The genealogy algorithm AncestryAI efficiently combines huge amounts of birth data.
It would take 100 person-years for a genealogist to map and find all the parents for five million people – with a rate of one person per minute. The AncestryAI algorithm can do the same work in an hour using 50 parallel computers and with a success rate of 65 per cent. The algorithm can also measure the level of uncertainty for each connection so that unreliable results can be ignored.
‘The algorithm does not replace the work of genealogists; it is simply a tool for helping them in their work. The genealogy algorithm can suggest connections which are probably correct, but on its own it is not as precise as a careful genealogist. The algorithm can also search for parents from nation-wide data, while a genealogist may need to limit their search to just one parish,’ explains Eric Malmi, doctoral student at Aalto University who currently works for Google in Zürich.
Malmi will defend his doctoral dissertation at Aalto University in June in the supervision of Aalto University professor and FCAI programme leader Aristides Gionis.