Inside MyHeritage.com

https://www.myheritage.com/about-myheritage/

What do you get when you combine a powerful social networking program with over 100 million users and an advanced technology database program and an aggressively accurate DNA testing program with over 9.5 billion records? You get MyHeritage.com. The company began in 2003 with the iconic "garage" (actually a living room) startup paradigm. Now after more than 16 years, the company has spread to 196 countries across the globe. The company's headquarters are in Or Yehuda, Israel with additional offices in Tel Aviv, Israel, Orem, Utah, Kyiv, Ukraine, and Burbank, California.

Back in 2016, the MyHeritage blog featured an article entitled, "A Sneak Peek Inside the MyHeritage HQ."  This article provides an idea of the atmosphere which engenders this rapidly growing genealogical website.

 Some of the important technologies developed by the company are outlined in the following list:

• Smart Matching™ -- Finds matching profiles in family trees, enabling users to discover new ancestors and relatives, and connect with other users
• Record Matching -- Automatic matches between people and historical records
• Instant Discoveries™-- Unique technology that allows adding a whole new branch to the family tree in one click
• SuperSearch™-- A Search Engine for exploring billions of historical records
• Record Detective™ -- Automatically extends the paper trail from a single historical record to other related records and family tree connections
• Global Name Translation™ -- Translates names found in historical records and family trees from one language into another, to facilitate matches between names in different languages
• Search Connect™ -- Enables users to easily find others who are looking for the same ancestors or relatives, and get in touch with them

Most recently, MyHeritage.com has expanded by beginning a series of international conferences held in different locations. The first conference was held in Oslo, Norway in 2018. The next conference will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in 2019.

https://live2019.myheritage.com/

MyHeritage.com also has a free powerful desktop genealogy program called Family Tree Builder.

https://www.myheritage.com/family-tree-builder

My fascination with MyHeritage.com began as a result of the fact that I realized that they were the driving force behind genealogical technological innovation. Genealogy is a highly conservative pursuit. Little about genealogical research has changed in the last 100 years. The typical view of a genealogist is still an older person sitting in an archive or a library. MyHeritage.com's focus on innovative technology has been the impetus for changing the way millions of people around the world view researching their ancestors. Because of my interest in the program and my interest in technology, I began investigating the company early in its development. In an almost unbelievable chain of events by writing about MyHeritage developed into a friendship relationship with the company.

Perhaps there are other individuals and companies out there in the greater genealogical community that are as interested in pushing ahead with technological development in genealogy but none of them have accomplished what has been accomplished by MyHeritage.com.

Development and acceptance of the program in the United States has been slow primarily because MyHeritage has not participated in saturation advertising. But with over 100 million users it is hardly necessary for the program to advertise in the media. Word-of-mouth is sufficient.

One example will suffice in this present post. I received a request for help from one of my friends about her Swedish ancestry. The question was quite involved and on its face, would appear to take a lot of time and some serious research. However, in reading through the narrative provided by my friend, I realized that she should make sure her information was in MyHeritage.com family tree. The reason for this conclusion was the huge number of fully indexed records on MyHeritage.com from Sweden. Further, the Record Match technology would very likely provide her with a basis for resolving her questions. In any event, the additional information she would receive from MyHeritage.com would likely make the entire task much easier.