MyHeritage
Encyclopedia
MyHeritage is a family-oriented social network service
and genealogy
website. It allows members to create their own family websites, share pictures and videos, organize family events, create family trees, and search for ancestors. With over 60 million users, MyHeritage is one of the largest sites in the social networking and genealogy field.
In 2003, CEO Gilad Japhet and a team of genealogy enthusiasts founded MyHeritage in Japhet's living room in the small town of Bnei Atarot
, just outside Tel Aviv
, Israel
.
Within seven years, the company had grown to its current size as a community of more than 60 million members with more than 861 million online profiles. There are more than 21 million family trees and 132 million photos on the site, and the site is accessible in 38 languages. This makes MyHeritage the second-largest genealogy company in the world.
In 2008, the company raised $15 million, when venture capital
firm Index Ventures
joined Accel, which had invested earlier in the company. In 2008, MyHeritage acquired Kindo, another family social network site that was popular in Europe.
In February 2010 MyHeritage acquired the Germany Online Social Networking GmbH (OSN) who has genealogy web sites in ten different languages, which are represented in over 15 countries. Among others verwandt.de in Germany, moikrewni.pl in Poland dynastree.com in the US.
OSN started in June 2007 with the project verwandt.de and was able to grow within two years to over 10 million trees with over 100 million profiles.
With this new acquisition, MyHeritage grew in size and added a number of new features.
In June 2011 MyHeritage also acquired the Polish Family Network, Bliscy.pl, from Polish Internet publishing company Wirtualna Polska.
In November 2011 MyHeritage acquired U.S based FamilyLink.com, a subscription service that provides access to a large database of historical content including census, birth, marriage and death records, as well as a sizeable archive of historical newspapers.
Users can choose up to five spelling variations to search at once using either Soundex
or Megadex methods. Megadex is unique to MyHeritage and allows users to select a subset of the most common spelling and sound variations in names, and search with that selected subset. Even if databases do not support Soundex, all queried databases support Megadex, which makes it more reliable and effective. Researchers can also store and annotate their results.
The company publishes two blogs. One focuses on the online community, families and family-interest topics, and new product developments. The other focuses on genealogy, new developments in the field and the best resources, methods, and tools for researching family history.
to create family tree
s. The free download version is distributed as freeware
, with no restrictions, no registration is required to download the software. Users may pay a fee to "unlock" the additional features in the Premium version. The free download version may thus be considered a kind of registerware and crippleware
. Users may add birth, death, and marriage dates; notes about where their ancestors lived, their profession, hobbies and interests; and picture of ancestors. The program can also create charts that show how two people are related. Users can build their family tree either offline or on a secure online site, and offline trees can be published to a family site.
FTB has a Smart Matching feature, which searches the MyHeritage database looking for family tree profiles that match. The program checks the name, birth date, and parents of the entries in the database, and when it finds similar tree profiles, tells the user who created each tree, who may then confirm the match or not. This allows people to share their family trees and genealogy research with the entire MyHeritage community. Genealogists can find other family historians who have common ancestors, and fill in holes in their family tree that other people have completed. Other aspects of FTB include automatic face detection technology, a maps module based on integration with Google Maps, and Smart Research - a technology to research the family tree's individuals in key genealogy databases.
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
and genealogy
Genealogy
Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
website. It allows members to create their own family websites, share pictures and videos, organize family events, create family trees, and search for ancestors. With over 60 million users, MyHeritage is one of the largest sites in the social networking and genealogy field.
In 2003, CEO Gilad Japhet and a team of genealogy enthusiasts founded MyHeritage in Japhet's living room in the small town of Bnei Atarot
Bnei Atarot
Bnei Atarot is a moshav in central Israel. Located near Yehud, around 15 kilometres east of Tel Aviv, it is situated in fertile plain at the eastern rim of Tel Aviv metropolitan area next to Ben Gurion Airport and falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi'in Regional Council...
, just outside Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
Within seven years, the company had grown to its current size as a community of more than 60 million members with more than 861 million online profiles. There are more than 21 million family trees and 132 million photos on the site, and the site is accessible in 38 languages. This makes MyHeritage the second-largest genealogy company in the world.
In 2008, the company raised $15 million, when venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
firm Index Ventures
Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a venture capital investment firm based in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices in London, Jersey, and starting in 2011, Silcon Valley. The firm was founded in 1996 by Neil Rimer and Giuseppe Zocco. Since its inception, the firm has raised four main venture funds and a growth...
joined Accel, which had invested earlier in the company. In 2008, MyHeritage acquired Kindo, another family social network site that was popular in Europe.
In February 2010 MyHeritage acquired the Germany Online Social Networking GmbH (OSN) who has genealogy web sites in ten different languages, which are represented in over 15 countries. Among others verwandt.de in Germany, moikrewni.pl in Poland dynastree.com in the US.
OSN started in June 2007 with the project verwandt.de and was able to grow within two years to over 10 million trees with over 100 million profiles.
With this new acquisition, MyHeritage grew in size and added a number of new features.
In June 2011 MyHeritage also acquired the Polish Family Network, Bliscy.pl, from Polish Internet publishing company Wirtualna Polska.
In November 2011 MyHeritage acquired U.S based FamilyLink.com, a subscription service that provides access to a large database of historical content including census, birth, marriage and death records, as well as a sizeable archive of historical newspapers.
Family pages
The MyHeritage product line focuses on services for families, family historians, and genealogists. Its primary service is the family pages, which are online profiles for entire families. Members can use their family pages to invite other family members, share photos and videos, schedule birthday parties and events, and stay in touch with their family.Photo tagging
MyHeritage is able to automatically tag the faces of people in photos that members upload onto their family pages. If the person in the photo is in the family tree, then the software can also identify them automatically.Celebrity look-alikes
MyHeritage offers facial recognition technology that allows users to upload a picture of themselves and find out who they look like. Users can compare their faces to celebrities and also find out whether a child looks more like their mother or father. The software is able to detect human faces automatically, without the need for the user to tag their face in the photo.Research
MyHeritage genealogy research allows users to search for their ancestors online. The company uses a metasearch engine, which searches its own database and queries 1,526 other databases.Users can choose up to five spelling variations to search at once using either Soundex
Soundex
Soundex is a phonetic algorithm for indexing names by sound, as pronounced in English. The goal is for homophones to be encoded to the same representation so that they can be matched despite minor differences in spelling. The algorithm mainly encodes consonants; a vowel will not be encoded unless...
or Megadex methods. Megadex is unique to MyHeritage and allows users to select a subset of the most common spelling and sound variations in names, and search with that selected subset. Even if databases do not support Soundex, all queried databases support Megadex, which makes it more reliable and effective. Researchers can also store and annotate their results.
The company publishes two blogs. One focuses on the online community, families and family-interest topics, and new product developments. The other focuses on genealogy, new developments in the field and the best resources, methods, and tools for researching family history.
Timeline and Timebook
MyHeritage allows users to automatically generate timelines and timebooks from their family data. Timelines show an interactive story of the family, displaying births, marriages, deaths, as well as photographs and videos that are stored on the site. Timebooks show the life and story of individuals in the tree through pictures and information.Family Tree Builder
Family Tree Builder (FTB) is genealogy softwareGenealogy software
Genealogy software is computer software used to record, organize, and publish genealogical data. At a minimum, genealogy software collects the date and place of an individual's birth, marriage, and death, and stores the relationships of individuals to their parents, spouses, and children...
to create family tree
Family tree
A family tree, or pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. The more detailed family trees used in medicine, genealogy, and social work are known as genograms.-Family tree representations:...
s. The free download version is distributed as freeware
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
, with no restrictions, no registration is required to download the software. Users may pay a fee to "unlock" the additional features in the Premium version. The free download version may thus be considered a kind of registerware and crippleware
Crippleware
In economics, a damaged good is a good that has been deliberately limited in performance, quality or utility, typically for marketing reasons as part of a strategy of product differentiation.-Computer software:Deliberately limited programs are usually freeware versions of computer programs that...
. Users may add birth, death, and marriage dates; notes about where their ancestors lived, their profession, hobbies and interests; and picture of ancestors. The program can also create charts that show how two people are related. Users can build their family tree either offline or on a secure online site, and offline trees can be published to a family site.
FTB has a Smart Matching feature, which searches the MyHeritage database looking for family tree profiles that match. The program checks the name, birth date, and parents of the entries in the database, and when it finds similar tree profiles, tells the user who created each tree, who may then confirm the match or not. This allows people to share their family trees and genealogy research with the entire MyHeritage community. Genealogists can find other family historians who have common ancestors, and fill in holes in their family tree that other people have completed. Other aspects of FTB include automatic face detection technology, a maps module based on integration with Google Maps, and Smart Research - a technology to research the family tree's individuals in key genealogy databases.