Bob Spiers
LostCousins Superstar
More by accident than design I used to have a My Heritage Tree. Let me explain how that came about.
For many years my favourite stand-alone data base was –and still is - Family Tree Legends. I opted to have the data backed up on line in case my computer ever crashed and I could not access a backup. Then the owners of FTL (Pearl Street Software) advised they were selling out to Gencircles, whose flagship was My Heritage. I had heard of neither and as FTL continued to operate was not overly concerned.
Not long after I was contacted by My Heritage who with a degree of hyperbole advised they had millions of users and free of charge would be adding my Tree to their website. I was a little concerned but soon found I had another source of research which was free and accepted it could be useful; and it was! Before long I received messages (via MyH) from people who had matches with my Tree. They all seemed to be from Australia and a few from Canada and the USA; hardly any from the UK. Some of the Australian connections proved very useful as I was in the process of exploring an early UK emigrant family and the information provided by them was a real bonus.
After an initial settling in period MyH advised that whilst the free Tree would continue it would no longer be updated. That was reserved for those with subscriptions and they made an offer of a fairly modest 12 month subscription. I gave it some thoughts and a little reluctantly took out the subscription. Initial contacts continued and proved useful.
After some months the contacts became a real nuisance as person after person claimed to have ‘matches’ which at a glance clearly were nothing of the kind. As is my way I carefully explained why they were ‘flogging a dead horse’ and left it at that. Still the contacts continued. So to bring things to a close I decided not to renew at the end of the expiry period. That was two years ago and I have not subscribed since.
BUT, now we come to the crunch! MyH continued to carry my Tree and allowed others to contact me via email messages relayed by them. I stopped online backups from FTL so the MyH Tree could not be up-dated. I get regular reminders from MyH that my subscription has lapsed which I disregard. Meanwhile the ‘you have matches’ emails continue, although in reduced form. Inevitably one I received recently was a true match and as MyH would not permit me to contact other than by responding to emails, I resorted to providing my email address in the response and directing them to my Ancestry Tree.
So what do others think of My Heritage? Is it useful or a nuisance? I can of course take the ultimate decision to remove my Tree once and for all. This acts in the same way as Ancestry, after one or two ‘are you sure’ messages, the Tree gets deleted. As it has now been two years since my subscription elapsed they may decide to remove the Tree themselves; but somehow I doubt this and believe they will let the Tree continue unsubscribed with access restrictions in place.
For new subscribers they continue to offer a free Tree with up to 250 names. For up to 2500 names their subscription rate is £6.00 per month and unlimited at £7.95 per month but note both are billed annually (£72/£95.40). They offer me the £72.00 annual subscription keeping my Tree ‘as is’ and even update if I re-introduce the FTL backup option.
As I am not made of money and have two active subscriptions to Ancestry & FMP very much doubt I will continue with MyH and perhaps conclude the best course of action is to remove the Tree myself. However on the plus side MyH operates worldwide and they do indeed have many thousands of active subscribers hence the 2 or 3 emails per month. Three quarters of these may be false leads, but that still leaves the odd gem.
Sorry my posting is long but I wanted to put across the pros and cons of Heritage, so what do others think?
For many years my favourite stand-alone data base was –and still is - Family Tree Legends. I opted to have the data backed up on line in case my computer ever crashed and I could not access a backup. Then the owners of FTL (Pearl Street Software) advised they were selling out to Gencircles, whose flagship was My Heritage. I had heard of neither and as FTL continued to operate was not overly concerned.
Not long after I was contacted by My Heritage who with a degree of hyperbole advised they had millions of users and free of charge would be adding my Tree to their website. I was a little concerned but soon found I had another source of research which was free and accepted it could be useful; and it was! Before long I received messages (via MyH) from people who had matches with my Tree. They all seemed to be from Australia and a few from Canada and the USA; hardly any from the UK. Some of the Australian connections proved very useful as I was in the process of exploring an early UK emigrant family and the information provided by them was a real bonus.
After an initial settling in period MyH advised that whilst the free Tree would continue it would no longer be updated. That was reserved for those with subscriptions and they made an offer of a fairly modest 12 month subscription. I gave it some thoughts and a little reluctantly took out the subscription. Initial contacts continued and proved useful.
After some months the contacts became a real nuisance as person after person claimed to have ‘matches’ which at a glance clearly were nothing of the kind. As is my way I carefully explained why they were ‘flogging a dead horse’ and left it at that. Still the contacts continued. So to bring things to a close I decided not to renew at the end of the expiry period. That was two years ago and I have not subscribed since.
BUT, now we come to the crunch! MyH continued to carry my Tree and allowed others to contact me via email messages relayed by them. I stopped online backups from FTL so the MyH Tree could not be up-dated. I get regular reminders from MyH that my subscription has lapsed which I disregard. Meanwhile the ‘you have matches’ emails continue, although in reduced form. Inevitably one I received recently was a true match and as MyH would not permit me to contact other than by responding to emails, I resorted to providing my email address in the response and directing them to my Ancestry Tree.
So what do others think of My Heritage? Is it useful or a nuisance? I can of course take the ultimate decision to remove my Tree once and for all. This acts in the same way as Ancestry, after one or two ‘are you sure’ messages, the Tree gets deleted. As it has now been two years since my subscription elapsed they may decide to remove the Tree themselves; but somehow I doubt this and believe they will let the Tree continue unsubscribed with access restrictions in place.
For new subscribers they continue to offer a free Tree with up to 250 names. For up to 2500 names their subscription rate is £6.00 per month and unlimited at £7.95 per month but note both are billed annually (£72/£95.40). They offer me the £72.00 annual subscription keeping my Tree ‘as is’ and even update if I re-introduce the FTL backup option.
As I am not made of money and have two active subscriptions to Ancestry & FMP very much doubt I will continue with MyH and perhaps conclude the best course of action is to remove the Tree myself. However on the plus side MyH operates worldwide and they do indeed have many thousands of active subscribers hence the 2 or 3 emails per month. Three quarters of these may be false leads, but that still leaves the odd gem.
Sorry my posting is long but I wanted to put across the pros and cons of Heritage, so what do others think?
Just as with online temptations of 'Free Downloads' very few are free to use without restrictions of any kind. To use an old expression of my Grans, you get 'nought for nowt'
