Genealogists know to look for all available sources of information when doing their reasonably exhaustive search. We also know to list the resources when creating reports and proof documents.
But how do we know what we don’t know?
The best way is to keep learning. Keep reading, seek out publications about topics of interest, attend webinars and learn from other genealogists.
A great place to look for source material is the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Without knowing what sources are available, searching using the catalog is daunting. With that in mind, this blog post contains some resources from NARA to learn more about a topic you are researching. The topics are discussed from the perspective of records that NARA holds, and they could help identify sources to help solve your genealogical problem.
NARA offers Reference Information Paper (RIP) with illustrated descriptions of specific topics. The descriptions show what can be found in several different NARA record groups (RG).
The RIPs that have been digitized and are online will show a link to view web version of the document. If there is a pdf icon displayed at the end of the link, that means that the RIP is available for download.
The RIPs that have no link associated with their description are unavailable. These appear to be those containing dated material.
NARA staff have also authored Research Reports, these are now called Reference Reports. Some are not up-to-date, and do not necessarily reflect everything that is now available online. They can provide good explanations and good ideas for what records might be available.
The Mount Vernon Genealogical Society Inc offers a page about NARA Research Reports. A good place to start would be with the Reference Reports Table. This document contains information about the status of Research Reports, as well as links to where they or similar information might be found. Links to these can be found at: https://www.mvgenealogy.org/fileDownload.php?sid=16
On 11 May 2024 I attended The Army Historical Foundation’s Genealogy Seminar, hosted at the National Museum of the United States Army. The seminar was entitled “Unlock your military legacy.” There were attendees both in person and online, and I was able to attend in person.
The speaker lineup was impressive: Richard G. Sayre, COL (USA-Ret.), Pamela Boyer Sayre, and Rebecca Whitman Koford, CG, CGL. Many of you know Rick and Pam from their outstanding presentations. Among her many accomplishments and extensive service to the genealogical community, Rebecca currently works as Executive Director of the Board for Certification of Genealogists® and is the Director of the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records (Gen-Fed) which is held annually at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Rebecca began the seminar with an excellent presentation about “Records of the U.S. Army held by the National Archives and Records Administration.” Sharing her hands-on experience, she demonstrated the types of records and how and where to locate them. Demonstrations of how to use the NARA Catalog are always beneficial. She also shared examples with us of records she had found about her ancestors.
“Map Repositories in the Washington D.C. Area” was next, and in that presentation Rick discussed more than the repositories; he explained the history of mapping in the US. It is significant to know about the maps, including who created them and their purpose. He showed what was on the maps and their usefulness for using them in the context of an ancestor’s war experience. He shared so many great examples!
After a delightful lunch, and having been inspired by the two previous presentations, I was ready for the next presentation. Pam presented “Tracking an Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century Soldier.” She showed us how to time travel using Google Earth Pro. First she demonstrating what could be done, then she explained the steps in detail for how to use those features to document your military ancestor’s life in a visual and engaging format. Not only is this a great way to share information with non-genealogists, but this is also a great technique for immersion into the context of an ancestor’s service. This is something I had been considering, and using her approach will make the task straightforward and manageable.
The last presentation was by Rick and Pam, “Learning About a Twentieth Century Soldier.” This session presented resources and brief case studies about researching the service of twentieth-century soldiers at NARA facilities. Rick and Pam decided to focus on WWI, and a follow-up presentation for learning about WWII soldiers will be recorded and distributed to attendees at a later date. After the resources were discussed, a clear methodology was presented. Of course that methodology included the use of one of my favorite tools, timelines. Rick clearly described the homework that a researcher needs to do before contacting and visiting a NARA facility.
The presentations were very practical in nature. While it is great to find out about resources and how to use them in your research, it is also important to know where and how to find them. Being able to use them and share them is also incredibly valuable. The NARA Catalog can be awkward to navigate, so insights that the speakers shared were appreciated. There are always things to learn from such distinguished genealogists.
The final presentation held a couple of surprises for me. Two of my books were listed in the bibliography for the final presentation. Of course I was delighted to be included. The real surprise is that Rick and Pam showed a slide that contained the cover of my recent book, “Researching U.S. WWI Military Members, Military Organizations and Overseas Noncombatants: A Research Guide for Historians and Genealogists” I was happy for my book to receive a shout out. (They had no idea I would be in the audience!) I was even happier to see that the Pioneer Infantry Regiments were also mentioned in the presentation. If that was not enough, I was delighted when Rick asked me unexpectedly to say a few words about the Pioneer Infantry Regiments. What a privilege, and how great to see the Pioneers’ stories being told.
This all-star line-up held an informative seminar and disseminated actionable information! Thank you!
In the next blog post I share more about my visit to the Museum after the seminars concluded.
Have you wanted to learn more about Artificial Intelligence?
Recently I gave a talk about Using AI for Genealogy, and shared some of my sources for education about AI. You can find out more about the talk and if you want to learn from a genealogist who is a professor with a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, you might consider having your group book it.
There are many resources available to learn how to get started with generative AI, and some ideas for using it in genealogy. Among them are posts on this blog .
NOTE: DO NOT put any sensitive information into any AI tool.
The first recommendation is a paper that you can download. Genealogists need to learn about prompt engineering to use AI tools effectively. A great paper that offers a catalog of prompt patterns is a good place to start. These prompts presented in the paper are general in nature, but they can be applied to genealogy. The paper is “A Prompt Pattern Catalog to Enhance Prompt Engineering with ChatGPT.” It is an academic paper, and they can look intimidating, but they do not have to be! You can copy-and-paste parts of it into ChatGPT (or another text-to-text AI tool) and ask it to create a summary or explain it. My specific advice is to look at the tables labeled “Contextual Statements” to learn the patterns. I actually copied text from these tables, and combined information about the patterns offered by a generative AI to create a personal cheat sheet.
If you want to dig deeper and understand more, you may want to look beyond genealogical applications and learn about the technology. Understanding what the tools are and how they work might help you be more comfortable with using them and applying them in genealogy.
In its “AI Ready” commitment, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has set a goal to train 2 million people. As part of this commitment, AWS offers free courses about AI. These courses are written for all different levels of knowledge. From the AWS webpage describing the commitment, scroll down to the section “Courses for business and nontechnical audiences” where you can follow the links to register for the courses. A free account is needed. “Introduction to Generative Artificial Intelligence” is a good starting point, with simple and understandable explanations and no formal assessments. (That means no tests!)
If you want to learn in a more structured way, there are online classes available. These are more formal, with structured lessons and activities that you have to turn in. That should not intimidate you, as these courses are designed for beginners who have little or no technical background. The beginner aspect should not dissuade people with more experience, as there is always something to learn in courses like these. I enjoyed the first and simplest course on the list, as well as courses in the series “Generative AU Learning Planning for Decision Makers” and the “Foundations of Prompt Engineering.”
Coursera
Coursera offers “Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT.” It is taught by the professor who wrote the article that I recommended. If you take this course for free, be sure to allocate time for it each week because the course materials are only available to paying participants after the end of the class. I found this to be a very enjoyable course, with the assignments being as simple as using ChatGPT 3.5 to try the patterns from lessons and submitting the prompt and response via a text box.
GALE Courses
Another course that I have begun is “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” on GALE Courses (formerly known as Learn4Life). GALE Courses may be available from your local library website, or from a neighboring county for free by using a library card they issue. For those in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, you will find GALE Courses offered by the Howard County Public Library, so get a library card from them. (At Howard County Public Library this is the link to the description https://education.gale.com/l-howardmain/online-courses/introduction-to-artificial-intelligence/?tab=detail). These are 6-week courses, organized into two lessons per week, and there are discussion boards and ungraded quizzes. In order to obtain a certificate for this course, you have to pass a final containing multiple choice questions that appears to be based on the ungraded, optional quizzes for each lesson. Check on your library’s website for an alphabetical listing of online resources or contact a librarian.
This is a technology course about the science of how a computer can perform tasks that usually require human intelligence. It covers the forms of AI, how AIs learn, AI applications and ethics. It will not be something that you can use immediately for genealogy, but it will give a foundation as we go forward seeing more and more AIs.
No matter how you decide to learn, keep learning!
Let me know how you are learning about AI.
NOTE: I have no affiliation with any of the courses or services in this post.
On 14 October 2023 the Howard County Genealogical and Historical Societies and the Howard County Public Library System organized the “Shake That Family Tree” event at the Miller Library in Ellicott City, MD. This was intended as a beginner-level event, but there was certainly great information for all the genealogists who attended.
I was delighted to have been invited to host a table about military research and my books. All day long there were interesting talks, and a room full of tables with representatives from local history and genealogical societies who were eager to share information about what they were doing and offer help to genealogists at all levels.
Many of the people who stopped by did not know if they had ancestors who served in WWI. The best place to check is the FamilySearch database for the VA Master Index, which has been covered in this updated blog’s post “Did My Ancestor Serve in WWI?” to reflect the changed search interface.
The Howard County Genealogical and Historical Societies and the Miller Library hosted a wonderful event, and it is certainly my hope that this might become an annual event!
When autumn comes, we think of going back to school. Genealogists are always learning, and webinars are a great way to do that. Presentations give us information, introduce us to new techniques or provide a new way of looking at our research. These resources in the blog post offer great classes and more.
It is inevitable that similar AI tools will be compared. This blog post takes a look at comparing OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Bard.
When Google Bard was asked how it was different from ChatGPT, it answered that its training data contained images, that it could access the internet, and that it was a more general AI rather than a text-generating AI. Bard also told me that while ChatGPT was creative, it was more creative.
Google Bard has an interesting approach to answering prompts. Unlike ChatGPT, its training and knowledge does not end at 2021. It can go out and get content from the web to generate its answers.
Like ChatGPT, Google Bard can also hallucinate and authoritatively state inaccurate information. The “Google it” button found under a Bard response can help comfort you that the answer is not a hallucination.
These two AI tools do have some differences.
ChatGPT offers multiple conversations so that a user’s conversations can stay organized. It also has the ability to present previous conversations and pick up where it left off. Google Bard holds one conversation. It allows users to return to their previous prompts by selecting their Bard Activity from its menu. The responses to the prompts have to be selected at the time, and cannot be recalled.
Bard responses can contain images returned from the web. The responses, without any images, can be uploaded to a document in the user’s Google Drive or into the text of a gmail. ChatGPT responses are text-only, and need to be copied and pasted from the browser into a document. (Note: browser addons or plugins to capture responses are not discussed in this blog post. Any code you add to your browser this way should be researched thoroughly!)
Given that the content generated by Bard is not owned by the user, I will probably use ChatGPT for generating text and explaining concepts. (Of course, what ChatGPT generates should be verified!) I do prefer that responses are saved, and that different chats can be active.
It is possible that I might lean on Google Bard more for research questions, and will ask Bard for its sources. Undoubtedly the “Google it” button will be used in those efforts.
Of course, we can expect that Google Bard and other AI tools will continue to evolve at a rapid pace.
Based on the versions available at the time of this blog post being written, below is a table comparing features of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Bard that I found notable.
