A Granite Vault for the Digital Age: MyHeritage.com’s New Backup Service

21 Jul 20108 comments

Ever had a computer crash, a hardware failure, a virus in your email or deleted something by accident? We are pleased to announce the launch of our new backup service. It is designed to offer added protection for your family tree and photos and to give you a safe place from which to recover your information should you ever lose it.

You can find the service within the 'Family Tree' menu on your website, as seen below (click to enlarge).

Once you’ve signed up, all your tree data and photos will be backed up automatically once a month. The data is kept in a secure, password-protected server hosted by our partner Amazon.com.

Because it runs regular backups, the service provides a lifeline if you experience trouble with your data. Sometimes people accidentally delete data or mistakenly overwrite it with information that later transpires to be wrong. The backup service enables you to retrieve the different versions of your data you've saved over time. You can also be more relaxed about collaborating with other members within your site: if you have another, less experienced genealogist in the family, you needn’t worry so much about letting them have a go at adding information to the tree. If you later discover it to be incorrect, you have an older version backed-up on file that you can easily retrieve.

Retrieving backups is easy. Once you’re using the service, you simply need to click on one of your backups in the menu and then verify your identity with your password. Within a short space of time your backup will be ready to use. You’ll be notified via email whenever you have retrieved a backup successfully, and also whenever an automatic backup has been made.

Backup Retrieval Screen - Click to Enlarge

The service can run for as long as you’d like it to. If you want to stop using it at any time, your backups will last for a grace period of another 30 days, in case you have need of them again.

So why not give it a try? If you like the sound of the new backup service, it’s very cheap to use. The service is available for Basic and Premium members, and costs just $3.00, €2.50, or £2.00 per month, depending on your currency. We hope you enjoy this new feature!

Posted by Robert on July 21st, 2010 - 13:15

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Comments (8) Trackbacks (0) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

Donella
July 21st, 2010 - 13:30
sounds great! almost makes me wish I was using your software, instead of your online tree! ;D
Mario
July 21st, 2010 - 15:29
Hi Donella,
Glad you like it. The new backup actually works for both online trees as well as trees that you did publish through the Family Tree Builder software!
Best
Mario
Scott Phillips
July 22nd, 2010 - 01:29
Signed up right away. Nice service and since I often forget to do regular back ups this is a great failsafe.

Thanks!
Glorene Tabor Strickland
July 24th, 2010 - 05:04
I am Glorene Tabor Strickland and I cannot get into my Tabor Strickland website. I am getting very upset about this. I pay for this website and I need to us it. Please see what you can do. It has over 1400 people in it. I think this is really bad. Please help. Glorene Tabor Strickland
online website design
July 24th, 2010 - 11:00
Signed up right away. Nice service and since I often forget to do regular back ups this is a great failsafe.
Nacelle Franz- Winrich
July 25th, 2010 - 20:05
I am also having trouble with my site. I am unable to log in and when I ask for help there is an Oops something must be wrong please try again. I have tried again for two months now. I am glad I have not paid for anything yet. Please fix your help feature to I can have help logging in to my account.
Sharon Horswill
July 26th, 2010 - 02:12
I'm afraid I don't think much of this idea of you charging me to back up the family tree if YOU lose it! I pay to have it on the My Heritage system and I expect it to be kept safely on your server. If it ever went wrong I wouldn't be puttin...g it on there again. My back up is ....Ancestry ;-)

There is also a problem with the back up system being offered. The back up files will be gedcom, right? First of all, I can download the gedcom files free so why would I pay for that? Secondly, if you load a gedcom file onto a My Heritage site it will let you see it but not edit it. So I would have to start again anyway!
Robert
July 27th, 2010 - 17:04
Those of you with support inquiries, I have forwarded your problems onto the support team who should be in touch asap.

Re: Sharon, Our main servers are secure and internally backed up, so there's no chance that your data will suddenly be lost. What this service does offer is insurance if you make changes which you later may want to undo. Some people prefer to do backups themselves via manual GEDCOM files, which is fine. The benefit of our method is that it makes backing up more convenient (it's automated), and makes restoration easier as well. Having a backup on a server offers some benefits over one on a computer, too: for instance, if your computer were to break, or if you are frequently using more than one computer. Our new backup keeps not only the GEDCOM files but also all the photos. If you have many photos, backing them up yourself every month is possible, but can be tedious, and this is where the backup service can come in handy. Please note that even if you do not buy the backup service, if something breaks with your tree and we can restore it from our latest internal backup, we will do that for you or any customer as a courtesy, free of charge.