Anne Marie Knighton, Edenton, North Carolina: I recently asked Perplexity AI to decipher a handwritten letter included in the British Army World War I service record file of my relative Austin Kelly. The copy of the letter was of poor quality, and many words were illegible or unclear. Perplexity created a full, coherent transcript of the letter with uncertainties noted in brackets. I then used Perplexity to review the other paperwork in the soldier's file and to create a research log and a concise service summary for Austin Kelly.

Karen Prytula, Carleton Place, Ontario: I often give presentations on historical topics, and appropriate illustrations can be hard to find. I use Perplexity AI to generate images for my presentations. Because Perplexity uses prompts from my descriptions, the pictures it generates are topical and interesting.

Sylvia Elchinger, Richmond Virginia: I recently used Google Gemini to research indentured servants. The information seemed fine at first, and Gemini even offered some advertisements for runaways. When I requested a link to the ads, Gemini directed me to a page in the Virginia Gazette—but that page contained no such ad. Gemini reported there were two issues on the same date from different publishers and that I must have been looking at the wrong issue. This statement was also incorrect. Gemini stated that the ad was in a different column (it was not) and then provided a link to an ad in a different publication (also incorrect). Eventually I determined that Gemini was experiencing an “AI hallucination,” in which the program creates false answers to satisfy the user.

Bruce Randall, Ottawa, Ontario: I hit a “brick wall” with my maternal grandfather's Patterson line in early- to mid-nineteenth-century County Tyrone, Ireland. I thought I'd see if ChatGPT could make a difference. I was astounded at the results. It led me through a series of small but strategic steps to determine the location of my Patterson ancestral homeland in another parish and townland. It identified marriage partners and traced them back to leaders in the United Irish Rebellion of 1798. This information was all there for the finding, but AI pointed the way.

Peggy Durack, San Antonio, Texas: I consider genealogy a puzzle and I enjoy the challenge of solving it. I am also concerned about the sources used by AI programs. As a school librarian, I taught my students that anyone can post anything online, and unverified information can—and often does—contain egregious errors. Any AI-derived research would need to be fact-checked using standard, reliable methods and sources. I prefer to use those standard, reliable methods to conduct the research myself, and enjoy solving the puzzle.