Using an AI Assistant for Genealogy & Elephind, A Free Newspaper Search Portal

The Windham County (Vt.) Genealogy Interest Group meeting held virtually and in person at Brooks Memorial Library, in Brattleboro focused on two presentations:

Wayne Blanchard discussed “Using an AI Assistant for Genealogy” with Google NotebookLM, which can be a powerful tool for genealogy research by acting as a personalized AI assistant that organizes, analyzes, and synthesizes information from specific family history sources. Upload all research materials (Google Docs, PDFs of records, transcripts, research logs, historical newspaper clippings, web links to historical context, etc.) into a notebook dedicated to a person or family line.

Instantly create summaries of long or complex documents, like probate files, land deeds, or lengthy family histories, saving time and giving a quick overview. The AI can analyze the sources to pull out key themes, facts, and names, and help make connections and relationships between different documents that might not be immediately obvious. Ask specific questions about the sources and the AI will answer based only on the documents that it has been provided and will cite the exact source passages.

Jerry Carbone presented on “Do You Know About Elephind? The Free Newspaper Search Portal.”

The software company, Veridian, released in October the 2.0 version of Elephind, a front end portal for searching over 30 million newspaper pages using collections from universities, libraries, historical societies, cultural institutions, and other repositories of indexed newspapers.

The free service does not hold collections of newspapers but provides an index to search all 3,404 newspaper titles held in over 50 newspaper collections, such as: the New York State Historic newspaper collection (616 titles, 7 million pages); the California Digital Newspaper Collection, 66 titles, 4.9 million pages; and the Virginia Chronicle (916 titles, 5,684,984 pages). We will see the value of this tool in doing genealogical research.

Read more
More Episodes Below

Latest Episodes

View Video Library

Search Our Video Library

BCTV Requirements: By stating that your show meets BCTV requirements, you as Producer agree to the following: a. I am thoroughly familiar with the nature of the program material and take full responsibility for its content. b. I warrant and represent that the program does not contain prohibited material as defined in BCTV’s Policies and Procedures, including: i. Any program that is commercial in nature, intends to defraud the viewer, or contains a lottery, raffle, contest or game. ii. Any material which is libelous or slanderous or is an unlawful violation of privacy. iii. Any material that violates state or federal laws relating to obscenity. iv. Any material subject to copyright, ownership, royalty rights or residuals unless releases, licenses or other permissions have been obtained. c. I am required to obtain all necessary releases, clearances and permissions from any and all organizations, individuals and groups and provide BCTV with copies prior to broadcast. d. I agree to hold harmless and indemnify BCTV, its Board of Directors, and employees from any liability, loss, claim, cost, or damage of any nature stemming from the telecast of the program, including all legal fees and expenses involved in defending such a claim or action. Should a dispute arise between myself and BCTV which cannot be resolved by direct negotiation, I agree that my sole and final recourse will be arbitration by the Vermont Public Service Board. e. I agree to abide by all BCTV Policies and Procedures.

close-link

Quicklinks

Watch Live