Moving to a New Research Level by Using AI Prompts as a Research Tool.

Over the past few weeks, the online AI community has experienced a major shift in perspective. The emerging consensus is that interacting with AI is fundamentally different from performing a Google search. Using Google Gemini as an example, much of the current discussion focuses on the importance of developing complex prompts. There is a significant difference between simply asking a question and issuing a structured command. By using specific, detailed prompts, users find that responses from Gemini and other chatbots almost entirely avoid fabrications—a term I find more appropriate than 'hallucinations.'

In addition, Google has focused on integrating additional AI apps into cooperative teams. For example, although the basic AI tool is now Gemini 3.1, Google Gems (an active part of Gemini), provides a tool for drafting and organizing effective prompts. Here is a short explanation of how Google Gems works created by Google Gemini. Note: This explanation has been personalized to address my own background. 

Using Google Gems as a "support partner" effectively turns Gemini from a generalist into a specialized teammate that remembers your specific preferences, workflows, and technical background.

Here are the basic steps to set up and use them as your personal support squad:

1. Access the "Gems" Lab

• On the web, look at the left-hand sidebar of the Gemini interface.

• Click the Gems link to see in the left hand side bar (expand the sidebar by clicking on the hamburger icon )

• You will see Premade Gems (like "Writing Editor" or "Brainstormer") and an option to create a New Gem.

2. Define the "Support" Persona

When creating a new Gem, the "Instructions" box is where you define the partnership. A strong support partner needs four things:

• Persona: Tell it who it is (e.g., "You are an expert Genealogy Research Assistant with a background in linguistics").

• Task: Tell it what it does (e.g., "You help me analyze historical documents and suggest potential connections in family trees").

• Context: Give it your background rules (e.g., "I prefer concise, fact-based summaries and standard legal citations").

• Format: How you want the results (e.g., "Present findings in a bulleted list with a summary of confidence levels").

Pro Tip: If you aren't sure how to phrase the instructions, write a messy draft and click the "Use Gemini to rewrite" (sparkly pencil) icon. It will polish your rough thoughts into a professional prompt.

3. Upload Your "Knowledge Base"

This is what makes a Gem a true partner rather than just a chat. You can upload up to 10 files (PDFs, Docs, etc.) that the Gem will reference every time you talk to it.

• For a legal partner, you might upload specific procedural rules.

• For a genealogy partner, you might upload a style guide for your blog or a specific family history project outline.

4. Integrate into Your Workflow

Once saved, you don't always have to go to the Gemini website to use your Gem:

• Sidebar Access: Pin your favorite Gems to the top of your sidebar for one-click access.

• Workspace Integration: In Google Docs or Gmail, you can pull up the Gemini side panel and select your specific Gem to help draft or edit content right where you are working.

• Sharing: If you are collaborating with family or colleagues, you can Share your Gem. This gives them the same "expert" setup you've built, ensuring consistency across your team or projects.

Here is an example of a research prompt developed using Google Gems.

Act as a Board-certified Professional Genealogist. Your goal is to assist me in researching [Name/Family Line] while strictly adhering to the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS).

For every piece of information you provide or analyze, you must:

Evaluate Evidence: Distinguish between direct, indirect, and negative evidence.

Assess Source Reliability: Categorize sources as Original, Derivative, or Authored, and information as Primary or Secondary.

Identify Conflicts: Explicitly point out any contradictions in the records (e.g., differing birth dates or spellings).

Assign Reliability Scores: Provide a degree of confidence (e.g., Low, Moderate, High) for each conclusion based on the quality of the documentation.

Maintain Citations: Use a standard format (like Evidence Explained) for all sources referenced.

We will begin by defining a specific research objective. Please acknowledge these standards and ask me for the known facts of the 'Target Person' to start our reasonably exhaustive search.

When you begin focusing on how you create your prompts, you will move to a whole different level of AI usage.   

Weekly Online AI Q&A from the BYU Library Family History Center

 

https://familyhistory.lib.byu.edu/live-virtual-family-history-help

For the past few weeks, I have been conducting an hour-long, open, free, Q&A session from the BYU Library Family History Center Virtual Help Desk. We have had some extremely interesting discussions. Here is the information for attending. 

Time: Every Thursday at 10:00 am Mountain Time (MDT) (Except RootsTech, Scheduled Holidays, University Semester Breaks, or some unavoidable conflict in my own schedule. If the connection does not work, it will probably be one of these reasons. If I am unavailable, the library volunteers will know and you are free to ask anyone else in the library for help. 

Topics: No planned classes just open discussion. Ask any question in the known or unknown universe. 

Reason: When I am talking to people about AI, I gain a greater knowledge of how and why they use AI or why they don't use AI. 

Please feel free to tune in. 

MyHeritage Expands to 50 Languages

 

https://blog.myheritage.com/2026/01/myheritage-expands-to-50-languages/

Here is part of the announcement from MyHeritage.com

We’re excited to share that the MyHeritage website is now fully available in 50 languages, following the addition of 9 more languages. This expansion enables millions more people around the world to discover who they are and where they belong, in their native language. It will also lead to more valuable matches and discoveries for MyHeritage users worldwide as more diverse audiences join and build their family trees on the platform.

The addition of new languages is another step forward in our continued commitment to making family history accessible to as many people as possible. This commitment has made MyHeritage the world’s leading international genealogy and DNA testing service.

Here are the new languages just added to MyHeritage:

Albanian

Basque

Bosnian

Georgian

Icelandic

Irish

Luxembourgish

Maltese

Welsh

Personally, I can see languages on this short list that I have done research in in the not-too-distant past. Those include Basque, Irish, Icelandic, and Welsh. 

MyHeritage’s expansion to 50 languages is a major milestone in this evolution. By localizing tools and interfaces into languages from Afrikaans to Vietnamese, the platform invites millions of native speakers worldwide to participate. This is vital because the most critical documents—the "smoking guns" of your family history—are often held by distant cousins in non-English speaking countries.

Here is the full list of the 50 languages currently supported by MyHeritage. 

Traditional vs. AI based Genealogical Research

 When I completed my Master's Thesis at the University of Utah in 1970, the university library still had a paper-based card catalog. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=2286246&hl=James%20l.%20tanner

It took me months to write and type the 39 page thesis. Jump to today. I can research and write hundreds of pages in that same time. Doing research with a paper card catalog was (and still is) ponderously tedious. There wasn't any part of research back then that was not tedious, especially reading rolls of microfilm. 

 It could take me an entire day to read one roll of microfilm. I can now search the entire collection of processed records in a few minutes using the FamilySearch.org Full-text search. 

Now, what is the point? I work in a modern completely computerized library. With the advent of AI, I can do as much research in an hour as it would have taken me months. However, there are still people coming to the library with mountains of paper in rolling suitcases. They tediously copy records out by hand and write reams of paper notes. They ignore full-text search and barely know that Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com exist. No matter how much I write, no matter how many videos I make, and no matter how much time I spend teaching people about how to use online resources (including AI) there always seems to be an endless number of people who are doing genealogy the same way I did it more than fifty years ago. 

Now, let's not get all huffy and start blaming old people. I work with a lot of students at the university who are almost at the same level of lack of skills that I see in some older people. Granted I also work with some amazingly expert researchers and I also meet some amazing students, but it makes me sad to talk to people who not only lack the skills but are not interested in learning. 

Right now, with Google Gemini and Gemini Guided Learning, you or anyone can learn anything for what is essentially free. All you need is to expend time and effort. Here is how the free version works.

General Free Users: You can access Guided Learning mode through the "Tools" or "Activities" menu in the Gemini app or web interface. It allows you to start a learning session on almost any topic (e.g., "Teach me how to use the new features in FamilySearch").

Student Offer: There is a specific promotion running through April 30, 2026, where college students (18+) can get a free 12-month Google AI Pro plan. This version includes "expanded" access to Guided Learning, higher usage limits for the more advanced Gemini 3.1 Pro model, and deeper research capabilities.

Limitations: While the feature is free, the "intensity" is capped. Free users primarily use the Gemini 3 Flash model for these sessions. If you are doing deep, multi-hour research or complex technical analysis (similar to the dictionary work you did at the U of U), you might hit "cooldown" periods where the AI reverts to a more basic response mode until your daily quota resets.

What is your excuse? 

FamilySearch enters the world of generative AI

 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree-designs/global/?cid=EM-00045942&lid=kpa5y1037boe

With a lot of the possible designs, FamilySearch has apparently created an AI generation using your information from your part of the FamilySearch.org family tree. You will probably find the link on the FamilySearch.org website when you log in. Here are a few more examples. 

See you at RootsTech. 

Relatives at RootsTech 2026 now open

 

Based on the information for the 2026 conference, the Relatives at RootsTech 2026 experience has opened early to allow attendees to start finding cousins before the main event (March 5–7, 2026). The app officially became available for users on February 13, 2026, and will remain active until March 31, 2026. 

Here is the information you requested for participating in this year's experience:

1. Register: You must be registered for the RootsTech 2026 conference (virtual registration is free).
2. Access the Tool:
   • Mobile App: Download or open the FamilySearch Tree app on your iPhone. Click the "Relatives at RootsTech" banner at the top of the screen.
   • Website: Go to FamilySearch.org/connect and sign in.
3. Opt In: Click to opt into the experience to begin scanning for your relatives. 

Can you tell if something is AI generated?

 The three images above show similar winter scenes of aspen trees. Looking at them, which one do you think is AI-generated, and which one came from my camera (specifically, my iPhone 17)? Are they all generated, or are they all original photos? What do you think?

There are many YouTube videos claiming to offer foolproof ways to identify AI-generated images. While it is certainly possible to detect AI by examining the underlying code, doing so from a practical, visual standpoint is becoming increasingly difficult—if not nearly impossible. This is especially true when comparing AI to images taken with late-model cameras that use sophisticated internal settings and computational adjustments.

To test your eye, I will reveal that one of these images was taken with my iPhone, one was generated by Google Gemini, and the third was created using Adobe Photoshop.

Paragraph One

I am aware of the controversy that is raging across the academic community in all levels about the use or abuse of AI.  There are persuasive arguments on both sides: the adoption of AI wholesale or banning it completely from the academic setting. However, just as with the three images, it the AI is as sophisticated as Google Gemini, there is no real way to tell whether writing was generated by AI or written by me or someone else without using AI. One reason for this is that I use Google's spell and grammar checker. To the extent that these Google tools employ AI, everything I write in my blogs has been altered by AI at least as to spelling and my propensity to drop out words. 

Paragraph Two

There is currently a significant debate raging across the academic community regarding the use, or potential abuse, of AI. On one side, you have the early adopters who believe we should embrace these tools wholesale to speed up the tedious parts of our work. On the other, there are those who argue for banning AI entirely from academic and historical settings to preserve "authenticity."

What do you think?

The genealogical landscape is shifting beneath our feet, and it’s doing so at a pace that can feel a bit dizzying for those of us who remember the days of cranking microfilm readers in dimly lit archives. For decades, the "gold standard" of research was defined by the physical trail—hand-written notes, photocopies of census records, and the slow, methodical process of manual verification. But today, the conversation has moved from the filing cabinet to the cloud, and specifically, to the role of Artificial Intelligence in our research and writing.

This is largely because the transition to AI isn't always a deliberate "choice" to let a machine write for us; it’s baked into the tools we already trust. For instance, as I mentioned above, I rely heavily on Google’s spelling and grammar checkers. To the extent that these tools employ AI to suggest better phrasing or catch my tendency to drop words when I’m typing too fast, nearly everything I publish has been touched by AI.

The challenge for the modern family historian isn't to fear the technology, but to master it while maintaining our traditional standards for accuracy and sourcing. If you’re ready to integrate these tools into your workflow without losing your "genealogical soul," here is how I recommend approaching it:

• View AI as an Editor, Not an Author: Use tools like Gemini or specialized grammar checkers to clean up your prose and catch those pesky typos, but ensure the underlying facts and citations remain your own.

• Verify the Source Material: Never let an AI summarize a record for you without checking the original image. AI can hallucinate dates or names; your eyes on the original document remain the final authority.

• Be Transparent: If you use AI to significantly restructure a family history narrative, a simple footnote or disclaimer is a great way to maintain the integrity of your work, much like we cite our traditional sources.

We are entering an era where the "how" of our writing is changing, but the "why"—the pursuit of truth in our family lines—must remain the same. The tools are getting smarter, and it’s our job to ensure our research methods keep pace.

Obviously this blog post contains AI generated text. By the way the middle photo came from my iPhone the other two were generated by gemini, the top photo, and Photoshop, the bottom photo. Paragraphe Two is a rewrite of the first paragraph by Gemini as are the rest of my ideas in the last paragraphs. I use Google Gems to draft prompts that incorporate my own style and tone of writing. Google has over 6000 examples of my blog posts to work from. 

In just three short years, AI has become so pervasive as be ubiquitous. There is really to way to avoid it. As far as the academic community is involved in this AI revolution, they will either figure out ways to teach in the AI world or disappear as irrelevant.