ChatGPT: Research

Transcribe and date 150 old family letters for an archive with ChatGPT

A co-chair of the California Genealogical Society's Manuscripts Committee scanned a collection of about 150 handwritten letters exchanged among Midwest family members and friends between about 1885 and 1925. The co-chair uploaded JPG images to ChatGPT with clear rules: keep the original line breaks, preserve the spelling exactly, flag unsure words and never invent missing text. The transcriptions weren't perfect but sped up the work, and every one was reviewed against the original letter. ChatGPT also explained references like Flinch cards and helped date undated letters, noting that Iowa was debating women's suffrage in 1919. Asked to find every letter mentioning an infant death, it showed some referred to an earlier loss around 1898, not the 1903 death the co-chair had assumed; genealogical records confirmed it.

Separate land descriptions in an 1836 dower record with ChatGPT

Working from an 1836 Jefferson County, Indiana, probate record, the Heartland Genealogy blogger asked ChatGPT to pull out the land description. It separated Thomas D. Crawford's 113-acre tract from the 43¾ acres set aside as the dower of Crawford's widow, Jane. While drafting a blog post from the record, ChatGPT also found that this Jane appeared to be Jane Todd Crawford, remembered in medical history for surviving an operation performed by Dr. Ephraim McDowell. The writer treats it as a lead to keep researching: 'AI found the connection. It didn't finish the research.'

Trace a family tree from half-remembered details with ChatGPT (partial)

Ryan Aubrey didn't know where the family came from, or even the grandparents' middle names. Aubrey turned ChatGPT's effort level up as high as it would go and shared everything known, mistakes included. On the father's side it quickly found a grandfather's obituary (a high school state championship and a basketball scholarship to the University of Tampa) and went through FamilySearch and Find a Grave to suggest a colonial Virginia line of 'Awbrey's' with a possible, unconfirmed Welsh origin. On the mother's side the line got lost after the grandparents in West Virginia, so Aubrey says the next step is to 'go analog'.

Break a six-year family history brick wall with help from ChatGPT

Two cousins spent six years trying to prove a family story that the Jacksons descended from the Reade family of colonial Virginia. ChatGPT couldn't hand them the answer, but it helped them spot patterns in their documents, surfaced lesser-known resources and suggested they might be 'chasing the wrong Francis'. A ChatGPT-assisted search led them to Library of Virginia records on a Captain Francis Read whose ship was captured by privateers, and a Reade family Bible at the library listed the children of Gwyn and Dorothy Reade. The next morning, cousin Kelly had pieced it together: 'I've been up since 4 a.m. I figured it out.'