Questions about MyHeritage.com

I received the following from a reader:

I'm pretty good with software, and I work with large databases (and sometimes matching them) for a living. But I'm still flummoxed.
1a. You wrote: "You are only really interested in the people you are actually researching. So, I suggest ignoring the rest unless you are actually researching the person in the match. " -- one of the trees that's a match says it matches over 135 folks in it. Are you suggesting I look over those 135 to see if it's somebody I'm researching?
1b. If a "confirm" a match to this other tree, what, exactly, have I done. Am I making a statement regarding all 135 folks? What if, e.g., I think that half of the other tree's data is good, and half isn't?
2. I long suspected that "Record" matches is where I'd get the bang for the buck. Today my record matches appeared. I found that I had "9 matches in Texas Births, 1926 - 1995" -- so I pulled that up and . . . . none of those nine folks are even _in_ my tree! All nine appear in somebody else's tree who, for some reason, I am allowed to access. How did that happen? OTOH, when I go to my own tree and lick on "Record Matches" -- I get: "There are currently no Record Matches in your family site. Please come back to check this page soon as we are continuing to search for you. " It's been 2+ weeks, for whatever that's worth.
Either the documentation is really sparse, or I can't find the "real" documentation to what's going on.
Might you readers be having similar problems?

As in some of the responses I have received in the past, this one raises a number of unrelated issues. Let me be clear, right from the start. I am not on the staff nor do I work for MyHeritage.com. I have written and spoken favorably about the product and for very good reasons. I do not find the operation of the program overly complicated or difficult. All I can say about the product comes from my personal experience. I find the program fabulously useful.

Now, to the questions raised. I would also point out that trying to answer questions such as these without the benefit of actually seeing what is going on with the database is difficult and may be impossible. I have worked through several similar issues with people at the Mesa FamilySearch Library and I have found in every single case that the difficulties originated with the GEDCOM file that had been uploaded to create the online tree. In most cases, after examining the file, I have recommended that they delete their file and re-load a new "clean" GEDCOM file. Each time, if they did this, the problems they attributed to the program disappeared or were solved (however you want to view them).

In the first place it seems this reader is complaining that the program is doing too good of a job. He is upset because he has 135 matches. AND? Like I said to him previously, if you aren't interested in examining the matches, ignore them. If you think that their might be some value, you have to decided whether or not you want to examine them. The program has done its job and left the decisions up to the user.

The next question has nothing to do with the first. The program says that 135 of the folks in the other tree match people in your tree. If you believe this, you can confirm the matches. If you don't, you have two choices, either ignore the suggested match or examine it and decide it it is valid. From my standpoint, I would simply spot check the match to see if the other tree had any listed sources, if not, I would ignore it, match or no match. Most of the time, a tree without sources is not worth my time.

I simply have not got enough data to even respond to the questions about the Record Matches. I defer to my earlier statements about solving similar problems by fixing the GEDCOM file data. This is something that cannot be done without looking at the file being uploaded.

The MyHeritage.com Support page has a Help Center, Forums and Video Tutorials. My reader doesn't indicate if he has tried any of these avenues of support. The Support Center link is at the bottom of the startup page.

Over the past year, since the previous RootsTech 2013 Conference, I have fielded a lot of these questions here locally. So far, all of the people who complained to me have the same continuing complaint, too many suggested sources to work through. This is not really a complaint. All it really says is that the program is doing what it is supposed to do. I repeat, I can only answer from my own experience.

Today's complaint from a patron at the Mesa FamilySearch Library about MyHeritage.com was interesting. Upon examining the person's complaint about the program not working, we found that she had not uploaded a GEDCOM file but only put in three names. She had no family tree for the program to work with. Excuse me, if I get just a little exasperated with some of the complaints. This is probably a good reason why I should never get a job in Customer Service.