DIPPING INTO THE MYHERITAGE DNA POOL

Last week the MyHeritage website had a free  offer involving DNA test results. You could upload your results from another DNA site to MyHeritage to see what their analysis might discover. So I took advantage of it. I had already downloaded my Ancestry test raw data some time ago, and it only took about a half hour to upload it now to MyHeritage. They said it would take about 5 days before the results would be available.

It only took 4.

When I went to the website to view the results, I had a surprise. My MyHeritage Ethnicity Estimate differed a bit from that of Ancestry.

Here's my latest Ancestry estimate from a few weeks ago:

And here's the MyHeritage estimate:

The big difference is the increase in the Iberian percentage, the downsizing of the English and Celtic ethnicities, and the disappearance of Germanic Europe. My Mom's paternal ancestors were German. But these are, after all, estimates, and things may change with the next estimate from MyHeritage.

As for the MyHeritage DNA page, it is not as user friendly as Ancestry's and I find the colors used for headings and categories too light and difficult to read. However, I like how the names of shared names on family trres are right there under the names of the shared matches.

I'll have more to say about all this after I've explored the results and website further.

MYHERITAGE RECORD WEEK: SEARCH 1 BILLION CENSUS RECORDS FOR FREE

Yesterday I received an email  from Daniel Horowitz  of MyHeritage with some great news:

In celebration of our recent milestone — surpassing 8 billion historical records on SuperSearch — we’re happy to announce that we’re making all of our major census collections from the U.S., U.K. and Ireland, Canada, and Nordic countries free for everybody, for one week! 

Starting on Monday, August 14, until August 20, no Data subscription will be required to access these documents, and you can search through this treasure trove of census records for free. That’s 94 collections, containing over 1 billion census records! Some of the census records are found exclusively on MyHeritage. This is available to users of MyHeritage as well as people who have never used MyHeritage before.

With our earliest census records dating as far back as 1657, and the latest ones extending until 1940, these records are an excellent way to learn more about the lives of your ancestors and to add details to your family tree

I expect many genealogists will be taking advantage of the free access  to the census collections over the next week!

MYHERITAGE ACQUIRES FAMILY TREE SOFTWARE & WEBINARS

Big news in the genealogy world! I received the following press release yesterday from Daniel Horowitz of MyHeritage:

MyHeritage Acquires the Legacy Family Tree Software and Webinar Platform

TEL AVIV, Israel & SURPRISE, Arizona, August 3, 2017 — MyHeritage, the leading global destination for family history and DNA testing, announced today its acquisition of Millennia Corporation, makers of the popular genealogy desktop software Legacy Family Tree and genealogy webinar platform, Legacy Family Tree Webinars. This is MyHeritage's ninth acquisition to date.


With hundreds of thousands of devoted users since 1997, Legacy Family Tree consistently ranks among the top three most popular and highly rated genealogy software products in the industry. The Legacy Family Tree Webinar platform — which has amassed a large and dedicated fan base since 2010 — draws speakers who are leaders in their field and covers a wide variety of topics, including genealogical research methodology, DNA, and historical records, representing a full array of educational genealogy content.


MyHeritage, which has developed a world-class, global mobile and Web platform for family trees, historical records and DNA testing, used by more than 90 million users worldwide, will now offer its services to Legacy's users.


Legacy Family Tree will retain its full staff and continue developing its software and webinar platform, backed by MyHeritage's resources. Millennia Corporation and MyHeritage have started joint work on a new version of the Legacy Family Tree software — version 10 — which will include the optional capability to sync family trees to MyHeritage’s website and use the free MyHeritage mobile app to make remote updates to their family trees on the Legacy software. Legacy Family Tree version 9 has already integrated matching to MyHeritage's 40 million family trees and to its historical records collection — which surpassed 8 billion records this week.


Legacy Family Tree Webinars will continue to feature diverse and informative content, and will be promoted to the millions of MyHeritage users, to increase the webinars' audience. The webinar platform will also enjoy infrastructure upgrades to support increased concurrent viewership.


“We are very happy with the Legacy Family Tree acquisition as it gives us valuable assets that are highly complementary to our own, and a solid team.” said Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage. “We look forward to providing Legacy's software and webinar platform with useful upgrades, and to welcoming Legacy’s huge user base of experienced genealogists to enhance their genealogical explorations through MyHeritage's services.”


“The more I’ve learned about and experimented with MyHeritage, the more I have felt we need to partner together,” said Geoff Rasmussen, founder of Legacy Family Tree Webinars. “The technology behind their online trees and historical records is incredible — second to none. MyHeritage has positioned itself to become the leader of the future of the genealogy industry and we can be a part of it. It’s the perfect match: our software and webinars combined with their resources, technologies, and international reach will help both of us accomplish our mission — to help the world find their ancestors.”

“I’m excited for us to join forces with MyHeritage,” said Dave Berdan, President of Millennia Corporation. “MyHeritage clearly cares for genealogists and continues to invest in desktop genealogy software, in contrast to one of its major rivals that has done the opposite, shutting down its desktop genealogy software and then selling it off. As we’re passionate about genealogy, our team is happy to have found in MyHeritage kindred spirits and we’re excited about the value that we can create together to benefit millions of genealogists worldwide.”



For more information about this announcement and for answers to frequently asked questions, visit:

http://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2017/08/legacy-family-tree-has-a-new-home-with-myheritage.html

MYHERITAGE ANNOUNCES THE CONSISTENCY CHECKER TOOL

Saturday morning I received an email from Daniel Horowitz about the new MyHeritage.com Consistency Checker tool with the following information:


I'm delighted to announce the launch of the new Consistency Checker for online family trees at MyHeritage. This new tool scans your family tree and identifies potential mistakes and inconsistencies in your data so that you can quickly make the necessary changes in your tree, improving its overall quality and accuracy.

At MyHeritage, we hold accuracy in high regard and the Consistency Checker is an important tool for family historians of any skill level. We hope it will improve the quality of collaborative genealogy as a whole.

The announcement at the MyHeritage blog begins:

We’re excited to introduce the new Consistency Checker for online family trees at MyHeritage. This new tool scans your family tree and identifies mistakes and inconsistencies in your data so that you could make the necessary changes in your tree, improving its overall quality and accuracy.



The Consistency Checker employs 36 different checks on the family tree data, ranging from the obvious (e.g., a person was born before their parent, or when the parent was too young to be a parent) to the subtle and hard to find (e.g., a person was tagged in a photo and the photo is dated before the person’s birth; or two full siblings were born 5 months apart, which is impossible). Some of the issues it finds are factual mistakes (e.g. wrong birth date entered), some are bad practices (e.g. birth year entered as 22 instead of 1922, or prefix entered as part of the first name instead of in the prefix field), some are warnings about possible data entry errors (e.g. a woman’s married surname was apparently entered as her maiden surname, or a place was entered that looks suspiciously like a date) and some are inconsistencies you may want to fix, such as references to the same place name with two different spellings. Any issue you feel is fine and should intentionally not be addressed can easily be marked to be ignored and will not be reported again.

A similar Consistency Checker tool has long been available in our Family Tree Builder software and has been very much appreciated by the many users who have taken advantage of it. We are now providing it for the 37.1 million family trees managed by our users on the MyHeritage website. Genealogists who care about the accuracy of their information, as all genealogists should be, will be delighted with the opportunity to catch mistakes in their data and fix them. Take the challenge and run the Consistency Checker on your tree! Will your tree come out clean, with flying colors, or is it in need of serious cleanup? Most of the issues are easy to fix and we are sure that you will enjoy the process.

Check out the blog at https://blog.myheritage.com/2017/02/new-online-family-tree-consistency-checker/ for more information and a demonstration of how it works.

MYHERITAGE ANNOUNCES NEW PHOTO DISCOVERIES FEATURE

This morning I received the following press release from MyHeritage:



MyHeritage Launches Photo Discoveries™

Exclusive feature delights users with photographs of their ancestors and relatives, added to their family tree in one click

TEL AVIV, Israel & LEHI, Utah, February 10, 2017 – MyHeritage, the leading international family history and DNA company, announced today the launch of Photo Discoveries, an innovative feature which transforms family trees by automatically adding matching historical photos. A Photo Discovery provides users with a set of photographs of ancestors and relatives they may have never seen before, originating in family trees contributed by others. Users can add the photographs to the matching profiles in their family tree, in a single click.  

Layered on top of MyHeritage's highly accurate Smart Matching™ technology, which locates matching profiles in other family trees, and Instant Discoveries™, which enable users to add entire branches to their family tree in just a few clicks, Photo Discoveries identifies the profiles that have no photographs in the user's family tree and provides photographs of these individuals from matching profiles on other family trees.

Users can add up to ten photographs per Photo Discovery, reject specific ones they do not wish to receive, and apply Photo Discoveries as many times as they would like. The photographs are then copied over to the associated profiles, preserving all useful metadata such as people tags, dates and place names.

“At MyHeritage we’re constantly brainstorming innovative new ways to make our industry-leading matching technologies even better,” said MyHeritage Founder and CEO Gilad Japhet. “Receiving a never-seen-before photograph of an ancestor is a delightful emotional experience, and one that we would like our users to enjoy as often as possible. Photo Discoveries deliver this and fulfill the promise of collaborative genealogy in a slick and gratifying one-click experience."

Viewing Photo Discoveries in thumbnail form is free. Applying Photo Discoveries to one's family tree requires a PremiumPlus or Complete subscription on MyHeritage.

STILL MORE BIG NEWS FROM ROOTSTECH!

There are two more announcements from Rootstech today:

First, Findmypast followed up the news of their new U.S. Marriages collection with more that
will interest those if us with Irish ancestry. Here's part of the press release:

Leading family history site, Findmypast, announced today at Rootstech that it will launch 10 million Irish Catholic Parish Registers, one of the most important Irish record collections, in March 2016.
 
Covering over 200 years from 1671-1900 and over 1,000 parishes, Findmypast has worked to transcribe the National Library of Ireland’s online image collection of 3,500 baptism and marriage registers. This is the first time that the collection has been indexed with the images linked online, making the search much easier and the records more accessible. As a result, family historians will now be able to make all important links between generations with the baptism records and between families with the marriage registers.  These essential records cover the entire island of Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

Then about an hour ago I received this email from Daniel Horowitz of MyHeritage.com:

We're delighted to let you know that we've just released a new version of Family Tree Builder, version 8.0! 

The new version has all of the well-known and loved features of previous versions, including sync, Record Matches, Smart Matching™, charts and more, with a totally rewritten internal infrastructure that adds support for very large family trees (up to 500,000 individuals), and delivers faster performance.

In addition to being much quicker and more responsive, version 8.0 delivers improved data integrity. It's downloadable for free for Windows, with a Mac Extension for Mac users to follow next month.
Our Family Tree Builder team will continue to enhance Family Tree Builder and evolve it in the future, adding new features and making improvements, based on the new infrastructure introduced in version 8.0. We will continue to provide users who like the power and convenience of desktop software with the ideal tool for growing their family tree and advancing their family history research, while the sync allows them to also benefit from having their data online and accessible in a mobile app.

With all these records and product releases. Rootstech feels like Genealogy Christmas!

"WEST IN NEW ENGLAND" IS ONE OF MYHERITAGE'S TOP 100 WEBSITES!

I've been selected by a judging panel at MyHeritage.com as one of the
Top 100 Genealogy websites and blogs for 2010! The criteria used in
the judging were these:

" 1) high quality content; 2) originality in topic choice, approach 
and design; and 3)frequently updated content."

I'm honored to have been included in such illustrious company and I'd
like to thank Robert Barham and the rest of the folks at MyHeritage.com
for the award. It's been an interesting year so far for me but things like
this make it easier. And thanks to my readers who keep reading and
commenting on my posts. It's much appreciated!

Finally, thank you to my ancestors for supplying me with stories and
material that inspire me to keep blogging, and without whom I wouldn't
exist!

Congratulations to all the honorees!