Canadian Government AI Initiatives and New Tools for Genealogical Research

Recent updates highlight the formal documentation of large-scale AI deployments by Library and Archives Canada, new patents for AI-driven genealogical analysis, advances in handwriting recognition, and the expansion of data resources. These developments reflect increased institutional adoption of AI and the emergence of new tools for both researchers and the public.

Detailed Updates

• Government of Canada AI Register: Library and Archives Canada has eight AI initiatives documented, with two in active production, demonstrating sustained government investment in AI for large-scale genealogical data processing 1 2.
• 1931 Census Indexing: A production partnership with Ancestry and FamilySearch has indexed approximately 10 million names from the 1931 Canadian census using OCR and Handwritten Text Recognition, significantly improving access to historical records 1 2.
• Indigenous Records Transcription: Over 6 million pages of Department of Indian Affairs records have been transcribed using Transkribus, expanding accessibility to Indigenous genealogical resources 1 2.
• Newspaper and Legal Register Transcription: Pilot projects using Transkribus achieved high transcription accuracy for newspapers, with mixed results for legal registers due to scan quality variability 1 2.
• Immigration Record Extraction: AWS Textract has been used to extract data from over 11,000 pages of the Canada Gazette, enhancing genealogy search functionality 1 2.
• Handwriting Recognition at Scale: Large language models, including Google's Gemini, now support scalable transcription of digitized handwritten documents, making previously inaccessible historical documents searchable 3.
• Ancestry-Specific RNA Sequencing: Long-read RNA sequencing is revealing ancestry-specific genetic patterns not present in standard reference genomes, particularly benefiting research on non-European populations 4.
• AI-Based Memoir Event Generation Patent: A newly described system automatically generates narrative memoir events from user data, streamlining the preservation of personal and family histories 1 2.
• Axiomatic Ancestral Stratification by Kinship (AASK) Patent: This patented system organizes DNA matches into hierarchical family groups, with tools for both individual and enterprise-scale analysis, addressing the complexity of large DNA match datasets 1 2.
• Upcoming AI in Genealogy Webinar: A free professional development webinar on December 10, 2025, will feature five genealogists discussing practical AI applications and limitations 1 2.
• Findmypast Record Expansion: An additional 291,528 records have been added, covering the years 1925, 1945, and 1975, further expanding available genealogical data 1.