Is AI genealogy accurate? What to check.
It can be, when it answers from records and says which ones. An AI that answers from your family's tree and cites its sources is checkable; one that writes a fluent story with no sources is not. Genealogists judge any conclusion by the same standard: exhaustive research, complete citations, careful analysis, resolved conflicts, and a sound written conclusion.
1. Every claim should say where it came from.
A birth date, a parent, a town: each should point to a record, or to the tree it was read from. If an answer can't tell you where a fact came from, treat it as a guess.
2. It should say what it doesn't know.
A trustworthy answer says when the record is silent: no death date, no parents named, two records that disagree. Filling a gap with something plausible is the most common way a family history goes wrong, with or without AI.
3. History around them isn't evidence about them.
A war, a famine or an epidemic near where someone lived is context. It doesn't mean they fought, starved or fell ill. Watch for answers that turn "this was happening nearby" into "this happened to them".
4. Hold it to the standard genealogists use.
The Board for Certification of Genealogists sets out the Genealogical Proof Standard: reasonably exhaustive research, complete and accurate citations, analysis and correlation of the evidence, resolution of conflicting evidence, and a soundly reasoned conclusion. Ask whether an answer would survive those five.
Or just ask.
AncestralFire does these steps with you. Tell it one name, and it reads your tree, searches FamilySearch Family Tree once you connect it, and tells you what it found, with the source behind each fact. A real answer:
What doesn't the tree know about Patrick?
Your imported file records Patrick's birth around 1823, immigration to Boston around 1847, work as a cooper, and death in 1858. A note says he died of consumption, but the file has no attached birth or death record or 1850 census to verify details; his parents are named Patrick and Mary Johanna, but their dates aren't given.
From the Kennedy family's published tree: what an answer looks like when it says what it doesn't know.
See a whole conversation on How it works, or what it finds in one family: The Bourbon family tree: Louis XV, king at five.
Keep reading.
- Second cousin once removed? Work it out. A second cousin is someone who shares a set of great-grandparents with you, and "once removed" means you are one generation apart: your second cousin's child, or your parent's second cousin.
- How to find your great-grandparents. You have eight great-grandparents, and you can usually find them in three steps: write down what your family already knows, find your grandparents' death certificates and obituaries (they usually name their parents), then find each family in a census, where they're listed together in one household.