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FamilySearch AI of NC Archives slides
Information provided by Donna Messer from our Facebook Group.
FamilySearch AI of NC Archives slides — If you’ve never used the FamilySearch site it has a HUGE catalog of images from the NC Archives. You can now search many Archives records online and have AI do a search for the person’s name you’re searching for inside the documents they have.
If you have never created a FamilySearch free account that will be the first step. If you have one, skip over those instructions and log in.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/
To create a new FamilySearch free account click on ‘Create Account’ in the upper right corner, follow the instructions to create one, then go back to the link above.
If you already have a Family Search account then click on the link above and click on ‘Sign In’ in the upper right corner. In the box with ‘Expand Your Search With Full Text’ click on the ‘Go to Experiment’ link in that box.
A search box will appear. You can try Barnet Owens to get some idea of the variety of records available in Wilkes. Putting “Barnet Owens” in quotes will give you a more accurate search of the full name. Then enter Wilkes, North Carolina for the Place, and 1780-1850 for date range since he lived a long life.
Click on the link at the top of the box or the picture thumbnail if you want to look at the document. It will show you the document and give you a rough transcription. The transcriptions are not the most accurate but at least it gives you a general idea and is much better trying to read the handwriting of the time.
Once you view the document, you can click on the download icon if you want to save the document as a PDF or JPG. You can also choose to save the transcription and the citation that will give you a link and slide number so that you can find the original document again.
If you find a particular film (image group number) that you only want to search then you can enter that number to narrow down the search to just that film.
I have found much more information on my ancestors in the late 1700s and early 1800s that was imbedded in other documents. Give it a try and get familiar with it.
There is a 15-minute video from the Roots Tech 2025 which gives a more detailed explanation of how to use it. It was filmed last November and most of the items he said were coming soon at that point have been installed and are active. It also explains why the “collections” for the regular FamilySearch search and the ones that AI search are different and how to find them. We’ll all learn more about this together as we use it.