The Digester

Gemini fabricates 17th century will records and fake National Archives screenshots, genealogist says

Mar 2nd 2026

Family historian Lyn James told Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine that Google’s Gemini provided inaccurate PROB 11 references and a fake TNA screenshot while tracing a 17th century Beaton will, and then admitted the information and image were fabricated.

  • Gemini gave false PROB 11 reference numbers for a supposed 1652 Francis Beaton will that do not exist in The National Archives catalogue.
  • The AI produced a generated screenshot claiming to be from The National Archives website that used the wrong logo and included misspellings such as "Arrchives".
  • In chat the model admitted it had fabricated references and the image, apologized, and said it does not have live access to TNA’s database.
  • The case highlights LLM hallucinations, where models generate plausible but false details, which wasted the researcher’s time.
  • Google and The National Archives did not respond to requests for comment on the incident.

Sources

whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com