Saturday, January 18, 2025

Ask AI: "Please Create a Transcription, a Summary and a Source Citation for an Attached Marriage Record"

 The Artificial Intelligence tools (like ChatGPT, Claude, CoPilot, Gemini, Grok, Meta, Grok, GenSpark and Perplexity) can provide much useful and nearly instant information about subjects in a concise format, especially when they have been pre-trained on a large volume of information about the subjects.

1)  I wondered if the FREE AI tools could provide me with a line-by-line transcription, a summary, and a source citation in EE format for a record image on Ancestry.  Here is the attached record image:


 I intentionally used a screen capture of the Ancestry page because it provides information that can be used for the source citation.  I want the transcription, summary and citation for the bottom record on the page - the marriage of my 3rd great-grandparents John Richman and Ann Marshman in 1811 in Hilperton, Wiltshire.

2)  The first prompt was:  "Please create a line-by-line transcription, a summary of the information, and a source citation (in Evidence Explained format) for the attached record for the John Richman/Ann Marshman marriage on Ancestry.com."

3)  The free ChatGPT4 provided this response:

Transcription (line-by-line):

  1. Nº 18
  2. John Richman of this Parish
  3. and Ann Marshman of this Parish
  4. were Married in this Church by Banns
  5. this Fourth Day of November in the Year One Thousand Eight
  6. Hundred and Eleven By me Wm. Meyler Curate
  7. This Marriage was solemnized between Us {John Richman}
  8. {Ann Marshman X her Mark}
  9. In the Presence of {Richd Richman}
  10. {Edward Flower}

Summary of Information:

  • Groom: John Richman, of the parish of Hilperton, Wiltshire.
  • Bride: Ann Marshman, of the parish of Hilperton, Wiltshire.
  • Date of Marriage: 4 November 1811.
  • Location: Parish Church, Hilperton, Wiltshire, England.
  • Marriage Method: By Banns.
  • Officiant: Wm. Meyler, Curate.
  • Signatures: John Richman signed his name, while Ann Marshman made her mark (indicating she could not write).
  • Witnesses: Richard Richman and Edward Flower.

Source Citation (Evidence Explained Style):

Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council, Wiltshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1916, John Richman and Ann Marshman marriage, 4 November 1811, Hilperton; Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed [date]), image 51 of 64.

4)  There are errors in their transcription and summary fo some reaso.  My next prompt was: "the record clearly says the record number is 20, the marriage was 28 "Feby", the curate's name was J. Bailes, John Richman signed by mark, and the witnesses were Richard Hiscock and Thomas Richman (who signed by mark).  Can you correct the response?"

5)  The ChatGPT4 response was:

Thank you for pointing that out! Here's the corrected transcription, summary, and citation based on the accurate details you provided:


Transcription (line-by-line):

  1. Nº 20
  2. John Richman of this Parish
  3. and Ann Marshman of this Parish
  4. were Married in this Church by Banns
  5. this Twenty Eighth Day of February in the Year One Thousand Eight
  6. Hundred and Eleven By me J. Bailes Curate
  7. This Marriage was solemnized between Us {John Richman X his Mark}
  8. {Ann Marshman X her Mark}
  9. In the Presence of {Richd Hiscock X his Mark}
  10. {Thomas Richman X his Mark}

Summary of Information:

  • Groom: John Richman, of the parish of Hilperton, Wiltshire.
  • Bride: Ann Marshman, of the parish of Hilperton, Wiltshire.
  • Date of Marriage: 28 February 1811.
  • Location: Parish Church, Hilperton, Wiltshire, England.
  • Marriage Method: By Banns.
  • Officiant: J. Bailes, Curate.
  • Signatures: Both John Richman and Ann Marshman signed by mark (indicating neither could write).
  • Witnesses: Richard Hiscock (signed by mark) and Thomas Richman (signed by mark).

Source Citation (Evidence Explained Style):

Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council, Wiltshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1916, John Richman and Ann Marshman marriage, 28 February 1811, Hilperton; Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed [date]), image 51 of 64.

6)  This is a "Summarization" request with a transcription and source citation included.  I was disappointed that the initial line-by-line transcription was so inaccurate.  It may be the result of hallucinations.  The handwriting on the form was not very good, and the image was relatively small (570 kb) because I wanted to capture the full Ancestry page, but my 81-year-old eyes could figure it out, as did Ancestry's indexers.  

I might have received a better transcription if I had uploaded the record image rather than the screen capture of the Ancestry page with the image.  I tried that in a new chat and it got most everything right (only the curate's name was wrong).  But then the source citation information can not be captured by ChatGPT4 from the image.

If it was just one or two minor errors in the handwriting, I would feel a lot better.   After telling ChatGPT4 what the errors were, some of the lines were still not transcribed word-for-word.

The summary reflects the transcription so it's wrong in all of the same places.

The source citation is impressive.  I asked ChatGPT4 which edition of Evidence Explained that it used, and it said Version 3 (2017), so it's not the current Version 4 (2024).  I wondered if ChatGPT4 would capture all of the elements of the source citation by finding them on the image. It managed to find the "author" (in the lower left-hand corner of the image), the Ancestry collection title at the top of the image, the persons involved, the date and place (from the record image), and the image number (at the bottom of the record image). However, it did not capture the "sub-title" of the record set - the "Hilperton > 1807-1812" sub-title below the collection title.  That is very important because this collection includes hundreds of parishes, and several sub-titles for each parish. 

7)  I wonder if the subscription ChatGPT4 site would do better and provide more details, or more insight.  Perhaps a reader with access to the subscription site can tell me!

8)  This can serve as a benchmark to see if ChatGPT improves this task over time.  If it does, this could be a real time-saver for researchers.  However, we will still have to review and correct any errors that are made by the AI tools.  

9)  Census records, passenger lists, vital record certificates, military records, and other record types with handwriting on forms come to mind for further investigation.  

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My blog posts, and those of other genealogists, using Artificial Intelligence tools are on my AI and Genealogy Compendium page.

Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver


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1 comment:

Mad Gramma said...

Thank you for writing this! I'm just starting to delve into AI for Genealogy and I have a lot to learn.