Posts

Please give me the "The Tree" response

 Every so often someone on my paternal side asks, when am I going to give them "the tree". Maybe I should print a book, or give them my work to put in thier book. If they publish it, I'd like recognition for my efforts. In general I request individuals ask a specific question, and try to answer it. Often I assume what they mean is the responsibility I inherited, to keep my paternal grandfather's document up to date, and share it. My paternal grandfather had documented his mother's ancesters that came to United States, and some of thier descendants. In addition to a few pages of narratives, There was an index, and pages of genealogical data (descendants, birth days, death days, spouses, thier birth days, death days, and a few marriage dates. One of the good thing about this tabular format, is the blanks really pop out.)  He even wrote a supplement about 10 years later of changes to make to the original document. For an extra merge challenge there was some informati...

Deepseek

 Configuration trivia Creating a Deepseek account was more challenging than I expected. They had a banner saying  Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services, registration may be busy. Please wait and try again. Registered users can log in normally. Thank you for your understanding and support. The process was typical. Give it an email and a freshly generated password, click on I read stuff, get a validation code in the email...   I started with gmail. I looked in inbox and spam. It took awhile. When I finally used it, it had timed out. So ok , lets try aol. ... (I really should get some sleep, there it is along with a letter from HCR in case social media decides not to share. mumbling about reauthenticating my PC needing the phone, which already had the code, but is still sitting by my bed. So how long does it take to drain the kefir without stirring?) ... No problem . And 12 hours later, after another email sent,  gmail is connected too. Securi...

Claud (Artificial Intelligence) transcribing family documents dense with names and dates

 Let the comparison of Claude with Chatgpt begin. This was a new account. Had to verify email and phone for 2 phase commit. No password. transcribe exactly showed were the generations changed, and the page numbers. There were no tables, but when I copied and pasted the output the layout had columns that were lost in the claud display. recognize spacing is important to determine tables low lighted the text above the tables The headers of the table are specified : Haucks Born Died Spouses Born Died The headers became larger and bold analyze mentioned locations noticed a month with too many days noticed last date mentioned in document reunification and spanish flu I can explore several fascinating aspects in more detail. Which of these interests you most? Marriage and Relocation Patterns: There's an interesting story about how this German immigrant family established roots in specific parts of New Jersey. The clustering in Lyndhurst and Newark suggests possible community formation. ...

ChatGPT (Artificial Intelligence/AI) transcribing family documents dense with names and dates

 Recently watched  a familytree webinar with a panel on the topic of Genealogy meets AI . I had rather dismissed chatGPT after a short talk at the Princeton Public Library and some experimentation.  The demos  have me trying to understand prompts and GPTs and see if I can get solutions to some tedious comparison tasks on my genealogy list. (Ironically a recent upgrade to MacOS Sequoia involved setting up Apple Intelligence, Siri, and chatGPT.) In chrome on my Windows 11 box, I signed into chatgpt (4 not the previously used plus with has the paperclip grayed out). Apparently share is broken - or payfor. So I am trying to copy and paste the more interesting bits. I used the paperclip icon to upload page 7 of a certain well known family document, and " transcribe exactly ". (I really need to rename my files.) It started transcribing the page and asked how it was doing. Things I told it included "The table format should be used for each set of children" and "the ...

mirroring pc to tv

I used to be able to mirror my Dell PC to my Samsung smart TV. Both were purchased since covid 19 isolation. What changed? Upgraded from Windows 10 to 11.  Verizon router upgraded and moved.  (I am able to youtube cast from my phone.) I tried on my own. I tried with support from PC Richards.  On windows win+p win+k mirroring, devices, network, wifi, bluetooth. This is just a blur of experiments. samsung  had me considering easy connect, but before I got there I realized  manual adjust tv inputs (sources) seems to be required now. There is an option Remote Access . From there Screen Sharing (Wireless) , seems to be the option I want as I am not trying to hook a keyboard to my TV. Did not dig into Samsung DeX. Win+P > Mirroring; Win+K>"my TV"  and there was cheering. Shortly there I paused my familytreewebinar so I could adult and found it disconnected.  It did not reconnect seamlessly. Turned off the TV and started again. Got connected again. M...

scanza and slides

Around Thanksgiving I decided to get moving on digitizing dad's slides and movies. I was feeling pressure because these degrade over time. The thought was I would delegate it to get better quality and save myself some time. I was however nervous about sending these irreplacable things off somewhere else. Social Media and my experience: Since covid I have been trying to post in Facebook daily - what made today different? what were things that made me smile? ... I linked to that blog entry on slides. I mentioned the adventure of retrieving the slides from dad'd house. Someone offered to loan me thier scanza. I knew myself well enough to recognize it had the potential to preempt other things and at least got my taxes to the accountant before picking it up. In any case before I was ready to pull together another blog, I just started to jot notes on facebook with some pictures. While I don't feel like I am done figuring it out, I think it is time pull those notes together as oth...

Familysearch Center EB, An exciting day.

I had three goals. Did the last one change? Lots of new information today. Maybe should have taken more notes in my calendar or the Goldie May log. Let's face it this is my document for me and to share with family and friends that share the hobby.  Get the laptop online, so I can do research from the parking lot. https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/family-history-center-premium-content-browser-extension I tried to follow the instructions on my first visit and failed to get quite there. Upon reading the (printed) ... document at home, scribbled in the margins it said: "if you fail, reboot". I am not sure how many windows update forced reboots have happened, but definitely have done that since. Viola. It connected. the helpful volunter reminded me about the chrome exttension (green when connected), and fed me the  alternate familysearch website, https://www.familysearch.org/centers/portal . And I was off. I was so happy to be functional that I stayed on...