Thread

1. loufe · 1790284798 · focus · HN ↗

   I've been using AI to help with my genealogical research, and it's been fantastic. I am loving pushing the family history back and catching mistakes that someone who many others share as a common ancestor have made.

   1. MontagFTB · 1790302366 · focus · HN ↗

      I’ve written my own genealogy app as well, it has reinvigorated my efforts. I have a multi-level data model (evidentiary below, curated above) that has helped me piece together people across a multitude of disparate sources. Claude has been my sidekick, and it’s amazing- especially for the more toilsome tasks like extracting people’s details from newspaper articles.

      1. Folcon · 1790325035 · focus · HN ↗

         Hey, just out of curiosity, what exactly does this mean?

             > (evidentiary below, curated above)
         

         Specifically what is the above / below part?

         Like if you said "curated below, evidentiary above", what should I understand has changed?

         1. MontagFTB · 1790354982 · focus · HN ↗

            I have split up the data model into a handful of layers in order to separate concerns. The evidentiary layer are the raw bits - the media, sources, clippings, photos, etc. From there I derive "personas", which are the (incomplete and possibly inaccurate) representations of people from those media bits. Above that is the curation layer, where the curator takes those personas and compiles persons from them.

            So if there are a bunch of articles that talk about someone's birthday but a couple give conflicting data, that is all present and recorded in the evidentiary layer, and it is the responsibility of the curator to decide which is the actual birthday for that person.

            edit: the "below/above" terminology is a dependency relationship. The facts undergird the conclusions drawn from them. To flip that relationship would be to "retcon" facts to fit the conclusions a curator has already drawn, which would be a mistake.

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