​You’ve probably been hearing more about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and have wondered about using it in your genealogy research. I have just started experimenting with AI and am not an expert. Instead, I thought I’d share a few reference articles and some thoughts from my own experience. Let’s look.

You may have seen this on the nightly news, but I wanted to remind you that that National Archives and Records Administration has invited the public to be part of the digitizing effort of the organization. To learn more about how you can help, you can view more information here: Citizen Archivist | National Archives. I would recommend reading more details about the opportunities by Register and Get Started | National Archives which explains more about how you can dig in and help with transcribing records and providing tags to make these records more discoverable.
The first step is to set up an account with NARA—they use login.gov as their login mechanism. Initial reading indicates that you can create an account for use with NARA using a different email from your existing login.gov account. It also appears that you can choose to focus on the transcription work that needs to be accomplished or focus on tagging key words to make documents more discoverable. Fellow family historians will be thankful to have documents available online that were otherwise only found onsite.
If you would like more detail on how the transcribing process works, you can view step by step details: Get Started Transcribing | National Archives. This section is quite detailed and includes information on finding a document to transcribe, using the transcription tool and how to handle unusual items such as crossed-out text or other notes.
The good news is that you can transcribe as your schedule allows so if you only have one day a week or once a month, you can still make a difference. Happy transcribing!

Maps are an interesting way to learn more about your ancestors and their community. For those of us with farm ancestors, we love to find the plat map records that tie us to the family farmland. Just as interesting are the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps that can be found of nearby towns and villages. I especially like to compare the businesses that existed in the late 1800s to those that exist in more modern times. What was once a livery stable has been replaced with a car dealership. The local church is likely still there but with modifications. What if your city doesn’t have a Sanborn Fire Insurance Map? There are some other companies that also provided fire insurance. Let’s look.

My Heritage released a site that contains old newspapers called OldNews.com: Historical Newspapers Online Archive. I’m always interested in new ways to find newspaper clippings about my ancestors or where they lived. Those tidbits can often help layer our family history, putting us in the time and place where they lived.
The Old News site has a collection of newspapers across the United States, Canada and much of the world. You can search by name, event or keyword, publication year and publication date from the main page. A feature that I like is looking at publications by location. You can find this option on the toolbar across the top of the site “Browse by location.” I think you can save yourself some time by using this model to see what publications are available for Germany, as an example. You can view the summary of your searches but if you decide you want to view an article, you have the option to join a 7-day trial or sign up for a free account on My Heritage or if you are already a member of My Heritage, then log in.
I especially like that there are newspapers from countries that we don’t typically see on other sites including Poland, Spain, Austria, Australia as well as others such as France and Germany. Are some of these newspapers replicated on other sites? Possibly. It is fun to explore new possibilities. Have fun checking out these newspapers.