Monday, December 2nd
2024 Genealogy Service Reviews
My Heritage
- Paid plans ranging from $129/year - $299/year
- Free basic subscription
- 30-day free trial with DNA kit purchase
- 19.8 billion records available
- "A+” Better Business Bureau rating
MyHeritage is an Israeli company that launched in 2003. It is a place to create your family tree or continue building one you've already made somewhere else. With the technology on their platform, you can repair, enhance, colorize, and even animate historical photos. They've been featured by The New York Times, TechCrunch, Good Morning America, and Fox News.
DNA kit
In addition to their platform capabilities, MyHeritage promotes their cheek swab DNA kit that reveals your ethnic background and could match you with newfound relatives. It analyzes 2,114 geographic regions and supports 42 languages. If you just want the DNA kit, it costs $39 plus the cost of shipping. If you're interested in that alongside all that MyHeritage has to offer, you could order it with a 30-day trial added on. This makes the most sense, so we recommend doing this if you're buying a DNA kit anyway.
4 package options
The cost to use MyHeritage is based on how many people you want listed in your family tree and the amount of records you need access to. To get started, you could just sign up for the free basic plan which allows you to create a family tree of up to 250 people. This comes with no other features, so you'll likely outgrow this plan really quickly. Your paid options from there include:
- Premium: $129/year
- 2,500 people in family tree
- Priority support, support matches, and advanced DNA features
- PremiumPlus: $209/year
- Unlimited people in family tree
- Everything in Premium plus instant discoveries and tree consistency checker
- Data: $189/year
- 250 people in family tree
- 19.8 billion records, record matches, and save records to your tree
- Complete: $299/year
- Unlimited people in family tree
- Everything in PremiumPlus and Data
Silly package choices
We don't love that the package options really leave you needing to spend $299/year in order to create your family tree and have access to the data you need. The way some of these plans are minced apart seems silly since anyone creating a family tree will likely need to add a lot of people and learn about who and what to add along the way. Committing to MyHeritage is pretty expensive at nearly $25/month. This may not be sustainable long-term for a lot of people.
Bring photos to life
A feature that makes MyHeritage unique is their Deep Nostalgia technology. This allows you to upload photos and bring them to life. You can fine tune coloring and see movements in the images as if the photo was a live version. Some people find this magical and love how it brings their ancestors to life. Others see it as a little creepy. It's totally dependent on the person, but we think it's a cool idea and you might have some fun playing around with it. If you aren't a subscriber, you'll have a MyHeritage watermark on your animations, but those with complete subscriptions won't have one at all and can use Deep Nostalgia for an unlimited amount of photos.
Mixed feedback
MyHeritage has mostly good reviews from their customers, but they are a bit more mixed than we've seen from our higher-rated genealogy sites. The positive things about this company usually have to do with their customer service. It seems like they are friendly, willing to help, and get things taken care of. However, some complain about billing issues after their free trial, slow delivery of DNA kits, and some glitches with family trees and the overall website. Luckily, they do have an "A+” rating from the Better Business Bureau, so we aren't overly concerned that this company is a scam or unreliable.
Not a favorite choice
Besides Deep Nostalgia, MyHeritage doesn't seem to offer anything you can't get anywhere else. They are a bit pricey for our liking, especially when there are some companies that let you make family trees and access billions of records for free. MyHeritage seems like a company with good goals and motivation, but they just don't compare to some of their competitors.
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Where is the Best Place to Discover Your Genealogy Online?
Everyone on earth seems to have an innate, yearning desire to deeply understand who they are and where they came from. One of the most exciting ways to dive into this is through genealogy. Learning about ancestors on both sides of the family, what areas of the world they lived in, and stories from their lives can give an indescribably profound sense of pride and self-worth to an individual.
Genealogy has become a fast growing hobby for people of all ages since it is easier than ever. No longer do you need to go to government agencies for vital documents or "cemetery hop” while trying to learn names and death dates of family members. It used to be a complex puzzle trying to trace your family lineage, but now there are incredible companies that have compiled billions of records and made it possible for people to easily create their own family tree.
Genealogy Service FAQ
Continued from above...
Through genealogy websites you can not only learn the names of the people in your family tree, but you can usually see pictures of them and view any documents that are attached to their records. You could spend days pouring over journal entries, news articles, and contributions from other family members about an ancestor. To learn about the people who paved the way for your existence is remarkable and will likely teach you more about yourself than you can imagine.
These online genealogy platforms provide you with instant access to vast databases of historical records, DNA databases, and family trees from the comfort of your own home. This accessibility makes genealogical research much more feasible for people with varying levels of experience and resources.
Once you find an online platform that gives you all the resources you need to do your own genealogy, you'll understand why this pastime is so addicting for people. Incredible things have transpired for people who have looked for lost family members and been able to reconnect through genealogy work. All it takes through most companies is to set up an account and get started.
When deciding which online genealogy service to spend your time and energy with, take the following things into consideration:
- Variety of information. Does the company have a plethora of information that you easily search online? What types of records do they keep on file that you can view? How does the layout of all the information compare to other genealogy sites? You'll want to easily be able to sort through files and keep things organized.
- Features. Can you easily create your own family tree? Or can you search for a family member and easily get connected with a tree that has been started for you? Are other family members able to contribute to your ancestors' information through uploading documents, photos, and stories?
- Cost. Some of the best genealogy sites are completely free. But, there are valuable resources on today's popular paid sites as well. Does the company charge a one-time fee for access to your family tree? Or do you have to pay a subscription? What happens to your family tree if you cancel your membership? How does the price of one genealogy site compare to another?
Ready to research your genealogy? Top Consumer Reviews has reviewed and ranked the best places for you to get started on your personal family tree. We know this information will help you make life-changing discoveries that give you a deeper sense of who you are and an appreciation for those who came before you.
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