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Monday, October 14, 2013

MyHeritage.com and FamilySearch.org enter into record sharing agreement


In an announcement dated 14 October 2013, MyHeritage.com indicated that they have "entered into a strategic partnership with FamilySearch which will add billions of historical records to MyHeritage."

Considering the statements made earlier by FamilySearch which I wrote about recently, this is not much of a surprise. I expect to hear additional announcements about sharing data files in the future with other online database companies.

In order to avoid mis-stating anything about the agreement, here is the substance of the Press Release:
TEL AVIV, Israel & SALT LAKE CITY, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MyHeritage, the popular online family history network, and FamilySearch.organnounced today the signing and commencement of a strategic partnership that forges a new path for the family history industry. Under this multi-year partnership, MyHeritage will provide FamilySearch with access to its powerful technologies and FamilySearch will share billions of global historical records and family tree profiles spanning hundreds of years with MyHeritage. This will help millions of MyHeritage and FamilySearch users discover even more about their family history. 
FamilySearch will provide MyHeritage with more than 2 billion records from its global historic record collections and its online Family Tree. These records will be added to SuperSearch, MyHeritage’s search engine for historical records, and will be matched with family trees on MyHeritage using its matching technologies. MyHeritage users will gain access to an unprecedented boost of historical records and family tree profiles, which are key to researching and reconstructing their family histories. This reinforces MyHeritage's position as an international market leader, with gigantic assets of family trees and records, which are the most globally diverse in the industry. 
FamilySearch members will benefit from MyHeritage's unique technologies which automate family history discoveries. Smart Matching™ automatically finds connections between user-contributed family trees and Record Matching automatically locates historical records relevant to any person in the family tree. By receiving accurate matches between FamilySearch’s Family Tree profiles and historical record collections, such as birth, death, census, and immigration documents, FamilySearch members will be able to more effectively grow their family trees in size and in depth and add conclusions supported by historical records. 
“For more than a hundred years, FamilySearch has been dedicated to working with the world’s archives to preserve their records for future generations” said Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage. “Their massive undertaking has made family history more accessible to everyone. This partnership highlights MyHeritage’s technology leadership and our firm commitment to adding historical records on a massive global scale, accelerating our vision of helping families everywhere explore and share their legacy online. We look forward to a fruitful future working hand in hand with our friends at FamilySearch.” 
“FamilySearch values collaborative partnerships that enable more people, in more places, to discover their family history” said Dennis Brimhall, CEO of FamilySearch. “MyHeritage is an innovative company that has a fast growing, global online audience. We are excited to commence this partnership which enables FamilySearch to better serve the global family history community.”
I think this is a wonderful opportunity for both companies and for all their users. I am really looking forward to this happening.

1 comment:

  1. Many have posted about this and of course there are some crying out because Family Search Family Tree will (somehow - we don't know how yet) show up at My Heritage ...
    I'd like to comment here on your blog, James, because you have written well balanced blog posts on this matter before: So what if you get search results from "other online trees"? It is no disaster, just ignore it, if you don't like it.
    It all comes down to your own responsibilities of handling your own research. Well-sourced "wiki" family trees are the future. Even if it means we all have to get over ourselves a little ...
    Overall this is a win-win! The technology is great and will help familysearch users. My Heritage users will have access to familysearch.org search results, which is super practical.

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