Content
About this webinar
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- Andrew Redfern \n \t
- Blaine Bettinger, Ph.D., J.D. \n \t
- Diana Elder, AG, AGL \n \t
- Mark Thompson \n \t
- Steve Little \n \t
- Thomas MacEntee. \n
About the speaker
Key points and insights
In a landmark panel discussion hosted by Legacy Family Tree Webinars, six leading experts in genealogy and artificial intelligence (AI) gathered to explore how AI is reshaping the way genealogists work, research, and discover family history. As the kickoff to the exclusive “Artificial Intelligence for Genealogists” series, this webinar offered an engaging and practical look at how AI tools—like ChatGPT, Claude, and others—can streamline time-consuming tasks, extract hidden insights from historical data, and enhance accuracy in family tree analysis. Whether you're a seasoned researcher or just beginning your journey, this session provided valuable, forward-thinking strategies for integrating AI into your genealogical workflow.
Key Takeaways from the Webinar:- AI as a Time-Saving Partner, Not a Replacement: The panelists unanimously emphasized that AI should be viewed as a powerful assistant rather than a substitute for human researchers. From summarizing lengthy genealogical texts to extracting data from old tax records, AI performs discrete tasks quickly and efficiently—freeing up time for more analytical and creative research.
- Common Misconceptions Debunked: Many hobbyist genealogists assume AI can “magically” uncover ancestors or build a full family tree. In reality, as Blaine Bettinger noted, generative AI doesn’t replace rigorous research—it enhances it. Effective use requires structured prompts, curated data, and human oversight to avoid misinformation or misinterpretation.
- Innovative Real-World Applications: The panelists presented impressive live demos showing how AI can extract patterns from tax rolls, analyze DNA match trees, standardize unstructured data, and even help with sensitive correspondence. Tools like Claude’s project mode and ChatGPT’s custom GPTs showcased the diverse ways AI can solve real genealogical challenges.
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Comments (85)
It appears that one aspect of AI is the use of plain English to create instructions, “prompts”, for data extraction, tabulation and analysis. These things can be done by spreadsheet or database software by those who can use those. The AI approach would seem to take longer as generally an iterative process of refining the prompts is required to achieve the desired result. I find the text-related functions of AI more interesting, particularly the extraction of relevant information from large documents, summarization, creation of narratives and notably the greatly improved OCR functions, not least the handwriting transcription ones.\nKevin Rattigan
Oh my word Diana Elder, your Henderson Weatherford may not have been part of the other Weatherford families BUT all those other Weatherford families are MY family!!!! Would love to get any info you have on them. This is great stuff. My great grandfather was Money Weatherford. There were several generations of "Money Weatherfords"!! Just bringing them up in your example, I thought I was about to say "Cousin"!!
Thanks, Michael, for the comment! Send me an email and I'll share that tax info for the family. Diana@familylocket.com
Great session, thanks to everyone. Looking forward to more upcoming webinars throughout the year. Inspired to update my webinar subscription after a bit of a break,
I loved the live demos! Definitely have to re-watch them and take notes. Right now I am just being dazzled :-)
I use AI every day in my research but I learned something new. The @ (saved prompts) tip for ChatGPT made my mouth drop open. I LOVE IT! I just upgraded to the paid version yesterday and my goal today is to enter all of my saved prompts directly into ChatGPT (I have then in an abbreviation expander) and I will start using these prompts together as Steve explained.
The ability to save prompts is easily worth the $20 a month, and access to among the strongest models is makes the Plus subscription a great value, but the free tiers and models are incredibly strong and robust, as well, so folks will find their own price-value equilibrium. I like being able to save and share prompts, though. Thanks, Michele. Best, Steve
Wow! So much to do!
Absolutely fabulous - so much wonderful information. Thanks Geoff and all panelists.
It was a very good webinar, but I got the impression that AI is to standard computer-based genealogical research what standard computer-based genealogical research is to paper- and pen-based genealogical research. As a 70-year-old who is relatively adept with the computer and who has more than 1,000,000 names in my personal database, I will hesitate trying to learn it!