Randy's Genealogy Pot-Pourri - Week Ending 21 December 2025

 Here are the highlights of my family history and genealogy related activities over the past week (ending Sunday, 21 December 2025).  

1)  Watched the "The Best Uses of AI for Genealogists" webinar by Steve Little and Mark Thompson on Family Tree Webinars.

2)  Curated genealogy-related articles to keep myself and my readers updated on the genealogy world in:

• Genealogy News Bytes - Week of 10 to 16 December 2025
• Genealogy Education Bytes - Week of 11 to 17 December 2025
• Best of the Genea-Blogs - Week of 14 to 20 December 2025

3)  Wrote one "ABC Biography" using my AI-assisted "Ancestor Biography Creation" process,  and one Life Memoir, and posted them on Genea-Musings and Substack, in:

• ABC Biography of Herman Schaffner (1851-1921) and Mary Ann Paul (1854-1908) Family of San Francisco, California
  
• Memories of John Richman (1788-1867) in 1867 – A Life Memoir                                              

4)  Requested free AI tools to tell me about these genealogy and family history subjects, and posted them on Genea-Musings and Substack: 

• Ask AI: Describe the McKnew Family's Experience in the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906

• Ask AI: "Please Describe Severt Leland's Life in 1920 in San Francisco, California"
• A Seaver Family Christmas in 1875 in Leominster, Massachusetts

5)  Posted one of the AI-assisted memories of my ancestral home in the home's voice, based on my own memories, on Genea-Musings and Substack - in The Watchful House on 30th Street Remembers: "Randy, the Aerodynamicist"

6)  Wrote an AI-assisted short stories about my parents on Genea-Musings and Substack:

• Betty and Fred's Story: "Winter Into Spring 1942"

7)  Wrote and edited the family stories and Christmas posts for the next week while I'm away in Santa Cruz.  

8)  Added a number of the recent Google NotebookLM Videos to my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@RandySeaver. 

9)  My AncestryDNA now has 50,317 DNA matches (up 55 from 14 December) with 2,138 "close" matches (20 cM or more) today (up 2), with no new ThruLines.  Added Notes to no Matches, and added no new DNA match lines to RootsMagic.  MyHeritageDNA now has 13,975 DNA matches (up 14 from 14 December) for me.

10)  Searched for more records of ancestral families on Ancestry, FamilySearch and MyHeritage, downloaded record images to my digital file folders, and added research notes, events and sources to RootsMagic profiles.  My RootsMagic family tree now has 74,869 profiles (up 28 from last week)  and 147,932 source citations (up 3).  

11) Wrote 22 Genea-Musings blog posts last week (Sunday through Saturday), of which two were a press release. The most viewed post last week was Have You Tried the Ancestry.com Member Tree Profile Advanced Search Feature Using the Genealogy Assistant Browser Extension? with over 379 views.  Genea-Musings had about 90,700 page views last week and over 395,000 views over the past month (lots of bots I fear). 

12)  Real life events:  Visited Linda several days at her memory care facility and we played Uno and walked around the facility and the patio.  I celebrated Christmas with Linda on Saturday.  Went to the grocery store on Monday and Friday. My RealID came in the mail.  Still reading The Hop-Picker Murders by Nathan Dylan Goodwin.  Flew to San Jose on Sunday to visit Lori and her boys in Santa Cruz for a week.

   

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