As far as I can see, only the opportunity to upload your DNA to match against people who have tested with them, which I have personally found very useful as some of my closer cousins happen to have tested there. You don't need a subscription to do that, though.
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Should I bite the bullet - a MyHeritage dilemma
- Thread starter Bob Spiers
- Start date
canadianbeth
LostCousins Star
My closer cousins (daughter and granddaughter of a first cousin) are listed there, but I have all their information anyway so do not need it. They are also on my maternal side so anything further they learn will not help me. I have deleted everything from MH including my trees.
So does nobody know what records they have?
A
At home in NZ
Guest
According to all the blurb I can find and if I could believe it, they match. After reading through this discussion I'm not game to give it a free trial in order to find out.
Katie Bee
LostCousins Member
I too have lost count of my reminders, and they are still only 66%. I wonder if I will ever get the 70% offer?
Katie Bee
LostCousins Member
doing a quick search MyHeritage says:-
Research your family history easily and instantly:
- Global collection of 18.5 billion historical records
- Birth, marriage and death records from 32 countries
- 2404 million pages of historical newspapers, dating back to 1803
- 100 million gravestone inscriptions and photos from around the world
- Complete U.S. and U.K. censuses
- Birth, marriage, and death records, military and immigration records, and more
From my email you also receive automatic Record Matches for your ancestors and relatives, advanced features for DNA results.
In the past month we’ve added 22 collections of historical records. We also released the Photo Tagger: a feature that allows you to tag people in your photos easily. It's currently available on Android, and will shortly be available for iOS and the web too. Lots of new features and content are in the pipeline, so don't miss out!
I could go on, but it won't give you any actual datasets.
If you go into search MyHeritage records it lists all the record sets at the side of the page. Too many to list here!
Which suggests they have 1911 Scotland and 1921 England & Wales?
I assumed there would be someone on this forum who had once had a MyHeritage subscription, and could tell us which record sets they found most useful. If nobody has actually had a subscription before, why is everyone so against buying one at a substantial discount? It surely can't be that difficult to cancel before the end of the first year?
Bob Spiers
LostCousins Superstar
As others will know -and recounted often - I had a subscription back in the early 2000's but cannot recall what record sets they had except heavily US weighted (and to be fair even with an improved database, they will still be US weighted, and far more so than Ancestry). But I do remember the sheer time wasting and frustration caused in trying to cancel my subscription ... which brings me on to your: 'surely can't be that difficult to cancel before the end of the first year'
.I read only this week in the Oldie Magazine the lengths someone went to in order to cancel a Virgin internet subscription. The article ran a full page and told how it had been a veritable nightmare to cancel out of the subscription. The author even hinted the delays and obfuscations were Virgin policy to make cancellation difficult. I also recall (Peter) in your latest Newsletter the slightly different problems you had with Tesco referred to as a 'Comedy of Errors'. The two instances combined remind me of trying to 'cancel' MyH subscription; an experience shared by a fellow subscriber who had exactly the same problems. We both vowed never again.
Of course things may have changed and the rules and regulations regarding 'opting out' may make cancellation easier to achieve. But given anyone taking up the offer is likely (I would say certainly, but am biased) to cancel out before it is time to pay full subscription, all I can say is 'caveat emptor'.
The one thing I do know about MyHeritage is that they are not nearly as US-oriented as you imply - they're not even an American company. When I have noticed announcements of new record sets they've mostly been from continental Europe, and mostly from countries where a language other than English is spoken.
Do we collectively know so little about the records at MyHeritage? I'm beginning to wish I'd taken up the offer before it ran out - someone needs to evaluate the site otherwise we don't know what we're missing.
A
At home in NZ
Guest
I vote you do it Peter as you are the one who wants to know.
I know of somebody here in NZ who had horrendous difficulty getting a renewal stopped when she asked. They renewed and it took several attempts to get the refund. Therefore I'm not going anywhere near it.
To be more accurate, I seem to be the only one who cares about facts rather than hearsay (or Bob's hazy recollections from over a decade ago).
How recent was that? I've been around long enough to remember how difficult it used to be to cancel an Ancestry subscription. There were plenty of people who were equally adamant that they would never subscribe to Ancestry.
Bob Spiers
LostCousins Superstar
Now who's promoting hearsay? And Bob's hazy recollections were not so hazy over a decade ago to have forgotten them and not warn others. Anyway athNZ is right if you are so concerned about facts - and no one has come forward to provide them - join and find out for yourself. Don't worry it will not be long before another offer is on its way.
But if its facts you require here are a few to be going on. MyHeritage (an Israeli company) in its early days (c 2003) -lacking any credible genealogical database or knowhow themselves - decided the only way forward was to acquire others who had such credibility. One of their early acquisitions was 'Pearl Street Software' the creator of my all time favourite genealogical program -Family Tree Legends (FTL). They closed it down and I was mortified big time. I nearly gave up FT research but others persuaded me to carry on so I decided to join MyH. What an experience
. Mostly bad and very little good to say about it, although I did liaise with a few fellow subscribers who lightened the load. But, in the end decided I wanted out. That was easier said than done and I had my sub renewed against my wishes, but have aired that grievance before so will desist from being accused of adding more hearsay.But MyH persevered with their acquisition crusade and there followed a string of others. I remember Gencircles and Geni.com and after acquiring the latter, MyH claimed they hoped to build on Geni's claim .."to create a family tree of the whole world". Many took this to heart and as everyone seemed to be able to contact everyone else, I was often greeted (mostly by Americans) with "Hi Bob" and then airing their various claims to have traced ancestors back to Genghis Khan, and a good many back to Charlemagne and one, at least, to Adam himself. I thought the whole thing a travesty of serious research and made my points known at the time.
That's enough facts for one day and who knows MyH may have changed and be a force to be reckoned with (after all they have now formed a 'strategic' partnership with 'FamilySearch', boast upwards of 75 million subscribers, and launched their own DNA testing service). But I leave that for others to judge and say if it be so.
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I beg your pardon? I didn't 'promote' anything - I simply illustrated how attitudes have changed over the decades.
Almost all people of European origin are descended from Charlemagne - see this Scientific American article which quotes Adam (Rutherford, not Eve's other half). Tracing the connection depends on finding a gateway ancestor.
Connections to Genghis Khan are usually based on Y-DNA - it's a reasonable hypothesis. See this National Geographic article.
A slight exaggeration - MyHeritage announced in December that they had reached ONE million subscribers (see this post from Roberta Estes' blog). You may be thinking of the number of users, which is much higher.
A
At home in NZ
Guest
Recent enough, earlier this year.
Excellent - in that case your friend is in a better position than anyone on this forum to talk about the records available. Perhaps you could ask her?
A
At home in NZ
Guest
Better still, take a proper look at this
If you scroll down to
Take a look at the MyHeritageresearch collections catalog, here.
Bob Spiers
LostCousins Superstar
Granted.
There's no earthly use using 6th Form logic to explain things produced in a 'junior' classroom. True, some MyH acquisitions introduced Grade A 'senior' material, but -even as a beginner myself in those days - it did not take me long to realise most of what I came across was at kindergarten 'dumbed down' levels.
MyH seemed to operate like a prison: Gedcoms were permitted in, but none allowed to escape; and that applied to subscribers if it could be helped. If I had the temerity to edit (or heaven forbid) update a Tree, the old one was retained (repeated protest ignored). Anyone could -and most did - copy or purloin from other Trees and indeed the practice seemed to be encouraged as it grew their database. Inter communication was also encouraged, causing daft questions to be asked of me by other subscribers, along the lines of ..."is Cheshire anywhere near Birmingham"? The only good outcome when I finally left, was appreciating Ancestry.
Yes apologies, the statistic I wanted to use was that given at the time of the 'partnership' deal with FamilySearch in 2013 which showed MyH had 75 million registered users. I see this as grown to 96 million to date, and the one million subscribers mentioned in the link.
I don't have rime to look through over 6000 collections - maybe you do. Your friend had a subscription - she should already know what's useful and what isn't.
Bob Spiers
LostCousins Superstar
Looking back through this posting I came across your comment as above (in response to MyH claiming they had complete US & UK Censuses). This reminded that one of the few contacts made via MyH (as posted by me at #4) -and someone who has neither an Ancestry or FMP subscription (and MyH had been gifted to him) - asked me to check out the 1921 Census and the 1939 Register for him. So, ipso facto neither could have been available by a MyH subscription alone...unless of course he didn't know how to go about accessing same (he is aged 90).
The only reason I can see for adding MyH (given you have Ancestry and FMP and familiar with Family Search) is for its US and 'Other Foreign' database additions, and if you have time to check through its 'motley' Collection Catalog (it hurts to miss off the 'ue'), anything that catches the eye. You may, of course, want to better explore its DNA database and communicate with other members.
Findmypast currently have exclusive access to the 1921 England & Wales census, but a Google search reveals that MyHeritage added an index to the 1939 Register in March 2018, at which point they were the only site other than Findmypast to have 1939 Register records. They may have subsequently added images - I haven't checked.
I suggest that rather than speculate further we wait to hear from someone who has a current or very recent MyHeritage subscription before forming a judgement. All that has been proven so far is how little the 1% of forum members who post regularly know.