Monday, August 17, 2026

Randy's Genealogy Pot-Pourri - Week Ending 16 August 2026

Here are the highlights of my family history and genealogy related activities over the past week (ending Sunday, 16 August 2026). 

1)  Hosted and moderated the Chula Vista Genealogical Society (CVGS) Research Group meeting with 13 in atrendance on Zoom.  I reported on several new or updated features on Ancestry.com, the Ancestor Map Builder and TreeAlive apps, new books, my own work, and free and low-cost education opportunities.  Severasl ttendees described their recent genealogy challenges and successes. 

2)  Attended the San Diego Genealogical Society (SDGS) British Isles Interest Group meeting and the AI For Gebnealogy SIG meeting on Saturday.

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

4)  Transcribed the 1804 Deed of David and Martha Kirby to Benjamin Devol for land in Bristol County, Massachusetts for Amanuensis Monday with help from FamilySearch Full-Text Search.

5)  Wrote one Life Memoir for an ancestor, and posted it on Genea-Musings and  Substack:
6)  Requested free AI tools to tell me about these genealogy and family history subjects, and posted them on Genea-Musings and Substack: 
7)  Wrote an AI-assisted short story about my parents lives and romance on Genea-Musings and Substack:
8)  Wrote an AI-assisted short story about my maternal grandparents lives and romance on Genea-Musings and Substack:

10)  Housekeeping -- updated my Randy's AI and Genealogy page and added to the AI-assisted story  compendiums. Added a number of the recent Google NotebookLM Videos to my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@RandySeaver.

11)  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 75,119 profiles (up 0 from last week)  and 148,080 source citations (up 3).  

12)  My AncestryDNA test now has 52,385 DNA matches (up 42 from 9 August) with 2,220  "close" matches (20 cM or more) today (up 0), with 2 new ThruLines.  Added Notes to no Matches, and added no new DNA match lines to RootsMagic. MyHeritageDNA test now has 14,802 DNA matches (up 3 from 9 August) for me, with 26 Theories of Family Relativity.  

13) Wrote 22 Genea-Musings blog posts last week (Sunday through Saturday), of which one was a press release. The most viewed post last week was Ask AI: Ten Ancestry.com New and Updated Features as of August 2026 (ChatGPT5 Response) with 245 views.  Genea-Musings had about 389,000 page views last week and over 1,625,000 views over the past month (lots of bots I think). 

14)  Real life events:  Visited Linda several days this past week at her memory care facility.  Went to the grocery store on Monday and Friday. Went to the dentist for cleaning and need root canals and crowns. Finished reading Billy Straight by Jonathan Kellerman and started The Attorney by Steve Martini. Watched the Padres games - they were 5-1 this past week and are 67-58.

NOTE:  I spent about 30 hours on these genealogy activities this week,  learned quite a bit, and had some genealogy fun!

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Copyright (c) 2026, Randall J. Seaver

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