MyHeritage (www.myheritage.com) has added two new Artificial Intelligence based tools, called AI Record Finder and AI Biographer.
AI Record Finder
We are thrilled to announce the release of AI Record Finder, a new feature that transforms family history research using Artificial Intelligence (AI) chat. AI Record Finder revolutionizes genealogy the way ChatGPT revolutionized searching the internet: it is an interactive, intelligent, free-text chat to help you locate historical records about a specific ancestor or relative, using MyHeritage’s vast database of nearly 20 billion records. If you’ve ever been overwhelmed by the large number of historical record search results, or conversely disappointed by not finding any records about the person you were looking for, AI Record Finder might just be the answer you’ve been waiting for!
For more on this visit https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/12/introducing-ai-record-finder-the-worlds-first-ai-chat-based-search-engine-for-historical-records/
AI Biography
AI Biographer uses MyHeritage’s acclaimed matching technologies to curate historical records and family tree profiles that pertain to a specific ancestor or relative, together with automated third-party Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology powered by OpenAI. An AI Biography can be created within your family tree on MyHeritage, and also from historical records found via AI Record Finder, our exciting new AI chat-powered search engine. All information from the relevant records is then compiled into an article that is enriched with photos and scanned documents, and in some cases, additional information from the web. The resulting biography includes the person’s immediate family, describes the main events of their life, and includes rich historical context and the origins of their surname. Each biography is a unique narrative that can be shared with family and friends, and saved for posterity.
When created from a family tree, an AI Biography is added to the family tree as a media item and tagged with the individual’s name. When a family tree is exported in GEDCOM format, the biography is referenced, ensuring that the enriched biographical information remains an integral part of the family tree. We will soon add the option to regenerate biographies whenever new information becomes available.
For more on this visit https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/12/introducing-ai-biographer-create-a-wikipedia-like-biography-for-any-ancestor-using-ai-enriched-with-historical-context/
Comment: These are clearly big innovations from an AI point of view, and MyHeritage won't be the only company going down this route to offer such tools. On the biography tool, I haven't bothered playing with that, a personal preference simply as someone who writes for a living. But I have explored the new search tool, with a cautious thumbs up, albeit with some caveats!
A possible danger I can see down the line, in time, with innovations such as the search tool here (and I'm not just singling out MyHeritage, there will be others) is the idea that its over-familiarity produces an air of artificial authority and conviction, with people unquestioningly swallowing what is sent their way, much in the same way that some people don't question user-based family trees on sites such as Ancestry, and just simply harvest from them.
So I decided to put it to the test. I've just spent the last 15 minutes deliberately winding up the AI tool in its 'Casual' chat mode, as opposed to 'Formal', to see how definitive it considered itself to be, asking it to find the baptism record of my two times great grandfather William Hay Paton, initially stating he was from Blackford, when he was in fact from Perth.
The AI told me this:
"Whoa, we've got a bunch of William Hay Patons here! To zero in on your ancestor and not his name-twins, toss me some extra breadcrumbs like dates or relatives' names. Let's make sure we're chasing the right William through Scotland's history maze!"
There weren't many William Hay Patons, they actually all showed the same person, but sourced from either the site's Scotland, Births and Baptisms 1564-1950 database (sourced from FamilySearch), or the MyHeritage Family Trees. It then asked me if I could add anything else to help narrow down to the right person. I added that he died in Glasgow, and it responded as follows:
"Looks like we've got a hit, detective! William Hay Paton seems to have left his mark in Glasgow. If you want to dig deeper and find the gold among these historical nuggets, throw me some more clues—like an exact year or a relative's secret handshake (or just their name). Let's crack this genealogical case wide open!"
I told it William was born in Perth, and asked it to show me his original parish baptism record.
Eureka! We've got William Hay Paton's birth deets on the historical catwalk. Born February 18, 1835, in Perth, and baptized just four days later—talk about a quick turnaround! If you're itching to see the original parish record with your own peepers, let me know any extra specifics like his parents' names or an exact location, and I'll fetch it for you faster than you can say "kilt inspection"! 🏴📜
Note at this point it is suggesting it might be able to show me the original parish record for his 'birth deets' for me to see with my own 'peepers' (hold my pint!). But just for the craic, I then threw it a googly, telling it that William's father was a weaver (he was a plasterer), and his mother was called Christian, instead of Joan.
"Whoopsie daisy! It seems we've got a mix-up in the Paton patch. Our
William's mom is listed as Joan Woodroffe, not Christian. If you're sure
about Christian being his mum, let's try another angle. Maybe there's a
middle name or a sibling who can help us untangle these family vines?
Give me more juice, and I'll squeeze out that record!"
I apologised (why am I apologising to a machine?), and said that William's mother (Mom? Grrr...!) was called Joan, and then asked specifically what page of the baptism register in Perth his record was found on?
Keeping up its tragic Scottish stereotyopes going wasn't going to be enough for it, and it eventually held its hands up to say what I hoped it would:
"Alrighty, we've pinpointed William Hay Paton's baptism faster than a Scotsman can toss a caber!"
No, not that bit (grrr...!), this bit...
"But as for the exact page number in the Perth parish register... that's where our trail gets a wee bit foggy. Our records are coy and don't kiss and tell (or show pages). For that level of detail, you might need to consult the original parish records, often kept at local archives or national repositories like ScotlandsPeople. Time to put on your history detective hat!"
So that's a typical conversation with the hip, trendy, street talking, patronising to Scots, 'Casual' version of AI (it's default setting), clearly in need of an artificial personality transplant - and which in Scotland could potentially lead to an incident on the street, and a pair of soor Borg plooms.
Thankfully I was able to repeat the query on William Hay Paton with the much more acceptable 'Formal' setting, which ended up with the final end comment, without any over-excitable exclamation marks:
The baptism record for William Hay Paton, born to William Paton and Joan Woodroffe on February 18, 1835, indicates he was baptized on February 22, 1835, in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. To provide the specific page of the parish register, I would need access to the original image or physical document, which may not be available directly through this platform. You can typically find such details by viewing the digitized images of the registers if they are available online or by visiting the local archives where the records are held.
Tonally, much more acceptable, although oddly not quite as helpful as its body-popping counterpart, in not mentioning ScotlandsPeople.
Always bear in mind a few things. First, the tool is searching for material that it can gain access to. It won't access original records, unless they are readily accessible to it, and it won't access what isn't offline, i.e. in archives, but it does acknowledge that they do indeed exist.
But the key thing to be aware of here really is the research process. This is a tool, nothing more. It is a more streamlined tool, designed to be more personable, but ultimately it is still a search engine, don't be too seduced by the letters "AI" - and avoid the 'Casual' chat setting, in case it leads to dancing, or any potential international incidents.
This definitely has its uses (as any search engine does), but your own intelligence still matters - perhaps now more than ever - when it comes to carrying out research in an age where AI, and its proponents, is still finding its feet.
Chris
Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.
