Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:
It's Saturday Night again -
Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!
1) Form a research question and ask an Artificial Intelligence agent to create a genealogy research plan for
you.
2) Share the plan. How well did AI do? Is the plan useful or too
basic?
3) Share your research question and the plan and your comments in your own blog post or on your Facebook page. Be sure to leave a link to your report in a comment on this post.
[thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]
Here's mine:
I selected Perplexity.ai to do this task, since it can provide web sources. [Other free AI agents to try are OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o, Anthropic's Claude, Microsoft's CoPilot, Google's Gemini, Meta's AI.]
Here is my prompt: Please form a genealogy research plan and share it based on this research question: Who were the parents of Anna Grieser who was born 17 Nov 1859 in St Louis Missouri, married John Brocke on 24 April 1877 in Nebraska, and died 19 March 1936 in Latah, Idaho.
The Perplexity response was:
To investigate the parents of Anna Grieser, born on 17 Nov 1859 in St. Louis, Missouri, we'll need to develop a comprehensive genealogy research plan. Here's a structured approach to tackle this question:
Initial Data Gathering
Review Known Information
- Anna Grieser's birth: 17 Nov 1859, St. Louis, Missouri
- Marriage: 24 April 1877 to John Brocke in Nebraska
- Death: 19 March 1936 in Latah, Idaho
Research Strategies
1. Vital Records Search2. Census Records Examination
- Obtain Anna's birth certificate from St. Louis, Missouri (1859)
- Locate the marriage certificate from Nebraska (1877)
- Acquire the death certificate from Latah, Idaho (1936)
3. Church Records Investigation
- Search 1860 and 1870 U.S. Census records for St. Louis, Missouri
- Look for Anna living with her parents
- Examine 1880 and later censuses for additional family information
4. Immigration and Naturalization
- Identify potential churches in St. Louis area (1859)
- Search for baptismal records around Anna's birth date
5. Land and Property Records
- Check passenger lists and immigration records for Grieser family
- Look for naturalization papers for potential parents
6. Newspaper Research
- Search for Grieser family land transactions in St. Louis (1850s-1860s)
7. Cemetery and Burial Records
- Look for birth announcements in St. Louis newspapers (late 1859)
- Search for obituaries of Anna and potential parents
8. Probate and Will Records
- Investigate Anna's burial location in Latah, Idaho
- Look for family plots or nearby Grieser graves
- Search for wills or probate records of potential Grieser parents in St. Louis
Expanding the Search
Sibling ResearchGrieser Family Study
- Identify potential siblings of Anna Grieser
- Use their records to find parental information
DNA Testing
- Conduct a broader study of Grieser families in St. Louis area
- Look for patterns or connections to Anna's family
- Consider DNA testing to find genetic relatives
- Use DNA matches to build out family tree
Record Keeping and Analysis
By following this research plan systematically, we can increase our chances of identifying Anna Grieser's parents. The key is to start with the most reliable sources (vital records) and gradually expand the search to other documents and resources.
- Document all findings meticulously
- Create a timeline of events for Anna and potential family members
- Analyze conflicting information and resolve discrepancies
Perplexity offered 7 sources for review:
- Three of them were for Anna Grieser persons who were not this specific Anna Grieser.
- WikiTree: https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/GRIESER which provided a list opersons with the surname, and listed this Anna Grieser.
- Geni.com: https://www.geni.com/people/Anna-Grieser/6000000176133543879 which was for a different Anna Grieser.
- Genealogy.com: https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/grieser/ which provided a message thread on the Surnames>Grieser forum, which did not include this specific Anna Grieser.
- RootsWeb Site: https://sites.rootsweb.com/~whozrdadi/Spiker_Speicher/ps96_363.htm which did not mention this specific Anna Grieser.
How well did AI do? Is the plan useful or too basic?
I think that Perplexity did this task fairly well. The research plan hit the obvious suggestions in the right order. But the plan is rather basic.
An experienced researcher would suggest:
- Looking for clues for Anna's birth and married surnames in the marriage location and the death location.
- Searching for other records between the birth and death dates in the places where the family resided.
- Finding family mentions in published books, periodicals, archival manuscripts, historical societies and/or genealogical society publications.
- If the available records (e.g., census records) suggest parents names, then finding those parents life events and the other children of the suggested parents may be helpful. For example, my research showed that Anna's father died in 1879 in Latah, Idaho, and her mother died there in 1920.
Who is Anna (Grieser) Brocke (1859-1936)? She is my wife's great-grandmother. I chose her for this challenge because I haven't written a lot about her. Her death certificate does not provide her fther's given name, and it misspells her mother's maiden name. The 1860 and 1870 US census records provide parents names as Ignatius and Catherine Grieser. Ignatius Grieser (1835-1879) and Katherine (Gute) Grieser (1837-1920) were born in Germany, married in 1858 in St. Louis, and died in Latah County, Idaho.
NOTE: Claude AI gave me a good response, and provided a list of record repositories, expected challenges, and source criteria. ChatGPT-4o provided more detail than Perplexity, suggested autosomal DNA testing, but no sources or suggested repositories. Meta AI provided a response similar to Perplexity, along with a step-by-step research plan and potential record sources. Co-Pilot's response was similar to Perplexity's, and also suggested social media. Google Gemini AI said it couldn't do this task. Interestingly, none of the agents suggested online family trees or a Google/Bing/DuckDuckGo/other web search.
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3 comments:
Here is my effort. https://geneajournalsbyapearl.wordpress.com/2024/10/26/sngf-ask-an-artificial-intelligence-agent-to-create-a-research-plan/
Here is mine: https://mytrailsintothepast.blogspot.com/2024/10/sngf-ask-artificial-intelligence-agent.html
Here's mine: https://emptybranchesonthefamilytree.com/2024/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-317/
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