Latvian Genealogy Blog

Imagine – you can simply "ask" your research notes instead of spending hours digging through long documents! In today's post, I'll introduce you to NotebookLM – a tool that can become a genuinely good helper in family history research. Why is NotebookLM special? NotebookLM is a Google-developed tool with one very significant difference from other AI – it works ONLY with the information you give it. As a result, there is little (or almost no) free fantasizing! All sorts of fab

Every year in genealogy brings its own challenges and discoveries, but 2025 was special. It made me reevaluate my work, taught me to adapt to new circumstances, and at the same time reminded me why I do this work at all – because it interests and engages me. I love that the result of my work is personally meaningful to someone. And what actually happened this year? If I had to say it in one word – I think I can safely say it was dramatic! The biggest events were concentrated

Why I've Been Waiting for This Just a week ago, during a lecture for family history researchers in Valmiermuiža, I said that I was impatiently waiting for the moment when artificial intelligence would finally be able to read handwritten texts. Until now, my experiments with different AI models for reading Latvian genealogical documents had been rather unsuccessful. But then Gemini 3 Pro Arrived A bit about why I put this to the test: I've spent more than 15 years reading Latv

When Old Print Gets in the Way You are no doubt familiar with the problem—you come across an interesting article in a historical newspaper, but it’s not only printed in old type and orthography, it’s also written in historical language with archaic expressions. It’s not easy but AI can help. I use AI tools in my own research every day to get help with various tasks. This post was inspired by a question in a Facebook group, where my suggestion to use AI for this problem was me

Regular readers of my blog may have noticed that I often mention writing a book. Yes, step by step, I am documenting the results of a long-term genealogical research project in a family history book. This week, I decided to experiment with AI tools and see if they could assist in the writing process. The Advantages of AI Tools AI tools are developing rapidly, and changes are happening continuously. I can't keep track of everything, but I have recognized that AI is an excellen