A Free Claude That Digs Up Your Great-Grandparents
A free, open-source Claude skill that researches your family in old church books and Soviet-era archives, and only calls something proven when the records agree. How it works, how to set it up, and what it can't do
This skill turns Claude into a careful family-history researcher for the former Soviet Union and the Russian Empire. You give it a name and what you already know, and it works through the records.
Here's what it does, how to set it up, and the limits you need to know.
What it does
- Reads church books and civil records, military, deportation and repression files, and unindexed archive scans.
- Covers all 15 former Soviet republics, and works out which archive holds each record by the borders at the time.
- Builds name-variant lists (old Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian, German and Yiddish spellings) so it doesn't miss a record.
- Keeps people with the same name apart until the proof lines up: house number, parents, godparents, birth date or military unit.
- Gives every claim a status, from hypothesis to strongly corroborated, so you can see what is proven and what isn't.
- Drafts letters to archives, libraries and museums, and sends them only when you allow it.
- Talks to you in your language and translates every source it quotes.
- Hands you an HTML report with your family tree at the top, and can export a GEDCOM file for tree apps.
Free, for your email
Get the full setup steps + the copy-paste setup prompt
The rest of this guide (5 more sections, 1 copy-paste prompt) opens right here. The setup prompt, one paste into Claude that sets it all up, comes by email only. Use your real address.
Unlocks: Step 1: install it · Step 2: start a case · Step 3: read the report · The catch · Sources
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