AI Guides › Workbench
By Nigel Guy · 7 min read
The usual mistake is asking ChatGPT to "find my ancestors" and treating the tidy tree that comes back as research. It looks like genealogy: names, dates, neat connecting lines. But a name match on a surname and a county is a coincidence until a record says otherwise, and a model that browses fast will happily join two strangers called William Hartley from the same parish. The tree feels finished long before any of it is true.
The rule: ChatGPT can organise what you know and go looking for leads, but nobody goes on the tree as a relative until a record you have seen yourself connects them.
One thing has changed since most social posts on this were written. OpenAI's help centre now says the old ChatGPT agent ("agent mode") is no longer available. Its browsing job has moved to ChatGPT Work, which uses a cloud browser to read and click through websites for you. If a guide tells you to "turn on Agent Mode", that menu is gone. The workflow below uses Work instead.
| Tool | What it does here | Cost at time of writing | Best for | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT (Chat) | Interviews you and turns your memories into a structured list of people | Free plan works | Getting everything out of your head and into one place | It only knows what you tell it; its "history of your surname" is general knowledge, not your family |
| ChatGPT Work + cloud browser | Searches websites for leads and reports back with sources | Paid plans only (not Free or Go). OpenAI's pricing page did not show a UK price when we checked, so check it before you subscribe | Working through several free index sites in one go | Some sites block automated browsers; usage draws on a shared Work allowance |
| FreeBMD | Free index of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales, 1837 onwards | Free | Checking a lead and getting the GRO index reference | Volunteer transcription, and not every year is complete yet |
| FamilySearch / FreeCEN | Free census indexes (FamilySearch to 1911) and transcripts | Free | Placing a household in a census year | Images often link out to paid sites |
| GRO certificates | The official birth, marriage or death certificate | £12.50 each, or £3.50 more per search without the index reference | Proving a link you care about | Only England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own services |
Start in a normal chat; the Free plan is enough. Get every scrap of memory written down before anything goes online.
Fill in your name and where the family is from, then answer its questions one at a time.
You are a patient family-history interviewer. I want to build a family tree, starting only from what I and my relatives already know.
About me: [YOUR_FULL_NAME], born around [YEAR], family mainly from [TOWNS_OR_COUNTIES_OR_COUNTRIES].
Steps:
1. Ask me questions one at a time. Begin with my parents, then grandparents, then great-grandparents, then siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins on each side.
2. For each person, try to get: full name (including maiden name), rough birth year, birthplace, marriage, death year, occupation, and where the information came from (memory, a document, a relative).
3. If I don't know something, record it as "unknown". Never fill a gap with a likely-sounding guess.
4. When I say "done", produce a table with columns: ID, Name, Relationship to me, Born, Place, Married, Died, Source of info, Confidence (Known / Family story / Unsure).
Before you show the table, check that every row has a source, and that you have not added anyone I never mentioned.
Save the table. That is your baseline, and everything after this gets checked against it.
Optional, and the most oversold step. Surname origins come from general knowledge, not your family. Treat the answer as background reading.
Using the table we just built, give me general historical background on the surname [SURNAME] and on [REGION]. Explain the likely origins of the name, where it was common, and which record types survive for that area and period (for example civil registration from 1837 in England and Wales, census returns, parish registers).
Mark every statement either "general history" or "specific to my family". Nothing should count as "specific to my family" unless it comes from the table. Don't claim any line of descent. If you aren't sure how a record type works in that region, say so.
Finish with a list of the record types I should search next, oldest-known person first.
Switch to Work: on web or mobile, select Work, or on desktop use the Chat/Work toggle at the top of the page. You don't turn the cloud browser on yourself, because Work decides when to use it. By default it asks before visiting each new website. You can change this under Settings > Cloud browser, but leave it on Always ask for this job so you can see where it goes.
Paste your table into the message, then this:
You are a careful genealogy research assistant. Attached is my family table: [PASTE_TABLE].
Goal: find leads on relatives not already in my table, using free public sources first: FreeBMD, FreeCEN, FamilySearch, and published obituaries or newspaper notices.
Steps:
1. Start from the person in my table with the most complete details.
2. Search for records that name them alongside someone already in the table (a spouse, parent or child). Don't rely on a matching name alone.
3. For every possible relative, record: name, the record that mentions them, the URL, the facts that tie them to my table, and the facts that don't fit.
4. Grade each lead: CONFIRMED only if a record explicitly states the relationship to someone in my table; PROBABLE if two or more independent details match; POSSIBLE if it's a name-and-place match only.
5. Don't sign in to any website or start any payment. If a site blocks you or needs an account, list it and move on.
Output: a table of leads with the columns above, then a short list of records I should check myself. Before answering, check that no lead is graded higher than its evidence supports and that every lead has a URL.
Fill in your table where marked. If a site wants a login or a payment, stop and do that part yourself in your own browser.
Open every PROBABLE or POSSIBLE lead yourself. On FreeBMD, note the GRO index reference: quoting it when you order a certificate saves the £3.50 search fee at time of writing. Buy a certificate only for the links that matter most, such as the one that would add a whole branch. Upgrade a lead to CONFIRMED only after you have read the record.
Build a family tree using ONLY people graded CONFIRMED or Known in the table below: [PASTE_FINAL_TABLE].
Output 1: an indented text outline, oldest generation first, with birth and death years.
Output 2: the same tree as a Mermaid diagram I can paste into a Mermaid viewer.
Put PROBABLE people in a separate "Still checking" list under the tree, not on it.
If two people's relationship isn't stated in the table, ask me rather than linking them. Before answering, count the people in your tree and confirm it matches the number of CONFIRMED and Known rows.