MyHeritage Research is a genealogy search engine, used to search for people.
If you wish to search for photos, or people appearing in photos, or MyHeritage members and sites, go to our Community page where these searches are available. We also have a dedicated genealogy search engine for places.

If you're new to the fascinating hobby of genealogy, our Genealogy for beginners page is just for you. It offers hints and tips on how to start researching your heritage, creating a family tree and taking your first steps in genealogy.

Go to the New search page. Enter the last name of the ancestor or person you are trying to find, and start a search.

Entering a first name is optional. When you run a search, MyHeritage Research applies it to over 1350 genealogy databases. Specifying a first name ensures that you will not receive results with other first names; but the downside is that genealogy databases that do not support a first name query will be excluded from your search, to avoid irrelevant matches. For example, if you are looking for Jane THOMAS and you include the first name 'Jane' in your query, you may miss matches for a 'Jane SMITH' that are found in databases that only support last name queries. The bottom line: specify a first name only if you are getting too many matches and feel that you must narrow down the number of results.

For female ancestors, you are advised to run two separate queries: one with the maiden name and another with the married name. This is because your female ancestor may be listed with her maiden name in some genealogical documents and with a married name on others. If your female ancestor was married several times you can run separate queries, each one with a different married name.

The spelling setting in the Spelling pull-down menu affects how the last name is searched for. It does not affect the first name which is usually searched for verbatim, if you specified a first name.
The spelling greatly influences the breadth of your search, so this setting should be chosen with care. The following spelling options are available:

Exact:	This instructs MyHeritage Research to look for the last name as you entered it, without any spelling variations. Use this if you are certain about the spelling of the last name and prefer to focus your search on that exact name. This is the narrowest search option available.
Soundex:	Soundex was developed to allow "sounds like" queries. Patented in 1918, Soundex is still the most widely used approach in genealogy research today, and many genealogy databases support it. However, Soundex suffers from many serious drawbacks. First, many genealogy databases do not support it. Second, it returns a high number of false positives, arising from the fact that two very different names may have the same Soundex code so searching for one will return irrelevant matches belonging to the other. For example, Catherine and Cotreneo both have the Soundex code C365. On the other hand, some truly similar spelling variants receive different Soundex codes, causing Soundex to miss very relevant hits and creating a false negatives problem. For example, Horowitz, Horovich and Horovits each have a different Soundex code, so searching for any of them will not return matches for the others. Finally, Soundex does not rank the results from most likely to least likely, forcing the user to go over all matches without any prioritization. When running a Soundex search on MyHeritage Research, it will query each genealogy source with your specified last name, using Soundex for sources that support it and an exact search otherwise.
Megadex™:	Megadex™ is a technology developed by MyHeritage to overcome the deficiencies of Soundex. A Megadex™ search is the most comprehensive search you can do on a specific last name. When you select the Megadex™ spelling option, it covers all genealogy databases in MyHeritage Research, even those that do not support Soundex or any spelling variation option. Megadex™ does not return false positives like Soundex, and it has fewer false negatives than Soundex. Megadex™ results are also ranked from most likely to least likely, making research easier. More detailed information about Megadex™ is available here Megadex™ searches are available only to registered members of MyHeritage.com. Registration is free. Click here to register now. If you have not registered before, you will be requested to register when you run a Megadex™ search.

MyHeritage Research provides several advanced search options, which can significantly decrease the number of matches while increasing their relevancy. These options become available by clicking the 'Advanced search' link in the New search page.

Advanced search options allow you to:

• Use your knowledge about your ancestor's genealogical facts, such as birth year, to narrow down the results and increase their relevancy.
• Hand-pick your search sources, either by classification or individually, based on the type of information you are looking for.

When you specify additional, advanced information about your ancestor in a query, bear in mind that MyHeritage Research will follow a strategy to avoid returning incorrect results that contradict the advanced information you added. Since MyHeritage Research leverages other genealogy databases on the Internet, it has to live with their limitations. So if you specify advanced information that a particular database does not support, it will be excluded from your search. For example, if you specify that you are looking for an ancestor born in 1904, databases that do not support querying the birth year will be excluded (to avoid returning people not born in that year), thus all the matches you receive will indeed be relevant, but many databases will be excluded from your search and you will miss out on some results that may have matched the birth year you were looking for (but they were found in databases that could not support your advanced query).

Because of this limitation, it is recommended to use the Advanced search options only if you must narrow down the number of matches.

The Advanced search options at your disposal include the following:

• Birth information: narrow down your results to those with the same birth year and/or birth place.
• Death information: narrow down your results to those with the same death year and/or death place.
• Gender: narrow down your search results to a particular gender. In this particular case, databases that do not support a gender query will still be queried to avoid loss of matches so you might get some results of the incorrect gender.

The advanced search options allow you to limit your search to any selection of sources.
Doing this will make your searches run faster but they will return less matches. You can use this if you know exactly what you're looking for and are willing to lose matches by excluding some sources from your search.

The following settings control this:

• Classification: selecting a classification will focus your search on specific types of records. For example, if you choose the classification "Cemeteries", your search will be restricted to sources that offer cemetery records, and to general sources that may include such information. To search more than one classification, press the CTRL key while selecting classifications.
• Sources: this allows you to pick one or more specific sources to search in. This feature is handy if you want to run a search on one particular source, e.g. on the Ellis Island database.

When you run a search on MyHeritage Research, it is dispatched to a large number of information sources, and the results are collected and displayed for you. The search results page shows all relevant sources and gives you access to the results from each source. Our sources vary: some are free, while others charge a fee to access data. Some sources focus on particular types of genealogy information, such as immigration records, while others cover a specific region or period. Some sources may provide a record with an option to zoom in and get extended information, whereas others could be very terse, containing just a mention of a person and nothing else. Be aware of the differences and do not expect all sources to provide the same level of information. And remember that in genealogy, you always need an extra ingredient: luck!

Run your search. In most cases, due to the power of MyHeritage Research, you will probably get back a list of matches. If the number of matches is reasonable, go over them one by one. If you're researching a rare last name, you're lucky because the amount of matches will be smaller and they will be more likely relevant to your family. On the other hand, if your ancestor was called "John SMITH", finding relevant information about him is going to be very challenging, to say the least.
Whenever you find info that is relevant to your family, note it down and maximize its potential by trying to obtain the full available content from that database. Some databases contain information submitted by other users, in which case it would be wise to contact the submitter of the information you found. Perhaps that person holds a treasure trove of additional information that could be shared with you.

Don't despair if you arrive at a dead end during your research. This happens often. It is useful, in this case, to take a break and come back later to try again, from a fresh perspective. Try to circumvent dead ends by moving sideways. For example, if you are stuck looking for information about your grandfather's parents, try to find records of your grandfather's birth, as they may mention his parents. If your ancestor was Jewish, for example, his tombstone will most likely mention the name of his father. Look for your grandfather's immigration records, they may show who he traveled with and who he left behind in his native country. Census records may reveal who he lived with in the same address; and so on. As you can see, there are many different types of records that are useful for genealogy research, and often you can find information on the people you need by searching for related people, or by trying new ideas. In any case, MyHeritage Research will be your trusted companion and you can use it to try any new direction of research that you have in mind.