Come explore the capabilities of MyHeritage’s Scribe AI with me. We’ll use it to analyze and transcribe genealogical notes, generate research suggestions and strategies to add to our genealogy research plan and more. Wait until you see what it can do with cursive handwritten notes!
Watch the Video
MyHeritage has just launched Scribe AI, a groundbreaking new AI-powered tool designed to revolutionize how genealogists handle and analyze historical documents and handwritten notes. Announced in early March 2026 at RootsTech, Scribe AI uses advanced artificial intelligence to transcribe, translate, interpret, and provide deep insights into family history materials that might otherwise be difficult to read or understand.
Whether you’re dealing with faded handwriting, cryptic scribbles, or multilingual records, Scribe AI acts like a personal AI historian—extracting key details, offering historical context, suggesting research next steps, and even analyzing visual elements.
Trying Scribe AI: A Real-World Example with Handwritten Family Notes
As a dedicated genealogist, I couldn’t wait to test this new feature. Right after seeing the announcement, I headed to MyHeritage (as a subscriber, it’s easy to find under the Photos section or directly at myheritage.com/scribe-ai).
I uploaded a scanned image of a precious handwritten note my grandmother gave me when I was just eight years old. It’s the very note that sparked my lifelong love of genealogy. She jotted down family details on the back of a random piece of paper during our first conversation about her ancestors. It’s informal, with crossed-out words, abbreviations, and some hard-to-decipher handwriting.
Before proceeding, MyHeritage requires consent: You agree that uploaded documents (which may contain personal information) will be processed by MyHeritage and Google for analysis. Importantly, they advise against uploading info about living people without permission, a smart privacy reminder for all AI genealogy tools.
The upload was quick (even on launch day), and within a few moments, Scribe AI processed the image.
Here’s what it delivered:
- Historical Context: It correctly identified the note as informal handwritten genealogical notes, likely from a family conversation, with roots in Germany (Gladbeck and Dortmund) and connections to the U.S. (Plankington, South Dakota). It noted the casual, dynamic style with crossed-outs. This was spot-on for how my grandmother wrote it while chatting with me!
- Extracted Details and Individuals: The AI pulled out names and relationships, including:
- “Mama Mikolowski” (possible maiden name uncertainty).
- “Biseric” (it read a “B” where I always saw a “V” providing a new spelling variation to search!).
- Adam and Carlotta Lada (noted as a couple in Gladbeck, a mining town; slight spelling variance from “Ladda,” but helpful).
- Children: Richard, Greta, Margareta, Walter, and Adam.
- Gustav (crossed out as “August” originally), described as the youngest of seven brothers with the mysterious phrase “me spowart in Irish.”
- Other mysteries like “Elijah Maria” (possibly “Bernice Grandfather”) and “Frank.”
These insights opened new research avenues like the variations like “Biserich” or revisiting “Spowart” that I hadn’t fully explored.
MyHeritage’s Scribe AI results
- Key Findings and Suggested Next Steps: Scribe AI summarized family clusters, international connections, and specific clues. It recommended:
- Searching MyHeritage for census records and passenger lists for the Lotta/Lada family from Gladbeck.
- Investigating “Elijah Maria” and Frank in U.S./European records.
- Exploring German civil registration and church records (a great tip for newcomers or those new to German research!).
- Researching surname variations like “Biserich” or “Spour.”
These suggestions are practical and encourage digging deeper, especially with MyHeritage’s ongoing record additions.
- Full Transcription: The tool provided a complete, readable transcription, preserving much of the original layout (e.g., crossed-out “pediatric emergencies”—a remnant from my grandmother’s nursing career). It handled handwriting remarkably well, though minor errors appeared (e.g., misinterpreting a line as a cross-out). This highlights AI’s strength as a tool, not a replacement: Always verify and interpret results yourself.
Why Scribe AI Could be a Game-Changer for Your Genealogy
This tool tackles common frustrations such as:
- illegible handwriting,
- lost context,
- or overlooked clues.
It speeds up analysis, sparks new ideas, and suggests record types (like German church vs. civil records) or search strategies you might miss. It’s like getting a second opinion on your documents and research.
Pro Tips When Using Scribe AI:
- Always cross-check transcriptions against the original image. AI can miss nuances like text placement, underlining, or relational arrows that provide vital context.
- Paste results into a word processor to recreate layout if needed.
- Use insights to build research plans (I have a course called How to Create a Genealogy Research Plan in 10 Minutes a Day for premium members!).
- Start free (limited uses), then subscribe for more.
The Future of Scribe AI
Scribe AI has huge potential. it’s already impressive, and as users test it, MyHeritage will refine it further. We may soon see it applied broadly across the website.
Have you tried Scribe AI yet? Share your discoveries in the comments. What mysteries did it help solve for you?
Learn More with These Resources
Check out more of my free videos on using MyHeritage. Each includes a downloadable cheat sheet pdf (premium membership required.)
- MyHeritage Photo Discoveries, Enhancement, & Colorization
- AI Time Machine at MyHeritage
- Genealogy Giants – Comparing Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch,
- MyHeritage – 10 Don’t Miss Features
I heard about ai Scribe in a RootsTech talk. I uploaded a letter written in pencil by a ten-year-old in 1902. The transcription was good, but there was a limit of 2 free trials which disappointed me because I wanted to “play” more.
“Scribe AI” sounds really really neat.
I need to find the 2 hand written Hungarian letters on air-mail paper from mid 1949 that my parents wrote to our sponsor in Statan Island NY before immigrating to the US on 4 July 1949. I would love to read and reread them again and again to have some idea what our family of 4 went through when I was only 4 years old. I did find the Manifest document from Munich Germany, to Idlewild IA (renamed JFK) NY.
I tried Scribe AI during Rootstech and was very pleased with the result. Not only does it do all the things you described in your podcast but it will also translate the document from another language which is very helpful. It can get a bit confusing because if there were photos or charts in the file the program just inserts in the information in the middle of the document (where ever the photos were on the page).
Lisa, Did you consider Bernice as a surname? That Elijah and Maria as a couple. I googled Is Bernice a German surname. it came back as yes. Check it out.
Wow! A couple of days ago I uploaded a 1924 German birth record with a mix of typed Fraktur text and handwritten text. It did a fantastic job with the transcription and translation into English. There were 3 different notes in the left margin that it included with historical context. One was a 1938 note changing her birth name to include Sarah as a middle name (1938 Nazi law requiring this of Jewish women with first names not obviously Jewish). The second note was written in 1945 changing her name back after the war. The third note was written in 1961 saying she was assigned a death date at midnight of the last day of WWII since her real death was unknown (murdered at Auschwitz). It gave great context for all of these notes.
The second document was a full page with typed column headings and handwritten records of baptisms. My husband’s mother’s baptism was the last entry. I thought it would transcribe and translate all the entries and I was only interested in her record. Instead it saw that I named the file with her name and said it appeared that was my focus. Although it only gave the information for her, it did include a note listing the other surnames found on the page. It did a great job with the transcription and translation. I did not notice ANY errors! What amazed me the most was it transcribed each entry in each column for her record one at a time, even when it had wrapped text. It did not simply read left to right. It also recognized that the mother and grandparents were Jewish but she was being baptized in a Lutheran church and that many people did this to protect the child from anti-Semetism. I was having a hard time reading the names of the Godparents and it was able to read them.
As a side note, I also uploaded the baptism record to Ancestry and did a transcription there (Ancestry does not translate). It was terrible! It read many words incorrectly and transcribed every record, strictly reading left to right of each line. Entries with wrapped text in a column was intermingled with other records. In other words, it read the first line of each column all the way across and then read the second line of each column all the way across the page, scrambling the information. It put vertical bars between each column line. At the end of the transcription it listed ’10.’ over and over (probably a hundred times). I love Ancestry and use it daily, but this was a big fail.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience and the comparison between the two companies.