One of the most common things that a genealogist is tasked with is the gathering of a person's initial family history, normally via in-person interviews or with the use of a platform such as ancestry.com, as this can provide a strong foundation upon which a genealogist may build. However, the ability to conduct these interviews can often be hindered by both geographical constraints and the technical proficiency of the interviewee, as the interviewee in these types of interviews is most often an elderly person with a lower than average level of technical proficiency. With this in mind, this study presents what we believe, based on prior research, to be the first chatbot geared entirely towards the gathering of family histories, and explores the viability of utilising such a chatbot by comparing the performance and usability of such a method with the aforementioned alternatives. With a chatbot-based approach, we show that, though the average time taken to conduct an interview may be longer than if the user had used ancestry.com or participated in an in-person interview, the number of mistakes made and the level of confusion from the user regarding the UI and process required is lower than the other two methods. Note that the final metric regarding the user's confusion is not applicable for the in-person interview sessions due to its lack of a UI. With refinement, we believe this use of a chatbot could be a valuable tool for genealogists, especially when dealing with interviewees who are based in other countries where it is not possible to conduct an in-person interview.

翻译：系谱学家最常见任务之一是收集个人初始家族史，通常通过面对面访谈或利用ancestry.com等平台进行，这能为系谱学家后续工作奠定坚实基础。然而，地理限制和被访谈者的技术熟练度常阻碍此类访谈的开展——因为这类访谈对象多为技术熟练度低于平均水平的老年人。基于此，本研究基于先前研究提出我们认为首个完全针对家族史收集的聊天机器人，并通过与传统方法在性能和可用性方面的比较，探索此类聊天机器人应用的可行性。研究表明，尽管采用聊天机器人方法开展访谈的平均耗时可能长于使用ancestry.com或参与面对面访谈，但用户在用户界面和操作流程中产生的错误次数与困惑程度均低于其余两种方法。需指出的是，由于面对面访谈不存在用户界面，故不适用关于用户困惑度的最终指标。我们相信经优化完善后，此类聊天机器人将有望成为系谱学家的珍贵工具，尤其适用于因地理位置限制而无法进行面对面访谈的海外受访者。