RootsTech Connect 2022: Update on FamilySearch's use of Artificial Intelligence and Handwriting Recognition

 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/newsroom/familysearch-get-involved-online-volunteer-experience

I have been involved with learning about and reporting about handwriting recognition for genealogical research for a long time. I always thought about it being something distant in the future. Well, apparently, the future is now. In the past few years, organizations such as the Brigham Young University Family History Technology Lab have been working on developing handwriting recognition to the point where it could be useful. Let's just say that it is one of the major technological challenges of our day.

Here are some quotes from the blog post above about the process as it is being implemented by FamilySearch.org. This is FamilySearch's new "Get Involved" initiative.

FamilySearch’s new artificial intelligence can now scan handwritten genealogical documents—millions of them—quickly and generate an index of the names and other information from those digitized documents. The index is far from perfect, but it’s impressive. Perfecting that machine index is where the Get Involved online volunteers come in.

FamilySearch’s new Get Involved experience is a hybrid web tool and mobile app. The handwriting recognition artificial intelligence is smart enough to know when it is not sure about something in its transcription and marks these instances—for example, in a name spelling on a birth certificate. Then online volunteers, using Get Involved, simply look at images of handwritten names the computer isn’t sure about and help correct them. With an interface that is super easy to use, volunteers can conveniently spend just a few minutes to review an image and offer edits or a few seconds to review one name. All work gets saved immediately, and it makes a difference quickly.

I suggest you might want to read the entire article. 

There is a FamilySearch Get Involved app

I will be writing more about this later when I make a video about the app.