Ask a professional genealogist which AI tool they actually use and the answer often isn't one of the big names. It's a sidebar. Goldie May is a browser extension built by one developer, Richard Miller, a software engineer who worked inside the genealogy industry before going solo, and it has almost no independent press coverage, a devoted following among methodology-minded researchers, and, new this year, an AI assistant wired through the middle of it. We've reviewed the AI from FamilySearch, MyHeritage, and Ancestry in this series. Goldie May is smaller than all three, and for a certain kind of researcher it's more useful than any of them.
What it actually is.
Goldie May is a research assistant in the literal, pre-AI sense: software that sits beside your browser tab and keeps the work orderly while you search. It runs as an extension in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Chromium cousins like Brave (no Safari, and desktop only), opening as a side panel next to whatever record site you're on, with your projects, notes, and logs in reach. Two design decisions define it. It's FamilySearch-first: you sign in with a FamilySearch account, the deepest features assume FamilySearch's shared tree, and Ancestry gets partial support, with research logging that also works across MyHeritage, Findmypast, Find a Grave, and BillionGraves. And it never touches your data: Goldie May reads your tree and leaves every change to you.
The research log is the spine.
The core of the product is the thing most hobbyists skip and every professional swears by. You set up a project with an objective (find Mary's parents, say), plan the searches worth running, and Goldie May records where you looked and what you found, including the searches that turned up nothing. Negative results are half the value of a log: the collection that doesn't hold your ancestor is a fact you'd otherwise rediscover, at full price, six months from now. An automatic mode logs pages as you visit them. A screenshot tool clips the record image straight into the log. Tab snapshots save a whole windowful of open records so you can close the browser without losing the trail. None of this is glamorous. All of it is the difference between research and browsing.
Subway Map, localities, and the catalog of catalogs.
On top of the log sit some quietly clever analysis tools. The Subway Map plots an ancestor's life as a transit-style timeline of places over time, which makes gaps jump out: a family in Ohio in 1850 and Missouri in 1860 left a decade of records somewhere in between. A newspaper tool shows which papers published where and when your ancestor lived there. The locality guides gather collection links from FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, Findmypast, and WorldCat into one place, along with county boundary changes, which matter more than beginners expect: the county that holds your ancestor's deed may not be the county they lived in, because the line moved.
The AI assistant is new, and it's the real story.
Over the past year Miller has threaded an AI assistant through all of this, and demoed it at RootsTech 2026. It's a chat panel that reads your FamilySearch tree directly and, through a companion tool called Tree Crossing, reaches trees in RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree, Family Tree Maker, and Ancestral Quest. Ask it to look at a family line and it reviews the attached sources for gaps and proposes research directions. It runs and evaluates searches, drafts timelines with historical context, writes citations approximating Evidence Explained, transcribes record images, suggests collections from the catalog, and will write an ancestor narrative at whatever reading level you ask for. Under the hood it routes work across Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini models, and Miller is emphatic on a point worth repeating: the commercial arrangements mean, in his words, no training on the data you run through it. His own description of the assistant is a super-energetic intern. That's about right: fast, tireless, and in need of a supervisor, which is you.
What it costs.
The free tier is a real product: projects, the automatic research log, screenshots, five Subway Map analyses a month, and three tab snapshots. Goldie May Plus lists at $15 a month or $150 a year with 400 monthly AI credits, unlimited Subway Maps and snapshots, and a canvas for untangling messy family situations. Pro, at $24 a month or $240 a year, doubles the credits to 800 and adds automatic citations and genetic genealogy features. Credits are the one bit of arithmetic to watch: bigger jobs burn more, and a long chat resends its whole history with every message, so a rambling session costs more than a fresh one. Miller's own advice is to start new chats often.
The honest scorecard.
Strengths: this is the only tool in the series built around research method rather than a record archive, and the discipline it encourages (objectives, logs, negative results) is what actually gets people through brick walls. The AI sits inside that method instead of replacing it. The price is modest next to any records subscription. Weaknesses: the full experience leans on FamilySearch's shared tree, which some researchers won't build on; there's no mobile app and no Safari; and the assistant works a step at a time under your direction, so nothing gets researched while you're not sitting there. It's also a one-developer product, which cuts both ways: development is fast and personal, and support is one person deep.
Who it's for.
Goldie May fits the researcher who has a method, or wants one. If you already keep a research log, or feel guilty about not keeping one, it will fit like a glove, and its guided structure can teach a motivated beginner habits that usually take years to acquire. If your genealogy happens in twenty-minute bursts on a phone, it isn't for you. The product assumes you find rigor satisfying rather than tedious, and its fans (many of them professionals) are exactly those people.
Where AncestorIQ fits.
Goldie May and AncestorIQ sit in different tool classes, and the difference is who does the work. Goldie May is an assistant for your research: you drive every session, and it keeps you organized, advised, and honest while you do. AncestorIQ's Deep Research is an agent that does the research: give it an ancestor and it searches across sources, then returns findings with citations you confirm before anything touches your tree, a tree that stays yours rather than shared. A methodical FamilySearch researcher could run both without overlap: Goldie May for the sessions you drive, Deep Research for the questions you'd rather hand off. For the whole field ranked side by side, see our best AI genealogy tools comparison, and for the deeper primer, the AI genealogy guide.
