Working with FamilySearch, carefully.
FamilySearch maintains one of the largest collaborative family trees in the world. A shared tree is only as trustworthy as the changes people make to it — which is exactly why an AI-assisted tool has to be conservative here.
What is planned
Stirps is being developed to integrate with the official FamilySearch API. The intent is to let a research agent work with information the user already has access to, and to prepare well-evidenced contributions for that user to review.
- Reading Family Tree information about persons, relationships and events.
- Reviewing attached sources and memories in the context of a research question.
- Analyzing places, dates and relationships for gaps and contradictions.
- Assembling the evidence behind a proposed change so it can be judged quickly.
- Preparing contributions that the user explicitly approves before anything is submitted.
What is not the case
To be unambiguous about the current state of the project:
- The integration is not approved, and is not available.
- Stirps does not make automatic changes to any collaborative tree.
- Stirps is not FamilySearch, and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by FamilySearch.
- No capability described on this page should be read as a released feature.
Human review is the design
Any operation capable of modifying a shared tree is being designed as a two-stage process. The agent assembles a proposal — the change, the reasoning, the sources for and against. The user reads it and decides.
A proposal the user does not approve simply stays a proposal. Nothing is written on the strength of a model’s confidence alone.
Access and security
Access would be made through FamilySearch’s own authorization flow, with the user granting permission for their own account. Stirps is being designed to hold credentials outside the agent’s reasoning context and to request only the access a task needs.
Disclaimer
FamilySearch integration is currently under development and subject to FamilySearch API approval. Stirps is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by FamilySearch. FamilySearch is a trademark of Intellectual Reserve, Inc.