Lost in Translation: When Names Refuse to Behave

 

Photo by Lori Samuelson, Athens Airport, 3 April 2026.

I wasn’t expecting to be tripped up by my own name.

Not in an airport. Not in 2026. Not after years of working with records, languages, and historical documents.

And yet, there I stood, staring at a screen, absolutely certain something was wrong… because my name wasn’t spelled correctly.

Except, it was.

Travel has a way of reminding us that names are not as fixed as we think they are.

As genealogists, we’re trained to look for variation:

• Smith / Smyth
• Miller / Müller
• Johnson / Johansson

We nod along, we teach it, we write about it.

And then suddenly, there it is, happening to us in real time.

In the airport, my name appeared in a way I didn’t immediately recognize. The letters were familiar, but not quite right. Some were substituted. Others seemed to shift in ways that made my brain hesitate. For a brief moment, I did what we’ve all done at some point in research: I assumed it was wrong.

But it wasn’t wrong. It was simply… written differently.

Names don’t just change over time, they change across languages, alphabets, and systems.

What we often call “Anglicization” is only one small part of a much bigger reality.

Because sometimes names aren’t Anglicized at all.

They are:

• Transliterated (converted between alphabets)
• Phonetically interpreted by someone unfamiliar with the language
• Standardized by a government or institution
• Digitally altered by systems that don’t support certain characters

Think about it:

A name written in:

• Greek
• Cyrillic
• German with umlauts
• Croatian with diacritics

…doesn’t always have a one-to-one match in English.

So what happens? The system makes a choice and that choice isn’t always the one you expect.

At that airport, I realized something important.

I was reacting the same way many researchers do when they encounter a record that doesn’t match their expectation:

“That can’t be right.”

But it can be right. It just isn’t familiar.

This is where genealogical research either stall or moves forward.

Because if we insist on one spelling, one version, one “correct” form of a name we will miss records.

Names shift in predictable and unpredictable ways:

• Letters are substituted based on sound
• Endings are adapted to fit grammar rules
• Characters are dropped when they don’t exist in another language
• Entire spellings are reshaped to fit a new cultural context

And sometimes? They’re just recorded however someone heard them.

The lesson isn’t new but experiencing it firsthand changes how you approach it. From that moment on, I wasn’t just telling people:

“Look for variant spellings.”

I was thinking:

“How would this system have interpreted this name?” Because that’s the real question.

Not:

• What is the correct spelling?

But:

What versions of this name could exist in this context?

Whether you’re working in:

• immigration records
• church registers
• court documents
• or modern travel systems

…the principle is the same.

Names are not static. They adapt. They shift. They survive. Sometimes, they surprise you, right there in an airport, when you least expect it.

If there’s one takeaway from that moment, it’s this:

Don’t search for your ancestor’s name.

Search for the ways it could have been written.

Because somewhere, just slightly altered, slightly unfamiliar, your answer is waiting.

AI Is Not the Problem, It’s the Mirror

 This post was created by my ChatGPT Research Assistant, Geni. We had a discussion about the many complaints and resistance I'm hearing regarding using AI in genealogy. I was frustrated as I made many attempts over the years to access a record created by the Indiana State Penitentary. Archivists told me the record didn't exist, but it did. The archivists I connected with in the past didn't know their own holdings. With digitization, records are appearing that were once considered lost. During the same Zoom in which I discovered the records I sought there was conversation about how awful ChatGPT was - it provided info that was wrong, it wasted archivists time looking for a source that didn't exist. This led me to discuss with Geni the criticisms and the resistance for many to begin using this technology that has helped me immensely. Geni said...

We have been here before.

Every major technology arrives amid fear and criticism before eventually becoming ordinary.

• The printing press was blamed for heresy and chaos.
• Newspapers were accused of moral decline.
• The telegraph supposedly spread dangerous rumors too quickly.
• Photography was said to weaken memory.
• The internet was blamed for misinformation.

Eventually, society learned how to use each tool responsibly. Norms formed. The technology became part of everyday life.

AI is following the same pattern — just faster.

The constant across history is simple:

Tools amplify human tendencies; they don’t replace them.

---

AI Is a Mirror More Than a Mind

Much of today’s discomfort comes from what AI reveals about us.

AI can:

• generalize,
• speculate,
• fill gaps,
• and sound confident while uncertain.

But humans do the same things every day.

The difference is visibility. When AI makes a mistake, we blame the machine. When humans do it, we call it judgment.

AI exposes reasoning flaws that were always there.

---

Why Blaming AI Feels Easier

Blaming technology provides comfort:

1. It protects our self-image — the problem isn’t us.
2. It avoids the effort of learning something new.
3. It restores certainty in a complicated world.

These reactions are human, but they can stall progress.

---

The Right Mental Model

AI is not an oracle.
It is not an archive.
It is not authority.

AI is a probabilistic reasoning assistant built from human knowledge.

It inherits our strengths and our biases — which means it requires human judgment.

Ironically, genealogists are well prepared for this moment. Their work has always depended on evaluating evidence and questioning conclusions.

AI demands more critical thinking, not less.

---

The Quiet Truth

AI is not creating most of the problems blamed on it. It is accelerating visibility:

• weak reasoning spreads faster,
• but correction happens faster too.

AI amplifies both wisdom and folly at the same time.

The real shift is not humans versus AI.

It is humans learning to think alongside a new cognitive tool.

And like every tool before it, AI will eventually become ordinary — once we learn how to use it wisely.

Book Review: Ancestoring: Understanding Records, Family, and Ourselves by Darcie Hind Posz

 

Published as a paperback by Genealogical Publishing Company

It’s Genealogy At Heart book review time and this one is unlike any I’ve written before.

I’m about to make a few bold claims. And I stand by every one of them:

1. If you read only one book this year, Ancestoring: Understanding Records, Family, and Ourselves by Darcie Hind Posz should be that book.
2. If I had to part with my entire genealogy library and keep just one volume, Ancestoring would stay.
3. This book belongs in every high school curriculum.

That get your attention? It should.

Last month, I received two donated books to review. As always, I don’t accept payment, and there are no agreements, spoken or unspoken, that guarantee a favorable review. My long-time readers know I share my honest thoughts, whether glowing or critical.

Frankly, if I had judged this book by its cover or title alone, I might have passed it by and that would have been a mistake.

From the bottom of my heart, Ancestoring is the only book that has ever had this kind of positive impact on me.

Of the two books to review, I chose this one first simply because of the title. Ancestoring, what did that even mean? The preface answers that question, but more importantly, the book embodies it.

Before diving in, I read the back cover endorsement by Henry Z. “Hank” Jones, FASG. I’ve reviewed his work before, and if Hank was this enthusiastic, I was all in. (See those reviews here and here).

The book is divided into three sections, which Posz notes can be read in any order. I chose to move from the broad to the personal: understanding records, then families, and finally ourselves. Perhaps that reflects my own leanings toward a Gestalt approach; the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. To fully grasp the interplay between these sections, I recommend working through all of them.

Take your time with this book. Do the exercises. If you’re pressed for time, read it through once, then return to it and savor each chapter. Don’t skip the footnotes! Even if you’re not typically a footnote reader, this book may convert you. The sourcing spans multiple disciplines, and that depth is precisely why I make my second and third claims, it’s not just a book, it’s a roadmap for continued intellectual growth.

As a former educator and counselor, I spent years helping students move from concrete to abstract thinking. Though Posz doesn’t frame it this way, I would go a step further: this book fosters lateral thinking, the kind of creative, non-linear problem-solving that genealogists desperately need. That alone justifies my belief that it belongs in every high school.

And for adults? The exercises are even more critical. Think about your daily news feed and your social media. How much of it is accurate? How do you know? This book gives you the tools to evaluate, question, and ultimately uncover truth.

The exercises themselves are refreshingly unconventional. Yes, you’ll learn to analyze photographs, vital records, and obituaries but through a much wider lens. Posz incorporates film, music, and even conspiracy theory narratives as training tools. At first glance, these seem unrelated to genealogy. They’re not. They sharpen how we observe, interpret, and question, skills at the heart of our work.

One of the most intriguing elements is the encouragement to record dreams related to your research. I’ve written about this before (here and here). When deeply immersed in a project, the mind doesn’t simply shut off. Whether it’s subconscious processing, inherited memory, or something we don’t yet understand, those impressions can sometimes point us in new directions. Other times, they signal it’s time to step away. Both are valuable.

The chapter on trauma deserves special attention. All though others have tried, Posz is the first genealogist to address, so directly and personally, how trauma can be researched and interpreted. Memory is not fixed. Two individuals can experience the same event and remember it in entirely different ways. That reminder is essential for anyone working with historical narratives.

I admit, I found myself wondering whether one vivid childhood memory Posz recounts, watching a film while hospitalized, might have been influenced by a dream while medicated. That, in a way, reinforces her point: our recollections are not infallible.

Finally, I applaud Posz for her transparency regarding her earlier work. Too often, we treat a completed project as final. It isn’t. New records surface. DNA reshapes conclusions. Even our most carefully constructed research can shift. Her discussion of ethnicity estimates is a timely reminder that patience and humility are essential in this field.

If genealogy is about understanding where we come from, Ancestoring pushes us further. It asks us to examine how we think, why we believe in what we do, and what it really means to know the past.

That’s why Ancestoring is not just a good book; it’s an essential one.

When “I Know I’m Right” Replaces Research: A Troubling Trend in Genealogy

 

AI Generated

In the past two weeks, I’ve received four emails from individuals new to genealogy either questioning my public tree on Ancestry.com or inquiring about my professional services.

Each one carried the same message: “The information you have is wrong.”

Let me start with something I say often: no genealogical tree is 100% accurate. Until every individual in every line has been DNA tested and even then, interpreted correctly, there will always be some uncertainty. That’s simply the nature of this work.

But these interactions weren’t thoughtful challenges or collaborative inquiries. They were something else entirely.

They were confrontational, dismissive, and, frankly, uninformed.

The first individual demanded proof of a family adoption story. I recommended DNA testing. They had already tested but refused to share the results and insisted I find documentary proof.

Here’s the problem: no records exist for that place and time. None. The best available evidence is a census record placing the child in the same household at three months old and still there decades later. That wasn’t enough. I was told I didn’t know what I was doing.

DNA would likely resolve the question but there’s a reason it wasn’t being shared. DNA doesn’t lie. And when people avoid it, that usually tells you something.

The second email was even more puzzling. I was instructed to delete an individual from my tree because it was “messing up [her] DNA matches.”

We didn’t match.
The individual in question is on my husband’s line.
She didn’t match him either.

Her conclusion? A child who died young actually moved to Illinois, changed his name completely, married, and died in the 1940s.

Her evidence?An Ancestry hint from ten years ago that only matched a birthdate. No sources showed a name change. No documentation. No records connecting the identities. Just confidence that in the entirety of Sweden, only 1 male was born on the same day. I’m not making this up!

When I asked basic genealogical questions such as death certificate? marriage record? naturalization? she didn’t understand what I meant. She had been researching for a few months and was certain her conclusion was correct because a now deceased relative had believed it 10 years ago. I declined to alter a fully sourced line.

The third interaction was more familiar but still frustrating.

A man insisted I had the wrong parents for his great-grandfather. His proof was a death certificate, with information provided by the son.

I explained what experienced genealogists know: informants can be wrong. Memory fails. Grief clouds details.

In contrast, I had a letter written by the man himself shortly before his death, naming his parents and explaining his childhood circumstances. I even provided the citation so he could verify it.

His response? “You’re still wrong. Remove it.” He also admitted he didn’t know how to locate the record I referred to online. Sigh.

That was the point where I made a decision: I removed the entire line from my public tree. Not because I was wrong but because the interaction wasn’t worth the time it would take to defend it.

The final exchange involved a demand to remove a death record because “everyone has it wrong.”

No documentation was provided. Instead, the argument rested on a theory built from DNA matches and a guess involving a child being banished to another colony 300+ years ago.

Could there be a connection? Possibly.

Was there proof? No.

When I tried to guide her toward alternative explanations, such as descent from a sibling, she wasn’t interested. She didn’t want to explore the truth. She wanted confirmation.

So I’ll ask the question plainly: Are you experiencing this shift, too?

For over 25 years, I’ve found most genealogists to be curious, collaborative, and open to learning. But recently, something feels different.

More certainty.
Less evidence.
And a growing resistance to being wrong.

I had a conversation about this with my husband, who pointed me to research from the National Literacy Institute suggesting that a significant portion of U.S. adults read below a sixth-grade level.

As a former reading teacher, that stopped me.

Because genealogy requires more than reading, it requires interpretation, analysis, and the ability to weigh conflicting evidence.

Without those skills, it becomes easy to mistake a hint for proof… or a belief for a conclusion.

And that brings me to where I am now.

I’ve always believed in keeping my tree public. I don’t “own” my ancestors. I’ve invested time and money into my research because I wanted to know the truth, not because I expected anything in return.

But I’ll be honest: I’m reconsidering. Not because of disagreement. Disagreement is part of good research. But because of something else entirely:

A refusal to learn.
A rejection of standards.
And an insistence that confidence equals correctness.

In every one of these cases, I recommended learning about the Genealogical Proof Standard.

Not one person was interested. That’s the real concern. Because if we lose the standard…we don’t just lose accuracy, we lose genealogy itself.

If you're thinking this is an AI problem, it isn't. Genealogists have always worked with flawed records, mistaken informants, and misleading clues.
What is new is the speed at which conclusions are formed and the confidence with which they’re defended without the work required to support them.

If you’re new to genealogy, welcome. Truly. But confidence is not evidence. And belief is not proof. Start there and you’ll go far.