Upgrade your ChatGPT-5 experience with this one prompt

One quick prompt can reset your ChatGPT-5 and make it feel like your best ever genealogy research partner.

Since the upgrade to ChatGPT 5, I have heard from many family historians who say it is making odd leaps in logic, or giving answers that feel generic instead of tailored.

For genealogists, each new AI model that is released, gives us an opportunity to “reset” our way of working with AI. Pretend as if this is the first time you have ever worked with it, and it with you. You want an AI that acts as a partner to your research process and provides guidance as requested.

If you do not do a reset, GPT-5 can adapt to the way you think and research, but it will be slow to do it. So I suggest you take 10-20 minutes to run through the process here.

Here is a one-shot prompt you can copy and paste in a new chat when you want GPT-5 (base model is fine—no need to use thinking) to reset to your way of researching:

Before we begin, take a moment to learn how I work:

How I approach genealogy projects

The types of records and context I value most

How I evaluate and choose my next research steps

Ask me a few questions to learn how I work, then prepare a simple, reusable conversation framework so each session begins with this context in place and I do not have to start over every time.

Once you copy and paste that into a new chat, you’ll receive a several questions back, tailored to you. AI will continue the conversation until it feels like it knows your goals and can set itself up to help you the most.

A few sentences doesn’t seem like it would work that way, but it’s true! ChatGPT will add to its saved memories your preferred work style and goals so it can assist you best. And it only takes a few minutes to do it.

It is a small step that can make your AI research partner feel less like a stranger and more like a long-time collaborator who understands your way of working.

Happy researching!

—Denyse

P.S. And even if ChatGPT-5 isn’t acting weird for you, using this prompt will reset your account and get you an amazing genealogy research assistant at your call 24/7. I did this step the day ChatGPT-5 came out and have had an experience 100x better than working with 4o and o3.