Introducing GAIA -- A Real AI Research Agent from MyHeritage

I was one of the very early testers of the new GAIA AI Research Agent from MyHeritage.com. I had time to test GAIA over a period of weeks with some extensive research projects. Here is what I said at the end of the test run. 

The addition of GAIA as a research assistant on MyHeritage is a milestone in the development of the website. I have been testing new genealogy programs for many years, and I always begin with information I already know thoroughly. This lets me determine whether a program provides new clues, generates inaccurate data, or merely copies what already exists in my tree.

Working with GAIA was a new experience. As a test, I chose one of my direct-line sixth-great-grandmothers, Lydia Stewart. Generally, maternal lines are far less researched and documented than paternal lines, but Lydia Stewart happens to be well documented. Even so, many questions about families living in the late 1700s and early 1800s remain difficult to resolve.

As I began using GAIA, I was impressed by the questions it asked to advance the research. Drawing on existing genealogical sources and data from other family trees, its conclusions were consistent and well-grounded. Lydia Stewart died in Bolton, Warren County, New York, and GAIA located a link and brought up documents pointing to a possible probate search. Although I already had substantial sources for Lydia, any reference to a probate record was missing, making this a valuable suggestion. The Warren County online records look to be a promising resource. GAIA also provided details on Lydia’s children that were absent from my own files. While I might eventually have discovered these sources myself, GAIA’s ability to find them demonstrates its real value as a research assistant.

You find GAIA on an individual's profile page. It is opened by clicking on the "Research this person" link. This opens a page with a list of possible sources and a further link to "Research Agent Suggestions."

Here is an example of the beginning research for my direct line ancestor, Garrard Morgan. 

Here is a summary of which MyHeritage subscription levels provide access to GAIA. 

• Complete Plan: Grants access to the full historical data collections (billions of records) and advanced research tools required for the AI agent to search, extract, and match historical records against your tree.

• Omni Plan: MyHeritage’s all-inclusive subscription. It includes everything in the Complete plan plus higher usage allowances/quotas for advanced AI tools, full access to OldNews.com, Geni Pro, and photo tools. Notice the orange "Go Omni" banner in your header—users on lower tiers or with standard plans are prompted to upgrade to Omni for expanded usage limits.

• Data Plan (or standalone Data / Tree subscription): A basic Data subscription allows record matching, but specialized AI features typically operate on a quota system with limited searches or trial prompts before requiring an upgrade to Complete or Omni.

• Free / Basic Accounts: Free accounts are generally limited to a small initial preview or trial run of AI features before being prompted to purchase a subscription to view full source matches, conduct additional sessions, or extract records into their tree.

You can check your exact remaining monthly allowance or session quota at any time by clicking the "GAIA usage" link located at the bottom left of your chat panel. I currently have the Complete plan. AI usage allowances operate on a rolling monthly cycle that refreshes on the same day each month corresponding to your subscription renewal or initial allocation date (not necessarily the 1st of the calendar month).

I will be posting more later and giving some examples about how GAIA can be used to expand you genealogical research.

What is a Genealogical Source?

The simple definition of a genealogically valuable historical record or source is a record created at or near the time of an event by someone who participated in it, witnessed it, or had an official duty to record it. Genealogically valuable records are not limited to a particular era or format; an oral history or personal recollection from a relative fits this description just as well as an archival document.

Unfortunately, the word "source" often carries multiple meanings. In genealogical practice, what we often need most is a clear record of where that source resides, that is a citation telling exactly where and how the information was obtained. Over a lifetime of reading footnotes, I have found that few explain this access route in detail. Most merely cite a title or publication without indicating where a researcher might actually locate it. Citations vary widely in style and depth, but even a straightforward bibliographic citation can establish this connection:

Here is a perfectly acceptable citation to a book. 

Bennett, Archibald F. A Guide for Genealogical Research. Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1956.

From a genealogical perspective, the citation is missing the key element of where the book was found. In this case, the book is still subject to copyright protection and is only available in libraries and for purchase online. If the citation included a reference to the location of the book, subsequent researchers would not have to go through and try to find the book themselves. Another example of the need for specificity is a citation such as this one for this record:

“Santa Ana. Confirmation Records 1730–1736.” Accessed October 24, 2026. 

This citation tells us where the record was found. However, that particular set of records has 835 images, and lacking a more exact citation, I would possibly have to go through all 835 records to find this particular image. Here is a more complete citation:

“Santa Ana. Confirmation Records 1730–1736.” Accessed October 24, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GGZK-8NV?cat=koha%3A686299&view=explore&lang=en&groupId=M986-8MC

Fortunately, many of the online genealogy programs have a way to save a complete citation to a specific record. However, this type of feature is not universal, and occasionally you will get a citation to the entire set of records. Here is the citation to the record from FamilySearch.org.

"Santa Ana, Oaxaca, Mexico records," images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GGZK-8NV?view=explore : Oct 24, 2026), image 14 of 103; Archivo Diocesano de Oaxaca. Image Group Number: 004782273

Both these citations take you to the original document. Another important reason for having more specific citations is that you, in doing your own research, may need to go back and look at the original record. Without a specific citation, you may end up doing the research over again.

There are a number of programs which will automate the process of creating citations. A free app is Zotero.org from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Be sure and remember that the source is the description of the origin of the information. The citation is the format in which it is presented. 

There are possibly hundreds of different citation formats. However, genealogists primarily use the Chicago Manual of Style. If you use an app such as Zotero.org, the app itself will format your citations in the style you select. 

Options for using other family trees rather than using the FamilySearch.org Family Tree as a primary family tree

 

The genealogical landscape is populated by a great number of different genealogical resources and genealogical programs. It is extremely difficult to even begin to estimate the total number of active genealogical tree programs. A good sample of the programs available can be found in FamilySearch.org Solutions Gallery. The solutions gallery is available at the bottom of the startup page. Currently, there are seven apps listed as the top genealogical resources and fourteen apps listed as Family Tree Management Apps that sync information with the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. FamilySearch has also entered the options by its creation of "User Trees." 

Of course, this whole discussion relies on the assumption that you are using the FamilySearch Family Tree for your primary family tree. A decision to use another app (program) besides or in addition to the FamilySearch Family Tree for your primary family tree information depends on four main factors:

1. Your view of the reliability of the FamilySearch Family Tree, considering the number of changes you view as happening within your own part of the family tree

2.  Whether or not you want to move to a fee-based Family Tree instead of using the free FamilySearch Family Tree either to stop using the FamilySearch Family Tree or to use another family tree as a backup copy.

3. Your degree of tolerance for maintaining more than one family tree. 

4. The number of individuals you consider to be part of "your" family tree. 

The first major decision involved in either moving from the FamilySearch Family Tree or using another family tree app for a backup is to use a desktop program (app, I use these terms interchangeably) or an online website. The most popular desktop family tree programs include the following:

• Family Tree Maker (Software MacKiev): Currently holds the largest market share among desktop users. It is heavily utilized for its robust multimedia scrapbook management and its native synchronization capabilities with both Ancestry and FamilySearch. It offers native applications for both macOS and Windows.

• RootsMagic: Highly adopted for its clean evidence-first architecture and direct API synchronization with FamilySearch and Ancestry. It handles local-first workflows efficiently, supports the GEDCOM 7.0 standard for data exchange, and generates comprehensive database properties reports. It runs seamlessly on both macOS and PC.

• Legacy Family Tree: Renowned for its unparalleled suite of detailed reports and comprehensive charting options, including dedicated X-DNA charts. It is highly favored by professional researchers for its organization tools, though it remains a strictly Windows-based application requiring virtualization to run on Apple Silicon hardware.

• MyHeritage Family Tree Builder: A widely used freemium desktop client that provides bidirectional synchronization with the MyHeritage global records database. It is particularly strong in local photo management and handling massive offline databases on both Mac and Windows environments.

• Heredis: A major contender that originated in France and dominates the European market, though it has built a substantial international user base. It stands out for its highly visual interface, robust mapping tools, and seamless multi-device synchronization.

• MacFamilyTree (Synium): The most popular desktop program exclusively built for the macOS ecosystem. It is heavily optimized for Apple Silicon hardware, leveraging native Apple frameworks to render massive interactive 3D charts and process 20TB+ multimedia databases with zero latency.

• Gramps: The definitive open-source, offline-first application. It provides absolute local control over databases with zero vendor lock-in, offering extensive plugin customization and strict, evidence-linked citation handling across macOS, Windows, and Linux.

• Family Historian: Widely adopted by evidence-focused genealogists for its rigorous source citation templates and interactive timelines. It operates natively around GEDCOM structures, ensuring that media and source context travel flawlessly during file exports, though it requires Windows 8, 10, or 11.

• Ancestral Quest: The direct architectural successor to PAF (Personal Ancestral File). It maintains a very loyal user base by focusing on strict, local database reporting, straightforward evidence-linked notes, and deep synchronization tools for the FamilySearch shared tree.

This is not an exhaustive list but it represents a broad spectrum of programs. Desktop programs can generally be started using a GEDCOM upload. However, the FamilySearch Family Tree does not have a GEDCOM downloading option so you must rely on the ability of the individual desktop programs to download portions of the part of the FamilySearch Family Tree that contains your family information. Some of the programs have limited support for descendants. 

If you are trying to avoid a shared family tree such as WikiTree, there a fewer options. Here is a list of the major alternatives: 

• Ancestry.com: The world's largest subscription-based genealogy platform. It provides access to billions of historical records, extensive user-generated family trees, and deep integration with its DNA testing service.

• MyHeritage.com: A major subscription and freemium platform featuring more than 20 billion historical records. It is well known for its strong international record collections and its advanced AI photo tools that allow users to enhance, colorize, repair, and animate historical photos.

• Findmypast: A prominent subscription site that specializes in British and Irish genealogy, offering the most comprehensive collection of records for the British Isles.

• Geni.com: A platform dedicated entirely to creating a single, collaborative world family tree where users interconnect their research.

Some of these programs and online websites go back years and are generally accepted as alternatives to the FamilySearch Family Tree.  If you decide to ignore the FamilySearch Family Tree, you may end up duplicating research that is already available. The huge size and continued growth of the unified FamilySearch Family Tree should be regularly consulted to help prevent redoing research that is already documented. 

I certainly recognize that individual preferences regarding the use of any of the programs and websites listed above are totally up to the individual. I use many of the programs and have become familiar with all of them over the years, but time and resources mandate making selections and choices.

Paint-by-Numbers to Remember and Honor Your Ancestors

https://paintezshop.com/products/customized001?variant=45535703072958

When I was growing up, coloring books, puzzle books, and paint-by-numbers pictures were a part of my childhood. I took art classes during high school, and when I arrived at the University of Utah as a freshman, I majored in fine art. After a year of classes, I finally realized that I was not coordinated enough to be an artist. Of course, I never lost my interest in art. During my years traveling around to various countries of the world and throughout the United States, I have gained a tremendous appreciation for arts and crafts. Paint-by-numbers still exists and is still a part of the vast do-it-yourself (DIY) movement in the United States. If you want to see the ongoing interest, do a quick YouTube search for "paint by numbers."

Out of the blue, I was contacted because of my genealogical interest by one of the major paint-by-numbers companies to see if there was interest in having paint-by-numbers applied to ancestral photographs. The company that contacted me was PaintEasy https://paintezshop.com/. Many of my genealogy friends are involved with doing books for their families, some AI generated for grandchildren, and other traditional crafts. Being as old as I am, I would view paint-by-numbers as a "traditional craft. In this case, a treasured photo of a family member can be turned into a craft project through paint-by-numbers. 

The company offered to send me a free starter kit, but I have had essential tremors since I was born and although, I would like to, painting-by-the-numbers is out of my ability. My wife, Ann, however was interested. Hence, I could write about the process and she could do the actual painting. We got our first kit and Ann is looking forward to how it works out. The idea was to convert a photo of one of our relatives into a paint-by-numbers print and then do the painting with the kit supplied. Ann decided to try out a different image first. Here is the first kit. 

FamilySearch.org Person IDs an Enigma

 

These two names are the same person. They are not duplicates in the FamilySearch Family Tree. Joshua Tanner GR5L-PSL is in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree and Joshua Tanner LKKM-LWY is the same person in my FamilySearch.org User Tree. If you want to know about User Trees on FamilySearch, see my video: https://youtu.be/vAg8XM4F3qE?si=sTQP4OVJvUA5Q0c1

If any of my relatives who are Tanners start a FamilySearch User Tree and enter Joshua Tanner as an ancestor, Joshua Tanner will have his own distinct ID number.

The FamilySearch ID numbers are an essential part of avoiding duplicate entries in the family tree. For example, if you are adding a source, the source linker may indicate that the record is already attached to that person. This indicates that there is a duplicate entry. The only real way to tell the difference between the duplicate and the original is to compare the ID numbers and look at the information entered for the individual. 

Duplicate entries on the FamilySearch Family Tree are endemic. An untold number of hours have been consumed by eliminating duplicates from the FamilySearch Family Tree. The process of resolving duplicate entries is an ongoing background to almost every entry. 

This relatively new experiment from FamilySearch Labs enables you to search all the family trees on FamilySearch at the same time. Doing this is an immediate indication of the number of duplicates that have been added to various family trees. The relatively new FamilySearch User Trees will guarantee that additional duplicate family trees and individual entries will increase. 

The reality of the international genealogical community is that anyone starting a new family tree on any online website will more than likely be doing duplicate research. For example, when I am doing research on my Ancestry family tree, any new entry that I make will almost always come up with a match to some other user who has already entered that information into their own tree. If any of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren were to work on the FamilySearch.org website, they would immediately find that their ancestral files were complete back at least six generations. Of course, this is limited to the direct lines going to me and my wife. Many times, people who are new to the FamilySearch Family Tree are surprised to find so much of their ancestral information already available. If this new person is beginning a family tree on other websites, they may not be aware that FamilySearch already has a substantial amount of information about their family. 

Given the state of technology, there should be a way for individuals working on their own private or unconnected family trees to immediately see that they are entering information already on a variety of family trees. This should be particularly the case with individuals uploading GEDCOM files to the FamilySearch User Trees. As soon as the GEDCOM file is uploaded, there should be some way to notify the new user that the names they have uploaded from another program are already on the FamilySearch Family Tree. Otherwise, there is a significant possibility that the FamilySearch User Trees will end up increasing the number of duplicates on the FamilySearch Family Tree. The generation of a new ID number for people who already exist on the FamilySearch Family Tree will add to the confusion and duplicates. 

Will Genealogy Survive AI?

 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/genealogies/submissions?f.collectionId=10000130

AI's rapid advancement is caused by three factors: raw compute increases, algorithmic efficiency improvements, and "unhobbling" processes. In the current super-accelerated decade, we enjoy a 10,000x AI performance boost every four years, making it likely that AI will exceed top human experts by 2027. There are good arguments that AI progress past 2027 could be slower, but also that it could be even faster. 

Nielsen, Jakob. “The Decade of AI Super-Acceleration.” UX Tigers, July 10, 2024. https://www.uxtigers.com/post/super-accelerated-ai.

At some point, genealogists will have to face the fact that AI can accurately do much of the work genealogists do. An easy example, not considering document transcription and translation, would be the ability to search huge databases from a single prompt. In this regard, record hints and matches are quickly becoming more accurate. It will be only a short time before AI will be used to search nearly all the huge online genealogical record collections. For example, FamilySearch is spending huge resources to extend AI-supported Full-text search.

Meanwhile, the serious, advanced genealogists will comfort themselves with the seemingly huge archival collections that have yet to be digitized. One of the most extreme examples is the United States National Archives where only a very small percentage of the documents have been digitized. 

One of the main commonly expressed arguments against the utility of AI is the issue of the inappropriately named "hallucinations." One way of responding to this background concern is to ask, compared to what? AI is essentially a computer program. Top commercial models (like Google's Gemini Flash variants and standard GPT models) have dropped below a 1% hallucination rate on basic apples-to-apples summarization tests. 

See Graffius, S. M. (2026, January 7). Are AI Hallucinations Getting Better or Worse? We Analyzed the Data. ScottGraffius.com. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.33179.53285. 

One way to control the hallucination issue is to use your chat program to self-critique or correct any task you have asked it to do. For example, if I ask Gemini to transcribe and/or translate a document, I use a specially designed prompt to initiate the process and then I start a new chat and give Gemini the prompt I used and the results and ask it to review and correct the output. You may be surprised at the response. 

Now, if AI continues to get better and expand in its capabilities, how much more of what genealogists do could be done more accurately and much faster than even the most expert level genealogist?

Here is a list of some of the genealogical tasks that would be enhanced or replaced by using AI.

Searching for valuable historic and genealogically useful information from online and paper-based archives and websites. Granted there is a current "paywall" issue. Without permission, most genealogy database sites are protected by account authentication layers, paywalls, and robots.txt/web-scraping blockers. But once we do the job of finding a record on a protected website, an AI assistant can transcribe, translate, and analyze the document. Currently with context-sensitive AI, anything you can see on your computer can be seen by the AI assistant and analyzed despite a paywall. This only means that the paywall sites need to catch up to the new technology if they want to do so. 

Google's Gemini 3 generation operates with a standard input context window of 1 million tokens—expandable up to 2 million tokens in advanced developer and enterprise environments—and supports up to 64,000 output tokens. Across its natively multimodal architecture, a 1-million-token input translates to roughly 700,000 words, approximately 1,500 single-spaced pages of text, 1 hour of video, or 11 hours of audio in a single prompt.

See Google DeepMind, Gemini 3 Pro Model Card (Mountain View, CA: Google, 2025; updated May 2026), 2–3, Google DeepMind Media. 

How long would it take you to search through this number of pages? 

From my own experience I have added 120 original documents that include deeds, probate files, town records and other similar documents and using Gemini Notebook, Gemini generated a spreadsheet showing all the people named in all the documents with citations to the documents and showing the relationship, if present, of all the people named. The long part of this analysis was locating and uploading the documents. Gemini did the analysis in a matter of a few minutes. 

How long would it take you to do the same analysis?

Using FamilySearch's Full-text search, I was able to find deeds and probate documents about my ancestors that I had never and would not have even spent the time to find. 

What new-to-you documents do you think a full-text search might reveal? 

As AI matures and becomes more sophisticated and reliable, the tasks it will be able to do will continue to expand. Those genealogists that are still working on paper or even those who do not care to learn about AI may one day wake up to the fact that any work they do is already done by an online website such as FamilySearch. 

See Trent Toone, “What Latter-day Saints Should Know About Temple and Family History,” Church News, March 6, 2026, https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2026/03/06/elder-mark-bragg-rootstech-2026-what-latter-day-saints-should-know-temple-family-history/.

Can a genealogist remain relevant? The ones that are relevant today will be the ones who are relevant tomorrow. These relevant genealogists are the ones that are anxious to adopt whatever advances in technology that will help them do their work better, faster, and with more accurate content. AI is already doing this for a large number of genealogists. 

Additional Note: I use Google Gemini for my examples for the simple reason that Google has optimized Gemini for deep research and synthesis, which aligns directly with what I do as a genealogist.

FamilySearch announces genetic genealogy expert CeCe Moore and actress and philanthropist Jane Seymour as keynote speakers for RootsTech 2027

 

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQhWfMTkxcCvvVpPTVBmrLflVzg

Registration is now open for RootsTech 2027 on March 4th to 6th, 2027. The conference will be held at the Salt Palace, in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

The theme for RootsTech 2027—“Celebrate!”—encourages participants to see family history as a living celebration of people, cultures, and stories that connect generations. 

Two of the keynote speakers have been announced. 

CeCe More

Quoting from the announcement:

An internationally recognized DNA investigative expert, educator, and pioneer in genetic genealogy, CeCe Moore has helped transform the way people use DNA to discover family connections and solve longstanding mysteries. Her work has been featured in thousands of articles and television programs worldwide, and she has served 13 seasons as the genetic genealogist on the PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. 

Moore’s groundbreaking work has demonstrated the remarkable impact of family history research and DNA analysis, helping establish genetic genealogy as an essential tool for learning more about our ancestors. 

Jane Seymour

Again quoting from the announcement:

Award-winning actress, author, and philanthropist Jane Seymour has inspired audiences for more than five decades across television, film, stage, and literature. Best known to many for her Golden Globe-winning role in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Seymour’s work extends beyond entertainment through her dedication to philanthropic causes and family-centered storytelling. 

In 2010, she founded the Open Hearts Foundation, inspired by the philosophy of resilience and selfless giving passed down by her mother. Today, the foundation supports nonprofits that help individuals transform adversity into opportunity, and it has provided grants to organizations throughout the United States.

 See you at RootsTech.