I agree that it is misleading. I sent an email to customer service to try to switch to the "data plan" because I cannot view any records despite having a "premium membership." the only thing I can see is family tree matches.
Thanks for letting me know about the Premium Membership. I've sent two requests for support regarding the Family Tree Builder and errors encountered with syncing to my family webpage.
All I've received from MyHeritage is a response to upgrade my membership.
I have both premium plus membership and a data subscription so my experience may help you decide which way to go.
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.
You've had great luck with researching your family tree. I'm currently working on my Grandmother's Family and then I'll start on the other two.
Truly appreciate all the in's and out's with the Premium Membership at MyHeritage. I don't think I'll find too much for Romania or the Ukraine.
Is there much info for the Irish records (both Northern Ireland and the Republic)?
I was hoping to also use the World Vital Records. Can we no longer access this information through the data subscription? It's owned by MyHeritage? http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/
When I joined they had just released Version 7 of the Tree Builder. I've probably discovered a bug or two with the updated version. I'll create a new post so that Members can offer their expertise.
No, there isn't. I've done a few test searches on my ancestors from Londonderry in Northern Ireland, Kilmacduane in Clare and Fermoy in Cork. Each time it comes up with US census and MyHeritage trees which are not them. Selecting the UK Records gives me UK census and BDM but that is England and Wales, not Ireland.
If I search by exact name and birthdate I get people of the correct name and age, but the place field is just not operating so cannot filter by region.
Of course, as our ancestors did not hold to specific spellings an exact search means we might miss the records we want. I'm sure MyHeritage is working on it, but at the moment it doesn't help with Irish at all.
United States records, though, really are impressive. I've found research there to be very easy. If only that was the country I need!
World Vital Records is owned by MyHeritage, yes, but even with a full data subscription I could not access it. I thought it was a glitch at first and asked the support team. They said they were working on its inclusion (about June last year) but it hasn't happened yet, as far as I can tell.
I'm glad you mentioned about the World Vital Records. Rather strange that they wouldn't include them!
I've had the same problem for Northern Ireland. It could be the Parish or Townlands that Births, Marriages and Deaths are located. It took some work and I finally found the Townland in County Derry for my family. It's Ballynascreen rather than Magherafelt. The parish may be a different name.
Note: Some the records were destroyed in the uprising of the 1920s and in Belfast during WWII.
Have you tried the 1901 and 1911 censuses that are now freely searchable online, at The National Archives of Ireland? Also you can find a partial transcript of Irish birth records from 1864 to 1881 at www.familysearch.org. Our family names are too common and I had no luck. I found similar names but not enough information to confirm.
I may have to contact the Office of the Registrar in Dublin and the Offices in Belfast for the records.
My request is that I like my family tree to stay this size for the time being, if or when ever I like to upgrade it I will let the My Heritage know.So please don't send me anymore reminders to upgrade my site, everyday I open my computer it is blocked and I won't be able to open it.
I recently was called by MyHeritage and was told that my subscription to WorldVitalRecords would be more than covered with a subscription to MyHeritage. I agreed to not renew my WorldVitalRecords subscription and try MyHeritage. I have been disappointed. It might be that I haven't learned how to do a search, but this is what I discovered.
Search for Joanna Corbin (to be fair, I just typed the name on both sites)
WorldVitalRecords:
Genealogies of Virginia Families from Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine. Volume III: Pinkethman-Tyler. . (1981). p.759
Robert Tucker married to Joanna Corbin Daughter of Gawin and Martha Corbin in King and Queen County on Thursday the 17th Day of May, 1739 by the Reverend Mr. William Phillips, who preached a Sermon on the Occasion, the Words of his Text were "Marriage is honourable".
I found the marriage that I was looking for.
MyHeritage: returned many collections. Since the name Joanna was given in the return on WVR, I refined my MyHeritage search by choosing the first name Joanna. I don't see any reference to the book or publication that is shown on WVR. Even when I removed Joanna from the refine search, I cannot find the references to Virginia that I find in WVR.
Am I doing something wrong, or is the research data in WVR not available in MyHeritage?
As far as I'm concerned, WVR as accessed from FTB is a POS. (Fun with acronyms)
As a specific example, FTB noted "43 Records" for an ancestor who was born and lived in the USA and died in Canada.
So I clicked that and went to a WVR page that promised "225 matches in 26 collections". What happened to the "43 Records"? Who knows. Obviously FTB programmers and WVR programmers don't count the same way.
Here are the top, most relevant (according to WVR) matches:
United Kingdom Marriages, 1796 - 2005 (77)
United Kingdom Births, 1761 - 2006 (75)
United Kingdom Deaths, 1796 - 2006 (58)
England & Wales Deaths, GRO Indexes, 1969 - 2007 (15)
That's right -- for an ancestor born in the USA, who NEVER lived in the UK, World Vital Records offers me 234 TOTALLY IRRELEVANT records as the best matches.
If you want to see anything else, you have to buy another subscription (I don't know how you got WVR with your FTB subscription; mine didn't include that.)
I subscribed to WVR at one time but found it to be a total waste of money and time because it returns so many useless and irrelevant results.
I complained and the company extended my subscription, promising improvements, but I didn't see any and will not resubscribe.
Not long ago you added the Historical Collections to the site and I had a good number of Record Matches, but since adding those I have not noted any changes in the matches even though I have added quite a number of records to my family tree. How often do you plan on updating those matches??
looks like your message has fallen on deaf ears....Like you I also have test results on another site ....mine are on FTDNA site and they are the ones doing the tests for My Heritage, so you'd think you should be able to import here.
Family Tree DNA has created two public databases for people that wish to share or compare their results with other individuals or other labs: Ysearch.org and MitoSearch.org. Your results can be exported to those websites at your discretion.
I can't quiet understand but looks like the DNA test results are put on the FTDNA site and not attached to your tree here on My Heritage.
I have Record Matches that are correct. The app states "...extract information from this record into your family tree in Family Tree Builder software." Does anyone know how to do that?
I have Record Matches that are correct. The app states "...extract information from this record into your family tree in Family Tree Builder software." Does anyone know how to do that?
I am also interested in HOW TO DO THIS. My Record Matches are building up simply because I do not know what to do with the information when I find it, other than Confirm or not. BUT, it says
"If this record correctly matches __________ in your family tree, extract information from this record into your family tree in Family Tree Builder software" and We are told to do this BEFORE Confirming.
My problem Exactly. I paid the fee to look at the Record Matches and extract them if correct. Half a service has been provided. I've read the User Guide for the Family Tree software and checked the FAQ section, all to know avail.
There must be someone out there that knows how to do this!
I'm sure there is someone, but until they answer here I'm sending in a Support Ticket. One of the pluses for PremiumPlus members is that they get priority answers. I'll post back here if someone doesn't beat me to it.
Thank you for writing and we appreciate your patience regarding this matter.
We currently do not offer an automatic way of managing the record and copying it to the Family Tree Builder. You will have to do so manually, we agree it's kind of misleading - and we will perhaps consider changing the text so it will be more clear.
The reason for this text appearing on the first place is because we were making preparations, as we are already working on that feature.
Please, let me know if you need any more information!
Thank you for writing and we appreciate your patience regarding this matter.
We currently do not offer an automatic way of managing the record and copying it to the Family Tree Builder. You will have to do so manually, we agree it's kind of misleading - and we will perhaps consider changing the text so it will be more clear.
The reason for this text appearing on the first place is because we were making preparations, as we are already working on that feature.
Please, let me know if you need any more information!
I would greatly appreciate any information on how to extract information manually.
I'm sure there are thousands of us who are anxiously awaiting the completion of this feature. We have a great program and this will really make it so much better.
In the mean time, Why doesn't someone in the office do a video showing step-by-step how you would go about manually entering the information into the document on FTB? Even this would be a great help because exactly where and how to enter the information is confusing.
I know it takes time, but if you could see how beneficial it would be to all MyHeritage subscribers, I think you would do many more videos highlighting different ways to make use of the program. This is one thing your biggest competitor does, in fact, they released 3 new ones just yesterday.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents worth for the day. I know you want to do everything to make MyHeritage.com and FTB an even greater program that is easier to use.
Thanks again for your reply and we look forward to this feature.
The Record Matching product description says that it will find census records. This is a great idea. However it fails to return any results -- even for records that are returned with a manual search in the Research tab. For example, on my family tree I have Rachel Kelly, born 1926. After three days there are no census Record Matches. When I go to the Research tab and search the 1930 US Census for Rachel Kelly, born 1926 her record is the top one returned.
Is Record Matches supposed to automatically find results from my family tree or am I misunderstanding the functionality?
If you have Record Matches you will see a notification appear on the side bar of the Home page alerting you that you have matches. Click to enter the results page.
You can also reach your Record Matches from the Family tree tab.
You don’t need to do anything to get Record Matches. We do the work automatically behind the scenes and notify you if matches are found.
Processing over four billion records against your tree takes time, so please be patient if you haven’t received records yet.
You’ll receive an email when matches are found and you’ll see them on your family site.