In 2019, MyHeritage acquired Promethease to enhance our genetic genealogy services. As part of this transition in November 2019, we carefully migrated approximately 250,000 autosomal raw DNA data files to MyHeritage accounts, providing all eligible users with complimentary Advanced MyHeritage DNA Features for their transferred kits. These files originated from other testing companies including Ancestry, 23andMe, LivingDNA, and FTDNA.
Files in specialized formats such as VCF, CRAM, BAM, and gVCF were not transferred, as these formats are not supported by MyHeritage and cannot be utilized for genealogical research on our platform.
The transfer process varied based on when users uploaded their data and their geographic location:
1. Early Promethease Users (Pre-August 2018)
Users who uploaded data to Promethease before August 2018, when individual accounts were first created, were not included in the transfer. Since no personal accounts existed at that time, no data was stored or transferred to MyHeritage.
2. European Users
In compliance with data protection regulations, we only transferred data from European users who actively opted-in to the migration process. Data from users who did not opt-in was deleted in accordance with regulatory requirements.
3. Non-European Users
Non-European users' data was automatically included in the transfer to MyHeritage unless they specifically requested to opt-out of the migration process.
That being said, MyHeritage frequently deletes inactive accounts. Read more about that here.