Mori Magazine

Tracing Your Roots with AI

Genealogy research can be a time-consuming and tedious process. As a genealogist, you likely spend hours sifting through historical documents, census records, and other sources searching for clues about your ancestors. This can make it challenging to stay productive and organized with your research. Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to transform the field and provide new tools to aid genealogists.

AI-Powered Search
One of the biggest challenges genealogists face is searching through vast amounts of unstructured historical data to find relevant information. As more archives and libraries digitize their records, the amount of data available online continues to grow exponentially. AI search algorithms have the potential to greatly improve discovery from these digital collections. Rather than relying solely on traditional keyword searches, AI can analyze the context and relationships within documents to surface genealogically relevant content.  

Some companies are already productizing this technology and providing access through paid search tools. As the accuracy improves over time, AI search promises to reduce the time spent digging through irrelevant materials and enable genealogists to cover more ground in their research.

Automated Document Analysis
Transcribing and analyzing genealogical documents can also be a significant bottleneck. AI is making progress automating the ingestion and data extraction from historical census records, immigration paperwork, marriage/death certificates and more.

Handwritten text recognition, relation extraction between individuals, and mapping unstructured data into family trees are all active areas of AI research. While error rates remain high, these techniques should mature quickly and begin to compile records automatically. This will give genealogists a head start on documentation for potential leads.

DNA Analysis and Health Insights
DNA testing has become an integral source for clues about ancestry and familial connections. The raw DNA data itself is dense and difficult to interpret without advanced bioinformatics skills. AI tools are set to make DNA analysis more practical and user-friendly for casual genealogists. Algorithms can already determine ethnic breakdowns, search for relatives based on genotypic signatures, and identify traits like eye color inherited within particular lineages.

As research connecting genotypes to health outcomes expands, AI may also uncover personalized wellness insights from ancestral DNA that can guide lifestyle decisions. This could reveal underappreciated risk factors and explain certain predispositions that run in the family.

Intelligent Research Assistants
Perhaps the most exciting AI application on the horizon is the development of conversational agents that act as intelligent research assistants for genealogists. These tools could interface with genealogy software and databases to provide natural language access to records. Users could simply ask questions aloud to summarize a ancestor's origins, pinpoint areas that require more documentation, or request background details on relatives.

The system could also potentially recommend high-value areas to focus investigations, contact likely living descendants to gather testimonials, and even generate basic profiles as a starting point. As the technology improves, such an AI assistant could massively amplify a genealogist's productivity.

The coming wave of AI innovation promises to enhance nearly every facet of genealogical research. While still early, rapid progress in machine learning will soon place a powerful suite of analytics at every family historian's fingertips. Adoption of these emerging technologies will likely separate the causal hobbyists from the serious genealogists pursuing a comprehensive understanding of their ancestry.