Wouldn’t it be great if a genealogy website could write your family stories for you? All those names and dates could magically turn into a narrative for your next book, or a video to post on social media. Maybe a likeness of your ancestor could even tell her own life story.
These ideas may sound far-fetched, but they’re already possible thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies. In fact, AI has been powering your website searches and record-hinting experiences for some time. Now, they can also help you string together the stories those records tell.
This shift toward storybuilding is deliberate. Industry leaders recognize that many of their customers are driven by a hunger for meaningful stories. And, knowing many genealogists are first drawn in by family stories, the megawebsites want to help new users discover stories and share them with others. Other companies want to convert DNA testers’ casual curiosity about their origins into a genuine passion for genealogy.
Of course, the stories can only be as good as the details you feed into them: names, dates, places, photos and so on. But once you get those details right, storybuilding tools help you organize, narrate and share your ancestral tales in easy yet compelling ways.
Let’s take a look at the best storybuilding tools at three of the genealogy giants— <>, FamilySearch <> and MyHeritage <>—and how they can help you connect with the past and share your ancestors’ experiences.
