Using Artificial Intelligence Tools in Genealogy (AI)

Artificial Intelligence is here, and the hype is real.  Although it is not the answer to all the problems we encounter with genealogical research, it can be a useful assistant in many ways.

Document analysis: summarizing information from long documents or even groups of documents such as wills and deed abstracts.

Reading handwriting: Many important documents have never been transcribed or abstracted.  AI tools can be used to assist with these tasks, even producing an index of names that appear.

Image processing: AI tools can process images such as maps and pull out all the names that appear.

Writing assistance.  AI can help organize your ideas and even write detailed research results or at least summaries for you.  If you’d prefer to do the initial writing yourself, AI can proofread and provide suggestions for improvement.

Generating illustrations: It is often difficult to find a public domain image to illustrate a concept you are writing or talking about.  AI can provide many images to chose from, and allows you to refine them.

Historical context: AI can provide information about a specific time and place or event, but always be careful to double check.