Our Stories: 44,000 and growing!

Continuing our spotlight on volunteer translators, we introduce Seppo Tarvainen, a MyHeritage member from Finland, who has been helping to translate MyHeritage products into Finnish for a few years.

Born a few years after WWII in a small village in the middle of Finland, Seppo grew up with a passion for travel. He studied mechanical engineering, which led him and his family around the world on various work projects. Now home, he began looking into other hobbies, such as genealogy.

My parents had a lot of family history information, but they died before I had the opportunity to properly interview them.

About four years ago, Seppo came across MyHeritage’s Family Tree Builder and began adding the information he had and building his family tree. The number of individuals increased, so he soon upgraded to a PremiumPlus account.

I kept getting even more Smart Matches, and my family tree kept growing.

Today, his family tree has over 44,000 people. Through matches to other MyHeritage members, he discovered ancestors dating back to the late-1500s. Some ancestors remained in the region, while later generations emigrated to the US, Canada and Australia.

Seppo has been volunteering for a few years.

I was requested by the MyHeritage team to translate some product and blog texts from English to Finnish. This request was a kind of tribute, which enables me to help Finnish-speaking users advance in family history using MyHeritage, so they can enjoy the same excitement I have with genealogy in their native language.

We thank Seppo for his help in making sure that Finnish speakers get the most out of MyHeritage products.

Do you speak another language at the native level? Would you like to join our volunteer team? It’s a wonderful way to help families learn about their roots easily, with all information available in their native languages.

To learn more about becoming a volunteer like Seppo, email us at translations@myheritage.com.