FamilySearch 2024 Year in Review

 FamilySearch.org

I realize we are getting well into 2025, but I am always fascinated by what happened in the past year. FamilySearch.org had a banner year and from my standpoint, more than I can quickly learn about is coming in 2025. I do, however, have a few comments about the numbers for 2024. 

All this comes from an email sent to me on December 30, 2024. Here is the opening quote:

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—Join FamilySearch, the world’s largest nonprofit genealogy organization, in looking back at 2024 to recap some of its most notable highlights. FamilySearch celebrated its 130th anniversary as an organization in 2024, and the 25th anniversary of its popular website, FamilySearch.org. Millions of visitors made fun new ancestor discoveries during the year thanks to advancements in FamilySearch’s artificial intelligence, new historical records collections, and RootsTech by FamilySearch, which continued its global reach in helping individuals make new family connections.

FamilySearch enjoyed more than 285 million visits from across the planet in 2024. Patrons frequented FamilySearch’s growing record collections, interactive discovery experiences like Surnames and Ancestors, and helpful articles on the FamilySearch Wiki and Blog.

I am sure you are wondering how FamilySearch can claim to be 130 years old. The answer is very simple. FamilySearch is a trade name for The Genealogical Society of Utah. I have no doubt that the number of visits is accurate since I usually login to the FamilySearch.org website several times a day. 

The next section talks about the number of records using the measurement of searchable names. 

This is an interesting claim. FamilySearch currently has at least 5 different places on their website where you can search for names. The spectrum is from name searches, catalog searches, and page by page searches on digital images. If I have time, I will comment on this situation in the near future. The number of 20.5+ searchable names and images is probably a low estimate. 

The next subject is the FamilySearch Family Tree. 

The number of people in the FamilySearch Family Tree has to be adjusted for duplicates and some of us are painfully aware that there are still a huge number of duplicate names in the Family Tree. I also wonder is the number of sources is unique sources or simply a total of all the sources attached to all the people that would include multiple copies of the same source. 

Here is another quote. 

The world’s largest online family tree grew by more than 150 million people in 2024, totaling 1.67 billion searchable people. Contributors also added 530 million sources to their ancestors in the tree—which helps increase accuracy and collaboration. In addition, three new user features were added to the FamilySearch Family Tree:

Merge Analysis Feature simplifies the ability to review and correct merges, and you can better understand the “before and after” of each merge.

Portrait Pedigree View Update allows you to view siblings, a single-family line, and multiple family lines at the same time; add relatives quickly without leaving the page; and distinguish living individuals more easily.

3 Star Record Hints introduce a broader range of record considerations for experienced researchers to explore.

 There is a lot more to talk about but I will leave the rest for other posts on other days. 

RootsTech 2025 Full Class Schedule Now Avaliable

 https://cms-b.familysearch.org/cms/preview/share-view?previewId=00000194-42e5-dcd0-a5dd-cff591a10000

Here is the official announcement:

RootsTech, the world’s largest family history celebration, is thrilled to announce the full class schedule for the 2025 event is now live. Both online and in-person participants can use the RootsTech 2025 scheduling tool to explore the classes and keynote addresses slated for March 6–8, 2025, and create their personal watchlist for the perfect RootsTech experience. Those attending the in person experience at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah, will want to use the RootsTech mobile app, and online participants can create their watch list at RootsTech.org.

We have had hotel reservations for months. Our involvement with RootsTech 2025 extends to The Family History Guide booth and the MyHeritage.com booth. I have one in person/online webinar to present. You can see the schedule here for my presentation: https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/session/opening-the-door-to-latin-american-genealogical-research-with-full-text-searches I understand that I will be presenting both online and in person. But the in person part will be at a webinar presentation location. My presentation will be broadcast with Spanish language subtitles. A webinar I did for RootsTech 2024 last year "Help for the Absolute Genealogy Beginner" currently has over 11,000 views on YouTube. See https://www.youtube.com/live/bw28BSGqCyY?si=5MpJZHC_5dKXdedQ From my standpoint, doing webinars and not being overly concerned with the initial number of live views make sense in getting the information out to the greater genealogical community. 

Hope to see you at RootsTech 2025. 

Ancestry.com now has the 1921 England Census

 Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com. 1921 England Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2025. Original data: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1921. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA) Series RG15, 1921.

There is always a celebration when a new national census appears online. From talking to friends in England, it may have appeared online there on January 2, 2025 or a day or two later. I was expecting an announcement from Ancestry.com which either didn't come or I missed in my daily pile of emails. This census is helpful although the 1939 England and Wales Register is available on FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, and Findmypast.com. But, having the 1921 Census with help with some issues. 

MyHeritage - Year in Review 2024

 

https://blog.myheritage.com/2025/01/wrapping-up-2024-myheritage-year-in-review/

Quoting from the blog post:

In 2024, MyHeritage was true to its mission of inspiring people worldwide to discover more about who they are and where they belong by enabling them to experience the enriching journey of family history discovery, and to treasure and celebrate their heritage. We were honored to play an important role in helping individuals make life-changing discoveries and connect with their history in meaningful ways. Our users inspired us daily with incredible discoveries, from emotional reunions with long-lost loved ones to uncovering rich details about their families’ pasts. Their stories remind us that genealogy is not just about preserving the past — it’s about creating a deeper sense of belonging in the present and leaving a meaningful legacy for the future.

The year also celebrated MyHeritage's 20th year. Here is a very interesting video about that milestone. 

 https://youtu.be/Z_c7OLo8jFE?si=laWFY5wY8D0gflBx

One of the major accomplishments was the introduction of the OldNews.com website. 

https://youtu.be/StUOcj-tWHo?si=LxpcRS9uTyU2gNUq

The blog post has much more to offer and gives a better idea of what has happened during the past year. 

See https://blog.myheritage.com/2025/01/wrapping-up-2024-myheritage-year-in-review/

Preview RootsTech 2025 today

 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/schedule

You can already review classes scheduled for in person and online from RootsTech 2025. At the time of this post, there were 220 classes listed including the 108 live classes. The live classes will only be available at RootsTech in the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City during the conference. I will be presenting at RootsTech at the MyHeritage booth. The schedule will be posted at the booth all three days. If you keep clicking on the Browse the Library link under the Watch Videos selection on the menu bar, you will see an option to Search the full library. 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/library

You will see that there are, at the time of this post, that there are 4223 results in the full catalog. 

I am quite certain that there is not a large genealogical video collection in the world. Happy Searching!

MyHeritage introduces LiveMemory™ Get ready to be astonished

, 

LiveMemory™

 LiveMemory™ is a smartphone app that works with the main MyHeritage.com app. The animations are incredible. Here is the explanation from an email. 

LiveMemory™ uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to convert any still photo to a 5-second video, animating the scene in the photo. The AI was trained on a large number of photos and videos in order to create highly realistic results. LiveMemory™ is available exclusively on the MyHeritage mobile app for iOS or Android. To access LiveMemory™, tap the banner on the app’s home screen or use the app menu . Then, simply upload a cherished photo and LiveMemory™ will bring the whole scene to life, enabling you to travel back in time and reimagine the scene.

When you select a photo to add to a LiveMemory™, the live memories are processed and emailed to you as an MP4 movie. Here is an example from one of the photos on my own MyHeritage photo gallery. 

Reminder at this point. This was a photo taken in 1919. You might want to spend some time exploring how this works. Obviously, it only works with photos uploaded to the MyHeritage.com app and you will need a MyHeritage account. Here is another of my own photos for an additional example. 

Major Breakthrough: 3.4 Billion Records Extracted From Historical Newspapers Were Added to MyHeritage

 

https://www.oldnews.com/en and myheritage.com

Artificial intelligence is beginning to have a huge impact on the way genealogists do research into the large online genealogy database/family tree websites. A recent email from MyHeritage.com explains how using AI they were able to index/extract 3.4 billion records from 200 million English newspaper pages. I did a preliminary search for my great-grandfather, Henry Martin Tanner, in the OldNews.com website and had these results.

All these articles and many more are about my great-grandfather. I am sure that additional searches will show a significant increase in other relatives also. Now on to MyHeritage.com's announcement. Here are some quotes from the email. 

We’re happy to announce the publication of four huge new collections of names and stories on MyHeritage, extracted from newspaper pages on OldNews.com. The collections contain 658 million records from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi; 998 million records from Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Nebraska; 1 billion records from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania; and 651 million records from North Carolina, South Carolina, and District of Columbia.

The new collections are searchable on MyHeritage, with the full images of the newspaper pages available on OldNews.com via direct links from MyHeritage. 

As part of this update, we’re also thrilled to share that OldNews.com now hosts more than 300 million newspaper pages!

Search the new collections now:

Search Names & Stories in Newspapers from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi

Search Names & Stories in Newspapers from Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Nebraska

Search Names & Stories in Newspapers from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania

Search Names & Stories in Newspapers from North Carolina, South Carolina, and District of Columbia

Now I don't normally go into such detail with these announcements, but I wanted to explain that the structured records in the new collections were extracted from nearly 200 million English newspaper pages using cutting-edge AI technology developed by the MyHeritage team.

The new collections allow MyHeritage users to uncover rich information about their ancestors that was previously out of reach. This is because they are indexed and structured, so they can be searched using imprecise names, nicknames and synonyms; whereas searching in newspapers that are not indexed is typically done using keywords and requires the user to write the name exactly as it appears in the newspaper. 

This AI is designed to extract not just names from the newspaper articles but also the relatives of every person mentioned, as well as additional fields such as occupations, residences, travel from one location to another, and more.

Last but not least, every record includes a useful summary of the article, generated automatically by AI.

We are going to see even more announcements like this one in the very near future.