Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Genealogy Education Bytes - Week of 25 to 31 December 2025

 Welcome to Genealogy Education Bytes, posted on Wednesday afternoon for the past week, where we try to highlight some of the most important genealogy and family history education items that came across my desktop since the last issue.


1) Upcoming Conferences and  Institutes 

* Conference Keeper Calendar - has many links to register for and/or view conferences and institutes.

*  RootsTech 2026 ($$, In-person in Salt Lake City, Free Virtual) -- 5 to 7 March 2026.

*  National Genealogical Society 2026 Family History Conference ($$, In-person and virtual, in Fort Wayne, Indiana) - 27 to 30 May 2026.

2 ) Upcoming Seminars, Webinars and Online Classes (times are US Pacific):

* Conference Keeper Calendar - has many links to register for and/or view seminars, webinars and classes.

*  FamilySearch MonthlyWebinars (Free)

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinar - Wednesday, 7 January 2026, 8:30 a.m.:  Genealogy Meets the Internet Archive and AI: A Comprehensive Review by Thomas MacEntee.

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinar - Wednesday, 7 January 2026, 9:45 a.m.:  AI as Partner, Not Replacement: Human-Led Research Planning in the Sally Keaton Case by Nicole Elder Dyer 

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinar - Wednesday, 7 January 2026, 11 a.m.:  Unraveling Family History with AI: Leveraging AI to Trace an Ancestor’s Journey, with Chat GPT (Free Version)  by Diane Henriks.

*  Legacy Family Tree Webinar - Wednesday, 7 January 2026, 12:30 p.m.:  From Problem to Solution: A Case Study Approach to Using AI in Genealogy by Andrew Redfern.

3) Recent Podcasts:



*  Family Tree Talk:  Could the census ever be boring?


4) Recent YouTube Videos 










*  Genealogy With Amy Johnson Crow:  Genealogy 2025 Recap




*  Randy Seaver, Geneaholic:  Randy's Christmas Eve Dream
*  Randy Seaver, Geneaholic:  The Severt Leland Family Christmas in 1925
*  Randy Seaver, Geneaholic:  DJ Carringer Family Christmas in 1875
*  Randy Seaver, Geneaholic:  Betty and Fred's Story: "The Big Moment"
*  Randy Seaver, Geneaholic:  Randy's Memories - "Randy's Last Ride"

* Trace Your New England Roots:  This Genealogy Brick Wall Took a Decade to Crack


5) Did you miss the last post in this series - Genealogy Education Bytes -  Week of 18 to 24 December 2025?


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NOTE:  If  I missed an upcoming conference or webinar, or a useful podcast or video, in this time period, please let me know in a comment or an email. 

Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share your comment on X, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at   randy.seaver@gmail.com.  Note that all comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. 

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Randy's Genealogy Activity Highlights for 2025

2025 was a pretty good genealogy year for me and Genea-Musings - Artificial Intelligence (AI) and FamilySearch Full-Text Search were the highlights for me.

Looking back over the past year, I see that I pursued these genealogy and family history related activities:


(image created by Meta AI)

1)  Genealogy Society Work
  • Moderated and presented 11 CVGS Research Group monthly meetings (in Zoom meetings) with 15 to 25 in attendance, usually providing two hours of content.
  • Moderated and presented 8 CVGS DNA Interest Group monthly meetings (in Zoom meetings) and 4 CVGS Family History Roundtable monthly meetings (in Zoom meetings), with 15 to 30 in attendance, usually providing two hours of content.
  • Attended 10 CVGS monthly General Meetings (in Zoom meetings) with 20 to 50 in attendance.
  • Attended in-person 9 CVGS education meetings and helped answer questions for new genealogists.
  • Attended the CVGS annual picnic (June) and holiday party (December) in-person and enjoyed seeing my CVGS colleagues.
  • Wrote, edited, published, and emailed 12 CVGS monthly Newsletters (8 pages each month) to the CVGS membership in the 16th year of my editorship.
  • Served on the CVGS Board of Directors for the 23rd consecutive year as Research Group Chair, Roundtable Chair, and Newsletter Editor, and attended monthly Board meetings.
2)  Education
  • Watched about 20 Legacy Family Tree Webinars as part of my subscription to the service (like having a really big genealogical society program!).
  • Attended RootsTech Connect 2025 virtually over three days, and watched over 100 presentations.
  • Attended 10 San Diego Genealogical Society monthly program meetings (including two seminars) on Zoom. Also attended the Genealogy Day at the San Diego Historical society building in Balboa Park in October.
  • Attended most of the SDGS DNA Interest Group meetings on Zoom hosted by Colin Whitney, often with speakers.
  • Attended most of the SDGS British Isles Interest Group on Zoom hosted by Colin Whitney.
  • Watched hundreds of YouTube videos about genealogy-related topics - I subscribe to about 150 YouTube channels for genealogy. 
  • Read the NEHGS magazines and downloaded them to my genealogy education folders.   American Ancestors also provides digital editions of a number of periodicals for New England which I search occasionally and download articles about my ancestral families to my genealogy digital folders.
  •  Downloaded syllabus articles from RootsTech, Legacy Family Tree Webinars, CVGS programs, and SDGS programs, and saved them to my education digital folders.
  • Read thousands of genealogy-related blog posts from hundreds of geneabloggers using Feedly on a daily basis.
3)  Blogging
  • Investigated and wrote about new genealogy research, family tree, family stories, DNA and artificial intelligence tools as they appeared over the year.  
  • Wrote "Ask AI" articles about topics of interest using the free Artificial Intelligence chatbots (OpenAI ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Microsoft CoPilot, Google Gemini, X Grok, Meta, and Perplexity).   Had lots of "genealogy fun" creating AI images to support blog posts.
  • Wrote over 60 ABC Biographies (AI-assisted) of my ancestors from parents through the 3rd great-grandparents, including a poem, song lyrics, a song, an audio overview and video overview. 
  • Wrote many AI-assisted family stories based on my genealogical research and my own memories, including life memoirs, ancestor "day in the life," memorable events, and even some serial stories. 
  • Created NotebookLM AI Biographies, Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, Infographics and Slide Decks about selected ancestors and myself.  Transferred Audio Overview audio to text using AI tools.
  • Tried to keep abreast of AI technology and news in the Artificial Intelligence Compendium as a Genea-Musings page to capture significant articles, webinars, blog and video content. 
  • Created the Randy's AI and Genealogy Genea-Musings page for my own work about genealogy and AI and added to it weekly. 
  • Wrote over 1,110 blog posts (most ever for me) on Genea-Musings in the 20th year of the blog.  Some of my posts are about my own research (e.g., Amanuensis Monday, Genealogy Pot-Pourri, Seavers in the News, Wordless Wednesday, Treasure Chest Thursday, and Saturday Night Genealogy Fun), but some are genea-curation about the industry (e.g., New and Updated Ancestry Collections; New and Updated FamilySearch Collections; New and Updated MyHeritage Collections; Findmypast Friday; Genealogy News Bytes, Genealogy Education Bytes; and Best of the Genea-Blogs), occasional guest posts, press releases, Artificial Intelligence questions, trials, biographies and stories, genealogy software, online collections, and genealogy  industry issues.  See:
  • Started a Substack page and usually post one article every day, which goes to the 200+ subscribers via email and is available to read by anyone on Substack.  
  • I now have about 18,915 posts and 29.4 million page views on the Genea-Musings blog since April 2006 according to Google, with 7.8 million page views added in 2025.
4)  DNA Tests and Analysis
  • I have autosomal DNA test results at AncestryDNA (test), MyHeritageDNA (upload), FamilyTreeDNA (test), 23andMe (test), Living DNA (upload), and GEDmatch (upload).
  • Reviewed my DNA matches on a regular basis, and made notes about the match data, including known relationships and common ancestors.  I have spreadsheets for the highest matches on AncestryDNA, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, and MyHeritageDNA matches with collected information.  I occasionally downloaded my Shared DNA segments from MyHeritageDNA, FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe.
  • Created updated AutoCluster groups for MyHeritage.
  • Explored the AncestryDNA AutoClusters with some success in identifying distant cousins.
  • Did not add anything to my DNA Painter chromosome mapping based on known common ancestors on MyHeritageDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, and 23andMe.
5)  Genealogy Research and Family Trees
  • Had several breakthrough moments doing research using FamilySearch Full-Text Search, including:
    • Land records for several of my New England Seaver ancestors.
    • Land records for 3rd great-grandfather Alexander Sovereen in Norfolk County. Ontario.
  • Used RootsMagic 11 as my "master" family tree program on my desktop and laptop computers. See RootsMagic Genealogy Database Statistics Update - 1 January 2026 for my progress on my family tree.
  • Continued to research, find, source and enter information on my ancestors and descendants of my 4th great-grandparents to help find common ancestors with DNA matches.
  • Used the WebHints for Ancestry, MyHeritage, Findmypast, and FamilySearch to add content (names, relationships, events, dates, places, notes and source citations) for records found that apply to each profile.
  • Searched for more records for selected profiles on all of the sites, adding content and source citations for records found that apply to each person profile.
  • Matched my RootsMagic profiles with FamilySearch Family Tree profiles on a regular basis using the FamilySearch tools in RootsMagic, and added or edited Family Tree profiles and/or RootsMagic profiles to add content, notes and source citations.
6)  Family Photos
  • Found several more caches of family photos and artifacts hiding in file cabinets, file boxes, and piles.
  • Colorized and enhanced over 100 more family photos using the MyHeritage photograph tools and sharpened, enhanced and colorized some family photographs using ChatGPT and Gemini AI Tools.
7)  Family Stories
  • Experimented with Artificial Intelligence programs to write ancestor biographies using Anthropic Claude and other LLMs, plus creating poems, song lyrics and songs (using Suno) to commemorate their lives. 
  • Wrote many life memoirs and family stories using Anthropic Claude to add historical context and "how it might have been" to my ancestor' stories. 
  • Used the AI biographies, memoirs, and stories to create Audio Overviews and Video Overviews, and starting in November I used Infographics and Slide Decks using Google NotebookLM. Created several slide shows using Google Slides and Google Vids for several ancestral couples.  Used Canva to create videos of some of the audio overviews and Suno songs.
  • Added the Video Overviews and some songs and Audio Overviews to my YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@RandySeaver.
8)  Digital Data Maintenance
  • Added digital images of genealogy records, downloaded books, or articles, to my ancestral education, surname and family digital files on a regular "as found" basis.
  • Added other genealogy-related documents (e.g., society newsletters, presentation handouts, artificial intelligence images, AI text content, etc.) to my Genealogy digital file folders.  
  • Backed up the digital files to Google Drive occasionally and iDrive in the cloud daily, and some files to Dropbox for transfer to the laptop on an as-needed basis.  
9)  Summary
  • I "advanced the genealogy ball" by making some genealogy and family tree discoveries, trying new methods and resources, and had a lot of genea-fun.  
  • I do the above activities almost every day for 5 to 8 hours a day, seemingly chained to my computer chair.  A lot of my reading of email, blogs and social media are done on my phone now in my recliner.  I worked about 2,000 hours on genealogy-related activities in 2025.  I didn't make any money doing this but spent some.  I think I'm my own boss.  
10)  Real Life
  • I love having time for family activities (occasional visits from or with our two daughters and grandkids - some calls on Facetime).  I visit Linda in her skilled nursing and memory care facility 3-4 times a week for an hour.  
  • The year saw improved health for me (knocking on wood!) - my pacemaker has stabilized my heart rate,  I had two more skin cancers on my head, and one on my chest,  removed in 2025.  I'm trying to walk a bit every day, and work in the yard weekly.  
  • I watch Padres baseball on TV, Chargers and NFL football on TV, and SDSU Aztecs football and basketball on TV.  
  • I read the local newspaper, genealogy books and magazines, and fiction books (mostly mystery books from the public library) while watching TV.  
  • I check Facebook, Substack and X daily, and read or watch local news and political news/events online, on my phone, and on TV. 
  • I faithfully attend and sometimes lead a church Men's Bible Study on the first Saturday of each month for breakfast.
  • I sporadically attend a Rohr/Goodrich Retired Engineer's lunch on the third Thursday of each month.
  • Then there's the household chores (bills, mail, shopping, cooking, dishes, laundry and cleaning), but I'm pretty lax.  
  • Pretty boring, eh? 
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Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on X, Facebook, Bluesky, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com. Please note that all comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. 

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Top 60 Most Viewed Posts in 2025 on Genea-Musings

A) Here are the Top 60 Genea-Musings blog posts written in 2025 that had the most page views in 2025 (from View Count statistics on the Google Blogger Posts page as of 30 December 2025):
















15) 852 views - MyHeritage Introduces Ethnicity Estimate v2.5 (2 February 2025)











26)  719 views - An AI-assisted Genealogy Song - "I Am A Genealogist!" (14 August 2025)






















48)  629 views - Announcing YOUR GENEA-GENIE (1 April 2025)













Why 60?  Because it's a nice round number!  And I wanted to include a few more than last year (my blog, my choice!). Note that I did not include any of the "regular" posts that might have more than 584 views - there were several Best of the Genea-Blogs and Ancestry Database poststhat would be in the Top 60 above if I had included them.

This certainly was an AI year - 36 of the top 60 were about testing or using Artificial Intelligence. 

B)  The ten most popular Genea-Musings posts since 2007 (per Google Blogger) are:

1)  1940 Census Enumeration District Maps Online at NARA Website (posted 18 July 2011) - 88,600 views.
4)  Genealogy Presentations on Slideshare.net (posted 28 January 2010) - 26,000 views.
5)  World records for number of children (posted 21 July 2006) - 23,900 views.
6)  Dear Ancestry.com: Are You Fixing These Problems? (17 January 2019) - 17,800 views
7)  Merry Christmas to All! (posted 25 December 2011) - 15,000 views.
8)  Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Your 16 Great-Great-Grands  (8 August 2009) - 11,200 views
9)  Was Daniel Boone an Ancestor of Pat Boone? (31 August 2007) - 10,200 views
10) Randy's NGS 2010 Photos - Post 1 (4 May 2010) - 9,600 views

Several of those "all-time" posts had more page views in 2025 than all but #1 on my Top 60 list.

C)  Of course, all of my blog posts are viewed by more readers than those that go to the specific web page for the post, which is what Google counts - those who read them on a Genea-Musings archive page, those that read them in an RSS reader, or on a mobile device.  In July 2022, Feedburner stopped their daily email service to subscribers, and I have switched a daily email to www.Blogtrottr.com but it doesn't provide reader counts.

D)  Previous "most popular" posts on Genea-Musings are:


E)  Readership of Genea-Musings went up significantly over the past year.  For example, the 10th most viewed post in 2025 had 940 views, the 20th most viewed post had 777 views, the 30th had 703 views, the 40th had 673 views, and the 50th had 622 views. In 2024, the 10th most viewed post had 572 views, the 20th had 482 views, the 30th had 427 views, the 40th had 377 views, and the 50th had 341 views.

Genea-Musings had about 7.77 million page views according to Google during 2025, and about 29.4 million page views since 2007.  In 2024, Genea-Musings had about 6.0 million page views, so the effect of all my efforts was about a 129% increase in page views for 2025.   Why?  Probably because of AI posts.  

I wrote about 1,110 blog posts in 2025, compared to over 970 for 2024, and over 900 for most years since 2007. Almost all of that increase is due to Artificial Intelligence posts.

F)  I wondered what the least viewed Genea-Musings post was in 2025.  I know that Treasure Chest Thursday, Wordless Wednesday, Census Sunday, 52 Ancestors and Seavers in the News posts are not that popular, but they are the most useful to my research.  The least viewed blog post in 2025 (to date) had 91 views.

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Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

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