Workshop #4 of 5
Working Together -- Tools of Collaboration
Embedded Files
Objectives:
Objectives:
GET READY
GET READY
Log in to Liahona Network: password: alma3738
Log in to FamilySearch
Overarching Objective of the Series
Overarching Objective of the Series
Discover, Gather, and Connect our ancestors through FamilySearch and help others to do the same, especially our children.
Objectives of the Fourth Workshop
Objectives of the Fourth Workshop
Use Family Groups to share trees and ordinances
Discover the power of the Together app
Who is adding to your tree and to memories?
Leverage AI tools in FamilySearch
Review Week One, Two, Three
Review Week One, Two, Three
Week One
Explore different pedigree views and when to use each
Discover how the Person Page holds the key to deeper understanding
Search the FamilySearch tree
Week Two
Evaluate the validity of the attached sources
Use and refine Record Hints
Add your external sources
Attach memories as meaningful documentation
Week Three (we discovered there was too mujch packed into this week)
Search FamilySearch historical records
Use partner sites
Learn from the FamilySearch Wiki & Catalog
Leverage AI tools to enhance discovery
(Each week we will review previous weeks by presenting challenges.)
There is always more than one way to solve a challenge.
Challenge 1 (review)
Challenge 1 (review)
See the obit for Helen Snow Bishop.
This may not be your ancestor. Think of helping a patron take advantage of this information.
Begin by recording what you know about her. This is the beginning of the research log.
Plan your research. Decide where you are going look. Keep track of your effort in the research log.
Does she have a record in FamilySearch?
How many siblings does FamilySearch show for her?
Is the obit listed in her memories?
Has the obit been added as a source? In addition to her death, It documents her birth, and her marriages. This is a valuable source!
How do you add a memory as a source and tag it to events in the person's life?
Sketch of Phillips Bath in 1904
Generated by Google Gemini AI
See: Debbie Gurtler's I didn't know you could search like that
Use an appropriate research protocol.
Write down what you know, the beginning of your research log.
Plan your research strategy.
Record results as you proceed.
Challenge 2 (review)
Challenge 2 (review)
This is a "chicken and egg" puzzle.
Benjamin Willmore served a mission in England from 1904 to 1906, much of his time in Northampton. He kept a daily journal.
We have access to Ben's journal because his son, Paul Willmore, typed it for the family. In this first excerpt, Paul includes a note his father added in the margin of his journal in 1931.
April 6, 1904: Visited with Bishop Thomas, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Trotman, whose wife is investigating the Gospel. Had a little chat with them and was introduced to them by Elder Thomas. (Insert in pencil “1931-1904 = 27 years ago, April 6, 1931, I first met Mrs. Trotman now of Logan, Utah.”).
Ben mentions Mr. and Mrs. Trotman several times in his journal. Only once does he state Mrs. Trottman's given name.
April 16, 1904: went with the Brethren with Sister Thomas and Ann Ellen Trottman; Mrs. Trottman being Baptized at Phipps Baths. Elder James Thomas being mouth and performing the Baptism.
Descendants of Mrs. Trotman have probably added her to the FamilySearch Tree.
Here is the "chicken/egg" challenge: Find Ann Ellen Trotman in the FamilySearch Tree and/or identify her maiden name.
Why Collaborating on the FamilySearch Tree is Important
Why Collaborating on the FamilySearch Tree is Important
Friends, brothers and sisters, we each have a story. As we discover our story, we connect, we belong, we become. …
Do you know your story? …
link Elder Gong, 2022
Elder Russell M. Nelson has taught that the Spirit of Elijah is “a manifestation of the Holy Ghost bearing witness of the divine nature of the family” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1998, 43; or Ensign, May 1998, 34). This distinctive influence of the Holy Ghost draws people to identify, document, and cherish their ancestors and family members—both past and present.
link Elder Bednar, 2011
Family Group Trees also see Learning Center
FamilySearch Together App (a review)
Gather your family into a group, and see the same living tree. Involve your family in navigating their family history as a team. Enrich your history with photos, stories, and sources.
AI Research Assistant
Full Text Search
ChatGPT
Technical Terms:
Machine Learning
NLP (Natural Language Processing)
OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
Generative AI
LLM (Language Model)
This workshop reviews new features of FamilySearch, particularly those designed for families to work together and discover, gather, and connect their story.
It also looks at new AI tools in FamilySearch.
Challenge 3
Challenge 3
Create a Family Group
Create a Family Group
Log in to FamilySearch
Click your name in the upper right hand corner
In the drop down menu, click Family Groups
Follow instructions to create a new family group
A Family Group may have a combination of the following:
Communication
Share Ordinances
Share Tree
Brain Storm
Brain Storm
Suggest ways each of the features of Family Groups could be used.
Communication
Share Ordinances
Shared FamilySearch Tree
Challenge 4
Challenge 4
Homework: read about the Together app
Homework: read about the Together app
An interesting idea--a shared journal?
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
A paradigm shift -- not just another search engine
AI Developments in Genealogy
AI Developments in Genealogy
Machine learning
NLP (natural language processing)
and LLM (Large Language Models)
OCR (optical character recognition)
Generative AI
Also see:
Genea-Musings by Randy Seaver
AI Developments in Genealogy, by Abby Tanner, August 15, 2024
Ofelia Garditch with parents in Spain.
Challenge 5
Challenge 5
Ofelia Garditch (PID: L58S-DR1)
Ofelia Garditch (PID: L58S-DR1)
The question is, how to best use the FamilySearch AI Research Assistant help?
Try "Find the marriage certificate for Ofelia and Ignacio" in AI Assistant.
This results in a limited response. We'll discuss improved strategies.
AI is amazing, but it is not a genie. Learning to use AI properly will take time. It is not simply a Google search.
(image generated by ChatGPT, July 2025)
The prompt was: Create a cartoon image of a person reflection on how AI thinks to respond to an AI prompt about genealogy.
(An interesting follow-up experiment was to ask Google to search for the image that ChatGPT created. It was obvious where ChatGPT got its inspiration from.)
Twenty hours to start
Twenty hours to start
In an interview with Legacy Tree, Steve Little suggests best practices for using AI in genealogical research:
The best practices are three:
Know your data
Know your model
Know its limits
These best practices require bringing data to the machine – knowing what the machine can do and only asking it to do what it can do. “Today’s limits are today’s limits,” as we say. New users, they want the chatbot to be a magic genie. But it takes people about 20 hours of using the tools to learn what they are actually good at doing. (emphasis added)
Please make the image feel three dimensional.
Follow up prompt . . .
Follow up prompt . . .
(ChatGPT is a LLM. It responses well to conversation.)
Image created by ChatGPT, July 2025 given the follow up prompt.
Please make the person thinking about AI a girl. Also, include her genealogy records on the desk .
Yet another prompt . . .
Yet another prompt . . .
Please include a pictures or her grandparents along with the genealogy records.
Ok, one final prompt . . .
Ok, one final prompt . . .
An AI Genealogy Case Study
Where LLM's help
Where LLM's help
Large Language Models (LLM's) form a subset of Generative AI. Mark Thompson suggests this graphic to evaluate the suitablility and feasibility of using LLM to address a genealogical question.
Note: "Find the marriage certificate for Ofelia and Ignacio" is not language based, nor is it readily available online.
Image from Mark Thompson's RootTech presentation, Research Documents and Letters With Artificial Intelligence.
Adopting Thompson's Suggestions
Adopting Thompson's Suggestions
Role: An expert on genealogical research in Cuba.
Goal: Obtain a research plan.
Task: Suggest specific steps for a beginner researcher to find marriage information.
Format: Step by step.
Hallucination Check: Reference suggestions from other experts
This is Mark Tompson's suggestion for prompting style.
Apply Thompson's suggestions to Ofelia's marriage
==== Can you improve this prompt to make it more effective? ======
As a genealogy researcher, you specialize in obtaining relationship details of individuals who lived in Cuba.
Your role is to discover birth, death, marriage, and family relationship information about individuals who lived at some time in Cuba. You create research strategies for this information. Present your results in a step by step strategy that can be followed by a beginner in genealogical research.
Steps that require contacting various agencies or instituions include contact information for those agencies and institutions as well as probable incurred costs.
The current task is create a step by step research strategies to find marriage information about Ofelia Garditch who met and married Iganacio Martin Gil about 1945 while she was living in Cuba with her mother, Aurea Cuadrado Castillon Garditch.
The task is not find the information about the marriage, rather it is to outline a strategy for the beginning genealogist to systematically attempt to find the details.
======== end of prompt ===========
I ran the prompt through ChatGPT, Gemini, and FamilySearch AI Assistant. Here are the results.
Challenge 6
Challenge 6
Ask the AI Research Assistant to provide a step-by-step strategy for locating a marriage record for Ofelia and Ignacio.
You may want to request addresses or other contact information for suggested resources.
Full Text Search
Full Text Search
The future of genealogical searching?
Full Text Search
Full Text Search
access unindexed records in FamilySearch
Steps (website)
While signed in on FamilySearch, go to the FamilySearch Labs.
On the Expand your search with Full Text card, click Go to Experiement.
A video is available on the page (also provided above) helps you learn to use this experience.
Please tell us about your experience, etiher using the Feedback button on the Full Text experience or in our community group dedicated to this product.
Challenge 7
Challenge 7
(Full Text Search of unindexed records)
Joseph Andrew Anderson (PID:KWC6-S1N) records the following in his autobiography.
Christina Mattson is a sister of my Grandma Annie Marie Eliason. Her husband died March 26, 1895, leaving her a widow for many years. My mother saw to it that she was well cared for and I was the "Roust-about kid" to check up on her and help out with her chores.
My aunt seemed to be very fond of me and made it known that after her death she wanted me to have her property. I wasn't of age so my mother and her entered into an agreement on the 14th of December 1909, whereas we would take care of her and provide the necessary food, clothing, fuel and care for her the remainder of her days. The little log house stood on the corner. It consisted of two rooms and a lean-to on the east that served as a kitchen and a bed room or storage. There was also a dirt-roof cellar vegatable cellar joined on the east.
This challenge is to find the legal document transferring property from Christina Mattson to Joseph's mother.
Christina Mattson home
Things to consider:
1. We need to know the name of Joseph's mother.
2. The legal document was created when Joseph was underage. The document may have been created before his birth + 19 years. Also before Christina's death.
3. FamilySearch has unindexed deed records searchable by lab experiment "Expand your search with Full Text"
4. Focus your search by selecting a collection title in Find a Collection.
Revelation and Artificial Intelligence
Revelation and Artificial Intelligence
Challenge 8
Challenge 8
Ask yourself, "What spiritual work do I need to do to qualify for the revelation Elder Bednar promised to those who receive the Spirit of Elijah through the Holy Ghost?"
Ask yourself, "How can I use technology effectively and efficiently to enjoy the Spirit of Elijah in the life of my family members?"
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