What is a family site?
MyHeritage lets you create your family’s own meeting place on the Internet – your personal family site, where you can start your family tree project (or synchronizeze it from the genealogical software), share it with your family members and invite them to help you grow your tree and research your family history together, upload family photos, documents and videos, keep track of important family events and more.
Creating a family site takes only a few minutes and doesn't require any technical experience. Basic family sites are free, and we also have Premium and PremiumPlus subscriptions if you want to take your site to a more advanced level.
To access your online family site, please open your Internet browser and go to www.myheritage.com. If you are not redirected to your family site automatically, log in to MyHeritage, using the email address and password you provided when you registered.
Then you will be taken to your family site and will see your family tree under ‘Family Tree’ tab.
If you are managing more than one site or joined as a member to the sites created by other site managers, you can switch between them by clicking on the drop-down list in the left upper corner of the screen.
There are a few types of family trees that you can have on your online family site:
1. Online Family Tree (web) – started directly on your online family site on the Internet.
2. GEDCOM tree (GED) – imported to the site using a GEDCOM (.ged) file of a family tree project that was created in any genealogical software.
3. Family Tree Builder tree (FTB) – family tree project, created in our Family Tree Builder software and synced with your online family site.
What is the Family Tree Builder?
The Family Tree Builder is our desktop genealogy software, which you can download for free here. It has original, easy-to-use pages that let you grow your family tree visually.
In the Family Tree Builder, you can add photos and documents to the tree and use our face recognition technology to easily tag faces in your photos, create various charts and reports, view interactive maps, get Smart Matches and more.
Here’s how you should see your tree in the Family Tree Builder:
You can sync your family tree with your family site on MyHeritage.com and share it with family and friends!
If you originally created your family tree in the Family Tree Builder software on your computer and then synced it with the site, then the family tree on your family site is basically a copy of what you have in your software. The family site is there to share your family tree with other family members and let them edit it online since they do not have access to your software on your computer. The family site is, therefore, a sharing platform for your family.
Read the following article to learn more about how to sync your project with the family site: How do I sync the family tree I created in Family Tree Builder with my online family site?
If you are working on your tree from home, you should enter data through the Family Tree Builder software and sync. If you are traveling and you do not have your main computer with the software with you, you can still make changes to the family tree. You will be able to do this through the family site which you can enter on www.myheritage.com from any computer that has access to the Internet. You can also use our MyHeritage Mobile app to edit your tree on the go!
Once you return to your computer, you can sync the information on the family tree software to record the changes you made on the family site or mobile app. That way, the versions will be identical and up to date.
Note: We no longer support MyHeritage Family Tree Builder on Mac (with Sequoia and all other Mac operating systems), and it's no longer available for download on Mac devices. We recommend you to instead continue building your family tree on your family site.
If you already have the software installed, please note that syncing with your MyHeritage family site is no longer possible following the macOS Sequoia 15.4.1 security patch released on April 16th. If you haven’t yet installed this update, we strongly recommend syncing your tree now, as this option will no longer be available once the patch is applied.