Research with AI
The Making Log: The Running Record of How You Work a Research Problem
A Making Log: dated entries recording what a family historian set out to find, what they did, what AI did, and what they kept, for one ancestor research project.
Denyse Allen
Research with AI
Research Brain: Your Research and Your Thinking, in One Folder
A Research Brain is the project folder for one research project: your records, your brain dump and your Making Log, kept where your AI tool can read them.
Research with AI
The Find/Work Test: Why AI Invents Records for Family Historians
AI invents records because of the request, not the tool. The Find/Work Test is one question family historians ask first: find something, or work on it?
Writing with AI
The Forms of Family History Writing
Try the Five Forms exercise to see which style of family history writing you drift towards. The chronicle is the sixth form and a new one for family historians.
AI Tools
What's New in AI for Family Historians: Q3 2026
The everyday frontier AI models got better on their own this quarter. What changed in Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini for family historians, July to September 2026.
Writing with AI
I Stopped Calling AI a Collaborator. Here's Why.
I called AI a collaborator for two years and then stopped. The word was telling family historians their own research and writing belonged to something else.
Writing with AI
AI as Your Writing Coach for Family History
AI can coach the family history you have already written, without writing a word of it for you. What a coaching pass returns and why it works.
Research with AI
AI Agents Can't Search the Record Sites for You
MyHeritage and Ancestry both barred AI agents from their sites in 2026. What the terms actually say, and what AI is genuinely useful for at the search box.
Writing with AI
What a Finished Family History Actually Looks Like
A finished family history is one a reader has read. Not a complete tree, not exhausted sources — a chronicle someone who is not you has actually read.
Research with AI
The AIM Framework: How Family Historians Stay in Charge of AI Research
AIM is the Chronicle Makers method for working with AI on family history research: Assess, Interact, Measure. It replaces "trust but verify."
Writing with AI
The Full Pantry Problem and How It Keeps You Stuck
You have enough to write. The Full Pantry Problem is the gap between having enough and believing it, and it hits the best-researched family historians hardest.
AI Tools
AI's New Voice Mode: Talk Your Family History Onto the Page
ChatGPT and Claude's new live voice mode lets you talk instead of type to write your ancestor's story faster.