In several recent posts, I’ve shared how I have been using AI tools along with my genealogy software to turn narrative reports into stories, audio overviews, songs, and videos. This has become a regular part of how I work with my research, especially when I want to create something that family members can enjoy without having to read through pages of notes and citations.
My 2nd great-grandmother, Mary Foster Crawford (1842–1929), has been the focus of several of these projects. After creating a narrative report in RootsMagic and expanding it into a readable biography, I used that same report again to create two more videos — each using a different combination of AI tools.
Both videos are based on the same documented facts, but they tell her story in very different ways.
Video 1 — NotebookLM Audio Overview and Infographic
As I have done in several recent projects, I uploaded Mary’s narrative report to Google NotebookLM and asked it to generate an audio overview of her life. NotebookLM also created an infographic summarizing the major events in her timeline.
I then used Canva to combine the audio overview and the infographic to create a short video telling her story.
This version follows the narrative report fairly closely and presents the information in a straightforward historical style.
Video 2 — Song Version Using Suno
For the second video, I followed another process that I have been using more often — turning a biography into a song.
Using ChatGPT, I wrote lyrics about Mary Foster Crawford in a Civil War–era ballad style. Those lyrics were then used in Suno.com to create the music.
I asked ChatGPT to create a feature image created using one of Mary’s photographs and historicalstyling. Using Canva, I combined the song, and the imageto create another video.
This version tells the same story, but in a more emotional and storytelling format rather than a narrated summary.
One Narrative Report — Many Ways to Tell the Story
One thing I continue to notice as I use this process is that the same narrative report can be used over and over again in different ways.
From the same RootsMagic report, I have now created:
- a written biography
- an audio overview
- an infographic
- a narrated video
- a song
- a music video
The facts have not changed — only the way the story is told.
Some people prefer reading a biography.
Some like listening to a summary.
Some enjoy a song more than a timeline.
And some will watch a short video when they would never read a report.
Using these tools lets me share the same research in whatever format works best.
Why I Keep Using This Process
This has become a regular part of my genealogy workflow.
I still start with the research.
I still build the narrative report in RootsMagic.
But once the facts are in place, AI tools make it much easier to turn those facts into something that feels like a story.
Mary Foster Crawford lived through the Civil War, the move west to Kansas, and the early years of Dodge City. Being able to tell her story in several different formats helps bring her life off the page and makes it easier to share with the rest of the family.
And that is really the goal of all of this — not just to collect information, but to tell the stories of the people who came before us.