AI in Genealogy: ChatGPT-4o for Perfect Obituary Transcriptions and Analysis!

Transcribe and analyze your ancestors' obituaries easily and flawlessly, even creating biographies from them, to enhance your family history!

I am still in the process of testing out and using various AI platforms for different tasks, as some work out for certain tasks better than others, in my genealogical world. I recently tested out obituary transcriptions in the new FREE version of ChatGPT-4o to see the difference between the ones I had done in Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini a few months ago, in which you can check out those results in “AI in Genealogy: Copilot and Gemini OCR for Obituary Transcriptions and Analysis!”. Copilot was not that great with the task, and Gemini totally failed the task. Until ChatGPT-4o came out just a couple of weeks ago, you could not upload images with the free version at that time, ChatGPT 3.5. Keep in mind that as of this post, there is a significant limit in uploads in the free version of ChatGPT-4o, depending on peak times, etc., and will vary. When I tested this feature within the first few days it became available, I was only able to upload 3 photos for descriptions, then my limit was reached. I was in “limit jail” for 3 days until I could use the upload feature again. Check out the results below for transcribing obituaries with the free version of ChatGPT-4o, giving you yet another way to use AI in genealogy!

Results of ChatGPT-4o Ancestor Obituary Transcriptions and Analysis​

In the following examples below, I had used one of the obituaries (he had a few) for my 2nd great grandfather, Samuel Steinman. I prompted it for a description, transcription, and analysis, without including the type of document to see if it could describe what kind of document it was.

​*Note: Click on images to zoom in

ChatGPT-4o AI-Powered Obituary Transcriptions and analysis in Genealogy- Example

The only prompt I had used for this was “Describe, transcribe, and analyze this genealogical document for my 2nd great grandfather, Samuel Steinman completely”, in which it churned out fantastic results! There was only one very minor error in the transcription- it left out the word two, and 1 small error in the analysis- stating his daughter and brothers were by his side in his final hours, but it was his daughter, sons, and one brother. Other than that, I’d say this transcription was close to perfect, even down to all the grammar errors in the obituary!

ChatGPT-4o AI-Powered Obituary Transcriptions and analysis in Genealogy- Example 1

ChatGPT-4o AI-Powered Obituary Transcriptions and analysis in Genealogy- Example 1-2

ChatGPT-4o AI-Powered Obituary Transcriptions and analysis in Genealogy- Example 1-3

ChatGPT-4o AI-Powered Obituary Transcriptions and analysis in Genealogy- Example 1-4

ChatGPT-4o AI-Powered Ancestor Death Date Calculator in Genealogy- Example

​Since it did not provide a date of death in the analysis, which I’m surprised it didn’t automatically calculate it, because there was no date of death in the obituary, I decided to ask it to calculate that with the prompt “Determine the date of death from the information that was provided in the document that include his birth date and how old he was when he died”. It was able to calculate it, and give it’s reasoning, and it was spot on!

ChatGPT-4o AI-Powered Ancestor Death Date Calculator in Genealogy- Example 2

ChatGPT-4o AI-Generated Ancestor Biography from Obituaries in Genealogy- Example

​I then decided to test if it could write a decent ancestor biography just from an obituary, with the prompt “Can you generate a biography from the information in this document”, in which again it churned out fantastic results!

ChatGPT-4o AI-Generated Ancestor Biography from Obituaries in Genealogy- Example 3

ChatGPT-4o AI-Generated Ancestor Biography from Obituaries in Genealogy- Example 3-2

Compare the Results to the Free Versions of Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini

AI in Genealogy: Copilot and Gemini OCR for Obituary Transcriptions and Analysis!

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​More AI and Genealogy Resources

Learn about more family history and genealogy resources under the AI in Genealogy and  Genealogy Resources category and on my dedicated Genealogy Resources page.