A (Possible) Future of A.I. Genealogy Research: Open Archives and ChatGPT

UPDATE: Shortly after sharing this post, Bob Coret, the creator of the "Open Archives" plugin (and a founder of the site), got in touch. The "Open Source" plugin in more impressive than my cursory exploration revealed. The plugin is more thoroughly documented at his blog post, which is linked at bottom along with further observations. … Continue reading A (Possible) Future of A.I. Genealogy Research: Open Archives and ChatGPT

Using ChatGPT Plugins for Genealogy

What they are, where to get them, why use them, and how to use them: Using the AskYourPDF plugin as an in-depth example I. Introduction: Plugins: What, why, where, & how [NOTE: For clarification: the plugin features discussed in this post require a ChatGPT Plus subscription. At $20/month, you gain access not just to GPT-4 … Continue reading Using ChatGPT Plugins for Genealogy

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

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