autoresearch genealogy Skill by [ara.so](https://ara.so) — Daily 2026 Skills collection. A structured system of autoresearch prompts, Obsidian vault templates, archive guides, and methodology references for AI assisted genealogy research. Built for Claude Code's autonomous research loops, adaptable to any AI tool or manual workflow. What This Project Does Provides 12 Claude Code /autoresearch prompts that autonomously search the web, update your vault, and self verify results Supplies a complete 19 file Obsidian vault starter kit with YAML frontmatter and markdown templates Includes 24 country/region specific archive guides (Europe, Americas, Oceania, Jewish genealogy) Offers 9 methodology reference documents covering confidence tiers, DNA guardrails, naming conventions, and source hierarchy Defines 7 step by step workflows for OCR pipelines, oral history, discrepancy resolution, and phase planning Installation No package manager or build step required — this is a pure markdown/prompt project. Project Structure Quick Start Workflow Step 1: Seed your family tree Open vault template/Family Tree.md and fill in what you already know, starting with yourself and working backward: Step 2: Scan physical documents Photograph or scan certificates, letters, postcards. Use the OCR workflow: Step 3: Run autoresearch prompts in Claude Code Step 4: Audit and verify Autoresearch Prompts — Reference Each prompt in prompts/ follows this structure: All 12 Prompts File Purpose 01 tree expansion.md Push every branch back using web research 02 cross reference audit.md Find and fix discrepancies between tree and sources 03 findagrave sweep.md Locate Find a Grave memorials for deceased ancestors 04 gedcom completeness.md Sync GEDCOM file with vault data 05 source citation audit.md Verify every person has ≥2 independent sources 06 unresolved persons.md Identify and resolve unnamed people in documents 07 timeline gap analysis.md Find life events where records should exist but don't 08 open question resolution.md Systematically attack every open research question 09 bygdebok extraction.md Extract data from digitized local history books 10 colonial records search.md Search pre 1800 colonial American records 11 immigration search.md Locate passenger manifests and naturalization records 12 dna chromosome analysis.md Analyze per chromosome ancestry data Running a prompt in Claude Code Vault Template Files Person file template ( vault template/templates/person.md ) Certificate transcription template ( vault template/templates/certificate.md ) Research log entry pattern ( vault template/Research Log.md ) Confidence Tier System From reference/confidence tiers.md : Apply confidence in every person file YAML: Archive Guides — Key Countries Each guide in archives/ covers: Where to find records (free vs paid) What AI tools can access directly vs what requires browser Record types available by era Example usage in a prompt: Common Patterns Pattern 1: New ancestor intake When a new ancestor is found during research: Pattern 2: Resolving a date discrepancy Then in Claude Code: Pattern 3: DNA to genealogy mapping Pattern 4: Immigration research loop Reference Documents File Contents reference/confidence tiers.md Strong / Moderate / Speculative definitions reference/source hierarchy.md Primary vs secondary vs derivative sources reference/dna guardrails.md What DNA can and cannot prove; centimorgan thresholds reference/naming conventions.md Patronymics, farm names, Polish przydomki reference/gedcom guide.md GEDCOM field reference and export instructions reference/common pitfalls.md AI hallucination patterns in genealogy, date traps reference/glossary.md Record type definitions, Latin terms, abbreviations reference/ai capabilities.md What AI can access directly vs what requires human reference/case for autoresearch.md Methodology rationale Troubleshooting AI is inventing sources Set guard rails explicitly in your prompt session: Vault files getting out of sync with GEDCOM Run the completeness audit: This compares every person in your GEDCOM against vault person files and flags mismatches. Name variants causing duplicate person files Check reference/naming conventions.md for your family's relevant region. Common traps: Norwegian farm name changes (Haugen → Bakke on emigration) Polish name Latinization in church records (Stanisław → Stanislaus) Irish anglicization (Ó Briain → O'Brien → Bryan) Spelling variation in census records ("Sakkarias" vs "Zacharias" — both valid) Add aliases to person file YAML: Autoresearch loop running too long Each prompt has an Iterations field. Set it explicitly: OCR producing poor results on old documents See workflows/ocr pipeline.md . General guidance: 1. Photograph at 600 DPI minimum 2. Use even, diffuse lighting — no flash 3. Pre process with a contrast adjustment before running OCR 4. Use vault template/templates/transcription.md to record both the OCR output and your manual corrections side by side Contributing To add a new archive guide or prompt: 1. Follow the existing file structure and YAML frontmatter patterns 2. Use placeholder names in all examples (no real family data) 3. Open a PR with a brief description of what region or record type you've added License: MIT

autoresearch-genealogy