Ancestry.com's New Artificial Intelligence Stories - Text Stories and Audio Clips About Events

 I watched Connie Knox's Genealogy TV YouTube channel program Ancestry’s New AI Stories: IT TALKS TO YOU (2026) last week while I was away for the holidays, and finally found my round tuit over the weekend.  

I asked Google how it works, and it told me:

Ancestry's new AI Stories feature (currently in beta) uses generative artificial intelligence to transform static historical records into engaging, narrated audio stories. This technology aims to add depth and context to family history research, making factual data more personal and shareable.

How Ancestry's AI Stories Work

• The AI Stories feature is designed to bridge the gap between raw data on a historical document and the rich life experience it represents. Data Transformation: The AI takes key details from a single record (e.g., employment history, physical attributes, next of kin from a draft card) that might otherwise be overlooked as simple facts.

• Contextualization: It then pairs these facts with relevant historical context, describing what life was like in the country at that specific time to shape a broader narrative.

• Narrated Audio: The generated story can be listened to as an audio file, read as text, and downloaded to share with family members.

• User Uploads: Users can also upload their own family documents or letters via the Memories tab and use the "Ask AncestryAI" function to generate stories from that content.

Accessing the Feature

To use AI Stories, members with an active subscription can explore records through a person on their family tree or by uploading content to their ancestor's gallery. The feature is available in six languages and works with the platform's extensive collection of over 940 million records.

1)  I tried this out using my father's profile in my Ancestry Member Tree.  Here is his profile (I had to add "Ancestry" sources from the Hints to make this work - all of my sources were using my RootsMagic family tree sources which are better quality than Ancestry's sources):

2)  I clicked on the "View" button on the 1940 United States Federal Census entry on the Source list on the above image and saw:

The record summary lists all of the indexed fields for this record. I can click the thumbnail image or the blue "View image" button to see the image of the record, the "View record" button to see the record summary, and "Listen and explore" button to see and hear what the new AI Stories feature has to say. 

3)  Here is the screen when I click on the "Listen and explore" button (it took about ten seconds to appear):

The right-hand panel shows the printed Ancestry AI story, and the "Listen to this story" "Play" button plays the AI-created story.  I can't include the audio segment (1 minute, 31 seconds long) to this blog post.  It is not word-for-word to the printed story.  Here is the printed "Story:"

The 1940 United States Federal Census record for Frederick W. Seaver documents his residence at 918 Main Street in Leominster, Worcester County, Massachusetts. At the time, Frederick was living with the Fisher family as a brother-in-law, aged 28, and worked in a "Loan Bant Comp" company. This census entry provides a snapshot of Frederick's life during this period, capturing details of his personal and professional circumstances.

Frederick was born in Massachusetts around 1912, as inferred from the census, and his education included completing the first year of college. His employment as a wage or salary worker in a private setting reflects the economic conditions of the time, as many Americans were navigating the economic recovery from the Great Depression. Census records like this one are valuable tools in understanding the social and economic fabric of communities during the early 20th century.

The user can Download the audio clip to their computer using the Down arrow on the right-side of the button on the "Listen to this story" button. The three-dot icon on the button provides a transcript of the audio clip.  Here is that transcript:

A brother-in-law in Leominster

This record brings the past close enough to touch.

In 1940, your father, Frederick W. Lawon, was living at 918 Main Street in Leominster, Massachusetts.

At 28, he was single, working as a loan bank clerk, and living with his sister Ruth and her family.

The census lists him as the brother-in-law to the head of the household, A. Fisher.

Frederick's life, this snapshot in time, is set against the backdrop of a world on the brink of change.

The United States was emerging from the Great Depression, and the economy was beginning to recover.

Frederick, like many others, found work in a private sector job, contributing to this recovery.

With a first-year college education, Frederick worked an impressive 40-hour week and brought home an income of $1500—a respectable sum for the time.

The census also tells us that five-year-old Jadith, his niece, was part of this bustling household.

In 1940, Leominster was a small but growing town in Worcester County.

Frederick had spent at least the last five years there, as the census infers his presence in Leominster since 1935.

This document captures not just a location, but a life intertwined with family and community.

Frederick's details on this page speak of stability and shared lives—a brother-in-law, an uncle, a man making his way in the world.

While the record holds these facts, it also hints at the connections and commitments that shaped his everyday life.

Stories live on when they're shared. Pass this one along, and explore more of your family's history with Ancestry.

Interestingly, my Member Tree says his name is Frederick Walton Seaver,, but the name in the record was indexed as "Frederick W. Lawon."  The printed story uses Seaver, but the audio clip uses "Lawon" because that's what the index says.  I need to add an alternate name to this profile.

4)  But that's not all there is.  Below the Audio Clip, the page continues as shown below:

Under the title "Explore what shaped their life" are four more buttons that result in more AI stories.  I clicked the "Economic roles post-Depression" button and the Ancestry AI Stories feature provided this:

Economic roles post-Depression

Show employment conditions during economic recovery.

The early 1940s represented a critical juncture for the American economy, as the nation emerged from the Great Depression and began mobilizing for World War II. The 1940 United States Federal Census captured these shifting employment conditions, providing insights into individual livelihoods. Frederick W. Seaver, a 28-year-old single man residing in Leominster, Massachusetts, was recorded as working for a "Loan Bant Comp" (likely a loan or banking company). His occupation as a "wage or salary worker in private work" reflects the ongoing economic recovery and the types of white-collar jobs available in the service sector.

Following the widespread unemployment of the 1930s, the federal government's increased spending, initially through New Deal programs and subsequently for wartime production, significantly stimulated job creation.1 While manufacturing and defense industries absorbed a large portion of the workforce, sectors like finance also saw renewed activity. Frederick's role likely involved clerical or administrative duties, which were integral to financial operations and represented a growing segment of the urban workforce. His consistent employment, working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks in 1939 and earning $1500, indicates a stable position in this evolving economic landscape.

Frederick's educational background, noted as one year of college, would have been advantageous in securing such a position. Even partial higher education could provide individuals with the literacy, numeracy, and organizational skills increasingly valued in office-based roles.2 This period underscored a growing recognition of education's role in career advancement, as the economy moved towards more specialized and technical forms of labor. The census record for Frederick W. Seaver thus illustrates how individual employment experiences were intertwined with broader national economic policies and the evolving demands of the labor market in post-Depression America.
Footnotes:

1. United States Census, 1940, Leominster, Worcester, Massachusetts.
2. Robert M. Collins, More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 12-34.

One or all of these AI-created stories could be copied and pasted to the Facts or Person Notes in my Ancestry Member Tree, to my RootsMagic desktop family tree program, or to a word processing document to create a genealogical sketch.

5)  What about the other Record Hints that I added to my father's Ancestry Member Tree profile?  

• 1920 United States Federal Census - the "Explore and listen" provides similar information.
• 1930 United States Federal Census - the "Explore and listen" provides similar information.
• 1950 United States Federal Census - the "Explore and listen" provides similar information.
• California U.S. Death Indexs, 1940-1995 - the "Explore and listen" provides information.
• Massachusetts U.S. Birth Records, 1840-1915 -  the "Explore and listen" does not appear.
• U.S. Find A Grave, Index, 1600s-Current -  the "Explore and listen" provides information.
• U.S., Newspapers.com™ Marriage Index, 1800s-current - the "Explore and listen" does not appear.
• U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 -  the "Explore and listen" provides information.

6)  Apparently, the "Listen and explore" audio clip and printed AI stories are not available for some record collections.  

7)  I can foresee Ancestry.com combining these stories and audio clips into a Profile AI Story and Audio Story for one person using Artificial Intelligence to put it all together in an AI Agent that might or might not be free to obtain (i t could be another Pro Tools feature).  Combining, say, ten stories from the attached records might be a bit too much repetitive information, but could be used to provide an AI-generated biography in a more engaging story and audio file for the Ancestry user that could be saved for use in a user's collections.

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Disclosure: I pay for an All-Access subscription 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.

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Copyright (c) 2026, Randall J. Seaver

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