Nutrioso, an extreme example of Full-text search

It may not yet occurred to you, but FamilySearch.org's Full-text Search can do a lot more than merely search for names. 

Nutrioso, Arizona, is a small, unincorporated community with a history deeply tied to early settlement in the American Southwest. Before permanent settlement, the area was a site for temporary encampments for indigenous groups, particularly during the summer and autumn. The town's name is derived from the Spanish words "nutria" (beaver) and "oso" (bear), as the first settlers reportedly found and hunted these animals in the valley. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrioso,_Arizona

If your ancestors lived in a small town, it is entirely possible that there were intermarriaged and shared history. The entry above shows the FamilySearch Full-text search response using "Nutrioso" as a key word and producing 3,959 records with that word. The responses include some of the following record types even though FamilySearch is just beginning to process the entire website. This is just a partial list.

• Birth, Death, and Marriage records
• Newspaper articles
• Family Group Records
• Genealogies
• Pedigree Referal Service
• Family Histories
• Homestead Final Certificates, Land Entry Case Files Arizon, Prescott
• Articles of Incorporation of the Amity Irrigation Company
• Our Tenney family heritage
• Apache County. Tax Assessment Records 1882
• Apache County, Arizona Voting Registers 1892

As you look at this list, consider the issue of knowing that these records even existed for Nutrioso. But the next step is to add a surname to the search. So, I searched for the key word "Nutrioso" and the "Jarvis" surname. My maternal great-grandmother was a Jarvis and the Jarvis family lived for a time in Nutrioso. I did not put in a place or any dates. 

Here is another list showing additional references to Nutrioso and some to my Great-great-grandfather Charles Godfrey DeFriez Jarvis. Here is one of the records that showed that my Great-great-grandfather Charles Godfrey DeFriez Jarvis was acting as the County Recorder for Apache County in 1892. I did not know this but it might be in my Great-grandmother, Margaret Godfrey Jarvis Overson's book. 

Stay tuned for a flood of additional information that can and will be discovered using the Full-text search on FamilySearch.org.

Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy: Education

 CRAIGEN.org

Education

The use of AI creates new opportunities and risks. Therefore, members of the genealogical community educate themselves about AI to maximize its benefits and minimize its risks to their work.

For all the years I was an active, practicing, attorney in Arizona, I had to take 15 hours of Continuing Legal Education (CLE) and at least three of those hours had to be professional responsibility/ethics. These were in person or online classes. However, I also had to do a considerable amount of self-education because every legal case I took had its own facts and supporting case law. If I wanted to continue practicing my profession, I had to maintain both the compulsory education and serious, necessary self-education. 

When I first began investigating my own genealogy, 43 years ago, I was totally unaware of any educational opportunities for learning about how to proceed with my own genealogical research. I was not aware of anyone around me who was involved in genealogy, certainly, not in my family or close associates. Of course, in 1982 when I began, the internet was still year away for its "birthdate" on January 1, 1983 when ARPANET adopted the TCP/IP protocol, allowing diverse networks to "talk" to each other and forming the foundation of the modern Internet. The development continued with the World Wide Web in 1991 and user-friendly browsers like Mosaic in 1993, which led to the Internet's mainstream public adoption. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet.

I quickly began to realize my lack of experience and education despite three college level degrees, a B.A., an M.A. and a J.D. Fortunately for my own realization of the need for education, there were books. However, I spent the first few years unaware of any genealogists, genealogical societies, or Family History Centers. The first step I took towards my formal genealogical education was with the following book. 

Greenwood, Val D. 1978. The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy. Baltimore: Genealogical Publ. Co.

Over the years, I also discovered the following books. 

Filby, P. William. 1984. The Source : A Guidebook of American Genealogy. Edited by Arlene H. Eakle and Johni Cerny. Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry Publishing Company.

Herber, Mark D and Society of Genealogists (Great Britain). Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History. Genealogical Pub. Co., Inc, 1998.

And many others. As time passed and as I began to obtain an idea about the complexities of genealogical research, I decided to take distance learning family history classes from Brigham Young University. I took classes for about five years and these were the hardest classes I had experienced even with all my past formal education (including law school). 

Eventually, my practical education began when I volunteered to work at the Mesa Multi-Stake Family History Center in Mesa, Arizona. I am still spending most of my time learning and helping others to learn. 

So, now you might begin to understand why I think Education is one of the guiding principles for responsible AI in genealogy. The key words in the Education Guiding Principal are "members of the genealogical community educate themselves." Enough said. Now, you can learn all you can stand by asking one of the chatbots how to do genealogical research and keep asking. 

How do we know what is real in Genealogy?

 

Genealogy is history and history is genealogy. Another way of putting that statement is following statement by Thomas Carlyle:

Before Philosophy can teach by Experience, the Philosophy has to be in readiness, the Experience must be gathered and intelligibly recorded. Now, overlooking the former consideration, and with regard only to the latter, let anyone who has examined the current of human affairs, and how intricate, perplexed, unfathomable, even when seen into with our own eyes, are their thousand-fold blending movements, say whether the true representing of it is easy or impossible. Social Life is the aggregate of all the individual men's Lives who constitute society; History is the essence of innumerable Biographies. But if one Biography, nay, our own Biography, study and recapitulate it as we may, remains in so many points unintelligible to us, how much more must these million, the very facts of which, to say nothing of the purport of them, we know not, and cannot know! 

Carlyle, Thomas, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. With Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection. Philadelphia : A. Hart, 1852. http://archive.org/details/criticalmiscella00incarl. 

Our perception of history can never be entirely true because it is an interpretation of incomplete past evidence, influenced by our biases, perspectives, and the agendas of the people who recorded it, often leading to the proverb "history is written by the victors". In addition, we struggle with historical accuracy as we work backward in time. 

One example of our varying view of history that I have written about several times in the past, is readily apparent from the entries in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree about the approximately 53 passengers of the Mayflower who survived the first winter. See The Mayflower Passengers. 

You can see from this screenshot and if you go to view Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7, that his "history" changes almost daily despite the existence of extensive documentation from The General Society of Mayflowere Descendants. See also Mayflower Lineage Match. 

We are now living in an age where a "New Reality" can be generated in moment of time. I only have a few photographs of my great-grand father Henry Martin Tanner born in 1852 and died in 1935. Here is one of the photos of him on his 80th birthday in 1932 shortly before he died. 

Today, I can now see that same image in color! 

Of course, we might want to know that Color photography was invented in 1861 by James Clerk Maxwell and Thomas Sutton, but it didn't become widely available to the public until the late 1930s with the introduction of films like Kodachrome and Agfacolor. It is almost certain that this photo was not originally in color but using a readily available photo editing software you can add color. 

In addition, I can ask Google Gemini to generate an image of Henry when he was 80 years old. 

If I did not have the original photo, how could I tell if the newly generated photo was real or not? I could also keep generating additional photos of Henry until I got one I liked. 

This photo shows him standing in his "Tanner Homestad" in Gilbert, AZ, with cactus and all. Which of these images is real? Just in case you are wondering here is the same Gilbert, AZ photo in color. 

If you look in the lower right hand corner of the photos, you will see the Google Gemini mark that signals that these extra photos were AI generated. 

Think about this issue of reality. Aren't the hundreds or thousands of changes to Francis Cooke and the other Mayflower passengers just as unreal as the generated photos of Henry Tanner? Do we really need to get into deep philosophical discussions about reality or can we live with citing historical sources and being content with actual history?

By the way, here is photo of Gilbert, Arizona in the early 1930s from the Gilbert Historical Museum. 

https://www.azcentral.com/picture-gallery/news/local/gilbert/2014/07/25/historic-gilbert-photos/10169323/

Let's start thinking more about what is real and supported by contemporary historical documents and records and less about trying to get our perceptions of the past to be established as "reality." 

RootsTech 2026 Registration now open!

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/

Registration for RootsTech 2026 is now open! The world's largest family history conference returns March 5-7, 2026, with options for both in-person and online attendance. Whether you want to join the excitement live at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah, or participate for free from the comfort of your home, RootsTech offers hundreds of classes, inspiring keynote speakers, and a massive Expo Hall to help you discover and celebrate your family story. Secure your spot today to take advantage of early-bird pricing for the in-person event and get ready for a global celebration of family connection.

If you are coming to the live event, you may wish to investigate hotel offerings early. The old Plaza Hotel, just north across the street from the Salt Palace will start to be demolished on November 1, 2025. 

DISCLOSURE: I am a RootsTech 2026 Media Rep and in return for my promotion of the RootsTech 2026 conference I receive a free entry pass and some additional non-monetary perks. My transportation and accommodations are not compensated.

Guiding Principles for Responsible AI in Genealogy: Privacy

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https://craigen.org/ 

Privacy

AI usage can lead to unintended data exposure, putting private information at risk of being publicly disclosed. Therefore, members of the genealogical community take reasonable measures to safeguard private information when using AI. https://craigen.org/ 

The fundamental rule of privacy on the internet is simple: Don't put what you consider to be private on the internet. From the perspective of a long time trial lawyer, I find the laws and customs of privacy to be one of the messiest part of law in the United States and I am guessing the rest of the world also.

There are no uniform privacy laws in the United States; instead, there is a complex patchwork of sector-specific federal laws (like HIPAA for health data) and a growing number of individual state-level comprehensive privacy laws. This lack of a single, national standard creates inconsistent obligations for businesses and complicates compliance across different states. 

See “Data Protection Laws in the United States - Data Protection Laws of the World.” Accessed September 23, 2025. https://www.dlapiperdataprotection.com/index.html?t=law&c=US.

As the statement above indicates, despite the admonition about refraining for putting private information on the internet, we end up with medical, legal, and other information that should not be disclosed after its intended use. Because of its pervasive nature, AI can contain this information and disclose it without our permission. 

Here are some of the ways AI can obtain information both directly and indirectly. 

Direct Data Collection involves users knowingly providing their information. This includes:

• User Inputs: When you interact with a chatbot or AI assistant, the queries and personal details you enter are often collected and stored. For example, a generative AI tool may capture your profile information, location, device details, and network activity.
• Surveys and Feedback: Companies use surveys to gather specific, structured data on user preferences, opinions, and behaviors to help train their AI models.

See: Guide to Data Collection for Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Netnut. Uncategorized. May 9, 2023. https://netnut.io/data-collection-for-ai/.

Indirect Data Collection happens without the user's explicit awareness. This is often where privacy risks are most significant. It includes:

• Web Scraping: AI systems can automatically harvest vast amounts of information from public websites, including social media, forums, and news sites. While this data is publicly available, it can contain personal details that are scraped without user consent or knowledge.
• Internet of Things (IoT) Devices: Smart devices in homes and public spaces, like smart speakers, security cameras, and fitness trackers, continuously collect real-time data about your habits, location, and daily life. This stream of information is then used to train AI models.
• Biometric Data: AI can collect sensitive biometric information, such as facial patterns, fingerprints, and voice recordings, through technologies like facial recognition systems in public places or on personal devices. This data is unique to an individual and cannot be changed if compromised.

See: “Data Collection Strategies.” Accessed September 23, 2025. https://www.cloudfactory.com/blog/ai-data-collection.

See the following for further information:

“AI and Privacy: Safeguarding Data in the Age of Artificial Intelligence | DigitalOcean.” December 15, 2023. https://www.digitalocean.com/resources/articles/ai-and-privacy.

“AI Tools and Your Privacy: What You Need to Know | J.P. Morgan Private Bank U.S.” Accessed September 23, 2025. https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/nam/en/insights/markets-and-investing/ideas-and-insights/ai-tools-and-your-privacy-what-you-need-to-know.

Coalfire. “The Dark Side of AI Data Privacy.” Accessed September 23, 2025. https://coalfire.com/the-coalfire-blog/the-dark-side-of-ai-data-privacy.

“Exploring Privacy Issues in the Age of AI | IBM.” September 30, 2024. https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/ai-privacy.

“How To Navigate Data Privacy Laws in an AI-Driven World.” Accessed September 23, 2025. https://www.axiomlaw.com/blog/artificial-intelligence-data-privacy-challenges.

“Privacy in an AI Era: How Do We Protect Our Personal Information? | Stanford HAI.” Accessed September 23, 2025. https://hai.stanford.edu/news/privacy-ai-era-how-do-we-protect-our-personal-information.

Transcend. “Examining Privacy Risks in AI Systems.” Accessed September 23, 2025. https://transcend.io/blog/ai-and-privacy.

AI was used in doing the research for this post. 

Over 1000 videos on the BYU Library Family History Center YouTube Channel

 

https://www.youtube.com/@BYULibraryFamilyHistory

Yes, the actual number of videos on the BYU Library Family History Center's YouTube Channel is 1093. As you can imagine there is a huge variety of topics. Of course, the number of videos is constantly increasing. The average increase is about 3 or 4 a week. Behind the content is the live online production of many of the videos. 

https://familyhistory.lib.byu.edu/learninghttps://familyhistory.lib.byu.edu/learning

Both webinars and online classes have schedules for upcoming presentations. Many of these videos address very specific countries and topics. 

Guiding Principles for Responsible AI in Genealogy: Disclosure

This image was obtained from Pixabay.com and is in the public domain

 

Disclosure

Acknowledging the use of AI enhances trust. Therefore, members of the genealogical community disclose, as context requires, when AI materially influences the creation or modification of content. Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy. 

Artificial Intellgence has rapidly advanced from the date of the release of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. The changes made by generated AI have been overwhelming in the scope and influence. Pre-AI, you could easily tell if an image or text had been "created by a computer" or scavenged from the Internet. Now the boundary between reality (created by a human being) and fantasy (created by a Chatbot) is indistinguishable from an original photograph or a text written by a human. 

It appears that the siren call of AI is invading the online genealogy websites. Despite the fact that photography was invented in the mid-1800s, We are seeing images of people who were born long before the invention of photography in the mid-1800s. There are multiple uses of AI as a tool; transcribing records, analyzing images, full-text searching, transcription of both handwriting and texts, and translation. See Tanner, Abby. “AI and Genealogy: Advancements You Can Use • FamilySearch.” FamilySearch, August 15, 2024. https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/ai-developments-genealogy. 

The issue of disclosure arises when AI is used as a substitute for validated and accurate research and where there is a representation that the work has been produced by the researcher or author. Here are a number of websites with information about generative disclosures. 

Cornett, Wesley. “LibGuides: AI-Generated Content: Student AI Disclosures.” Accessed September 16, 2025. https://newmanu.libguides.com/ai-disclosure/student-guide.

“Data Collection & Management, Professional Perspective - How Companies Should Be Thinking About Disclosing AI Usage to Consumers.” Accessed September 16, 2025. https://www.bloomberglaw.com/external/document/XDEBUU4K000000/data-collection-management-professional-perspective-how-companie.

“Demystifying Generative AI Disclosures.” EPIC - Electronic Privacy Information Center, n.d. Accessed September 16, 2025. https://epic.org/demystifying-generative-ai-disclosures/.

“Disclosure on the Use of AI in Research Manuscripts: How Are Researchers Doing It? | Singapore Management University (SMU).” November 25, 2024. https://library.smu.edu.sg/topics-insights/disclosure-use-ai-research-manuscripts-how-are-researchers-doing-it.

Janco, Andy. “Research Guides: Generative AI: Disclosing the Use of AI.” Accessed September 16, 2025. https://libguides.princeton.edu/generativeAI/disclosure.

Koul, Parvaiz A. “Disclosing Use of Artificial Intelligence: Promoting Transparency in Publishing.” Lung India : Official Organ of Indian Chest Society 40, no. 5 (2023): 401–3. https://doi.org/10.4103/lungindia.lungindia_370_23.

Martin, Brian Heidelberger, Ryan. “Disclosures Required When Using AI-Generated Actors/Voices (via Passle).” Passle, May 9, 2024. https://quicktakes.loeb.com//post/102j748/disclosures-required-when-using-ai-generated-actors-voices.

Mills, Elizabeth M. Renieris, David Kiron, and Steven. “Artificial Intelligence Disclosures Are Key to Customer Trust.” MIT Sloan Management Review, September 24, 2024. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/artificial-intelligence-disclosures-are-key-to-customer-trust/.

Resnik, David B., and Mohammad Hosseini. “Disclosing Artificial Intelligence Use in Scientific Research and Publication: When Should Disclosure Be Mandatory, Optional, or Unnecessary?” Accountability in Research 0, no. 0 (n.d.): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2025.2481949.

Tanner, Abby. “AI and Genealogy: Advancements You Can Use • FamilySearch.” FamilySearch, August 15, 2024. https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/ai-developments-genealogy.

It will take some time before the various opinions expressed in these articles are developed into an overall methodology for the use of AI.  

B

The Catch 22 of AI Handwriting Recognition

 

Of course this image was generated by AI

One of the major recent accomplishments was the acceptance of AI handwriting recognition as a valued tool for genealogical research. The turning point was the indexing of the 1950 U.S. Census by Ancestry.com in a very short time. See The Wait is Over! The 1950 U.S. Census Now Available on Ancestry®, Powering Countless New Discoveries. See also Ancestry® Proprietary Artificial Intelligence-Powered Handwriting Recognition Technology Processes Over 150 Million Records from the 1950 U.S. Census in Only 9 Days

AI based handwriting recognition of old documents and records is now being done at an ever increasing rate by FamilySearch.org. See AI Developments in Genealogy 

Here is the Catch 22 or a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions. As a researcher or user of the AI handwriting recognition you cannot verify if the AI handwriting recognition is accurate unless you can read the handwriting!

In a previous post, I outlined the issue of "Functional Illiteracy and inability to read handwriting in the US." People who suffer from functional illiteracy are at the mercy of the AI Chatbot that is being used to transcribe handwriting. Fortunately, FamilySearch.org has a volunteer program to systematically check the handwriting recognition that is presently going forward addressing the problem. 

However, checking just the names does not communicate the accuracy of the remaining portions of the documents. For example, identifying a devisee of will or the beneficiary of a trust. I have recently been focusing on the accuracy of AI transcriptions and I am finding that the accuracy of the AI Chatbot is spotty to say the least. 

Using AI transcriptions without checking the accuracy is not a good idea. 

Functional Illiteracy and inability to read handwriting in the US

• On average, 79% of U.S. adults nationwide are literate in 2024.

• 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.

• 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).

• Low levels of literacy costs the US up to 2.2 trillion per year.

There isn't a precise percentage for how many Americans can't read handwritten script because it's not a standard measure of literacy, but a 2021 study showed 70% of Americans struggle to read handwriting and 45% couldn't read their own.

• ABA, Brighter Strides. “Dyslexia Statistics & Facts.” Brighter Strides ABA, March 10, 2025. https://www.brighterstridesaba.com/blog/dyslexia-statistics-and-facts/. 

• Bad Handwriting Causing a Big Problem in US Workplaces: Survey. January 25, 2019. https://nypost.com/2019/01/25/bad-handwriting-causing-a-big-problem-in-us-workplaces/. 

• Berger, Tom. “What We Lose With the Decline of Cursive.” Edutopia. Accessed September 13, 2025. https://www.edutopia.org/article/what-we-lose-with-decline-cursive-tom-berger/. 

• Cleveland Clinic. “Dysgraphia: What It Is, Symptoms, Diagnosis & Treatment.” Accessed September 13, 2025. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23294-dysgraphia. 

• “Dyslexia Statistics & Facts | Advanced Autism Services.” Accessed September 13, 2025. https://www.advancedautism.com/post/dyslexia-statistics-facts. 

• Gladstone, Kate. “A Different Approach to Reading Cursive Writing.” Dyslexia the Gift Blog, June 18, 2021. https://blog.dyslexia.com/a-different-approach-to-reading-cursive-writing/. 

• Handwriting Is Becoming Extinct and Teachers Are Battling to Keep Cursive Alive. April 23, 2024. https://nypost.com/2024/04/23/lifestyle/handwriting-is-becoming-extinct-and-teachers-are-battling-to-keep-cursive-alive/. 

• “Literacy.” The Policy Circle, n.d. Accessed September 13, 2025. https://www.thepolicycircle.org/briefs/literacy/. 

• National Literacy Institute. “2024-2025 Literacy Statistics.” Accessed September 13, 2025. https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics. 

• Quora. “Why Is Some People’s Handwriting so Hard to Read? What Causes Their Writing Style to Look like Scribbles Instead of Actual Letters and Wo...” Accessed September 13, 2025. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-some-peoples-handwriting-so-hard-to-read-What-causes-their-writing-style-to-look-like-scribbles-instead-of-actual-letters-and-words. 

• The Guardian. “Signature Moves: Are We Losing the Ability to Write by Hand?” News. January 21, 2025.  https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jan/21/signature-moves-are-we-losing-the-ability-to-write-by-hand. 

• Wikipedia. “Cursive handwriting instruction in the United States.” June 5, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cursive_handwriting_instruction_in_the_United_States&oldid=1294051690. 

• Writey. Why Has Cursive Writing Been Removed from the School Curriculum? | Writey. n.d. Accessed September 13, 2025. https://writey.app/post/why-has-cursive-writing-been-removed-from-the-school-curriculum/.

The reality of trying to reach out to children and adults about genealogy (family history) is set forth in these statistics. Genealogy is a complex and difficult topic. By and large, the people who are already proficient is doing genealogical research are literate and can read handwriting. Granted, artificial intelligence (AI) is making huge strides in transcribing handwritten documents but according to statistics about half the country do not have the basic skills they would need to understand and do genealogical research. 

The development of computer handwriting recognition and transcription helps only those who can read. A lack of reading skills prevents people from being able to check the accuracy of the processed handwriting. Obviously, I do not have a solution for these problems but when we are talking to people and trying to interest them in genealogy, we should be sensitive to the fact that many of them may simply lack the skills necessary to "do genealogy."

GoFundMe fundraiser for The Family History Guide

 

GoFundMe for The Family History Guide

Here is the information about The Family History Guide from the GoFundMe website. 

The Family History Guide is a free website that represents a best-in-class learning environment for family history. Its scope is broad, but its focus is narrow enough to help you achieve your goals, step by step. Whether you're brand new to family history or a seasoned researcher—or somewhere in between—The Family History Guide can be your difference maker.

Mission Statement: "Our mission is to greatly increase the number of people actively involved in family history worldwide, and to make everyone's family history journey easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable."

Here are some of the unique features you'll find on the site:

Goals for learning, supported by flexible choices

Step-by-step instructions to make learning easier

Links to videos and articles from FamilySearch, Ancestry, and more

QUIKLinks that take you to record searches from multiple sources, with a single click

Project Tracker sheets and training materials for self-study or group instruction

Activities for families, individuals, youth, and kids

Family history resources for faiths, including members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholics, Protestants, and those of Jewish heritage.

ALL Donated funds are used for our outreach programs including RootsTech, Guided Learning, ZOOM presentations and other activities. We have users in over 150 countries as well as a partnership with The National Genealogical Society (NGS). The Family History Guide was featured on the PBS program VIEWPOINT with Dennis Quaid with an audience of over 60 million.

Are administrative costs are minimal in that we have NO PAID STAFF and 100% run by volunteers.

View https://www.thefhguide.com/introduction.html for more information

Be on the lookout! RootsTech 2026 is coming.

 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/

RootsTech.org is coming from March 5-7, 2026 both online and in person and registration opens on September 24, 2025. The conference will be at the Salt Palace in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. If you are coming to Salt Lake City in person, you might need to know that the Plaza Hotel on South Temple in Salt Lake City is scheduled for demolition following closure on November 1, 2025. This will impact the number of hotel rooms available near the Salt Palace. There is also other construction going on in the downtown area and you may want to get a hotel reservation early.

As usual, I will be volunteering as a RootsTech Media representative and I will also be at the booth for The Family History Guide. 

Thoughts on online and in-person consultations

For the past ten years or so, I have been consulting online with a variety of people around the world. Presently, as a Church Service Missionary, I serve at the BYU Library Family History Center where we have a Virtual Help Desk. 

https://familyhistory.lib.byu.edu/get-help

Over the years, I have volunteered to help with a variety of genealogical topics, but because I speak Spanish fluently, many of my consultations both online and in person are Spanish speaking and mostly are immigration questions and most come from Latin America. This has been true for the past twenty years especially when I was living in Arizona. 

One thing I have learned is there is an overwhelming interest in obtaining dual-citizenship for either Spain or Italy. The main challenge being a lack of knowledge of the place of origin of the immigrant. I have developed a “standard” response even though the response is not very promising. The answer for all immigrant questions is that research for an immigrant begins in the country of arrival, not the country of departure. 

The second issue that has become clear is that those coming online from Latin America are usually more computer and smartphone literate than those people coming on from the United States. Another lesson, was that a very high percentage of all the requests came from people using a smartphone as their main contact device. 

Another very interesting and challenging issue was that I learned that many (most) of the Latin American records on the FamilySearch.org website are restricted to viewing in a FamilySearch Center. This was true mainly in South America. I have also learned that Spanish language records, depending on the country, can be hard to find online and I end up telling people to contact the Catholic church directly or also, to directly contact civil registration offices. 

I also experienced a basic fact that all the people who were interested enough to come online were very friendly and thankful for the help. I have had hundreds, (perhaps thousands) of special experiences talking to people all over the world. It is probably a good idea to note here that Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world after Chinese. 

My next learning experience has been how limited the genealogically valuable records are in almost all the Spanish speaking countries of the world. There are only two main categories of records: church records and civil registration records. It was also interesting to learn that FamilySearch.org has almost no civil registration records from Argentina. 

The majority of people needing help ultimately come from Latin America with a few from Spain and Italy. I should probably note that I do not speak Portuguese so I haven't helped much with inquiries about Brazil or Portugal. 

I guess another interesting observation is that the lack of awareness of record sources for genealogical research is about the same no matter the language spoken although English speaking patrons are more likely to have a developed a family tree online. 

I have also learned a lot about genealogical records in every Latin American country as well as in Spain and Italy. 

AI turned out to be extremely helpful in identifying Catholic parishes and diocese.

The experience of one-on-one consultations has been priceless.  

A new rule of genealogy for 2025

 

It has been quite a while since I discovered a new Rule of Genealogy. Here are the previous Rules. 

Rule One: When the baby was born, the mother was there.

Rule Two: Absence of an obituary or death record does not mean the person is still alive.

Rule Three: Every person who ever lived has a unique birth order and a unique set of biological parents.

Rule Four: There are always more records.

Rule Five: You cannot get blood out of a turnip.

Rule Six: Records move.

Rule Seven: Water and genealogical information flow downhill.

Rule Eight: Everything in genealogy is connected (butterfly).

Rule Nine: There are patterns everywhere.

Rule Ten: Read the fine print.

Rule Eleven: Even a perfect fit can be wrong.

Rule Twelve: The end is always there.

Rule Thirteen: Genealogists abhor a blank field.

Rule Fourteen: You are not responsible for what you find.

Rule Fifteen: A fact is not a fact unless you have a record to prove it. 

I was beginning to think that there were no more rules. I guess I was wrong. Here is another rule. 

Rule Sixteen: Gravity always wins 

This rule is fairly simple. Famous people or those who have genealogically active family members generate most, if not all, the attention and thereby have their lives more completely documented. Just like gravity, they are bigger objects and therefore always attract the most activity. For example, take George Washington, the first president of the United States.  it's estimated that thousands of books have been written about George Washington, with some sources citing figures over 10,000 over the past 200 years and a 2019 estimate of around 900 books specifically for scholarly works. See Washington's Legacy. 

Some people garner a huge amount of interest simply because they have huge families. My sixth great-grandfather, because of the size of his immediate family has tens of thousands of descendants and because I live in Utah, I am frequently asked if I am a relative and I usually am. Another constant reminder of this rule is the constant changes on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree to the Mayflower passengers. 

Perhaps it is partially because of this constant gravitational pull, that I spend most of my time researching my grandmother's lines and those of ordinary people. What is the real benefit of add one more source or document to a person who is already fully documented unless you intend to write a book about the person or have some other research goal? You can easily tell if a person has a high level of gravity by looking at the All Changes of a person such as Francis Cooke LZ2F-MM7 who changes almost daily. 

Let's try to defy gravity. 

Full Text Search moves to FamilySearch Search Menu

 

For the past year or so, Full Text search has been part of the FamilySearch/Labs.org programs. Beginning August 28, 2025, a link to the Full Text search was also available from the standard Search pull down menu in the FamilySearch.org website. This is a significant event and may indicate that the number of documents processed by handwriting recognition has reached some sort of threshold. When you click on the Labs link to the Full Text Search, you get the following screen which shows the integration of the link in the Search menu.

Unfortunately, there does not yet seem to be an indication of how much of the entire FamilySearch record collections has been processed by the Full Text search option. There is a link to Browse All Collections, but the number of processed collections changes from day to day going both up and down. Processed collections are marked in the Catalog. 

So there is a way to see if any specific collection can be full text searched. This is a major step in making the entire collection available to full text search. 

More coming as the full text search continues to develop. By the way, if you don't see this a major genealogical event, you are probably not using the other existing tools available either. 

Guiding Principles for Responsible AI in Genealogy: Accuracy

 

Accuracy

AI can generate false, biased, or incorrect content. Therefore, members of the genealogical community verify the accuracy of the information with other records and acknowledge credible sources of content generated by AI.

This is one of the guiding principles for the responsible use of AII for genealogy developed by the Coalition. See CRAIGEN.org

Initially, AI chatbots were "rule-based" and used a set of predefined rules and keywords. If a user's input didn't match a specific rule, the chatbot couldn't provide a relevant response, leading to frustrating and limited interactions. An example of a rule-based chatbot is a telephone tree answering service. See the following:

Wills, Jason. “The Evolution of AI Chatbots in the Last Decade.” Medium, October 8, 2024. https://jason-wills343.medium.com/the-evolution-of-ai-chatbots-in-the-last-decade-012cf8b126f3.

“The Evolution of NLP Chatbots and Generative AI: How They Work, Why They Matter, and What’s Next.” Accessed August 7, 2025. https://quickchat.ai/post/nlp-chatbot-generative-ai-evolution.

AI chatbots became more useful as natural language processing (NLP) advanced. NLP is a field of AI that helps machines understand, interpret, and generate human language. However, initially, chatbots were limited by the following factors that lead to hallucinations. Here is a list of sources that discuss the issue of hallucination. 

Choi, Anna, and Katelyn Xiaoying Mei. “What Are AI Hallucinations? Why AIs Sometimes Make Things Up.” The Conversation, March 21, 2025. http://theconversation.com/what-are-ai-hallucinations-why-ais-sometimes-make-things-up-242896.

Timothy, Maxwell. “What Is AI Hallucination? How to Fix It.” Accessed August 7, 2025. https://www.chatbase.co/blog/ai-hallucination.

“What Are AI Hallucinations? | IBM.” September 1, 2023. https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/ai-hallucinations.

Wikipedia. “Hallucination (artificial intelligence).” July 29, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hallucination_(artificial_intelligence)&oldid=1303244625.

Currently, some chatbots are source centric and provide links to websites that are used to construct the answers to prompts (questions). Although it is still necessary to examine the information from the sources, the accuracy of chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and CoPilot, have evolved to the point of being more reliable. 

The accuracy principle cited above will continue to be a factor in using chatbots for genealogical purposes and will also require the genealogical researcher to continue to take responsibility for the accuracy of the information supplied. 

By actively searching for information and cross-referencing it from multiple sources, deep research models significantly reduce the likelihood of "hallucinating" or making up facts. They are designed to find information to support their claims, and if they can't, they are less likely to generate a false statement with high confidence.

The key, as set forth above, is not to rely on AI as you would a historical source. From my perspective, I use AI as I would an entry in an online family tree or a surname book with no sources, unless the sources are supplied by the AI Chatbot. 

“Ethics and Standards - Board for Certification of Genealogists.” Accessed August 20, 2025. https://bcgcertification.org/ethics-standards.