On the road again!

The MyHeritage team will be on the road again as we head to two great events.

Who Do You Think You Are LIVE! London February 24–26

MyHeritage staff will join an estimated 17,000 family history enthusiasts for the Who Do You
Think You Are? family history show in London Read more about the WDYTYA MyHeritage trip
here.

St. George Family History Expo February 24-25

At the St. George Family History Expo, Mark Olsen will present two programs, and both will be
streamed live via Google Plus:

MyHeritage Online Family Tree
4.50pm, Friday, February 24, Sunbrook C Demo

Mark will demonstrate key features of the MyHeritage Online Tree and show its power
for connecting your family, past and present. The MyHeritage Tree offers many features
that young and old can use to stay connected while they also research and add to the
family tree. Mark will also show the integration of WorldVitalRecords content into the
MyHeritage Tree and how the powerful new feature will make it easier than ever to find
new sources and grow your tree. (more…)

RootsTech 2012: Day one highlights

MyHeritage’s experience at RootsTech has been a success, from setup to live hangouts and a very busy booth on the first day.

The team began setting up Wednesday afternoon. Our booth is a real standout with double arches of balloons in the MyHeritage logo colors. Everyone knows where our booth is located as the colorful balloons fly high above the exhibit floor.

Booth Setup

MyHeritage Super Search
Today, the opening day, our CEO/founder Gilad Japhet demonstrated the new MyHeritage Super Search technology. The new tool greatly expands search functionality and takes into account user errors, common name variations, and other important details which, in the past, have not been included in most ancestral searches. There are many options to filter results by collections, via additional refining, advanced search and filtering capabilities as demonstrated in his presentation. This tool is still under development.

FamilyGraph API
MyHeritage’s chief genealogist Daniel Horowitz presented the FamilyGraph API and its potential uses by developers and consumers (see video here). (more…)

I’ve read many good New Year’s goals touching on genealogy research, teaching, learning, sharing and more.

Certainly this is a great time to get going with family history and genealogy.

Before I become too involved in “genealogy speak,” I’d like to welcome all readers with an interest in genealogy, but simply don’t know where to start.  Welcome!

Jumping into genealogy can be overwhelming, particularly as you read blogs written by experts from around the world.  You may find that – as you start to explore the world of online genealogy – that you discover some rather intense sites providing specific genealogy niche topics. While those sites are exciting to find once you are ready to investigate them, the following goal may help prevent you from going in over your head. (more…)

Family Tree Builder Version 6.0

Today, MyHeritage.com - the parent company of WorldVitalRecords.com - released version 6.0 of its popular free family software, Family Tree Builder. There have been more than 28 million downloads of FTB.

WorldVitalRecords is excited to be included in this release as our data is now searchable from within the software. Users can search for matches in our database of more than 4 billion records.

CEO Gilad Japhet said about FTB6:  “Packed with exciting new features, Family Tree Builder adds color and depth to family history research for professionals and beginners alike. We’re proud to have developed the industry’s most comprehensive and feature-rich software, and, true to our mission of bringing family history to the masses, we’ll continue to keep it free for all to use.”

What’s New in Version 6.0?  (Highlights – read full details here)

• Automatic Historical Record Matches: Family Tree Builder 6.0 automatically searches for relevant historical records in World Vital Records – a huge database added to the MyHeritage family last month as part of its acquisition of FamilyLink.com. For more details click here.  With billions of birth, marriage, death and census records, plus newspapers, yearbooks and additional historical content – exciting discoveries are awaiting almost everyone.

(more…)

What a great day it is!

It’s never been easier to capture history in the making and preserve it for future generations.

I downloaded the just-released MyHeritage Mobile App (for iPad, iPhone and Android devices) to my smartphone. Within minutes, I was browsing my family tree data, as well as uploading and sharing photos.

I understood how awesome family history will be from now on.

When my family and relatives say – “Mark, you’re the genealogist. Where was Grandma born?” –  I’ll whip out my smartphone as if it were a six-shooter. I’ll tap the MyHeritage app, scroll over to Grandma and fill the family in on the rich details of a great woman’s life and legacy. (more…)

My old home - no longer standing

I just revisited my childhood home – even though it no longer exists.

As I walked Canyon Oaks Drive (Irving, Texas), I approached the cul-de-sac where I biked in summer, wished for snow in winter and raced for the finish line in my teens. (Don’t tell my parents, but we could hit 60 mph and more before we reached the corner. I wondered if the skid marks were still there.) (more…)

The Olsens

The perfect heartfelt gift – 20 minutes a day

My baby sister has been driving her siblings nuts this year as she prepares a special gift for our parents.

For the past few months, she’s been “encouraging” us to write down our childhood memories so she can add them to a photo book she’s creating. It’s a great idea – but also hard work. To me, it’s a time-consuming emotional process to go through your memories, put them down nicely on paper and share them with the world, or at least with the family.  But what better present could there be? You on paper for your children, parents and relatives.

I’d like nothing more than to have my siblings, parents, our only surviving grandparent and more of my extended family write their stories and share them. As I delve deeper into our family history I realize what great knowledge we hold in our minds. It all dies when a relative passes and has not recorded his or her memories, or caring relatives had not succeeded in prying out those memories. (more…)