AI Writing Journal: RootsTech 2025

plans, observations, insights, reflections, actions and notes

My AI assistant Claude, helped me structure my journal notes for Roots Tech 2025 after giving it a copy of My Schedule of events that I planned to attend. This gave me a great start to the process of journalling my participation.

Note: March 1 was also my husband Alex’s special birthday and St David’s Day for the Welsh, hence the delayed posting of these journal entries.

My plan is to post these journal entries during March 1 to 10. So do return to see the updates as they appear.

March 1, 2025

Title: "Digital Companions on the Ancestral Path: Assembling My AI Research Team"

Today marks the beginning of a sacred journey as I carefully select the digital allies who will help uncover our family's forgotten stories. Like choosing which heirlooms to preserve first, each AI assistant brings unique perspectives to our shared narrative. As RootsTech approaches, I'm particularly drawn to Andrew Redfern's session on "How Can Artificial Intelligence Assist Family Historians" (Mar 7, 1:15 PM GMT+11). His insights promise to illuminate the delicate balance between technological assistance and the human heart of genealogical work. #AIGenealogy #RootsTech2025 #FamilyHistory

March 2, 2025

Title: "Gearing up with AI tools: NoteGPT for Notetaking"

I revisited my Tech Tips for Genealogy, posted in the Essential Genealogy playlist for February. The tech tip on using NoteGPT for summarising YouTube videos was a perfect companion to make the most of my time when viewing the video presentations from Roots Tech 2025.

I was drawn in later to this post from Denyse Allen on the topic of Use AI to Get the Most Out of RootsTech, and felt an affinity with her approach to employing ChatGPT for summarising and highlighting insights from each video. (See note for March 4)
#AIGenealogy #RootsTech2025 #FamilyHistory

March 3, 2025

Title: "Crafting Our Digital Legacy: Building a Prompt Library for Family History Research"

Each prompt in our growing library holds the potential for revelation, much like the carefully preserved letters in my grandmother's cedar chest. These digital tools become extensions of our family's oral traditions, helping us document the whispers of the past. I'm eagerly anticipating Steve Little's session at RootsTech on "AI Genealogy: Year Two: The 2025 Outlook" (Mar 7, 9:00 AM GMT+11, Ballroom B). His exploration of where we've been and where we're headed resonates deeply with my journey into this digital frontier of ancestral storytelling. #PromptLibrary #DigitalLegacy #RootsTech2025

March 4, 2025

Title: "Voices Across the Digital Divide: How Different AI Assistants Approach Our Family Stories"

Like recognising distinct handwriting in ancestral documents, today, I mapped the unique patterns in how each AI assistant approaches our family history research. This understanding feels particularly relevant as I prepare for Shauna Hicks' session on "Australian Military Records: from the Boer War to World War II" (Mar 6, 11:30 PM GMT+11). Her expertise will help me craft more nuanced prompts for uncovering my grandfather's wartime experiences, allowing my AI companions to help illuminate his story with greater historical context and emotional resonance. #AIWriting #MilitaryRecords #RootsTech2025

March 5, 2025

Title: "Reaching out to Community: the ‘Substack Curious’ and the Roots Tech Ride Along"

When attending sessions in an on-demand online format, what’s often missing is that feeling of connection to others who are attending remotely - community. Therefore, I needed another opportunity to share with others! Along comes Barbara Tien from ProjectKin and Robin Stewart from Mission Genealogy with some live events to provide for that community. (Just love the ingenuity of these two genies.)

Their sessions are gathering in the Mission Genealogy Substack and provide some insights into the Pre-Show Roundup and interviews with genies from Substack. I want to attend or view these recordings to meet up with Barbara and Robin of course, along with their guests: Lori Olsen-White, Jennifer Jones, and others. #RootsTech2025

Title: “Exploring My Connected Relatives at RootsTech”

This afternoon, this popped up in my email! I was intrigued! Related to the late Queen Elizabeth II UK, really? 10th cousin twice removed - that’s worth exploring!

Related to a famous writer, Harper Lee USA. 13th cousin, now that’s intriguing. I identify with authors and I am exploring this relationship!

March 6, 2025

Title: "Weaving Digital Wisdom: The Art of Layered Historical Research with AI"

Today's exploration of advanced prompt crafting feels like piecing together our family's migration story from fragments of ships' manifests and oral histories. The digital threads we're weaving become stronger with each iteration. I'm particularly excited about Diana Elder's RootsTech session on "Efficient Locality Research with AI: Discovering New Avenues of Exploration" (Mar 7, 10:30 AM GMT+11, 255 EF). Her advanced techniques will surely enhance our ability to place our ancestors within the rich tapestry of their communities, adding depth to our family narrative. #AIResearch #LocalityResearch #RootsTech2025

Later on, I heard from my good friend Jenny MacKay from Jenealogy Scrapbook, about the fabulous presentation from Diana Elder on the Legacy Family Tree Webinars. Now that had me exploring new ways of using AI tools combined with my Ancestry data in Timeline formats. Streamlining Genealogical Research Plans with AI: a step-by-step guide.

March 7, 2025

Title: "The Digital Archivist's Toolkit: Discovering Hidden Capabilities in AI Writing Assistants"

Exploring the hidden capabilities of our AI companions feels like discovering secret compartments in a family heirloom desk. Each feature reveals new possibilities for preserving our stories. Today at RootsTech, I'm dividing my time between sessions that deepen this journey: first with Steve Little on the 2025 outlook for AI genealogy, then with Diana Elder on locality research, and finally with Andrew Redfern on how AI can assist family historians. This immersion will surely transform how I approach our digital family archive. #AIArchivist #DigitalStorytelling #RootsTech2025

My first piece of good fortune today was logging into RootsTech 2025 to find the Barefoot Genealogist, Crista Cowan, on stage with her stories about the new features available at Ancestry.com. This one had me really excited to jump straight into my family tree at Ancestry to find NETWORKS.

Title: "The Digital Archivist's Toolkit: What’s Coming Next"

I always learn so much from listening to Steve Little, and he loves his role as AI Program Director for the National Genealogical Society. He refers to himself as a Digital Archivist, so I listen closely to his wisdom. His first presentation today at RootsTech2025 was a real eye-opener.

His opening quote, “The last two years will be nothing compared to the next two years!” now really resonates for me. These are the points he emphasised about the Future of AI Tools (2025+):

• Upcoming major releases: GPT-5, Grok 4, Llama 4, Gemini 3

• AI agents to manage complex genealogical tasks

• Rise of user-generated specialised AI tools (“Uni-taskers”)

• Watch for multimodal capabilities and deeper genealogy integrations

• Cost of intelligence continues to drop to near zero.

Title: "The Digital Archivist's Toolkit: How Can Artificial Intelligence Assist Family Historians?

March 7 continues: Andrew Redfern’s presentation with live demonstrations was awesome. I paid close attention to the comments in the chat box during this session to gauge the impact Andrew was making. I am happy to report that numerous attendees were engaged, inspired and converted to the AI curious. Several were eager to try out the simple prompts that Andrew shared using ChatGPT.

These were the quotes that I found most inspirational and meaningful.

“INCORPORATE, NOT REPLACE”

“TASK FIRST, TOOL SECOND”

“Family trees may grow deeper with AI, but the roots always remain human.”

These were the lessons and ideas that Andrew shared:
Generate Options, not answers

• Think small; iterate often

• Craft prompts constrain content

• Use verbs and shape responses

• Transform information, reuse output

• Edit carefully, check thoroughly

• Stay transparent and act ethically

March 8, 2025

Title: "Ethical Guardians of Memory: Responsible AI Use in Family History"

As we close this transformative week, I'm reflecting on our responsibility as stewards of family narratives in this digital age. Today's RootsTech panel on "Guidelines for the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Genealogy" (Ballroom B, 10:30 AM GMT+11) with Kathy Behling, Lynn Broderick, Steve Little, David Ouimette, and Mark Thompson couldn't be more timely. Their wisdom will help ensure our AI tools honor the authentic voices of our ancestors. I'll also be attending Janet Few's session on "Where am I?: Are You Searching in the Right Place?" to ground my AI research in a sound geographical context. #EthicalAI #DigitalStewardship #RootsTech2025

Here are some memorable moments/quotes from the panel:
From Mark Thompson: “The ‘water cooler rule': If you are not comfortable pinning information near the water cooler in the office, then don’t put it into the chatbot.”

From Kathy Behling: “‘Go play in the sand box’ - use your analytical mind to verify and don’t turn in work generated solely by AI.”

From Steve Little: Advocates obtaining a copy of “Research Like a Pro with AI Workbook” by Nicole and Diana Dyer. Soon to be available in PDF format. A great resource for education.

From Lynn Broderick: “Never jeopardise the living while searching for the dead.”

From David Ouimette: in answer to this question “AI in Family Research Full Text: is behind a paywall, does it protect living people? (If private information is included there, you can request that to be removed.) AI in ChatGPT is an open system, so it learns from our input—its training.”

You can discover the current Guiding Principles for Responsible AI in Genealogy here.

Next session: Virtual Veterans

After the panel session, I was keen to hear from a fellow Australian genealogist on the topic of “Virtual Veterans - Your AI Guide to a Rich Collection of WW1 Resources” by Anna Rounik. When I logged in, the speaker had not arrived. In the text chat, it was reported that Anna’s presence may have been impacted by the power outages in Brisbane caused by Tropical Cyclone Alfred. I am hoping that Anna may be able to return or provide a pre-recorded session.

I am particularly interested in:
Virtual Veterans is an AI-driven chatbot that, when interacted with, assumes the persona of a World War I soldier named ‘Charlie. ’ It uses AI techniques and algorithms to provide a guide to rich collections of resources from State Library of Queensland, Trove (Queensland digitised newspapers) and the Australian War Memorial.

So I went to Perplexity to see what it knew about Virtual Veterans.

Perplexity was very helpful, and I was able to find out more at Virtual Veterans State Library of Queensland. I was able to listen to Charlie as he gave me answers to queries about WW1. Really cool stuff!

Even more information was found in the FAQ segment of their website.

March 9, 2025

Title: "Between Pixels and Parchment: The Future of AI-Assisted Family Storytelling"

"In the end, we are all keepers of memory, whether those memories live in dusty attics or digital archives." This week's journey with AI writing tools has transformed how I approach our family's narrative. I'm inspired to continue this path where technology and tradition meet. The tools may evolve, but the heart of family history remains eternal. #FamilyStories #AIStorytelling #RootsTech2025

This morning, I watched Steve Little’s session on “Learning to Use AI Tools: Taking Your Prompting Skills to the Next Level.” Steve has a unique teaching style that resonates with beginners, intermediate, and experienced AI Users alike. This presentation focused on the built-in features of some AI tools for refining your workflow with AI. Examples included GPTs at OpenAI, Projects at Anthropic, and Gems at Google. Plus, the creative process is now available with document generation with Canvas in ChatGPT or with Artefacts in Claude.

Steve also featured a brief insight into the magic that happens at Google’s NotebookLM; it acts as an intelligent research partner, helping users organise, interpret, and summarise complex information more efficiently. With NotebookLM, you can generate your podcast (using AI voices, one male and one female) on the topic of your uploaded documents. I tried this a while back, and here is an example of such a podcast: History Hour: Leith Hall.

One new thing I learned to do after listening to Steve was how to use my voice to interact with Chat GPT from my smartphone. Then, after viewing Steve’s prompt on the topic of ‘crafting a research assignment’, I tried it out by simply reading this prompt to ChatGPT on my smartphone:

The response was magical! The research assignment outlined what the locality guide should consist of, including these segments: historical overview, geographical and administrative context, demographics and local culture, genealogical resources, significant landmarks and institutions, notable families and figures, modern-day relevance, deliverables, research approach, and final considerations. My next step was to request the creation of the Locality Guide for Kingston from the assignment instructions, and I now have a four-page locality guide for Kingston, my mother’s hometown.

March 10, 2025

Title: “Wrapping Up with an AI enhanced Action Plan”

My final session that I viewed this morning was the perfect finish to a power-packed experience at RootsTech 2025 online: “From RootsTech to Real Life: Turning Your Notes into Practical Steps” by Kori Robbins from Family Search. Her simple four-step process was an ideal framework for creating an Action Plan; a meaningful activity at the conclusion of this fabulous event. A plan to take what I learned and turn it into something new - consolidating my learning.

I used my voice tool on the smartphone app for ChatGPT and read out the steps in sequence and requested an Action Plan template. (The steps were available in the Syllabus handout.)

Prompt 1:

Hi Chat, I'm doing my reflections on RootsTech 2025, and I have some notes that I want you to take and put into an outline for an action plan. I'm going to give you these steps.

1. Step 1. Collect. What notes do I have? What notes are missing? What classes stood out and why? What didn't stand out? What ideas did I have? What was it that inspired me to do differently? And what did I discover?

2. Step 2. Reflect. Review my notes. Why did those things stand out? What connections did I discover that I would like to continue? What insights can I glean from my family history research? What do I wish I could have done differently at this conference? And what do I need to do to start making those changes now?

3. Step 3. Organise. Create a new document or section of your notes. Organise by actionability or categories. Things like quick tasks, ideas to explore, or insights.

4. Step 4. Strategise. To make those ideas happen, whom do I need to talk to? What questions am I exploring? What data do I need to gather to move forward? And what time do I need for myself? Schedule that time in my calendar right now.

Back at the computer, I then followed a few steps to gather my notes (from Google Docs) and my reflections in this journal to build into my Action Plan. These are the prompts I used in ChatGPT:

• Prompt 2:

  • Now create an Action Plan template from the steps.

• Prompt 3:

  • Now summarise my notes on these three sessions from RootsTech 2025.

• Prompt 4:

  • Yes, please integrate these summaries into the Action Plan.

• Prompt 5:

  • Canvas, can you create a separate document - a summary of my key insights from my AI Writing Journal

• Prompt 6:

  • Now, put all of this together as my Action Plan using a tabular format with relevant column headings and dates.

Success! An actionable plan
Action Plan: RootsTech 2025 Reflections & AI Writing Journal

Overview

This action plan organizes key insights, reflections, and next steps from RootsTech 2025 and the AI Writing Journal, structured in a tabular format for clarity and implementation.