My practical AI toolkit for family history for 2026
Watch how I use ChatGPT for planning, Gemini for transcription, Claude for writing, Perplexity for search
If you’ve been wondering which AI tools are best at which family history tasks, this week I have a YouTube video for you showing my exact setup. This is how I use Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT in my genealogy workflows.
Get the up-to-date guide on ChronicleMakers.com
The tools I use every week
Most of us don’t need another app. What we need is tools that solve problems.
I use four AI tools regularly, and each one does something specific that the others don’t do as well. That specialization matters. Think of it like having the right tool for the right job—you wouldn’t use a hammer to cut wood.
ChatGPT 5.1 acts as my thinking partner when I’m stuck or need a research plan.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 writes like a human—it’s the tool I trust when I need prose that sounds like me, not a robot.
Gemini 3.0 transcribes historical handwriting better than anything else I’ve found.
Perplexity answers the question every genealogist asks constantly: “Where are those records right now?”
Let me show you how each one works with real examples from this week.
Perplexity: Finding records where they actually live
I asked Perplexity a question I already knew the answer to—just to verify it was giving me current information:
What probate records exist now for Clearfield County, Pennsylvania in the 1880s, and where are they located today?
The summary matched reality: the files live at the Register and Recorder’s office. It surfaced FamilySearch links for the indexes and noted these records aren’t on Ancestry.
That’s what makes Perplexity different from a standard search engine. Instead of giving me twenty links to sort through, it synthesizes the answer and provides sources I can verify.
Here’s a Pennsylvania tidbit I mention in the video: the State Archives microfilm is the same microfilm you’ll see on FamilySearch. I just saved you a trip.
When to use it: Anytime you need “where can I get this record now?” with clickable sources.
ChatGPT 5.1: A thinking partner that knows genealogy
I gave it a plain-English prompt with no special formatting:
My genealogy research is stuck in Clearfield County, PA, in the 1820s. What records could I search to make progress?
It responded with a checklist: jurisdiction shifts from parent counties, tax assessment lists, land warrants and patent survey records, quarter sessions court records, early church registers, War of 1812 material, and Orphans’ Court.
That’s the value. ChatGPT knows genealogy well enough to generate a targeted research plan.
A quick tip from the demo: start in Auto mode. If the answer feels thin, switch to Thinking mode for deeper analysis. For structured prompts, results get even better—but even a conversational question like this produced something genuinely useful.
Gemini 3.0: Transcription that handles difficult handwriting
I stress-tested Gemini with a deed—first as a PDF (don’t do this), then properly as an image file.
In Fast mode, the transcript was gibberish. Switching to Thinking mode produced a near word-for-word transcript that followed my instructions: use “illegible” for unreadable sections, keep original punctuation and odd spellings intact.
The main errors? Proper nouns—expected, since surnames can be spelled many ways. It guessed “Yerkes” for one name, which is close enough to send me back to the original document with context.
Best practices from the demo:
Upload images (JPEG or PNG), not PDFs
Use Thinking mode for difficult handwriting
Specify your transcription rules upfront: exact spelling, preserve punctuation, bracket your best guesses for illegible words
Claude Sonnet 4.5: Clear, human-sounding prose
I pasted a draft family story and asked for three variations in the same narrative voice, written for my adult children as the audience.
Claude delivered three distinct drafts:
A plain, direct opener about Nancy Bloom Curry living on 26 acres in Pike Township, Clearfield County
A titled variation, “The weight of $960.78,” tying a court judgment to the land loss
“What the probate record doesn’t say,” opening with inventory details: one stove, chairs, beds and organ, spectacles, total value $36.95; the two-story frame house valued at $136; final debts including her coffin and doctor bill—and no headstone
That’s what I love about Claude. It writes, then stops. No chatty back-and-forth. You can pick a direction or ask for another pass without wading through conversational filler.
Watch the full walkthrough:
A simple four-step workflow
If you’re stuck right now, try this sequence:
Ask ChatGPT 5.1 for a record-type checklist for your location and time period
Use Perplexity to find where each record lives today, with links
Transcribe deeds or wills in Gemini 3.0 (Thinking mode for challenging handwriting)
Run your draft paragraph through Claude for a clean, natural-sounding write-up
Get the up-to-date guide on ChronicleMakers.com
The tools in this stack
To re-cap, here are the tools covered in this video and how I use them:
ChatGPT 5.1 — planning, checklists, next steps
Claude Sonnet 4.5 — natural-voice rewrites and story polish
Gemini 3.0 — accurate transcription, especially historical handwriting
Perplexity — fast, cited research to find where records actually are
Do you need paid subscriptions to all of them at once? Absolutely not! Start with the free plans and upgrade strategically for the tasks you are focused on right now. Our Chronicle Makers community has free courses on the fundamentals of using these tools, and you can join here to do them.
And if you have a question about these, let me know in the comments.
Happy Chronicling!
—Denyse
P.S. If your genealogy society has been asking “What should we actually do with AI?”, this post and the video are a great place to start. Click the button to share:
Denyse,
Great info as always. Thanks.
What a great way to jumpstart your research! Thanks for sharing this with us.