Sunday, April 14, 2024

Sometimes Fast Means Slow

 

No matter how fast we can now read our way through the unindexed wills at FamilySearch, thanks to the AI assist at FamilySearch Labs latest Full Text search project, that faster approach can still slow things down. In other words, "fast" can sometimes mean "slow" when it comes to research progress.

Since today marks my biweekly progress report, I thought the count wouldn't look so inspiring. After all, the Full Text search capability means we can find potential documents more quickly, but that doesn't take into account the reading of the documents after they are found. Nor does it account for the fact checking I do via supporting documents for each will I've discovered through the Labs. In other words, it's been slow going, even after finding wills and deeds speedily.

Still, in the past two weeks, I've documented 132 individuals in my mother-in-law's matriline. In pursuit of just how those mitochondrial DNA matches connect to my in-laws' tree, it now includes records for 34,318 relatives. I guess that isn't too bad, considering I discovered an incorrect marriage reported in two genealogy books, and had to revise some entries—not to mention backpedaling on the next generation in that matriline. I'm now stumped as to who might have been my mother-in-law's sixth great-grandmother, back in colonial Maryland, since William Ridgely's wife Elizabeth was evidently not the daughter of Lewis Duvall.

I guess the Full Text search at FamilySearch Labs helps discover those errors faster, too. 

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