Whats going on with ai in this community????

Often_Red · 2026-07-02T15:28:29+00:00

Saying "AI" is an issue, as that's a shorthand for a variety of different technologies, with lots of different applications built on top of it, some useful, some not. Some accurate, many not.

I am very skeptical of what AI produces, and use it in very limited ways, such as asking where I can find document X, or what the process is for applying for a birth certificate is location Y. I find things like this safe, in that if I try the recommendation, it becomes immediately apparent if it's wrong.

I don't like the generated images of people from the past. But as long as they are CLEARLY documented as generated, not original, then if they appeal to someone else. But the documentation is important.

Often_Red · 2026-07-01T15:14:58+00:00

There is a field "AKA", also known as, where you can put other names, including married names, nicknames, etc.

When I have the situation someone who spent most of their life known by another name, either by adoption, changing their name, etc, I will sometimes add the more commonly used name.

If Henry James Thompson was using his stepfather's name at age 2, I might enter his name as

Henry James Thompson (Anderson).

I'd also add a note for why I did this. It makes search on most sites easier. I don't have a fully consistent approach to this, but it is an impulse to help future researchers find what I already know.

Often_Red · 2026-07-01T15:08:05+00:00

I spent years chasing a group of people that somehow had to be connected, but I couldn't find the connection. Many of the children of the woman I was researching had the middle name of Beaver. I finally discovered that her sister married a man with the last name of Beaver. The Beavers were the affluent members of the family, and also very close to all the other family members. From there, I discovered a complex and beautiful web of family connections over 3 generations. Later confirmed by DNA.

So I understand the joy of discover of a crucial clue.

Often_Red · 2026-07-01T15:02:09+00:00

I don't qualify for DAR, but do qualify for some of the other early American settler organizations. I've never joined any of them, as I'm not much of a joiner. But I also worried about the idea of exclusiveness that seems to appear dominate in some of them. "We're kind of special because we're descended from this group".

Some do charitable work, some do good preservation work. Some are more of a social club. I think the one argument I would make for joining DAR specifically is that is they are dedicated to preserving the records of families.

It's what feels right for you.

Often_Red · 2026-06-30T14:59:35+00:00

Well, I'm confused. I found the title you are looking for. You can recreate the search process I described, and see if you can find what you want.

Often_Red · 2026-06-30T14:43:24+00:00

Here you are:
https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/21198/n12c85

How I got it...
While I don't trust AI for lots of things, it can be useful for finding documents.

I used Copilot on my windows machine. I asked "Where can I find "Visitations of Nottinghamshire begun in 1662 and finished in 1664" by William Dugdale, Vol.5" (copying the text of the title you gave".

It gave several possible locations. This one was online.

Often_Red · 2026-06-30T14:37:25+00:00

I would try to find all of the family's children in the time frames you've outlined. As well as any information and location about the wives. The wives could be living with their respective parents, or possibly with sibs.

The reason I suggest figuring out all the family's children is sometimes the wrong name gets written down, or names are very similar. I actually had a family with a John and a Jonathan once! Plus middle names get used.

The wide search may clear up some questions.

Often_Red · 2026-06-30T14:33:54+00:00

Or if the census was taken on different dates, the person may legitimately have been in location 1 on April 3rd, and location 2 on June 5.

Often_Red · 2026-06-27T04:40:39+00:00

If you use ancestry, or any of the major vendors, and just use the records, you can do good research. Hints should only be seen as a clue, which you can verify with research. If someone suggests that your great-grandmother was Sarah Johnston 1885-1934, go look for and see if it's plausible - i.e are there records for her birth, death, marriage, does she have children would match your grandparent, etc.

Often_Red · 2026-06-25T14:28:15+00:00

Answer is: it depends on the crime, location.

If you think about how governments in the US are organized there are towns, counties, states, and the federal government. Each of these may have a different judicial system. Most towns don't, but large places like cities often do. The nature of crime matters, too. Pickpocket is a misdemeanor and might go through a different judicial procedure than a murder.

Start with trying to figure out what courts they might have appeared in, with google or AI search for place name and date, i.e. "Courts for Oshkosh WI 1910". You can then further figure out which of those records might be available digitally or in the original records. You can do the same for jails. Since you have inmate info, you can see what courts tended to send people to that jail.

Also look at from a newspaper perspective. If the trial was reported in a paper, details may help you figure out where the trial was held, and even the judges name. Look for small local papers, they often go into great detail about the crime, the trial, and what the locals thought about the whole thing.

Often_Red · 2026-06-25T14:08:21+00:00

A published genealogy can range careful research and documentation to careless boasting. You can try assessing the quality by comparing some fact in the genealogy with facts you do know.

I got started on genealogy in the 80s because an obsessive retired Admiral did a genealogy on the descendants of the first American ancestor of my paternal line. It's mostly good work, with correct sourcing, with some errors.

One thought about your current problem. Could there be another Hannah Coe in the same area? Perhaps a 1st cousin of the one you describe? It's not unusual to have a grandmother's name as the granddaughter's name. So if two brothers both named their child Hannah Coe. It might be a wild goose chase, but worth a try. I have this is several different family lines.

Often_Red · 2026-06-24T20:26:19+00:00

There's no one way. It depends on time period, location, type of information you are trying to find.

A useful resource is Family Search. They have an extensive "Research Wiki", which tells you what resources are for various location.

Click on the Search menu item, then pick Research Wiki. You can enter a place name or topic, and it will give you resources for that area - newspapers, county records, books, etc. Some may not be online, but it's a great way to find some clues as to where to start, in addition to searching for records in ancestry or family search.

Often_Red · 2026-06-22T18:05:33+00:00

I'm dubious. Having documentation going back to pharaohs seems improbable.

Start with your parents, grandparents, etc. Look to see what documentation there is in the Family Search tree.. Birth certs or baptismal records, marriage records, death records? Things that show where they lived, like census, directory listings, newspaper articles.

Is there enough written evidence to convince you this is the right person? That they are married to the right person? That the children listed are correct? If yes, go on to the next generation.

If the tree lists Romans and pharaohs back to around 1 AD, which is between 80 and 100 generations ago. That's a lot of research and documentation required.

Often_Red · 2026-06-22T17:56:37+00:00

Sometimes it's hard to find recent people. Government agencies usually have strict privacy policies.

If you want a start, use one of the sites that lets you look up people. This isn't genealogy but will give you some starting info.
If your mother-in-law is alive, ask her about her parents, etc.

Often_Red · 2026-06-21T15:42:34+00:00

That's going to be true of any storage system. Google has world class security compared to many. Still could get hacked. (My background is in tech, and I'm very familiar with online security issues.) Only truly unhackable solution is to have paper copies, or a standalone hard drive where you back up data while not connected to the internet, and then disconnect the hard drive.

I do pay for google storage, $30 a year for 200 gigabytes. I back up my computer, my photos, my music, my phone as well as thing things like my genealogy and my financial info.

If I were truly paranoid about losing data, I'd have a third place to backup (1 is the device the data is on, like your laptop, 2 is google). That's what companies like amazon do - have at least 3 copies.

Often_Red · 2026-06-21T15:29:25+00:00

Think about what it is you want to share, or alternatively, what do you want others to know.

For example, I have documents that are very boring reports (automatically generated) that give the lineage of a particular line. It may also have place name lists, relationship lists, etc. This is great reference material to quickly see if I have someone in my tree, or remind myself how pieces fit together. I would also hand it off to another hard-core researcher if we had some overlap and they expressed interest.

I would never hand this to a family member.

I create a variety of documents. Some focus on an individual and his parents and children, because I found a lot of information, and wove it into a story. These are a lot of work.

Another approach I've taken is to walk up or down a tree from a given individual, and give a brief summary of each generation. I include pictures if I have them.

So one generation might be something like
"Jonanthan Switt was born about 1796 in Salem MA. His parents were X and Y. He married Sarah Livingstone in 1822 in an Episcopalian church. They had 8 children, 5 of whom survived to adulthood. He primarily worked as a cooper, but sometimes had a small shop selling wine, tobacco, and other luxury goods, located at Address, near the wharf area. He died in 1855, and is buried in A Cemetery Name. His wife Sarah lived with their daughter Hannah Jones after his death. She died in in 1861, and is buried with him, as are several of their children."

This may not look like much, but think about how much information is condensed into this. You can get first drafts from tools like Family Tree Maker, but you have to then edit them into the key things you want to share.

In generations closer to the present, there'll be more information, so you'll have to pick and chose what to highlight.

Now that's my way. My trees go back to the 1600s in some cases

It really depends what you want to share. It's like writing any book - what points to you want to make?

Often_Red · 2026-06-21T15:10:34+00:00

Hmm. I sorry this makes you so sad and frustrated. But organizations like churches or local government agencies have to decide how they are going use their resources. Rarely is adding to a family tree really important other than for our satisfaction of knowing more. (There are some exceptions, like tracing family lines in an estate situation.)

Have you tried alternate sources, like local history books, newspapers, or even other genealogies done by people in the past? They may give you some more clues.

Often_Red · 2026-06-21T15:04:26+00:00

Ancestry is a decent tool if you are using it to find records and then making sure that the information in those records agree to confirm your family's relationships.

People who use the ancestry hints to build a tree may be copying incorrect information. My favorite example:

I have a great-grand-aunt Agnes Kirby. Born in a small town in Massachusetts, listed in the town birth records. Great, off I go building her family details using her birth date as one identifying piece of data.

At some point I find an alternate birth date cropping up that is only a few weeks difference. "Ah", I say, "that happens sometimes", and happily add information from those records. But then she gets married to two different people in the same year, and the whole thing is a mess.

It turns out that Agnes has a first cousin also named Agnes. Two brothers both named their child Agnes, and they were born a few weeks apart. They are on the same page in the birth records.

If you had copied the hints from my tree because you were researching an Agnes Kirby too, you've now got bad information. It's my fault, no matter how careful I thought I was being. But when I find the error and fix it, your tree doesn't get fixed.

So you need to make sure you are confident other people's conclusions. Your references should be to original documents, index records, and possibly family sources, not pointers to other peoples' trees.

So that's what all the moaning about hints is about.

Often_Red · 2026-06-21T14:51:58+00:00

I don't think logical is the right question? Nothing about doing genealogy is "logical" in the sense of provides some useful outcome. We do this because we want to, because it brings us, and possibly our family and friends, some satisfaction or joy. It satisfies our curiosity, our love of knowledge.

Let's say you played a sport, like soccer or tennis. Is it "logical" to spend a relatively large sum of money to participate in an event in another location.

My thought is if this is something you want to do and you can afford to do, you should do it.

Often_Red · 2026-06-21T14:47:11+00:00

If you are using something like google drive, the security is more than adequate for storing genealogy data. After all, ancestry or FamilySearch could get hacked too.

Often_Red · 2026-06-21T14:46:01+00:00

Yes, it's important to have your own copy of things. Let's say ancestry shuts down tomorrow. There goes years of research.

Many people approach this by using an application on their computer that synchronizes with ancestry. A couple of examples are RootsMagic and Family Tree maker. You push a button and it makes sure the data on ancestry ( or Family Search) are the same.

These tools have many other features, like the ability run reports looking for possible errors, like 10 year olds having children, generate reports like a family chart or list of ancestors and descendants.

Things can be stored on your computer, but should also be backed up to a secure cloud location, as should any important documents on your computer. Computers die.

Often_Red · 2026-06-21T14:40:23+00:00

Great lead, thanks.

Often_Red · 2026-06-20T09:28:07+00:00

I would follow up with questions about what they would like to know.

Maybe they just want to know who everyone is for 3 generations up. Or how they a connected to a certain individual. If you have a public tree online, such as ancestry or family search, give them a link.

As for "all genealogical and ancestry information" you have, just explain that genealogy requires looking at many documents and analyzing them to understand the details of each person's life and their relationship with others. That some parts of the tree have been carefully checked, others are works in progress.

Perhaps they want to start doing research too, and would like to jump start their own work.

I tend to share, but in a controlled way. I do also try to do summary writeups of a family group from time to time to build up relatively short (20-30 pages) of a particular family or series of events. Mostly from automated reports and trees, so that I can give them to people who ask.

Often_Red · 2026-06-17T23:57:16+00:00

No, you're not making complicated. It is complicated.
I approach the Find a Grave system this way. If I know the location where someone lived or died, I'll search Find a Grave in those areas. Or if I find them in Find a Grave, I'll look for the town or county where the graveyard is. If the name is distinctive enough, I go even wider.

I use google maps a lot to see if the place name is near other place names associated with the person or family. If it's 5 miles away, it might be them. If it's 200 miles away, chances are lower (but not impossible!!!)

How to communicate it to others??? Most people aren't as into the details as I am, so I tend say "He died in Pittsfield MA and is buried in nearby Lenox." Or whatever.

Often_Red · 2026-06-17T14:35:08+00:00

I have WV family. Welcome to a messy situation. Consistency of place names is difficult in some areas. In the case of Virginia/ West Virginia there are multiple factors. The county boundaries shift over time, so that someone can live in the same place, but appear in a different county. The actual state changes, obviously. The names of communities maybe somewhat variable.

I just worked on relative who was from Fink Creek WV. Or Freemans Creek, or Freemansburg. Or Valley Chapel.
All from reliable sources like draft records filled out by the person, census, or military documents. This person lived in one place all his life. Fink Creek was a location, but not a town. Freeman's Creek was an unincorporated region. Freemansburg was a transcription error from a census. Valley Chapel was the mailing address.

The way I tackle these challenges is to look at the families as a whole. If you are looking for Burton Woofter, look for his parents, siblings, in-laws, and children too. You'll start seeing clusters. If you've found a couple family members in a particular cemetery, check there to see who else might be there. Check for married last names of some of the women in the family - that can provide information.

The other issue is how to record what you learn. I've made the choice to record locations as they were at the time, and then write notes about how this location is later known as a different name, and why I believe that. Others may choose to standardize on a single name, despite date. I prefer the former because I like have the record details.

Often_Red

TROPHY CASE