The Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast

RLP 400: From Searcher to Researcher: Listener Takeaways from 400 Episodes

Mar 9, 2026
Listeners share stories of turning scattered searches into disciplined research using workflows and study groups. They describe conquering imposter syndrome, using AI for transcriptions, and mining court and tax records with full-text strategies. The hosts celebrate milestone stats and highlight how structure, peer support, and persistence help researchers make discoveries and preserve family stories.
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ADVICE

Search Wildcards And Browse Images For Bad Transcriptions

  • Use wildcard and variant searches when full-text search mis-transcribes names.
  • Nicole used patterns like K??T?N and K1?T?N, then browsed images and county-specific microfilm to find Keaton tax entries.
ADVICE

Restrict Searches To Relevant Record Collections

  • Restrict searches by record category, county, and even a specific microfilm to narrow noisy results.
  • Nicole limited Newspapers.com to government/tax records and a single microfilm to locate county tax lists.
ANECDOTE

Transcribe Long Documents One Page At A Time

  • Listeners should upload long handwritten or multi-page documents one page at a time for cleaner AI transcription.
  • Nicole described using Google AI Studio/Gemini, checking names/dates, then saving to Airtable and Google Docs.
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