Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.
Using Fable 5 to Untangle a Tough Archiving Problem
A blog post from Mark Thompson recounting how he used Anthropic’s Claude AI models to rescue a stalled genealogy project—consolidating index records from 1870s Victoria, BC police charge books that volunteers had transcribed but never merged due to inconsistent spellings, drift in the original records, and broken links to renamed scanned images. Mark frames this as a lesson in using AI for tireless, verifiable work while always checking its output against source material, with human review and public publication still ahead.
Free Online Lecture Recording from IGRS
Lesser known sources for family history
The Great Famine eviction database
Leading the Way: Michael Leader’s transcripts of Church of Ireland parish registers
Virtual Treasury 101: Records, Resources and Research
“Wets” vs “Drys”: The Manitoba Prohibition Story
What’s Your Society Journal AI Policy?
From strict prohibition to constrained acceptance, journals are, or should be, adapting to a world where AI is often embedded in the tools researchers/authors rely on.
How do you feel about these guidelines from AIP Publishing?
The use of AI tools to prepare manuscripts or improve the readability of original content created by the authors is permitted and does not require disclosure.
AI use should be disclosed when it has the potential to affect the findings or conclusions of an article, including but not limited to:
Analysis of content, data, or images
Designing or conducting experiments
Extracting or synthesizing information.
Thanks to the following individuals for their comments and tips: Ann Burns, Anonymous, Gail, Penny, Teresa, and Unknown.
Startled to see one of the puzzles is labelled ‘Canada Vancouver Parliament’. It is, of course, the Provincial Legislature in Victoria, BC….