During this past week, I attended the MyHeritage Live user conference in Amsterdam. Indeed this is the reason I flew all the way over here to the Netherlands from Australia! This was only the second genealogy conference MyHeritage has held. Their inaugural one was in Oslo, Norway last year. Sadly due to health issues at the time I was unable to attend. However this year I was determined to be there. I’d seen several of the presentations from Oslo which were available online and had been very impressed by the professionalism and content.
As you are probably aware, MyHeritage is one of the ‘big three’ genealogy megasites, along with Ancestry and FindMyPast, and it has been in a rapid growth phase over the past couple of years. They have celebrated multiple acquisitions and the commencement of their DNA service. They are the first of the three however to branch into live events for their users such as a genealogy conference. I think this is a brilliant innovation – how many big companies really want this level of input from their core customers? The CEO, Gilad Japhet was present and approachable throughout the entire conference.
The Program
You may think that the conference would be solely unashamed plugging of their product. This was not the case, however. There were three streams: Genealogy, DNA, and Hands-On Workshops, to choose from. Sure, there was quite a bit of content on how to use the tools and features available through the MyHeritage subscription to get the best value from it. Not to include information on this would have been somewhat remiss though, so I was very grateful for it.
For those who would like to see the program contents free of charge, MyHeritage live-streamed during the conference. These presentations are available now here for anyone to watch.
Personal Highlights
First and foremost, as with any conference, it was fabulous to catch up with fellow genealogists from all around the world. There were 450 attendees from 30 countries. Many of them I was familiar with from their blogs, books or professional reputations. Some I had previously struck up virtual friendships with from afar. This weekend was a great opportunity to meet people and forge friendships and networks with them.
Next it was brilliant to hear the announcements of what MyHeritage are now or soon releasing, and there was some exciting stuff!
- The MyHeritage Education Center was launched – all free, multilingual, how to’s, everything you need to know about tools and techniques, downloadable resources etc.
- The acquisition of Promethease and SNPedia was announced, as they continue to expand their DNA presence. Promethease has been made free until the end of the year (usually $12 to access the health information). Existing Promethease uploads will be added to the MyHeritage DNA database. The donors will receive free matching and ethnicity results from November 1st (European users will need to opt in for this due to GDPR regulations). This will increase the database size by around 10%.
- Theories of Family Relativity is apparently close to being automated rather than having periodic updates.
- Ethnicity estimates will be updated soon and will be incredibly detailed, which is great to hear. I for one have found their ethnicity estimates the least accurate for my known tree of all the current providers. Having now seen a sneak preview of the work they are doing, I am confident we’ll be seeing some really good estimates coming out.
- A huge pipeline of genealogy content with a strong focus on Europe, including more exclusive French records.
- Free text matching technology will help match family trees to newspaper and book records more easily.
In conclusion, this conference was well worth attending. In 2020 it will be held in Israel, though dates and other details have not been announced yet. I heartily recommend attending, especially if you have an active subscription with MyHeritage or have had your DNA tested with them.