MyHeritage Research - Message board

I don't remember any free data at all, other than the information that your ancestor's name is in another tree (without allowing you to contact them). You have the software for free. I remember it being very frustrating and spent my birthday money on upgrading to premium (Later I went premium plus)

Plus you have the forums which might allow you to find someone whose tree you are matched to.

I like the Family Tree Builder software and run my family tree offline, uploading changes every few days to the online site. I'm staying with FTB Version 6 just now, till they've ironed all the bugs out of Version 7. I also like the smart matching function and I've renewed my subscription for a second year. I've met distant cousins and gained information and photos I'd never have found otherwise, plus met (across the website) some interesting and chatty people. So that's the positive.

Most of my ancestors are in Australia and if this is the case for you, the data subscription won't help at all. If your ancestors are in England you may find it more useful. Unless you have a slow internet connection because the My Heritage data search and results is very bandwidth heavy.

I also have a findmypast.uk subscription and use that for British data because the simple text format loads so much faster, plus their search engine is wonderful.

For a long time the supersearch was finding me matches in a database called World Vital Records but would not give me access to that data. Now, probably due to a software update, WVR data doesn't even appear in the search results. I prefer it this way, but I am still curious about that data which is supposedly out there - Australian electoral rolls for NSW etc.

I had decided not to renew my data subscription.

I've recently discovered an ancestor in the United States, however, and found a need to search the US census and BDM records. This has changed my view entirely.

It's still slow on my internet connection, but the US records are wonderfully easy to use and I've learned a great deal about that branch in a very short time. I'm now considering renewing my subscription just to keep going on that side.

So the two biggest problems: the data is intensively US data, and the search engine barely works. I have had most success with and 'exact search' as long as I have a date. The place field seems to be completely ignored so if you want John Smith in eg Jamaica you will find him after six slow-to-load pages of John, Jack and Johan Smith in New York or Houston.

For Australian records, though, MyHeritage data doesn't provide anything useful at all, unless you have relatives in Queensland where a small number of school and electoral records are located.

Having said that, I just made a test search on Richard Bones born 1859 in Tasmania and after the MyHeritage trees, also after the Chester Times of Pennsylvania, it did find a Tasmania Post Office directory result for 1900 which I can use. This suggests that MyHeritage is either working on their search engine or starting to add data which is more relevent to me.

So that's my take, so far.

Irene

PS If you post a description of your syncing problem in the online forums there will probably be a fellow member who can help. Some of the long term users know their way around the software very well.