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Google NotebookLM Tutorial
This is it! You have decided to give Google’s NotebookLM a try! Maybe you want step-by-step instructions, or just want to look over the process before diving in. Either way, this tutorial stands ready to help. What will you do in this Notebook? One suggestion is to upload a group of documents related to a subject or ancestor. These are documents that you want to understand better or analyze. Don’t overthink it. You just need to have an idea of your subject, because once you begin to use the Notebook more ideas will probably...
read moreHave You Tried Google’s NotebookLM Yet?
Trying out NotebookLM has been on my to-do list for months. I just did, and I was blown away by it. The accessibility of technologies that I knew existed but had so well not seen integrated was impressive. You can chat with the AI about what has been added to the Notebook, and you can generate products based on what the uploaded documents. The AI-generated media and responses in the Notebook are all based on the documents that you upload to it, which should reduce the opportunity for AI hallucinations. Keep in mind that the best idea is...
read moreSurname Study and AI Part 2: Collecting Census Data
In the Surname Study and AI Part 1 post, I described the reasons that motivated me to undertake a surname study in Rhode Island, US, and the approach I took. The use of AI tools to help with formatting, visualizing and analyzing data is a goal in this latest iteration of the project. Both US Population and Rhode Island State Census data were used as a backbone for the study. My next step was to use AI to capture the transcriptions of key record information from the censuses, and work to normalize it. For this first step, I...
read moreFinding WWII Rosters Online at NARA
For researching a WWI or a WWII soldier, have you considered using the Rosters at NARA? They are located Series: Muster Rolls and Rosters, November 1, 1912–December 31, 1943 within Record Group 64. This blog post will show where to search for rosters, including how to use an online finding aid for finding WWII rosters that will make your task much easier. The rosters are arranged in three subseries within Muster Rolls and Rosters, November 1, 1912–December 31, 1943: Muster Rolls, November 1, 1912 – June 30, 1918 and...
read moreNow Open: “Tracing Your New York Ancestors with the NYG&B”
Are you researching Ancestors in New York State? If so, you will probably be interested in the free on-demand online course from The New York Genealogy & Biographical Society: “Tracing Your New York Ancestors with the NYG&B.” In the six video sessions of the course, you will learn about NYG&B, its services, membership and publications. The sessions cover the use of their online collections. When you sign up for the course, you have 60 days to complete it. During that time you can review the on-demand lectures...
read moreSurname Study and AI Part 1: The Approach
This blog post begins a series of posts exploring an ongoing surname study and my recent use of artificial intelligence (AI) in it. In this post, I will describe the history of getting to this point in my efforts. Over the course of several years, I have been working on a surname study. My goal was to find out if and how families who lived in Rhode Island from 1850-1900 were connected. Chain migration to the United States from Ireland was entirely likely, and by connecting these family units I could potentially research collateral...
read moreBook Review: Your Stripped Bare Guide
Having earned a Ph.D., worked as a professor, and published research, I know that citing sources is essential in academic work. Having published in multiple disciplines, I have used different styles of citations and variations of those styles. Students can usually understand why direct quotations need to be cited, but do not always grasp why the facts they use in their writing must also be attributed. The methods in technical papers are explained so that they can be reproducible. For a technical discipline, citations can be used by...
read moreMore WWII Morning Reports in the NARA Catalog
It should not be a surprise that to anyone who has read my most recent book Finding and Using U.S. Army WWI and WWII Morning Reports: A Research Guide for Historians and Genealogists or seen my presentation about Morning Reports that I periodically check the NARA catalog. Specifically, I have been checking to see if reports later than July 1944 have been uploaded. Today I searched, and success! As a reminder, I search from the main catalog page at https://catalog.archives.gov/ so that I can benefit from the links to the search terms...
read moreAI: Meta Prompting
If you have attended one of my AI presentations, then you know how important it is to develop prompt engineering skills to get the most out of Large Language Models (LLMs). The good news is that we do not always have to create the perfect prompt on our own! There is a harsh term used in my field, GIGO, which stands for Garbage In, Garbage Out. When it comes to AIs, this applies to the fact that the LLM response (output) will only be as good as our prompts (input). A simple explanation of meta prompting is to have one...
read moreBook Review: Genealogy in Reverse
Have you ever wanted to look at the playbook that someone who specializes in finding living descendants has created? Have you wondered what resources a researcher would employ online and in the real world? Have you wanted to use such a playbook in your own reverse genealogy efforts? Within its 54 pages, Genealogy in Reverse: Finding the Living lets you have your own copy of concise notes written by Ms. Passey. She does this professionally and her impressive credentials include working as a subcontractor in the important genealogical work...
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