How AncestralFire uses AI

Last updated 29 September 2026

AncestralFire is an AI partner for your family history. Here is what the AI sees from your tree, what it never does with it, and what happens when it gets something wrong.

The AI behind it

We use a variety of AI models, closed-source and open-source, from leading providers, and move between them as they improve. Whichever one answers gets only what a question needs. No training on anything, and only temporary retention, for abuse monitoring and caching. The providers are listed on the privacy page.

Which model answers matters less than what it works from: your tree, the records, and the instructions and tools we give it, so that it looks things up rather than guesses, and says where each answer came from.

Inside Claude or ChatGPT: if you use AncestralFire from inside one of them, that company's own model is the one talking to you, under the terms you accepted with them. It reaches your family through AncestralFire's tools, and those tools keep the rules below about what they send and what they change.

What it sees

Only what a question needs from your tree, the people and facts that answer it, not your whole file.
FamilySearch Family Tree, only if you connect your own FamilySearch account, and only to answer your questions about your own family. Nothing about a living person is ever sent to FamilySearch or searched for there.
Outside sources, such as Wikipedia and the Library of Congress, asked only what a question needs. The full list is on the privacy page.

What it never does

Train on your family. None of the models may use your family's data to train a model, and we don't sell or share it for that.
Change your family behind your back. It changes your tree when you ask it to, or when it brings in what FamilySearch already holds for someone you have linked, and you can undo that from the card. It writes to FamilySearch Family Tree only after you have seen exactly what will change and pressed Approve.
Pass off a guess as a fact. It answers from your tree and your sources, says where each answer came from, and says so when the record is silent. What happened around your ancestors is told as history, never as something they did.

When it gets something wrong

AI makes mistakes, and so do the records it reads. Every fact comes with its source so you can check it, and where your file and FamilySearch Family Tree disagree, it shows you both and lets you choose. When something is wrong, tell it in the chat, or write to support@ancestral-fire.com: a person reads every word, and we fix what you find.

Your family is yours

Your tree lives in a database that is yours alone. Export all of it as a GEDCOM file, or delete your account and your tree, from Settings, any time. See Privacy and security for everything we keep and everyone else involved.