RootsTech 2025 is only back one week when AI to a larger than life leap in its ability to do "real" research. This screenshot shows the product of Gemini Deep Research prompt to tell me about my great-grandfather Henry Martin Tanner. This lengthy bio is supported by more than a hundred relevant and accurate source citations. The whole process took about ten minutes.
I am still in the process of learning about the options and any problems with using this new tool, but initially it looks like a major advancement. Here is the link to the Google explanation about this new AI development. https://gemini.google/overview/deep-research/?hl=en
I will be doing a online presentation about using AI to do Family History Research on 30 March 2025 for the BYU Library Family History Center. This will include some of my observations about using Deep Research from Google Gemini. See https://familyhistory.lib.byu.edu/learning for the link to our Virtual Family History Classes. After the class has been presented, the video will be uploaded to the BYU Library Family History ¥ouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@BYULibraryFamilyHistory
More later.
Yes, it (and other agents) does a great job when there are many sources available, like on your blog or my blog, or the blog of others that are crawled by search engines. The end product life sketch is written extremely well - better than I can do - and can weave in historical and social context.
ReplyDeleteBut, what about ancestors not written up by a researcher? Say a sibling of an ancestor or their spouse who has no blog post with source citations or a life sketch on Family Tree or WikiTree? They may have a decent profile with sources on an Ancestry or MyHeritage tree, but the search engines and chatbots don't find those - Gemini and the others don't find even Family Tree profiles and if they did, can they find all of the details and sources on the profile page or the life sketch (if there is one)?
There is still no substitute for doing actual research for a historical person that is not well documented online.
Yes, I agree.
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