Is FamilySearch.org AI Really AI?

 

There are a few places on the FamilySearch.org website that appear to be AI driven. I am not certain which of these features are seen by which users. The AI research Assistant appears on my startup page. From time-to-time, I check to see what the suggested ancestors "who could grow" my family tree work out. Here is an example using the first "ancestor" on the list I found at the time of this post, "William Thurston 1809-1871 2Z3W-1N2."

It turns out that William Thurston 2Z3W-1N2 is a cousin (not technically an ancestor) who is connected to me by a link going back to 1702 through one of my less reliable lines. The record the hint takes me to is a birth record for "Infant Thurston."

If I put aside my concerns about the accuracy of the line leading up to and then down to William Thurston, I could easily attach this record to the Family Tree. It could be a baby that died in infancy. The record does show a William Thurston with a "no name" female born in March of 1848. This list of birth is not chronologically organized. There are birth from various years including dates back to 1828. the date in question is this number. 

The number to me that it could be 1848. By the way, a quick check with Google Gemini about this document shows that it is not the complete document. Gemini seems to think the document says 1847 and that the "no name" children died in infancy. This raises the question of whether this child was stillborn (by our current definition) or lived for a period of time. The entry on the FamilySearch Family Tree for William Thurston already shows a child born in 1848 who shows no death date. 

Now lets look at the William Thurston family. William, his wife, Eleanor Chase, and all the children were born in Bristol, Massachusetts. The suggested record is from Massachusetts. Birth Records 1847 | Barnstable. Birth Records 1848. Well, Barnstable and Bristol are almost at opposite ends of Massachusetts. 

The record set of the vital records is actually the following.

Assuming that this one child was somehow born in a different county from the one where the family lived, there is already a child in the family born in 1848 who has a source showing she was two years old in the 1850 US Census.  

So, without going through my whole family line, I would still not add this child to a family that already had a child born the same year and shows up in the 1850 US Census as a two year old. 

Now what did the FamilySearch AI want me to do? If I ignored the fact that the suggested child was said to belong to William Thurston 2Z3W-1N2 who I might be related to and if I fail to check and simply believe what is offered by the AI Research Assistant, I find this is the family that the child would be attached to. 

This is not even a valid record and who I am not at all related to. 

So much for the AI Assistant.