The Genealogy Guides — Researching & Writing a Family History with AI

Most "AI genealogy" advice is either breathless hype or a warning to stay away. These two kits take a third path — the practitioner's path. They show exactly how to put a capable model to work on the parts it's genuinely good at (organizing, cross-referencing, drafting), while keeping the human firmly in charge of the one thing that matters most: whether a claim is actually true.

The through-line: the machine can reach further and faster, but a fact isn't a fact until a human has tied it to a source a stranger could check. Every method in these kits is built to keep that line bright.

The Complete Kit · Research

Researching a Family History with Claude

A three-part guide · ~4,500 words · 12 pages

Turning curiosity into proof a stranger can trust — the evidence discipline that keeps AI-assisted research honest.

The Guide — the five evidence tiers, the Ahnentafel numbering, the FAN / neighbor-cluster method, DNA as its own witness, and society-standard proof.
The Toolkit — 11 ready-to-use templates and checklists (standing instructions, citation template, DNA intake, application audit, session hand-off, and more).
An Annotated Sample — one real problem worked end to end, showing the whole method in a single case.

Download PDF 12 pp Word .docx

The Complete Kit · Writing

Writing a Family History with Claude

A three-part guide · ~9,200 words · 24 pages

Turning the proven facts into a story worth reading — a narrative that's vivid and honest, where the line between record and imagination never blurs.

The Guide — finding the family's voice, the drafting loop, checking the work against the record, and assembling the finished book.
The Toolkit — 8 prompts and checklists (voice-anchor, scene-drafting, the audit checklist, the assembly checklist, and more).
An Annotated Sample — a single scene drafted and dissected, showing exactly where the line between fact and craft is drawn.

Download PDF 24 pp Word .docx

Go deeper — the full methodology

These kits are the on-ramp. The complete ten-guide Genealogy Methodology is the reference underneath them — evidence grading, pedigree numbering, the DNA workflow, source-documentation standards, lineage-society applications, FAN-cluster reconstruction, and more, each generalized so you can adopt it on your own family.

How to use these

They're free — take them, use them on your own family, adapt the templates, share them with anyone who'd find them useful. The research kit comes first; the writing kit assumes you've done the proof work it describes. A credit back to 12toKNOW is appreciated but never required.

Have a question, a correction, or a family story of your own? The door's always open at the family record — or reach me through 12toKNOW.