Saturday, October 26, 2024

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Ask an Artificial Intelligence Agent To Create a Research Plan

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!


Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. 

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 CoPilotGoogle's GeminiMeta'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 Search
  • 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)
2. Census Records Examination
  • 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
3. Church Records Investigation
  • Identify potential churches in St. Louis area (1859)
  • Search for baptismal records around Anna's birth date
4. Immigration and Naturalization
  • Check passenger lists and immigration records for Grieser family
  • Look for naturalization papers for potential parents
5. Land and Property Records
  • Search for Grieser family land transactions in St. Louis (1850s-1860s)
6. Newspaper Research
  • Look for birth announcements in St. Louis newspapers (late 1859)
  • Search for obituaries of Anna and potential parents
7. Cemetery and Burial Records
  • Investigate Anna's burial location in Latah, Idaho
  • Look for family plots or nearby Grieser graves
8. Probate and Will Records
  • Search for wills or probate records of potential Grieser parents in St. Louis

Expanding the Search

Sibling Research
  • Identify potential siblings of Anna Grieser
  • Use their records to find parental information
Grieser Family Study
  • Conduct a broader study of Grieser families in St. Louis area
  • Look for patterns or connections to Anna's family
DNA Testing
  • Consider DNA testing to find genetic relatives
  • Use DNA matches to build out family tree

Record Keeping and Analysis

  • Document all findings meticulously
  • Create a timeline of events for Anna and potential family members
  • Analyze conflicting information and resolve discrepancies
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.
Perplexity offered 7 sources for review:
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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Copyright (c) 2024, Randall J. Seaver

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3 comments:

ByAPearl said...

Here is my effort. https://geneajournalsbyapearl.wordpress.com/2024/10/26/sngf-ask-an-artificial-intelligence-agent-to-create-a-research-plan/

Lisa S. Gorrell said...

Here is mine: https://mytrailsintothepast.blogspot.com/2024/10/sngf-ask-artificial-intelligence-agent.html

Linda Stufflebean said...

Here's mine: https://emptybranchesonthefamilytree.com/2024/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-317/