AI
Artificial intelligence has become a genuine part of my research toolkit — not as a replacement for primary sources, but as an assistant for the surrounding work: organizing findings, drafting citations, transcribing difficult handwriting, and thinking through research strategy. Below are the tools, courses, and resources I've found useful, along with some honest thoughts on where AI helps and where it doesn't.
This Site
Built with Claude (Anthropic)
This website itself is a collaboration with Claude, an AI assistant I use for drafting citations from source images, building and maintaining the Eleventy site structure, troubleshooting code, and thinking through Evidence Explained citation formatting. Claude does not do primary research or verify facts — that work is mine, using original records and archives. What it does well is the surrounding scaffolding: turning my notes into properly structured data, catching inconsistencies I ask it to flag, and helping me keep a large, growing site organized. Every fact on this site is still sourced and verified the old-fashioned way.
AI Tools for Genealogy Research
FamilySearch Full-Text Search
FamilySearch has used AI-powered handwriting recognition to transcribe and index a growing share of its previously unsearchable microfilm collection, making millions of scanned record images searchable by keyword for the first time. Free.
Ancestry (Hints, ThruLines, AncestryAI)
Ancestry uses AI to surface potentially relevant records and tree connections, and has rolled out AI-assisted research suggestions and an early "AncestryAI" chatbot feature on individual profiles. As with any hint system, suggestions need to be verified against original records — the AI proposes; it doesn't prove. Subscription required.
Transkribus
A tool built specifically for historical handwriting recognition, including cursive and non-standard scripts. Widely used by archives and researchers dealing with older or foreign-language documents.
Large language models (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) as research assistants
General-purpose AI assistants aren't genealogy databases — they don't know what happened to a specific ancestor — but they're useful as research-strategy partners: what records would exist for a particular time and place, what an unfamiliar Latin or legal term means, how to interpret a DNA match pattern, or how to structure a research plan around a brick wall. Different tools tend to have different strengths (document analysis, transcription, conversational research planning), so many researchers use more than one.
AI Courses
[Placeholder — let me know if there are specific courses you've taken or want to list, such as anything from NGS, APG, or independent genealogy educators covering AI use.]
AI in Genealogy — Further Reading
AI and Genealogy: Advancements You Can Use
FamilySearch's own overview of how AI has been applied to family history research, including their indexing project and research assistant tools.
AI Tools Roundup: Ancestry, FamilySearch, and MyHeritage
Family Tree Magazine's comparison of the AI features rolling out across the major genealogy platforms, including caveats about where the tools are still maturing.
A note on AI and evidence
AI tools can accelerate the mechanical parts of research — transcription, organization, drafting — but they cannot verify a fact, weigh conflicting evidence, or replace a primary source. Every conclusion on this site rests on documents I've examined and evaluated myself, following Evidence Explained citation standards. AI is a research assistant here, never a source.