Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 301
with Lisa Louise Cooke
November 2025
GEM: The Return of Elephind.com
Imagine having the power to access centuries of history at your fingertips. Elephind.com is making this a reality for genealogists and history enthusiasts alike. In this interview, we explore how this innovative platform is transforming the way we search for historical newspapers.
Show Notes for Full Text Search and video replay.
GEM: Comparing AI Chatbots for Newspaper Transcription
This segment comes from the Premium episode of Elevenses with Lisa called Comparing AI Chatbots for Genealogy. The full episode is available as a video replay and Premium podcast episode and includes a comprehensive downloadable reference cheat sheet.
Newspaper Transcription Takeaways: In this comparison, Gemini came out as the winner for newspaper transcription. LLMs are predictive, so they excel at the narrative, where words relate to each other. It struggles with names, where each is random. It leans toward interpreting names based on names that appeared earlier in the text (ex. Bruhn)
Bonus Tip: After your initial result ask the chatbot to provide you with a worksheet if it appears there were questionable words. Prompt: Leave a blank space for each name you are unsure about that is large enough to accommodate me writing in the name when I print out your
answer.
Watch our latest videos on using AI for genealogy:
AI: What is it and how to think about it (Premium)
Comparing and Choosing AI Chatbots for Genealogy (Premium)
AI Vocabulary Terms
10 Powerful AI Prompts
AI Research Assistant at FamilySearch
6 Tasks AI Can Do for Your Genealogy (Premium)
Nano Banana – Gemini 2.5 Flash Image
Creating Location Guides with AI (Premium)
AI: Gemini Gems (Premium)
The free podcast is sponsored by:
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