In Search of the Perfect Genealogical Sketch - Updated!

Do you want to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) Large Language Model (LLM) Tools to help you write family stories about your own life or the lives of your ancestors, but you don't have any stories, or even research material?  To create an accurate family story, you need research material in the form of a "genealogical sketch" or "research report."  You can do it yourself (best choice) or rely on the work of other researchers (risky, but possible).  

Whether or not you have done genealogical research, or use a genealogy management desktop software program, there are ways to create a genealogical sketch of a historical person.  

I wrote In Search Of the Perfect Genealogical Sketch six months ago.  It highlighted one way to create a genealogical sketch in PDF format from an Ancestry Member Tree profile that could be provided to an AI LLM tool to create a readable biography of a historical person. That works for my own tree, and also for Ancestry Member Trees of other Ancestry.com users.

Here are some other options if you don't have an Ancestry Member Tree:

1)  If you use a genealogy management desktop software program like RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, Legacy Family Tree, etc., it can take your historical person profile in the program and provide a Narrative Report that includes your event data (birth, marriage, death, census, military, immigration, land, probate, etc.), your person notes, your fact notes, your source citations, etc. for your historical person.  A Timeline report, an Individual Person report, a Descendants report, or an Ancestors report can perform a similar task.

Here is the first page of a text Narrative Report for Henry Carringer created by RootsMagic 10:

Note that it adds Notes (if requested), sources (if requested), an index (if requested), etc.  The above is page 1 of a 21 page report imported into a word processor.  I used reports like this to create my genealogical sketches that are in my 52 Ancestors series.

The publishing capabilities of other genealogy management programs are somewhat different than the RootsMagic format, so test your program out and see how well it produces a genealogy narrative report for your historical person. It may be "good enough."  

2)  If you have a MyHeritage family tree online, you can Copy the information on the "Profile" page of the historical person and Paste it into a word processor document and save it as a PDF.  Alternatively, you could use a tool like the Print Friendly Chrome Extension to create a PDF of the entire "Profile" page (15 pages) for Henry Carringer.  

However, neither method captures the Sources, and the result captures all of the characters on the website page, not just the persons, events, and notes. 

3)  MyHeritage has an "AI Biography" feature that can create a relatively short biography of a historical person based on the information in the person's profile. Here is the first page of Henry Carringer's AI Biography:

This provides the list of relatives, a short biography, historical context, last name origins, consistency issues, and source citations (to MyHeritage, FamilySearch and Geni trees).

4)  If you find a profile for the historical person of interest on the FamilySearch Family Tree, you can Copy the information on the "Details" page and Paste it into a word processor document and save it as a PDF.  Alternatively, you could use a tool like the Print Friendly Chrome Extension to create a PDF of the entire "Details" page.  However, neither method captures the Sources, and the result captures all of the typing on the website page, not just the persons, events, and notes. 

5)  FamilySearch Family Tree has an AI Research Assistant that can be used to create a short biography of the historical person.  Here is the biography for Henry Carringer by the AI Research Assistant:

The resulting biography is fairly skimpy and would need significant editing to be useful as a genelaogical sketch.

6)  If your historical person has a profile in WikiTree, then you can use the  tool like the Print Friendly Chrome Extension to create a PDF of the entire "Family" page.  Here is the top of Henry Carringer's WikiTree page saved as a PDF:

This includes the information about the historical person, links to his relatives, and the Notes and Sources provided by the submitters.  It would need significant editing to be useful as a genealogical sketch.

7)  There may be family sketches in published books or periodical articles.  When you find them online, download the book or article as a PDF, and then capture the sketch of the historical person and transcribe it (by typing it, or by using an image to have an AI tool transcribe it). Then save your transcription as a PDF file.

8)  If you don't have an online tree or a genealogy management program, use a word processor to document the names, relationships, events, records, notes, sources, etc. that you have found and saved for the historical person.  Save it as a PDF file.

There is no "PERFECT" genealogical sketch.  Do the best you can with the information you have and the tools that you have on hand.

                          ==============================================

Disclosure: I pay for an All-Access subscription, and Pro Tools, from Ancestry.com. In past years, Ancestry.com  provided a complimentary All Access subscription, an autosomal DNA test, material considerations for travel expenses to meetings, and hosted events and meals that I attended in Salt Lake City.

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2025/08/in-search-of-perfect-genealogical.html

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.  Please note that all Comments are moderated so they may not appear immediately.  

Subscribe to receive a free daily email from Genea-Musings using www.Blogtrottr.com.