Artificial intelligence and cloud services could mark the beginning of the end for genealogy. Family history information that you previously had to spend hours or days searching for is now served to you on a silver platter.
Dick Eastman has previously speculated on how genealogy will evolve in a few years, as has James Tanner for Genealogy Star. Their predictions are the same: genealogy as we know it will become redundant in a few years.
The future is already here
It’s already been a while since MyHeritage introduced “Instant Discoveries”. As we humans confirm and deny the matches made by the system, the technology becomes more and more reliable in its suggestions for matches.
Both MyHeritage and FamilySearch have introduced error correction systems. The system will notify users in cases where it detects inconsistencies in family trees.
Once the systems automatically correct such discrepancies, we will have come a long way closer to the end of genealogists. However, one step must first be in place and that is that the computer systems can automatically read the sources and link them together.
Denmark connects family history sources
The latest news when it comes to making family history information more accessible is the Link-Lives project from Denmark.
Almost all persons in Denmark who were entered in the archives between 1787-1968 will have their archive entries linked, to the benefit of genealogists in the future.
One of the goals of the project is that artificial intelligence, through the linking of archival data, will make it possible to research the various aspects of people’s social and biological lives that have unfolded over several generations. For example, both hereditary and environmental diseases can be detected.
Read also: Mapping family trees through artificial intelligence
For the time being, the connections made by the computers must be quality assured by genealogists.
The Historical Population Register in Norway is a similar project.
Read also: Historical population register doubled the number of registrations in one year
Writing is often a challenge
Even for seasoned genealogists, the handwriting of our ancestors can be a challenge to read, whether it’s written in Gothic or modern handwriting.
However, work is underway nationally and internationally to transcribe family history sources written in meticulous handwriting into machine-readable text.
The results of this voluntary work can be seen today in searchable censuses and church books, but the same work is already being used to connect family history sources.
Genealogy in change
It’s nothing new that genealogy is getting easier. Before the internet and computers, genealogy was something completely different than it is today. With the help of cloud services, transcription and machine learning, that’s about to change again.
However, this does not mean that genealogy as a hobby will be gone in a few years. The focus may change from names and dates to stories and events. Thanks to computers and many years of volunteer work, we genealogists can focus more on creating stories about our ancestors for our descendants.
