Unlocking Family History with ChatGPT: AI Tools for Genealogy Research

I’ve been writing a creative non-fiction book based on my great-grandmother Jessie Williams for longer than I’d care to admit. Before I started, I did significant traditional genealogical research on her and her immediate family that is informing the plot. I’ve spent hours researching the social history of Victorian England. But I’m stuck at what seems like a pivotal point in her story. I can’t seem to move past it. Should I use AI tools to push through my writers block?

My Thoughts on AI

Like most authors, I don’t use AI tools to do my actual writing. I prefer the old school approach. But… I’ve used spell check for years. I’m normally a pretty good speller. But sometimes when I get in a writing flow, I get the odd word wrong. I’m grateful that most programs underline those spelling errors and typos. Once my piece is done, I use editing tools. Grammarly and ProWritingAid highlight issues that need to be looked at. For example, I just may have an issue with long sentences. And I’ve been known to use the word ‘that’ far too liberally. Sure, I can read what I’ve written and fix those. But it is sure helpful to have the program underline them for me. Then I can go and fix them. (Ironically those last 3 sentences were originally one sentence. AI suggested I probably wanted to use shorter sentences there.)

With my current book, before the writing comes the research. Do you know I spent the better part of a day researching what my great-grandmother probably called her parents? Mother or Mum? Father or Dad or Da or something else. The smallest details are important in historical novels. Research can be time consuming. For every useful website or book, there can be a dozen useless resources. Curating resources is something I think AI can do very effectively for me. I thought I would put ChatGPT to the test today.

The Research Problem

There is a two-year window between September 1891 and August 1893 that is a blank page needing to be filled. It is a blinking cursor that stares at me every time I sit down to write. I think it is rather unlikely there are any genealogy type records that I can use to fill the void. I still want the next part of the story to be as close to what happened as possible. I need a way to fill in the gap between the records in a realistic way. That will let me focus on developing the characters and advancing the plot.

Enter ChatGPT

This morning I woke up determined to make progress with this book in 2026. Rather than spending hours going down one research rabbit hole after another, I decided to ask ChatGPT for some advice. I wrote this prompt:

I’m writing a creative non-fiction book based on the life of Jessie, my great grandmother. In 1891/1892 she is living in the Jubilee buildings on Nightingale Lane near the docks in London with an infant born in Nov 1890 and her husband and 3 children (ages 8, 6 and 3) have just gotten out of the workhouse after 8 months. I’m about to write the time period from September 1891 where the family comes out of the workhouse and August 1893 when the husband dies. Looking for deep background on the time and place as I craft a narrative about those two years where I have little detailed information on the family. Generate a list of web links that could be useful for the research and if there are any possible sources for further genealogy research about the family during this time, please suggest them. I already have workhouse records and a christening record.

It turns out that ChatGPT had a lot of ideas and I’m anxious to explore it’s recommendations. It even provided convenient links and told me why it made the recommendations it did. Some of these sources are familiar friends that I’ve visited many times while researching my family and writing this book. Some were new to me and look very interesting.

If you need anything, I’ll be here, completing some research and then hopefully putting some words on the page. Here is what ChatGPT suggested:

Historical & Social Context — East End / Docklands (Late-Victorian)

📍 Place, Streets & Local Area

• 📌 Sir Thomas More Street (formerly Nightingale Lane) — history of the street and surrounding docks area. Useful for describing her neighbourhood and dockside environment. Sir Thomas More Street (history & name change)
• 📌 St Katharine Docks — details on the docks right beside where Jessie lived; great for setting context. St Katharine Docks (dock history and setting)
• 📌 ‘Riverside – north bank east of the Tower – Wapping London Docks’ — narrative about the dockside streets and structures near Nightingale Lane. Wapping docks & Nightingale Lane area overview (with old map notes)

🛠 Social Conditions, Poverty, Housing & Daily Life

• 📌 Slums and Slumming in Late-Victorian London — a broad overview of housing, slum conditions, poverty stereotypes and reformer interest in the East End in the 1880s–1890s. Slums and Slumming in Late‑Victorian London (Victorian Web)
• 📌 Victorian homes — National Archives — general background on overcrowding, housing quality and city growth (useful for narrative texture). Victorian homes overview (National Archives)
• 📌 ‘Life and Labour of the People in London’ — Charles Booth — landmark survey that mapped poverty in London including East End areas in 1891; great for describing the sociology of Jessie’s street and neighbours. Charles Booth’s Poverty Maps & Census Context (LSE)
• 📌 What were the poverty maps? (Booth explanation) — explains Booth’s classification and could give you descriptive cues for different streets and classes. Booth poverty maps explained (LSE)
• 📌 In Darkest England and the Way Out (1890) — William Booth’s contemporary depiction of poverty forces that shaped social policies at the time. In Darkest England and the Way Out overview (Wikipedia)

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🧬 Genealogy & Local Historical Records (Research Sources)

📚 Archives & Databases

• 📌 London Archives – Family History Guide — guide to parish registers, electoral, poor relief and Boards of Guardians records held by the London Archives (some are part-digitised). Family History in London (London Archives guide)
• 📌 London County Council – Housing Records — background on housing records from the 1890s, which can give context to where and how people were rehoused after slum clearances. LCC Housing Records (1889–1914)

📜 Genealogical Record Platforms

If you want to find actual records about Jessie and her family between census years or confirm where they lived, the following platforms are invaluable (some may require subscription but often have free trials or library access):

• 📌 Ancestry UK / Ancestry.com — census records (1891, 1901), street directories, workhouse admission/discharge rolls including London workhouses. Ancestry UK – Workhouse & Census Collections (Workhouses.org.uk reference)
• 📌 Findmypast — extensive UK census and parish register indexes; also British newspapers searchable back to the 19th century.
• 📌 FamilySearch — free UK parish, census and poor law workhouse databases (some record sets overlap with paid services but many are free).
• 🗺 Charles Booth’s Poverty Maps Search — although not a genealogy database, searching Booth’s map by street name can reveal descriptions of individual streets and conditions at the exact address. Charles Booth’s London map interface (search street names)

Tip: Search all census and civil records for the name variations of Nightingale Lane — after 1930 it became Sir Thomas More Street — to confirm addresses across decades.

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📌 Supplementary Prints & Books for Deep Background

Here are some classic works you might consult (libraries or inter-library loans are great here):

• Life and Labour of the People in London by Charles Booth (Vols 1–2 published by 1891–1892) — rich quotations and descriptions you can weave into narrative. (Wikipedia)
• In Darkest London by Margaret Harkness — fictionalized impression of slum conditions around the time Jessie lived there.
• The People of the Abyss by Jack London (1903) — first-person journalistic account of living in East End slums shortly after your period, excellent for sensory detail.

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🧠 Narrative Uses of These Sources

Here’s how you might use these resources to enrich your creative non-fiction:

• Booth’s maps & notes can provide street-by-street socio-economic color — e.g., were neighbors “very poor” or “mixed”? — even if you can’t find personal records. (Charles Booth’s London)
• Dockside histories help you imagine the sounds, smells and risks of living by the Thames. (Wikipedia)
• Victorian housing & slum resources give you real descriptions of tenements, shared water closets, lodging houses and daily hardships. (Victorian Web)
• Archive guides point toward parish and guardians’ records that might record children’s schooling, poor relief, or births/deaths you haven’t yet found. (The London Archives)