Have you ever found a genealogy book packed with information about your ancestors… but no index? That was my problem with an 1890 history of Randolph County, North Carolina. The book contains dozens of references to my ancestors and their neighbors, but finding those names over and over again was becoming a challenge. So I turned to AI—and in just a short time, I created a fully searchable name index complete with page numbers.
In this video, I’ll show you how I used ChatGPT to analyze a PDF version of the book, extract every personal name, organize them alphabetically, and generate a custom index. Then I’ll show you how I took that information one step further by creating an Ancestry Network to help visualize relationships and build out my FAN Club research.
You’ll also learn where to find digitized genealogy books online, including HathiTrust, FamilySearch Books, Google Books, and other free resources that may contain valuable information about your ancestors.
Whether you’re working with county histories, local memoirs, family histories, or other older publications, this technique can save hours of manual work and help uncover connections you might otherwise miss.
DIRECT HANDOUT LIBRARY LINK: https://genealogytv.org/product/handout-for-creating-an-index-from-a-pdf-ancestry-networks/
Academy Members – Use this link below to watch this YouTube video on the Academy dashboard. The handout is included in the lesson. https://genealogytv.org/courses/2026-youtube-videos/lessons/creating-an-index-from-a-pdf-ancestry-networks/
What was it like to attend the 2026 National Genealogical Society (NGS) Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana? In this video, I take you behind the scenes at one of the...
