AI Citation

By JPaulH1 on Tue, 12/02/2025 - 09:14

Forums

I am looking for guidance on citing AI responses to my prompts. I am creating mini-bios for my Find a Grave relatives that I manage.

Using ChatGPT, I enter the prompt “Please write a short biography from these facts.” I then copy and paste the timeline information from my online tree into ChatGPT. 

Here is my attempt at a source citation:

ChatGPT to J. Paul Hawthorne, response to prompt: “Please write a short biography from these facts.”, 2 December 2025; archived within Hawthorne’s personal account at OpenAI https://chatgpt.com/c/692efaa2-5d2c-8329-9bc1-8d9e15e23a61 but not publicly accessible. I uploaded all the facts from the timeline of Sammie Redford Galloway from my Ancestry.com family tree, Kedar Hawthorne and Family.

The last sentence doesn't seem to flow to me.

Thanks.

Submitted byEEon Thu, 12/04/2025 - 09:54

Hello, J. Paul. If you have EE's 4th edition, you'll find ChatGPT citations at 15.28. 

You've reasoned well for the content of your citation in Sentence 1. Re the second sentence that you're not comfortable with, one reason might be the fact that you've cited an online source without a full citation or even a URL, and it can be difficult to find one specific tree at that website from the name alone. Also:

  • Your reference to your tree is italicized as though it appears in a standalone website, although it doesn't;
  • You refer to the "timeline" for Galloway, but Ancestry does not show me a "timeline" for any individual in any tree. Instead, for each profile page, I'm offered "Facts," "Hints," Gallery," "LifeStory," and "Explore."

To solve the "flow" problem and add the rest of the citation needed for Sentence 2, you might say:

The uploaded facts were from J. Paul Hawthorne, "Kedar Hawthorne and Family," user contributed tree, Ancestry (EXACT URL FOR SRG'S PROFILE : downloaded 2 December 2025), "Facts" page for "Sammie Redford Galloway."