New partnership with FamilySearch adds billions of records to MyHeritage!

New partnership with FamilySearch adds billions of records to MyHeritage!

We’re delighted to announce that MyHeritage has entered into a strategic partnership with leading genealogy organization FamilySearch, which will bring billions of global historical records and family tree profiles spanning hundreds of years to MyHeritage.

This is a “historical moment” in the family history industry and very exciting news for family history enthusiasts worldwide.

Historical records are the backbone of family history research and are vital for making new family connections and uncovering new information about ancestors. Family tree profiles are helpful for finding relatives and tapping into the collective knowledge of millions of other users.

In the next few months, we’ll add more than 2 billion records from FamilySearch’s global historic record collections and profiles from its online family tree to SuperSearch, MyHeritage’s search engine for historical records.

The records span hundreds of years and include vital records such as censuses, birth, marriage, and death records and hundreds of other collections from dozens of countries. The family tree profiles include all profiles in the collective family tree on FamilySearch except those of living people, plus any updates and additions that will be made in this tree.

Our matching technologies will be unleashed on these new records and profiles so MyHeritage users will receive Smart Matches™ and Record Matches whenever any of them match their family trees. This will bring significant new opportunities for MyHeritage users to grow their family trees and enrich their family history.

Adding this gigantic treasure trove of global content to MyHeritage is an important step towards fulfilling our mission of helping families everywhere explore and share their legacy online.

Below are a few questions and answers about the partnership. For more information, please read the official press release.

Q: What will FamilySearch provide MyHeritage?
A: FamilySearch will share with MyHeritage a massive number of international records and family tree profiles which are key to researching family history. These include all profiles of deceased individuals from the FamilySearch Family Tree (about 1 billion profiles), and a large selection of global historical records (about 1.2 billion additional records).

Q: Which collections will be added to MyHeritage, and from which countries?
A: The historical records come from hundreds of document collections from dozens of countries worldwide. These include vital records such as birth, baptism, marriage, and death records. The records originate from all over Europe and Latin America as well as the United States and Canada, Asia and other regions.

Q: How long will it take to add the international records and family tree profiles?
A: The collections will be added to SuperSearch over the next few months.

Q: Will Smart Matches™ and Record Matches be enabled on the new records?
A: Yes. MyHeritage users will receive Smart Matches™ and Record Matches on the records added, and be able to save the new information directly to their family trees. Our Record Detective technology means that many of these records will point to others, turning a single discovery into a door for more.

Q: Will this content be free?
A: Some of these collections will be made available for free. For viewing the others, MyHeritage’s existing data subscription will be required. A data subscription provides unlimited access to all Record Matches and all historical records and family tree profiles on MyHeritage, including newspapers and census, birth, marriage and death records.

Q: What will MyHeritage give to FamilySearch?
A: MyHeritage will give FamilySearch access to its technologies for Smart Matching™ and Record Matching so that FamilySearch users will be able to receive matches in the FamilySearch website, especially with the historical records shared by FamilySearch. This will be made available to FamilySearch members during 2014.

Q: Will MyHeritage give any family trees contributed by its users to FamilySearch?
A: No. Content uploaded by MyHeritage users will stay only on MyHeritage and this content is never licensed, shared, sold or given to any third party.

Q: What if I have a tree on MyHeritage and I don’t want it to be matched with FamilySearch?
A: Go to the “My privacy” page on MyHeritage under the account pull-down menu in top right corner of any page. Then go to the Content tab of your tree, and turn off the checkbox labeled “Enable Smart Matching™ with other MyHeritage websites and partners”.

Q: What does this mean for the family history community?
A: Millions of people worldwide, who are using MyHeritage and/or FamilySearch, will now have greater opportunities to discover their family history.  MyHeritage users will benefit from historical records digitized by FamilySearch, and FamilySearch users will benefit from powerful technologies created by MyHeritage.

Comments

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  • Jean Pedigo

    October 15, 2013

    sounds great, hope i can learn to use it

  • connie mathis

    October 15, 2013

    that’s great

  • Tom Oliver

    October 15, 2013

    Sounds great to me. Hope it helps me as I’ve stalled at the moment!

  • Jenny

    October 16, 2013

    I have downloaded this and used it to create my family tree. not only was it easy to use, but knowing that i can save it and update it as and when i need to is great. this is the best site i have found. Would highly recommend.

  • Bev

    October 18, 2013

    This is the most significant news I have heard from My Heritage for a long time. I am of Caribbean descent and Family Search has been key to my research. Thank you!

  • Tony Morgan

    October 19, 2013

    I agree with Tom Oliver. I too am at a brick wall, trying to positively identify the father of my paternal great grandfather and the parents of his mother.

  • Anne O’Brien

    October 20, 2013

    I haven’t used it yet but the possibilities seem endless and I really look forward to having a go tonight. Thank you for introducing such a good scheme.

  • Eileen McDougall

    October 22, 2013

    Great news – I too am stalled on my paternal side of things. Hopefully this will help! 🙂

  • Claude

    October 22, 2013

    All I can say is : SUPER

  • Martin

    November 4, 2013

    Sounds good…

  • Paul de Munnik

    November 5, 2013

    Thank you very much!!

  • Chris Evans

    November 5, 2013

    I have been using Family Search and love it. It contains so much information and has volunteer indexers all over the world that are adding information about people every day. I’m very glad you are hooking up with them. It will make research much easier. I just hope that whatever information you get from them will free to all My Heritage users.

  • Barbara Pomeroy

    November 5, 2013

    Looking forward to finding more!

  • Jennifer Rosenberry

    November 5, 2013

    I am so excited about this news. Can not wait to use this information.

  • Rebecca

    November 5, 2013

    Exciting, I need all the help I can get. I’m new at this and am totally lost.

  • Laura Callas

    November 6, 2013

    Sounds like alot of us are stalled, I to use it alot and I love both Myheritage & Family search, this is really great.

  • Mildred Porter

    November 6, 2013

    I am happy for this information, I already use family search as a tool.

  • Robert Cova

    November 6, 2013

    Looking forward to it as I want to expand my knowledge of my ancestors in the Girardi, Mion, Caldato, Luchese, Crespan, Tasca, Bianchi and Gajotto branches in the Venetia region

  • Hugo Piñeyro Piñeyro

    November 6, 2013

    Awsome!!!

    Hugo F. Piñeyro

  • William A. Bell

    November 6, 2013

    I am pleased to hear about this new connection. It will, I hope, give more assistance to people like me who are stilll looking for that little missing piece in our genealogical research.

  • Margaret ann

    November 6, 2013

    Like so many of you all I am unable to get anymore results so will please to use the new concept

  • Sharleen

    November 6, 2013

    Great News.Hopefully I will be able to trace when My Great Grandfather left Switzerland and How he arrived in NZ in the 1800s.
    Because I am stuck for Answers.

  • Katherine

    November 7, 2013

    Hopefully I will find this easy to use. Being an age pensioner the easier things are the better for the likes of me.

  • Imerio

    November 7, 2013

    I’m a FamilySearch user and an indexer volounteer and I can’t wait to use the MyHeritage technology to expand my family tree.

    In recent years FamilySearch, in Italy, started a massive campaign for recruiting volunteers and several new indexing projects.

    I’ts a high quality and highly gratifying job and we are working hard to add milions of records a year.

    In a recent record-breaking campaign, volunteers from all over the world indexed more than 400.000 Italian records in just a weekend.

    Hope we can help you too.

  • Marie Wiffen

    November 8, 2013

    Good stuff!!!!!