been working on a research project for … Continue reading Genealogical Evidence-based Writing, Organizational Brainstorming, and ChatGPT (OpenAI’s artificial intelligence) →