This is a one-year update to my initial blog post defining the ABC Biography Creation Process. The intent has stayed the same, but the process has changed a bit as the Artificial Intlligence tools have improved and expanded.
I have been experimenting for over two years now with Artificial Intelligence tools to determine how I can best use them for my genealogy research and family history work. After 38 years of research, and blogging about genealogy since April 2006 on Genea-Musings, I have a wealth of material to work with. It is all imperfect and can be improved!
A) The Ancestor Biography Creation (ABC) Goal
My present life goal is to create eBooks and videos to document the lives of my ancestors for my relatives and descendants, and anyone else interested, about my own ancestry and my wife's ancestry. I have lots of genealogy records about all of my ancestors back many generations, but very few family stories about my close family, plus any information that I have found in books, periodicals, blog posts, etc. while doing family history research. How best can I do this with consistency and better wordsmithing than I can create myself?
I also want to create audio and video files about the lives of my ancestors, and about my own life, for my descendants, and try to tell their and my stories in my own voice.
Here is my current process (in April 2026) to create consistent ancestor and relative biographies and stories, along with audio and video presentations, that may interest my relatives and descendants.
B) Using Artificial Intelligence to Create An Ancestral Biography and Stories
NOTE: I will use my 5th great-grandfather Norman Seaver (1734-1787) for examples.
1) Ancestor/Relative Research Notes: Using the RootsMagic family tree program, I create ancestor and family research notes in Person Notes with references to sources for all of the events in each ancestor or relative profile. I put everything I know about the person or family into the Notes -- "The Kitchen Sink" approach. The Person Notes often include a summary or transcription of each record found to document the life of the person, and are essentially chronological.
NOTE: If a user does not have Person Notes, they could use a Narrative report or a Timeline report to create a summary of their research.
2) Ancestor/Relative Genealogical Sketches: Using the RootsMagic Person Notes, and some of the record images, I write a blog post on Genea-Musings for each ancestor, ancestral couple, or relative of interest. A compendium of the Genealogical Sketch blog posts can be found on the 52 Ancestors/Relatives Biographies page on Genea-Musings. I create a PDF document of the selected ancestor genealogical sketch.
My Genezlogical Sketch for Norman Seaver (1734-1787) is 52 Ancestors - Week 105: #128 Norman Seaver (1734-1787).
NOTE: If a user has not created a sketch to date, but has an Ancestry or MyHeritage family tree, they can create a sketch using the techniques in In Search of the Perfect Genealogical Sketch - Updated!
NOTE: Consider doing an Ancestor Couple Sketch to include the early life of husband and wife, including their parents and siblings, and then cover their children, life events, sources, etc.
3) Ancestor/Relative Biography: I attach the PDF document of the genealogical sketch to the free Anthropic Claude (now usually Sonnet 4.6) AI tool to write the biography, using the prompt: "You are an expert genealogist. Please create an engaging biography from the attached file, including parents, siblings, spouses and children (with birth and death dates and places), summarize life events, and add historical events as appropriate, but do not add or embellish any extra genealogical details. Use section headings. Expand the information in each section to add more details. The tone should be casual and suitable for family members."
The result of this is copied to a word processing file and saved as a PDF, and stored in my computer "AI Biographies" file folder for the person or couple.
My ABC Biography for Norman Seaver is ABC Biography of Norman Seaver (1734-1787) of Massachusetts.
4) Ancestor/Family Stories: Once you have the Biography, the user can request the AI Tool to write stories about the person in a time and in a place adding social history and dialogue. These should be labeled as "historical fiction" if the stories are not based on factual information with a source.
You can ask the AI Tools to create suggestions for interesting “Family Stories” or “Turning Points” based on the Genealogical Sketch or Biography. Select specific suggestions and ask the AI Tool to tell a "Historical Fiction" Story ("the way it might have been") based on what it knows based on the Genealogical Sketch or biography with historical events and social history. Or use your own “Family Story” or “Turning Points” ideas as prompts of the AI Tool.
Typical Family Stories might be:- Tell a life memoir to grandchildren
- Describe their life at age [10, 15 or 20] – family, education, work, entertainment, fun
- What was their family life like at age [40 or 50]?
- What advice did their mother/father provide before marriage?
- Describe how they performed their occupation in the year [1900].
- Describe their migration trip.
- Describe their military service.
- Create a family discussion about an important decision.
- Provide additional known information to tell a longer multi-chapter story.
Download and save the Story Idea AI outputs to your computer as a Word document. Review, edit and verify the details, and save it as a PDF. Use this Story as input to Google NotebookLM in a separate request for an Infographic and Video Overview.
Some of my Norman Seaver family stories are in:
- Norman Seaver's Life Memories - An AI-Assisted Memoir
- Ask AI: "Please Write a Short Story About Norman Seaver Returning Home After Lexington in 1775"
- Ask AI: "Please Create Dialogue Between Norman and Sarah Seaver in 1780 in Westminster, Mass." - Historical Fiction!
- Ask AI: "Please Describe Norman Seaver's Revolutionary War Service"
- A Hallmark Holiday Movie Story: Thirteen Blessings
5) Ancestor/Relative Poem and Song Lyrics Text and Video: I use one or more of the free ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini and Perplexity AI tools to write a poem and song lyrics based on the uploaded genealogical sketch PDF. My prompt is usually "Please create a poem and song lyrics to commemorate this person's life." I copy the resulting poems and song lyrics in a word processing document and save it in my computer file folder for "AI Poems and Songs." I choose one poem and one song lyrics to use in a blog post.
The song lyrics are used to create a 3-5 minute song on www.Suno.com for the subject person, which I save as an MP3 file in an "AI Songs" computer file folder. The poems and songs could be collected into an audio book or video for a family library, a YouTube channel, or even bedtime stories. <G>
The Poem and/or Song audio from Suno can be added to a one-page graphic (or more) in Canva.com (free to use) to create an MP4 video of the poem and song, which could be put on a YouTube channel, Facebook, Instagram, or other social media account.
My Norman Seaver Poem and Song are in "The Ballad of Norman Seaver" - A Family History Poem and Song.
NOTE: Suno.com requires a paid account now to download an MP4 video of the song. This changed in late 2025.
6) Ancestor/Relative Briefing Document, Infographic, Audio Overview, Video Overview and Slide Deck: I use the free AI Google NotebookLM to upload the Ancestor Genealogical Sketch (or Biography or Story) PDF to create:
- a Briefing Document -- a text summary of the Sketch/Biography/Story
- an Infographic -- a large image highlighting important features in the Sketch/Biography/Story in a JPG file
- an Audio Overview -- essentially a podcast in an 8 to 20 minutes .MP3 file,
- a Video Overview -- a 6 to 8 minutes MP4 file with narration
- a Slide Deck -- a 10 to 15 page set of slide images telling the biography/story in a PDF file or PPT file
NOTE: A user can create a limited number of Infographics, Audio, Video, and Slide Decks per day with a free account.
I save the Audio Overview in an "AI Podcasts" computer file folder, the Video Overview in an "AI Videos" computer file folder, the Infographics in an "AI Infographics" file folder, and the Slide Deck in an "AI Slide Deck" computer file folder after renaming them appropriately to identify the subject and AI tool.
The Infographic for Norman Seaver's biography is:
The Video Overview YouTube video for Norman Seaver's biography is: Captain Norman Seaver (1734-1787) Biography.
7) Ancestor/Relative Podcast Transcription and Video: I use the Audio Overview MP3 files from NotebookLM to create a text transcription of the Audio Overview podcast using TurboScribe.com. I save each podcast transcription in a word processing file and save it in the "AI Audio to Text" computer file folder for the person.
The Podcast audio from NotebookLM can be added to a one-page graphic (or more with family photographs, document images, etc.) in Canva.com (free to use) to create an MP4 video of the podcast, which could be put on a YouTube channel, Facebook, Instagram, or other social media account.
The Norman Seaver Canva Video for the Podcast is: Norman Seaver 1734 1787 Biography Born 1734 in Sudbury, Massachusetts
NOTE: Turboscribe limits a free user to three transcriptions (30 minutes each maximum) a day.
8) Ancestor Slide Presentation and Narrated Video: I use Google Slides to create a Slide Show using a Title slide, the NotebookLM Infographic, the NotebookLM Slide Deck (usually 10 to 15 slides), and a Credits slide to create a Presentation. In Google Slides, the File menu has a "Convert to Video" link that can create a free Google Vids narrated video of the slide show as an MP4 file.
I save the Slide Show to my Google Drive account, and the Google Vids presentation to an "AI Slide Presentation" computer file folder. The narrated Google Vids presentation could be put on a YouTube channel, Facebook, Instagram, or other social media account.
My Norman Seaver Slide Presentation on YouTube is: Video Presentation of the Life of Norman Seaver (1734-1787), a Revolutionary War Soldier
NOTE: The number of free Google Vids that can be created each day is limited.
C) What I've Done to Date:
1) I have completed all of the above for my two parents, my four grandparents, my 8 great-grandparents, my 16 2nd great-grandparents, and 32 3rd great-grandparents as individuals. In additon, I have done biographies for some of my wife Linda's ancestors basck through her 2nd great-grandparents, and also for some of my Revolutionary War veterans.
Then there are historical fiction stories for many of my ancestors.
2) All of my Artificial Intelligence work on Genea-Musings and YouTube are listed on my Randy's AI and Genealogy page.
3) All of my AI created videos are on my Randy Seaver, Geneaholic YouTube Channel.
4) I gave a one-hour presentation about this subject on 7 April 2026 to the Genealogical Socieiy of Santa Cruz County. It is in a YouTube video -- GSSCC: Randy Seaver, "From Census to Story: Bringing Ancestors to Life with Evidence, Context and AI."
5) I can usually perform all of the AI tasks after creating the PDF of the ancestor genealogical sketch in about 4 hours. Creating and listening to the song, and waiting for the Audio and Video Overview to complete, take the longest time. My creation process from start to finish usually spans several days or weeks for any particular ancestor subject.
NOTE: There is a learning curve for every step of this process with each AI tool. A person with competent research, writing and technology capabilities should be able to master each task in a number of hours (10 to 20?) using each tool.
D) The Future?
Dedicated Genea-Musings readers will recognize the elements in this Ancestor Biography Creation (ABC) Process as what I roughly outlined in words in my blog post on 1 April 2025 titled "Announcing YOUR GENEA-GENIE." See, there was method to my madness!! And it's expanded in the year since then.
I foresee a dedicated Ancestor Biography Creation (ABC) AI Agent tool that can do this ancestor biography creation in one prompt, along with the PDF (or other) input to provide the information for the ancestor in image, audio and video presentations. The researcher will have to do the research work, but this process should turn out a decent set of outputs that can be used or modified to the user's wishes.
Unfortunately, I am not a good programmer or promptmeister to create this type of AI Agent tool. I would be happy to work with someone on it, though!
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