I really enjoyed playing with the Magic 8 Ball as a child. Who knew a better question and answer tool would come along in my future. The Magic 8 Ball never told me about it.
The now available to the public ChatGPT is a chatbot trained using artificial intelligence to answer questions and carry on a conversation that you initiate.
What I like most about it is the back and forth chat encourages different ways of thinking and approaching a problem you may not have thought of. It can present ideas you never considered. The biggest problem is the information may not always be correct. You can actually redirect the chat in the right direction by entering the corrected information in the chat.
I've asked some genealogy/family history questions to see what this chatbot came up with.
The origin of unusual surnames in our family has always been a source of discussion. The origin of my mother's maiden name, Forgey, has been a subject of debate. Some thought it seemed French and others Scottish. We have a Forgey group on Facebook and a DNA project that points to Scottish origins.
ChatGPT initially said it is English. I think there may have been a Forgey in ancient English records. That person's name likely had a different derivation or the name was spelled phonetically and never was actually Forgey. Our family's name appears to come from a Scots-Irish immigrant to colonial America. It also appears it is a variant of the surname Ferguson.
I corrected the chatbot by replying the name Forgey was most common in Ireland and appears to be derived from the surname Forgie, a variant of the surname Ferguson. Now the chat suggests these names go back to a Gaelic word, "Fearchar" meaning "beloved friend" or "dead man" in Gaelic.
The fact my great-grandmother Mary Kurta Kappel's maiden name is also used in Ukraine is something I forgot or never knew about? Bringing that to my attention was interesting. I verified that there are Kurtas in Ukraine by Googling.
I also asked about areas my family came from to get a history of the areas. What came back for Güssing, Austria had a glaring inaccuracy. It stated many people were sent to concentration camps from there. I wasn't aware that large numbers of people were sent to concentration camps from there. I did some research and according to Yad Vashem the Jews had been expelled from Güssing, and all of Burgenland, in 1938. There were either attempts to send them to neighboring countries, or Palestine. Many could not get out and ended up in Vienna. Anyone who ended up in German occupied territory eventually ended up in Ghettos or concentration camps. They generally didn't go directly from Güssing or Burgenland, however. It took a few years before the process known as "the final solution" began.
I don't like the impression that Güssing residents were taken out of their homes and sent directly to concentration camps because this appears to be historically inaccurate. There likely were a few people living in Güssing who were sent directly to the concentration camps because of their political views and for openly criticizing the Nazis. Generally they were relocated and later sent to the camps.
I attempted to correct this information with information from a Yad Vashem study regarding the Jews of Burgenland, Austria. According to Adolf Eichmann there were no more Jewish communities in Burgenland in late 1938. The Jewish population had been forcibly removed. I don't feel completely satisfied with the answer, but it's close enough to the truth.
I also asked about the origins of my family's DNA haplogroups. I do believe our surname Kapple, Koppel in the old country, has Ashkenazi origins. As the chatbot states many Jewish men are in the J-170 Y DNA haplogroup.
I asked about the persecution of the Irish by the English and it gave a very good summary of that.
I also asked how artificial intelligence can be used to further genealogy research?
Generating new ideas and questions is a good thing. Just use ChatGPT with caution and verify the information. The information isn't sourced so you must find the source which is a good way to learn more about what you are researching. Think of it like you are chatting with a person. They aren't giving you sources. You're just chatting.
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