AI could help identify Civil War veterans in your family

A computer science professor has built a tool that could allow people to identify Civil War veterans in their families with the help of artificial intelligence. Kurt Luther, an assistant professor at Virginia Tech, developed a platform called Photo Sleuth after he discovered a picture of a distant relative who had fought in the Civil War. "Seeing my distant relative staring back at me was like traveling through time," said Luther in a statement. "Historical photos can tell us a lot about not only our own familial history, but also inform the historical record of the time more broadly than just reading about the event in a history book." The professor, who considers himself a history buff, was inspired to create the software when he visited the Heinz History Center's exhibit called "Pennsylvania's Civil War" in Pittsburgh in 2013.