I’m opening this up for sense-checking and feedback.
It uses AI to explore family history through conversation from an ancestor’s perspective.
There's a live example at www.throughtheireyes.ai
If you’d like to try it with your own family tree, feel free to reach out.
#genealogy
#familyhistory
I've also dramatised some of the more memorable encounters I've had with these ancestor characters - they tend to draw you into their world... and help one to begin to see the world through their eyes!
Screenshot of a webpage featuring Catherine Hughes (b. 1839), a historically grounded AI character from a Welsh coal mining family, with an interface inviting users to start a conversation and a note explaining the simulation is based on genealogy and historical context.
A second ancestor character has been added to the TTE site.
Catherine Hughes (b. 1839), a Welsh coal mining family character built from genealogy and period data.
I’m curious to see how her perspective compares to that of William Price, her husband.
#genealogy
#familyhistory
From experience working on adaptation programmes in Africa ~15 yrs ago, many countries were already building climate intelligence systems and national adaptation plans. Interesting (and to me a bit surprising) how recent that shift feels in NZ.
Screenshot of my first conversation with a historically grounded ancestor persona based on my family genealogy data. The ancestor describes life as a Welsh coal miner in the valleys.
This moment changed the direction of my work.
I’d been experimenting with AI characters for fiction. One day I dropped my own genealogy data into the model.
This was my first exchange with an ancestor persona.
That experiment eventually became Through Their Eyes.
#genealogy
#familyhistory
Screenshot of a genealogy storytelling interface showing a provenance marker. A tooltip displays that a specific detail is sourced from a GEDCOM family tree record, illustrating how record-based facts are visibly distinguished from interpretation.
Much of the debate around AI in family history storytelling centres on fact vs hallucination.
My approach? make both the record and the interpretation visible.
When I can see where one ends and the other begins, it becomes much easier to craft stories I trust.
#genealogy
#familyhistory
Attended my first local genealogy meeting last week. I was the youngest in the room by a decade.
The AI talk sparked surprise, curiosity, and scepticism.
What’s really driving people isn’t the tech but an urgency to pass the stories on before time runs out.
I feel that.
#genealogy
#familyhistory
A 12-second dramatised excerpt from an ancestor persona conversation set in a 19th-century Welsh coal mining village.
Based on records, but still an interpretation. A way of testing how narrative and evidence can sit alongside each other.
#genealogy
#FamilyHistory
A simple way to get better AI output in genealogy?
Don’t just ask for an answer. Ask it to separate:
– Confirmed evidence
– Inference
– Speculation
– Missing information
Structure builds trust!
#genealogy
#FamilyHistory
Screenshot showing labelled AI inference within a genealogy storytelling interface, distinguishing historically grounded content from narrative interpretation.
When AI is used for storytelling in genealogy, trying to eliminate hallucination misses the point. The real task is making visible what is record and what is interpretation. That’s what builds trust.
Decades ago, I heard a professor warn that future historians might see the 1990s–2030s as a “hole” in human memory because digital preservation is a hard problem to solve.
As we approach 2030, I now wonder what genealogists will struggle to recover from our era.
#genealogy
#FamilyHistory
When you’re conversing with an ancestor persona, trust doesn’t come from fluency. It comes from knowing what is historically grounded and what is narrative interpretation.
#genealogy
#FamilyHistory
When an ancestor is encountered as a person, progress stops being abstract. Vaccines, workplace safety, women’s rights... they become visible as hard-won answers to the lives people actually lived.
#genealogy
One thing that surprised me early on: after years of working with genealogy records, people don’t ask for more facts when an ancestor is encountered as a person. They ask what life was like.
#genealogy
Part of my work sits at the intersection of genealogy and AI.
After years of working with records, I became interested in what happens when these facts are used to animate historically grounded characters.
That work became Through Their Eyes, and I’ll be sharing observations from that work here.
Ha. I Made it. Let's make something of this—to connect, comment, discuss, and explore. See you there!
