Show notes
This episode is sponsored by the Family History AI Show Academy
Beginning October 27, 2026, Mark and Steve are teaching Advanced Family History AI, the Level II course in their Family History AI series. The course is designed for genealogists with several months of experience using artificial intelligence tools who are ready to move beyond basic prompting to new tools and powerful techniques for researching and telling their family's story.
Register for Mark and Steve's classes at:
https://tixoom.app/fhaishow
DescriptionCo-hosts Mark Thompson and Steve Little report from the East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference in Boston, where genetic genealogists were adopting artificial intelligence far faster than expected. They then look at Ancestry's AI Stories, which turn a single record into a narrated story about an ancestor, and why the record itself should remain the evidence.
The hosts explain why new models solving century-old math problems matter to family historians, as experienced genealogists begin bringing their hardest research problems to these tools, and what the planned retirement of custom GPTs means for researchers who rely on them for their saved prompts.
In the Tip of the Week, Mark sets up a scheduled agent that checks Ancestry, MyHeritage, Findmypast, Library and Archives Canada, and other repositories each week for newly released records in the places he researches, and compares how Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini handle the job.
In RapidFire, the hosts cover Claude's memory controls, which can keep one family's research from bleeding into another's, Apple's Gemini-powered Siri, and the calls to slow artificial intelligence development, ending with a reminder that genealogists can already do far more with today's tools than most realize.
TimestampsOpening00:06 Family History AI Show Academy: Advanced Family History AI Course
01:35 Trends from the East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference: Adoption Goes Mainstream
05:46 Today's Headlines: A Preview of the Episode
In the News07:18 New Features at Ancestry: Document Transcription and AI Stories
11:18 Artificial Intelligence Model News: Claude Fable 5.1, GPT-6 Astra, and Navier-Stokes
20:34 Another Round of Simplification: Claude Merges Chat and Cowork, Custom GPTs Retire
Tip of the Week30:05 Scheduling Your Artificial Intelligence Agent: Weekly Checks for New Record Collections
RapidFire42:56 Claude Memory: Editable, Project-Aware, and Worth Checking
49:50 Apple's Smarter Siri (Again): Google Gemini Under the Hood
54:03 Calls to Slow Down Artificial Intelligence: Separating Real Risks from Headlines
Final Thoughts1:16:53 Episode Wrap
Resource LinksFamily History AI Show Academy
Advanced Family History AI Course Registration
https://tixoom.app/fhaishow
Trends from the East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference
East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference
https://ecggc.org/
New Features at Ancestry
Ancestry Brings Family History to Life with New AI-Powered Stories
https://www.ancestry.com/c/ancestry-blog/ancestry-news/ancestry-brings-family-history-to-life-with-new-ai-powered-stori
Build Deeper Connections with Ancestry's Redesigned Record Page
https://www.ancestry.com/c/ancestry-blog/ancestry-news/redesigned-record-page-fosters-easier-discoveries
The Science Behind Full-Text Search on Ancestry
https://www.ancestry.com/c/ancestry-blog/ancestry-news/ancestry-uses-science-and-ai-resources-to-transcribe-historical-documents/
Artificial Intelligence Model News
Introducing Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1
https://www.anthropic.com/claude-fable-and-mythos-5-1
GPT-6 Astra: A New Generation of Intelligence
https://openai.com/index/gpt-6-astra/
OpenAI on the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem
https://openai.com/index/navier-stokes-solution/
Another Round of Simplification
Claude Cowork and Chat Are Now One Claude
https://claude.com/blog/cowork-is-now-claude
Custom GPT Retirement and Migration FAQ: Retirement Planned for December 11, 2026
https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001519-custom-gpt-retirement-and-migration-faq
Scheduling Your Artificial Intelligence Agent
Schedule Recurring Tasks in Claude Cowork
https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13854387-schedule-recurring-tasks-in-claude-cowork
Scheduled Tasks in ChatGPT
https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10291617-scheduled-tasks-in-chatgpt
Create and Manage Schedules for Tasks in Gemini Spark
https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/17094710
Claude Memory
Use Claude's Chat Search and Memory to Build on Previous Context
https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11817273-use-claude-s-chat-search-and-memory-to-build-on-previous-context
Apple's Smarter Siri
Siri AI, a Profoundly More Capable and Personal Assistant, Is Here
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/09/siri-ai-a-profoundly-more-capable-and-personal-assistant-is-here/
Calls to Slow Down Artificial Intelligence
Dario Amodei: We Must Pace the Frontier
https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier
TagsArtificial Intelligence, Genealogy, Family History, Anthropic, OpenAI, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Ancestry, AI Stories, Scheduled Agents, Custom GPTs, Claude Cowork, AI Memory, Apple Intelligence, Siri, Navier-Stokes, AI Safety, Record Collections, Genetic Genealogy
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