Good point Anne. Every time I ask AI to do a picture of a family historian it comes up with usually a bloke or if a female, an aged one at that. I'm pleased to have discovered the key to getting younger looking family historians on AI but the options seem to be young or ancient.
Knowing you Anne you will have it worked out in quick-smart time. It kind of makes sense to me. Mind you it took a light-bulb moment in the kitchen this morning to figure it all out. Now I have to apply myself like Jennifer and move the blog over as it were...we'll get there...bit by bit.
I'm so pleased to see you here Alex. Transferring Tracking Down The Family to Substack is the best thing I could have done. for my blog and for myself. My enthusiasm has been revived and I'm loving being involved in the wonderful genealogy community here. I do use AI occasionally, but mainly for images. It's interesting to read what AI has presented you on the subject. No wonder we genies are so busy!
Thank you dear Jennifer. I'm very impressed with what you have done. So much work and I'm glad to hear it is working out well for you. Yes I was quite impressed with what AI had to say about the work of a contemporary family historian. I'm sure improvements could be suggested but it's a pretty fine first effort.
Welcome. I'm fairly new myself. I think this mix of using what's new to explore what's old is something many of us embrace. That meticulous part? I wish I had embraced that 40 years ago. Well, oh well ...
As for AI, yes, I try to use it in various places on a regular basis without wasting time. It does still hallucinate, and I don't code any more so I don't ask it to code but have had it reformat things for me. When I can't make heads or tails of unfamiliar land documents or legal documents from 100 years ago, I'll ask for a review. It may not get the situation quite right either, but it does seem to help sort things out. I've used it for some news clipping transcriptions with varying degrees of usefulness. (Often with my family the news is just too ... um ... well let's just say ChatGPT once suggested I call the police.) And in the world of writing, if I'm too lazy to go find my thesaurus or rhyming dictionary I'll hit it up for that sort of thing.
Oh Nancy this comment is just fab and did make me giggle (re calling the police) - yes I think that's how I'm using it at the moment as a bit of a factotum (if that is the right word). I found it especially helpful when I had to write marketing blurbs quickly for our family history society. Some bits were not quite right but generally it did a way better, more enthusiastic job than I ever could.
Dear Denyse - thank you so much for your follow. I'm still learning the ropes here and will do my best to share posts accordingly. It's lovely to meet so many friendly supportive people. It took me a while to jump into the water, but here I am enjoying myself :)
Welcome! This is a fabulous community and I look forward to reading your stuff and getting to know you!
I’m still investigating AI and have been running some trials with it. I think there are some things it does well - providing key points of a topic, for example.
In other areas, I’ve been wildly disappointed almost to the point of alarm. For example, I prompted it to explain the actual relationship between two historical figure, and the response was total fabrication.
I see information gained thru AI like any other information I might come across in my genealogy research - I take note then go looking for confirmation or verification somewhere else. 😉
Lori you are so on the money. It's just another tool huh? And I think all depends on the user. Just because you have a pencil doesn't mean you are a great artist. I'm having some fun learning how to use it but some of the results do make me giggle e.g. extra fingers on hands in the art it creates for me.
I haven't tried any of the graphic tools, definitely not my jam, but in terms of researching and general writing, I feel like the results need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Hi Alex, I finally joined up too as I had avoided adding to my online connections. Already I do not use them to the fullest possible extent. Loving my time in Spain though. I got more done when I was working. Fran.
🥹 Wow, that's is what it's all about. To your description, “it’s a ready-made community” I'd offer one ever-so-slight modification: ⮕ “it's made to build community.”
It was only about two months ago that @Robin Stewart and I were comparing notes about what a marvelous place this would be for amateur family historians and professional genealogists alike — if only they knew about it. It's not that there was no one here, we were both growing well — but we were also noticing that most of the people we were discovering were new to Substack and had many of the same questions.
That's why we put our heads together to come up with MissionGenealogy.org as a means to help each other and help foster this community here on Substack even as we use word of mouth to find each other. Though we have our own communities (she's at genealogymatters.substack.com and I'm at projectkin.substack.com) we decided to use missiongenealogy.substack.com to help our nascent community find — and support — each other.
It's all free, we don't even have a way to take money. We're using it to share best practices. In fact, I hope you'll all join us for our next Roundtable discussion on Tuesday Sept. 24 or our Office Hours on Tuesday, Oct. 8 (Sorry, bad timing for Australia/New Zealand... you'll see we're working hard to make sure all is documented.)
And finally (🎉 I'm so excited) there's our little hack of the recommendations engine. If you want to be included in missiongenealogy.org/community, just drop me a DM. More about that here:
I do agree with the description of a contemporary family historian - I think the characteristics apply to both men and women
Good point Anne. Every time I ask AI to do a picture of a family historian it comes up with usually a bloke or if a female, an aged one at that. I'm pleased to have discovered the key to getting younger looking family historians on AI but the options seem to be young or ancient.
I am brand new here to substack too. Still trying to find my way around and work out how best to make use of and share in this new-to-me community.
Knowing you Anne you will have it worked out in quick-smart time. It kind of makes sense to me. Mind you it took a light-bulb moment in the kitchen this morning to figure it all out. Now I have to apply myself like Jennifer and move the blog over as it were...we'll get there...bit by bit.
I'm so pleased to see you here Alex. Transferring Tracking Down The Family to Substack is the best thing I could have done. for my blog and for myself. My enthusiasm has been revived and I'm loving being involved in the wonderful genealogy community here. I do use AI occasionally, but mainly for images. It's interesting to read what AI has presented you on the subject. No wonder we genies are so busy!
Thank you dear Jennifer. I'm very impressed with what you have done. So much work and I'm glad to hear it is working out well for you. Yes I was quite impressed with what AI had to say about the work of a contemporary family historian. I'm sure improvements could be suggested but it's a pretty fine first effort.
Welcome. I'm fairly new myself. I think this mix of using what's new to explore what's old is something many of us embrace. That meticulous part? I wish I had embraced that 40 years ago. Well, oh well ...
As for AI, yes, I try to use it in various places on a regular basis without wasting time. It does still hallucinate, and I don't code any more so I don't ask it to code but have had it reformat things for me. When I can't make heads or tails of unfamiliar land documents or legal documents from 100 years ago, I'll ask for a review. It may not get the situation quite right either, but it does seem to help sort things out. I've used it for some news clipping transcriptions with varying degrees of usefulness. (Often with my family the news is just too ... um ... well let's just say ChatGPT once suggested I call the police.) And in the world of writing, if I'm too lazy to go find my thesaurus or rhyming dictionary I'll hit it up for that sort of thing.
Oh Nancy this comment is just fab and did make me giggle (re calling the police) - yes I think that's how I'm using it at the moment as a bit of a factotum (if that is the right word). I found it especially helpful when I had to write marketing blurbs quickly for our family history society. Some bits were not quite right but generally it did a way better, more enthusiastic job than I ever could.
Welcome! So glad to see another family historian here. I gave you a follow so please share a note about your posts as you make them.
Dear Denyse - thank you so much for your follow. I'm still learning the ropes here and will do my best to share posts accordingly. It's lovely to meet so many friendly supportive people. It took me a while to jump into the water, but here I am enjoying myself :)
Welcome! This is a fabulous community and I look forward to reading your stuff and getting to know you!
I’m still investigating AI and have been running some trials with it. I think there are some things it does well - providing key points of a topic, for example.
In other areas, I’ve been wildly disappointed almost to the point of alarm. For example, I prompted it to explain the actual relationship between two historical figure, and the response was total fabrication.
I see information gained thru AI like any other information I might come across in my genealogy research - I take note then go looking for confirmation or verification somewhere else. 😉
Lori you are so on the money. It's just another tool huh? And I think all depends on the user. Just because you have a pencil doesn't mean you are a great artist. I'm having some fun learning how to use it but some of the results do make me giggle e.g. extra fingers on hands in the art it creates for me.
I haven't tried any of the graphic tools, definitely not my jam, but in terms of researching and general writing, I feel like the results need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Welcome! I look forward to learning from and being inspired by your experiences!
Thank you for taking the time to comment Kirsi. This community looks very encouraging and supportive. How wonderful!
Hi Alex, I finally joined up too as I had avoided adding to my online connections. Already I do not use them to the fullest possible extent. Loving my time in Spain though. I got more done when I was working. Fran.
Very excited for you and will be keen to hear all about Spain when next we meet dear Fran.
Have been thinking of this myself looking forward to our next in person catchup
Me too. It's been too long!
🥹 Wow, that's is what it's all about. To your description, “it’s a ready-made community” I'd offer one ever-so-slight modification: ⮕ “it's made to build community.”
It was only about two months ago that @Robin Stewart and I were comparing notes about what a marvelous place this would be for amateur family historians and professional genealogists alike — if only they knew about it. It's not that there was no one here, we were both growing well — but we were also noticing that most of the people we were discovering were new to Substack and had many of the same questions.
That's why we put our heads together to come up with MissionGenealogy.org as a means to help each other and help foster this community here on Substack even as we use word of mouth to find each other. Though we have our own communities (she's at genealogymatters.substack.com and I'm at projectkin.substack.com) we decided to use missiongenealogy.substack.com to help our nascent community find — and support — each other.
It's all free, we don't even have a way to take money. We're using it to share best practices. In fact, I hope you'll all join us for our next Roundtable discussion on Tuesday Sept. 24 or our Office Hours on Tuesday, Oct. 8 (Sorry, bad timing for Australia/New Zealand... you'll see we're working hard to make sure all is documented.)
- https://missiongenealogy.substack.com/p/roundtable-discussions-regular-community
- https://missiongenealogy.substack.com/p/september-office-hours
And finally (🎉 I'm so excited) there's our little hack of the recommendations engine. If you want to be included in missiongenealogy.org/community, just drop me a DM. More about that here:
- https://missiongenealogy.substack.com/p/using-recommendations
Huzzah! Welcome, welcome,... all are welcome, women AND men, of course!