New Feature: Global Name Translation™ Technology

We’re delighted to announce the launch of Global Name Translation™, a new technology unique to MyHeritage, to help break through those language barriers in the quest to uncover your past.

Global Name Translation™ (Click to Zoom)

This innovation now makes it even easier to discover your global roots. The technology automatically translates names found in historical records and family trees from one language into another, at very high accuracy, generating all plausible translations, to facilitate matches between names in different languages. In addition, a manual search on MyHeritage’s SuperSearch, will return results in other languages, automatically translated into the language of the query.

How can this benefit you? For example, perhaps your American family has Russian roots. Previously, you would have needed to search also in Russian to find all information available about your ancestors. Now you can search in English, and receive results in Russian, translated back into English for your convenience.

A search for Tatiana brings results in Russian with English translation (Click to Zoom)

The technology covers given names and surnames and can tackle names previously encountered in the past, in addition to new names not seen before. It also utilizes extensive dictionaries built by MyHeritage to cover synonyms and nicknames.

For example, a search for Alessandro (Alexander in Italian) will also find “Саша” (Russian form of Sasha, a popular nickname for Alexander) with its corresponding translation into the language of your search.

A search for Alessandro in Italian brings results in Russian for "Alexander and the nickname "Саша/Sasha" (Click to Zoom)

Global Name Translation™ is built on advanced algorithms and based on MyHeritage’s massive multilingual and international database of 6 billion family tree profiles and historical records. The technology is also integrated into our matching technologies, so you’ll begin receiving matches, with very high accuracy, translated on your behalf.

If a user from Greece, with family tree data entered in Greek, is related to a user in Israel with family tree data entered in Hebrew, MyHeritage will be able to connect them by matching the names in both languages, and show the two users how their family trees overlap, leading to exciting family reunions as never before.

Anyone with a family tree at MyHeritage can use our new Global Name Translation™ technology. Begin by enjoying automatic matches or use SuperSearch, our online database of billions of historical records, to find your ancestors from around the world.

Our first version successfully translates names among English, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Greek, Hebrew, Polish, Czech, Russian and Ukrainian. The next version, currently in development, will add Chinese and Japanese, and additional languages will follow.

Although the world is becoming smaller and more connected, information from various countries is still hidden from those who don’t understand those languages. Now, we’ve made it easier for users around the world to research and discover their global roots by removing the obstacle of translating names from one language to another.

We’re proud to have pioneered this tool as part of our mission to develop the best technologies for facilitating family history discoveries for everyone, everywhere.

The MyHeritage Team.