Are we really looking into the eyes of that Pompeii victim?

In today's news, the Pompeii Archaeological Park in collaboration with the University of Padua announced an AI "reconstruction" of a Pompeii victim from Mount Vesuvius' AD 79 eruption. While artificial intelligence can be a more cost-effective and quicker way to do facial reconstructions than clay models, it is hoped that prompters will do every possible measure to insure their interpretation from remains is not altered or improved upon by an AI. Processes and tools should be peer-reviewed and published in academic journals. If you find that this particular case has indeed been published in a peer-reviewed journal, please share the link in the comments section below. While genealogists have photos that can be regenerated, photos produced with AI should always be disclosed and labeled. See the Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy's photo statement for more information.

FamilySearch does it again with "Simple Search"!

 As FamilySearch's biggest (self-proclaimed) fan, they have once again created an AI search tool that is a "must try" for genealogists! I learned about Simple Search from Jennifer Moulder at the 2026 Utah State DAR Conference. I thought I would try it out with searching for a document for my own Chapter Registrar; that she needed for a Prospective Member's application. To use the tool, sign in to your FamilySearch account, or if you do not have one, you need to create one to use the Labs feature. I then located the "Demasters" family that my Registrar needed a document for that tied the father to the son, and as you can see in the image, I just asked it to search for that using their FamilySearch ID numbers. It produced a list of documents within seconds, including one my Registrar could use, and she was quite pleased! Jennifer also mentioned that Simple Search will sometimes produce documents that Full Text misses.