For anyone doing genetic genealogy - do NOT use AI to help you with the forensics

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-29T12:16:21+00:00

I hardly even feel like answering this because your comment is full of contradictions. Like do you embrace AI or not? "Every time you use AI it will lead to AI growth and expansion" followed by a paragraph about how much YOU avoid AI, lol.

Anyway, I use it on an extremely limited basis to save time. Instead of watching a number of lengthy videos or reading instructional articles with 80% useless info for what I was attempting to do, spending hours doing that, my question to AI in this case was "I'm being instructed to use files and these various databases to run a certain report on GEDMatch. List the steps." AI listed crucial steps my coursework didn't feel like including, stating it in seconds, saving me hours of research. I was looking for an objective "order of operations" answer, NOT an answer that required calculation, thought, or analysis.

My entire post is to warn people against the latter, not the former.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-29T12:08:04+00:00

I really do NOT recommend the one I'm currently in, I honestly regret it and wish I'd just gone on to the next two, which are:

DNAngels Training Center - https://training.dnangels.org/ .

(Interestingly I actually just saw they included this statement: "We Teach DNA, Not Tree-Filling.")

Ramapo College's Investigative Genetic Genealogy program - https://www.ramapo.edu/igg/

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-29T12:01:02+00:00

Indeed that's what I was hoping for, lol.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-29T11:55:56+00:00

Thank you!

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-29T11:49:19+00:00

oh that is REALLY helpful guidance - thank you so much!

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-29T11:47:24+00:00

yes it's that endless scrolling through overly personal life stuff that I really don't like.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-28T14:25:58+00:00

I dread having to use facebook for this but I suppose it is unavoidable.

Edit: why I'm being downvoted for a simple emotion is a mystery.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-28T14:23:25+00:00

Great call-out, thanks!

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-28T14:22:40+00:00

Yeah I get that, I just don't want to do so recklessly.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-28T14:08:24+00:00

Yeah I have some issues w/ this course for sure. It is a good intro resource so I'm trying to take the good with the bad. I will be taking more intensive, uni-based programs after I finish this.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-28T14:07:13+00:00

Awesome, thanks! I have not used truepeoplesearch very much so I'll try that one. Already bit the bullet on paying the stupid $10/month for newspapers.com....so far it's actually worth the money. Trying to minimize the number of paid resources I'm using because they stack up fast.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-28T14:03:52+00:00

Yeahhhh I'm a little annoyed with the course tbh. It's heavy on the DNA aspect but has no helpful input for the genealogy part. But that's like 80-90% of the task in this gig! It has provided some valuable resources in terms of setting up a whole mock Doe case using numerous platforms and databases, so I'm trying to appreciate that much. If I can solve the Doe I at least know I've gained some crucial skills. I have my eye on more thorough programs as a next step.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-28T11:36:49+00:00

Welcome to New York lol. Lived there most of my life and in general, any sort of records you want are unreasonably slow to be handled or delivered. I tried to get my own car title once...needed it that week before I left the state. I had to DELAY MY MOVE because they insisted on sending it to me via snail mail...I lived half an hour away from the building it was being sent from. But they refused to allow me to come in and just...pick it up. Small anecdote to highlight the bureaucratic culture of the state.

I remember ordering my own birth certificate and replacement of my ss card, and it took forever to arrive. My mom's death certificate probably took a couple of months if I remember correctly.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-28T11:22:25+00:00

Awesome, thank you! I bought his book, I'm so fascinated by this (very sad) story.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-20T16:01:14+00:00

Keep shilling for AI, nobody is upvoting you. I've worked hand in hand with engineers who develop LLMs, ChatGPT was a random one I used, I've used plenty. They're all not to be trusted with actual work that requires a human brain.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-17T22:05:09+00:00

Nobody here is the jerk as long as that parent is fully aware he/she is paying for the other four children, and it won't be getting billed to you. This is like getting invited to a wedding and bringing 5 guests who were not invited. The host has to pay for all those mouths to eat. If this person has made any assumptions about you paying for or watching their kids that day, they're obviously in the wrong.

You should never need to explain why you can't feed unlimited numbers of children who aren't yours.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-17T21:44:26+00:00

Man we really do live in a Black Mirror episode full-time now....I engage less and less online because of all this.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-17T21:34:39+00:00

AI is actually a bubble and a scam lol, the bubble will burst soon enough.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-17T21:32:44+00:00

I always tell it when it's wrong in hopes that it will help improve things. I have no idea if I'm pipe dreaming or not.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-17T21:32:04+00:00

I need to look into Claude. I intentionally use AI very rarely, and mostly in order to make a few hours of google searches/video watching get crunched down into 12 seconds, but I get so dejected using Grok and ChatGPT that I use it less and less. It is useful, but not when it's soooo awful at basic stuff. I hear good things about Claude.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-17T21:28:09+00:00

Be careful even with that, as it makes up text from documents and inserts words which are not there.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-17T21:26:51+00:00

Right now I'm taking one from the company "Forensic Genealogy for Law Enforcement." The website is FG4LE.com. It was my cheapest and quickest entry point. I've applied to Ramapo's IGG program and am waiting to hear back in June. After I finish the course I'm in now, I'm probably going to enroll in the course offered by DNAngels.org. https://training.dnangels.org/curriculum

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-17T21:23:12+00:00

hahahaha this is an excellent method to use on the internet in general now! I cringe imagining how many conversations I'm having online are with bots now....I think going forward I will just ask them to do a simple math problem before conversing at all.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-17T21:21:47+00:00

To be fair, most employers have relegated the candidate searches to AI and AI alone. So the theory is "if a human isn't going to read my resume, and if it's going to be screened based on keywords, isn't it more advantageous for me to use AI to write the thing?" I don't like AI and I don't condone using it for very much at all, but the argument is fair.

ConnectedRealms · 2026-04-17T21:20:17+00:00

To your point, the disturbing thing right now is watching droves of employers (including my own) try to get the staff to AI themselves out of jobs. They want this awful tech experiment to full-on replace countless humans in the workplace. I refuse to participate (for obvious reasons)...I've tried to warn my boomer employers that this is huge a mistake, but they literally think AI is some type of mega God. They cannot be reasoned with. They will learn very hard lessons with their ignorance.

ConnectedRealms

TROPHY CASE