AI transcription of handwritten records by Ancestry has been around for a few years (think of the recent 1950 US Census launch, and subsequent transcription in record time, thanks to AI assistance). Now, however, Ancestry is providing beta access to an AI transcription tool available to Ancestry members.
To try it out, choose an image from your gallery, and select ‘transcribe’. The parish register, shown, and experimentation with English census records, returned the response: ‘Unfortunately, we can’t create a transcription. But this feature is constantly being upgraded to handle more document types. Please try again soon.’
Wayne Shepheard, as his recent Family Tree Plus presentation (May 2025), demonstrated the successful use of Ancestry’s AI tool, and also provided an insightful comparison of AI transcriptions generated by Transkribus, ChatGPT, Copilot and…
