Researching Family History with Advanced Tools

In 2017, I began researching my family history and have since adopted various tools and methods. Recently, I overcame a research barrier using a combination of archival records, DNA triangulation, and probabilistic proof calibration.

added by @jdpeterson

I started researching my family history back in 2017, and my tools and methods have changed drastically in the near decade since I first began.

Nowadays, I'm using Codex, Antigravity, DNA, and now Jev to break through brick walls pretty regularly. I'll walk you through an example.

My Aunty Jackie's family records stopped at my great-great-grandfather Benjamin Taylor Sills (1890–1951).

When I pushed further back using Ancestry hints, I hit a brick wall: every public tree attached his grandfather, John M. Sills, to the wrong man because an 1850 courthouse fire destroyed the county records.

We solved the cold case from scratch using a four-layer forensic stack: • Archival record requests and court docket parsing in Codex • Multi-agent research swarms and 25-kit DNA triangulation in Google Antigravity • Probabilistic proof calibration in TypeSafe AI’s Jev model

The DNA corroboration, done with Antigravity at the helm, and most recently the probabilistic verification with Jev, gave me the ability to determine my ancestor's father with certainty, opening up the past to further research.

Read how I did it