Using the New AI Assistant GAIA on MyHeritage

 

https://blog.myheritage.com/2026/11/introducing-gaia-myheritages-groundbreaking-genealogy-ai-agent/

Quoting from the above blog article:

GAIA is powered by agentic AI, meaning that it can plan and carry out multiple connected tasks to achieve a goal. Unlike general-purpose AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, GAIA is built specifically for genealogy. It approaches research like a professional genealogist, using established research methods to evaluate evidence, cross-check information, and assess possible connections. For example, it treats information from other users’ family trees as less reliable clues to investigate rather than as established facts. GAIA presents the supporting evidence, distinguishes between well-supported findings and uncertain possibilities, and indicates its confidence in the results.

Now let's look at what it can do with a challenging end-of-line problem that has been around for a number of years. 

This screenshot shows one of my direct line, remote ancestors on my MyHeritage family tree. Garrard Morgan born in 1755 has a son and a grandson, both named Garrard Morgan. This has been an entry in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, since the Family Tree went online. Until recently, there were many more generations of speculative and inaccurate ancestry attached to this person. Some time ago, I detached all the inaccurate individuals to clean up the entries. 

On MyHeritage, I already have a long list of Smart Matches (the green dots on the individual's colored accent on my MyHeritage family tree). Smart Matches are connections to other users' family trees who are related to me on MyHeritage. The brown dots indicate a possible source record. However, a quick search shows that the source cited is a user-contributed entry in another family tree which was the reason for cutting off the false lineage on FamilySearch.org. So, FamilySearch.org and MyHeritage.org cannot automatically find any additional sources for Garrard Morgan b. 1755. 

I opened Garrard's profile page on MyHeritage. MyHeritage already has seven sources listed. Now let's see what GAIA can do. 

I clicked the Research this person at the top edge of this screenshot and then clicked on the Research Agent Suggestions to Start Research.

GAIA begins to analyze the existing information. 

I got an extremely detailed analysis of what has already been done. It is apparent that GAIA is not only familiar with the details from MyHeritage, but also the records and tree data available on FamilySearch. The initial research begins by focusing on Elizabeth Milton, Garrard Morgan's wife. 

I could go on with the results of the research, but at this point, it becomes extremely lengthy. The conclusion is that although there are a lot of mentions on other family trees and in copied records about this family, there is very little documentary evidence. 

GAIA immediately starts suggesting looking at original records in Goochland County marriage bonds and begins the process of searching the records. The conclusions and information provided by GAIA are extremely pertinent to doing any further research. 

To avoid making this blog post much longer, I suggest that you try using GAIA for yourselves.