Read the story behind it · Gallop Systems

MASTER GENEALOGIST · A SKILL FOR AI ASSISTANTS

Give your family the gift of a nicely packaged family story.

I made this while piecing together my own family's story with AI: the towns my grandparents came from, old registers, letters back and forth with archives. It's a free set of instructions that teaches your assistant to dig the same careful way, and then helps you turn what you find into a story and an album your relatives can look through together.

Download the skill How to install it free · 2.6 MB · works in Claude, ChatGPT & more

FOUR THREADS

What it does

There are four parts to it. You don't have to do them all at once.

I · LISTEN

Start with what you have

Old photos, a birth certificate, a cousin's notes, whatever is in the drawer. Your assistant reads through it, then asks you about the people: names, towns, what you were told growing up.

II · SEARCH

Looking for records

The search can include birth and marriage registers, census pages and ship lists. It also covers naturalisation files, headstones and Holocaust-era archives. If you need to ask an archive for a record, you can get help drafting the letter.

III · CHECK

How sure are we?

Every name and date gets a source and a note on how certain it is. The stories you grew up with get checked against the records too.

IV · TELL

Making the album

When you're ready, turn the research into a family story and an album website. Ours is in three languages. Include photos and copies of the records, with maps to show where people lived, and print a copy if you want one. Your assistant can put it online for you, too. Tab, Claude and ChatGPT can host it themselves; other assistants use Netlify, a free service where it takes one folder.

WHAT YOUR FAMILY GETS

Something to share with the family

  • A family tree with sources for the names and dates.
  • A written family history in plain language, with the sources noted.
  • An album website where relatives can see the portraits and documents, and follow the journeys on maps.
  • A version to print for the grandparents. You can also have it in the family's languages.
  • Notes about what you haven't found yet and where you might look.

The instructions go deepest on Jewish, Hungarian, Carpathian, Galician, Slovak and Romanian roots, and on the countries those families moved to.

INSTALL

Add it to your assistant

First download the skill. It's a single ZIP file; don't unzip it unless the steps below say so. Then pick your assistant:

Claude: desktop app or claude.ai

Uses Claude's Skills feature, which needs code execution turned on.

  1. Open Claude and go to Settings → Capabilities. Make sure Code execution and file creation is switched on.
  2. Find Skills on the same page. (In some versions it's under Settings → Customize → Skills.)
  3. Click Upload skill and choose master-genealogist.zip.
  4. Make sure the new master-genealogist skill is switched on.

On a Team or Enterprise plan, an admin may need to allow Skills first.

USE

What to ask

Start with whatever you know, even if it's just a name and a town. You don't need to say "genealogy" or name the skill. A few examples:

My grandmother was born in 1932 in a village in the Carpathians and came to Montreal after the war. Help me find out where her family came from.START A PROJECT
I've always heard that my great-grandfather was a rabbi in Hungary. Can we check?TEST A FAMILY LEGEND
Can you help me read this headstone and this old registration card?READ A DOCUMENT
Write to the archive that holds my grandfather's birth record and ask for a copy.CONTACT AN ARCHIVE
Turn everything we've found into a family album website we can share at the holidays, in English and Yiddish.MAKE THE ALBUM
Can you go over what we've found so far? I'm losing track of which parts we're sure about. What should we try next?CHECK PROGRESS
  • There will be questions first. Your assistant will ask about the family before searching. A detail you remember may help narrow down a search.
  • Share what you have. Old letters, photos, documents and other relatives' notes all help.
  • Some steps need your permission. Your assistant asks before sending emails or contacting relatives. It also asks before spending money.
  • Putting it online. Your assistant asks who should see the album, and puts nothing online until you say yes. If only family should see it, it sets up a sign-in or a password instead of a link anyone can open.
  • Allow a few sessions. Finding records takes time. You may also be waiting for an archive to reply. The research notes help your assistant pick up where you left off.
  • Turn on web access. Your assistant needs web search or browsing to reach the record sites.
  • Some searches come up empty. The instructions call for notes on where your assistant looked, even when it couldn't find the record.

Try it with your family

Download the skill