Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged in recent years as a tool that does many things; often what we hear may seem scary or just too techie for us. As a retired I.T. geek, I've been interested in AI but just haven't had any desire or need to go there, until now. I've recently read about others using it in their family research, so I figured I'd give it a try to help me solve two specific issues: improve the quality of old photos and transcribe an old baptism record (in a foreign language).

Here are links to two such tools. These are the only tools I've used and I've only used a couple of features. So, I'm VERY new to this. As such, I'm sure there are many other possibilities that I'll probably discover in due time. Both of these solutions are free.

▶ Gemini — This is Google's AI tool and based on my very brief experience, it's my preferred solution. They have a free version which you already have access to if you have a Gmail account (nothing to install, no new account creation).

▶ ChatGPT — This started out as one of the more popular solutions mentioned in articles and news stories in recent years. They have a free account level which is great for starting out to see if it serves your needs.

To get started, visit one of the above sites. Create an account if you need to. Let's start by just trying to improve an old photo. So, find a photo on your computer that is old and maybe blurry, or maybe it's a scan of a torn picture. Upload the photo to the site and type: "restore this photo."

That's it. Just wait for the results. If you want, go ahead and try both of the above solutions so that you can compare the results. Note also that there is no single right way to do this. You might type something different like, "improve and colorize this picture" or "convert this photo to a cartoon."

I started with the cover photo of the book "Francois", a book about Francois LeGrave, my 2nd great grandfather (see my resources page for more info). I just told it: "restore this photo." Here are the results. To appreciate the detail in the result, be sure to click on the photo below so that you can zoom in and see it up close. So, not only did it significantly improve the picture, but the result is a very high resolution image file, so that you can not only see the detail but it will make a good quality printed photo if you choose to do that. Notice also the small "Gemini" symbol watermark that it placed in the lower right corner of the image; this is important so that you know that the image is AI generated.

For my second task, I uploaded an image of the baptism record of my great grandfather Telesphore Chevalier. It's important to understand exactly what I needed here. If you already have text in a foreign language, it's very easy to paste it into Google Translate and get the English equivalent. However, it's very difficult to even know what the French words are in this record, as it is 100% hand written. So that's why I asked it to first transcribe it and then translate it. The actual instruction I gave it is: "transcribe and translate this baptism record of Telesphore Chevalier."

I was absolutely floored and what it produced. It gave me three sections of text: transcription, translation, and the detailed facts.

I've heard of other tools like CoPilot and Perplexity, I just haven't used them yet. Let me know what you think.

Last update: Sat, Oct 18, 2025