By: Katy Rowe-Schurwanz
Boost your genealogy research with the new family tree partnership between FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage.
We’ve listened to your feedback! To deliver the family tree stability and features requested, we’re excited to announce an expanded partnership with MyHeritage to provide you with their outstanding family tree tools.
Act now to follow the guidelines in this blog to transfer your family tree to the new experience. FamilyTreeDNA will retire our current tree builder on September 9, 2024, and all trees not connected to the new experience will become read-only.
More stability and better functionality
This integration brings to life many improvements customers have been asking for and combines FamilyTreeDNA’s genetic genealogy tools with MyHeritage’s traditional genealogy tools, giving you the best of both worlds!
With the tree stability improvements from MyHeritage, you will no longer receive a blank page or error when viewing your tree or matches’ trees.
The tree search in MyHeritage is not case-sensitive. The results returned also include the birth and death dates and the relationship to the home individual, making it easier to find the person you’re looking for.
MyHeritage supports several additional relationships, including adoptive parents, foster parents, and double cousins. You no longer need to enter individuals multiple times in your tree if they are connected to you in more than one way.
With MyHeritage’s tree tools, you can record numerous facts about the individuals in your tree that FamilyTreeDNA does not provide you a way to enter, including dates and locations for marriage, divorce, immigration, education, and more.
You can also easily share your tree and collaborate with others to continue building it, whether they are other family members, Group Project Administrators, hired genealogists/researchers, or search angels.
Exciting new features and tools
MyHeritage includes many new features and tools to improve your genealogy research! MyHeritage also has an extensive library of videos, blogs, and help articles for each tool.
Access to MyHeritage’s database of over 20 billion records from the U.S., Europe, and more countries worldwide can help you break down your stubborn brick walls. Your tree will automatically receive Record Matches—discoveries that connect the individuals in your tree to genealogical records in MyHeritage’s database. For example, MyHeritage’s database includes the best birth, marriage, and death records from New York City, along with color images of the original documents that no other company has.
The Consistency Checker scans your family tree to conduct 36 different data checks, ranging from the obvious, like a person who was born before their parent or if a parent was too young when they had a child, to the more subtle and difficult-to-find, like full siblings born too close together or if you’ve tagged an ancestor in a photo dated before their birth or after their passing.
It finds factual mistakes, catches inconsistencies in place name spellings, provides recommendations for proper formatting of names and dates, and so much more, allowing you to make necessary changes to your tree to improve its quality and accuracy.
Smart Matches™ finds individuals in other family trees that match individuals in your family tree. Smart Matching lets you find new details about your relatives and ancestors and expand your family tree by adding information other researchers have discovered. You can also get in touch with other researchers whose trees match yours and collaborate with them.
While FamilyTreeDNA only offers a Family View and Pedigree View of your tree, MyHeritage expands that to add a Fan View and List View. Color Coding applies to all views of your tree, painting each branch of your tree in a unique color so you can easily visualize the different lineages.
MyHeritage provides you with amazing photo tools. You can create photo albums, colorize, enhance, repair, and animate photos in your tree. There’s even a tool to estimate the date a photo was taken! All photo enhancements create a copy and do not modify your original photo.
The Relationship Report lets you easily determine and visualize the relationship between two people in your tree. The output is a diagram perfect for sharing with a relative via email.
The Timeline allows you to view selected individuals in your tree and their direct ancestors and descendants. It includes their birth and death dates and major life events, such as marriages and children, allowing you to see how their lifespans overlapped with others in your tree.
The PedigreeMap™ plots events from your family tree and photos on an interactive world map. These events will also be added to your Family Events calendar.
You can find all kinds of interesting or fun information about your ancestors with Family Statistics. Find the most common first names and surnames in your tree, common places in your tree, how many ancestors were born in a specific month and how many share a zodiac sign, their age at marriage, age difference with their spouse, age when having children, the average number of children, and more.
MyHeritage offers its site in 42 languages, allows you to add unlimited family trees to your account, and has a free mobile app to keep up with your research on the go with your phone or tablet.
Connect your family tree with MyHeritage
When you sign in to your FamilyTreeDNA account, you’ll find messaging about the new connection on your dashboard. This process can also be initiated from your family tree or the new Family Tree Settings page under the Genealogy section of your Account Settings. Follow the steps at both FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage to complete the process.
You can connect your FamilyTreeDNA account with an existing MyHeritage account or create a new MyHeritage account (which is free). You can choose to transfer your FamilyTreeDNA tree to that MyHeritage account, use an existing tree on your MyHeritage account, or start a new tree from scratch. The tree you choose will then be associated with your FamilyTreeDNA kit number.
If you choose to transfer your existing FamilyTreeDNA to MyHeritage, we’ll automatically relink you and your matches to your tree.
If you choose to connect to a new or existing tree on MyHeritage, you must link yourself and relink any previously linked matches from the Family Tree Settings under Account Settings.
After you link your kit to your MyHeritage account, your family tree on FamilyTreeDNA will no longer be accessible. However, it will be saved in case you made a mistake during the integration process. If you made a mistake and need to change the tree or the MyHeritage account your kit is linked to, you can do this under Account Settings as well via the Disconnect button.
Each FamilyTreeDNA kit can only be linked to one MyHeritage account and tree. You can connect multiple kits to either the same tree or different trees on the same MyHeritage account.
You can still edit and expand your family tree on FamilyTreeDNA until you connect your tree with MyHeritage or September 9, 2024, whichever comes first. To continue editing your tree after September 9, connect with MyHeritage.
MyHeritage accounts are free to create if you don’t already have one. FamilyTreeDNA customers who choose to transfer their tree to MyHeritage will receive an exclusive gift of an unlimited tree for free for three months. Customers who use an existing tree or create a new tree on MyHeritage will be limited to no more than 250 individuals in their tree. Subscriptions can be purchased to continue expanding your family tree beyond 250 individuals.
What information will be shared with MyHeritage?
MyHeritage will not receive any of your genetic information or genetic results through this integration.
If you provide consent, MyHeritage will receive the full name and birth date on your FamilyTreeDNA kit and the primary email address on your kit. As part of the connection, they will also receive some information about your FamilyTreeDNA tree: the number of individuals, notes, and photos in your tree and the number of matches you have linked to your tree.
If you choose to transfer your existing FamilyTreeDNA tree instead of using an existing MyHeritage tree or creating a new one, MyHeritage will receive your family tree, including all biographical information, photos, and event details you have entered, exported in GEDCOM format. MyHeritage will then seamlessly import your tree for you.
Customers will be prompted for consent from both companies before sharing any information. No information is shared with MyHeritage until you initiate the tree integration process and consent.
Easily link new matches
We’ve updated the process for linking matches, making it easier than ever to add matches to your tree and receive bucketed paternal and maternal matches with Family Matching. This process will now entirely happen from your Matches pages.
Click “Link on Family Tree” next to the match and search for the match’s name in your tree on MyHeritage. It’s important to note that MyHeritage does not access your matches through Family Matching. After you click “Link on Family Tree” and search for a name, FamilyTreeDNA uses an API to search your MyHeritage tree for any matching names. Via that same API, MyHeritage tells FamilyTreeDNA the relationship of each name to the home person you indicated and if they are on the paternal or maternal side.
Once you confirm, FamilyTreeDNA will display the relationship MyHeritage gave for the match and start calculating Family Matching if applicable. The same qualifications remain for Family Matching: a linked match must be on either your paternal or maternal side but not both.
We’ve added the same functionality to link your matches to the mtDNA Matches page that we have on the Family Finder, Y-DNA, and Big Y matches pages, allowing you to link matches from any test.
This new linking process will only work for trees connected to MyHeritage. You will need to connect to continue linking matches.
Keep viewing match trees
You can still view the family trees of your matches and project members! When you click to view a match’s tree, their FamilyTreeDNA tree opens in a new tab. That remains the same for any matches that have not connected to MyHeritage. For matches that have connected, their MyHeritage tree will open in a new tab.
We know some customers are no longer active on FamilyTreeDNA. Family trees are extremely important to genealogy, so we will leave a “view-only” version available for trees attached to kits that have not been linked to MyHeritage for a limited time (yet to be determined). Our goal is that no trees will be lost, even after those trees are no longer editable after September 9, 2024.
For Group Administrators, the process for viewing trees of project members who have not connected to MyHeritage remains the same.
For project members who have connected to MyHeritage, you will need to use the new links in the GAP Member Information Report. GAP Paternal Ancestry, or GAP Maternal Ancestry reports to view their trees.
Continue collaborating with Group Administrators
Sometimes, a Group Administrator will help build a project member’s family tree if they have the appropriate permission level. While Group Administrators will still be able to help build trees on FamilyTreeDNA until September 9, there are new permissions they will need to help build trees on MyHeritage.
There are two ways Group Administrators can still help you with your tree on MyHeritage:
- Invite a Group Administrator to be a Site Member or Site Manager. Depending on your Site Member settings on MyHeritage, you might grant all Site Members the ability to edit your tree or only the Site Managers you invite and promote.
- Grant a Group Administrator permission to connect your kit to a MyHeritage account and tree via the Project Preferences on FamilyTreeDNA. This will allow the Group Administrator to initiate and complete your kit’s connection to MyHeritage and continue working on your family tree. It’s strongly recommended that the Group Administrator add you as a Site Member/Manager so you can continue to access your tree.
Tree privacy settings
On MyHeritage, you control who sees your data and can change your privacy settings anytime. Your tree privacy settings on MyHeritage will be different from those on FamilyTreeDNA.
To adjust your privacy settings from your MyHeritage account, click your name at the top right of the screen to open the Settings menu, and then select “My privacy” to update your preferences.
Under “Access,” you can adjust who can view your family tree on MyHeritage, which may affect the ability of your FamilyTreeDNA matches and Group Project Administrators to view your tree.
FamilyTreeDNA conducts internal research using family tree data stored on our site. This research has brought new features and tools, including the Big Y Age Estimates and Globetrekker, and is being used for the upcoming mtDNA improvements with the Million Mito Project.
If you choose to transfer a family tree from FamilyTreeDNA to MyHeritage, you can permit MyHeritage to periodically share updates from your tree back to FamilyTreeDNA. The default is to share this data. This enables FamilyTreeDNA to continue conducting research and developing new features and tools based on our customers’ family tree data.
To enable this setting on MyHeritage, navigate to “My privacy” and click “Content” in the menu on the left of the page. Under “Family trees,” check the box next to “Allow sharing of my updated family tree information with FamilyTreeDNA.”
Keep researching
What are you waiting for? Sign in to your FamilyTreeDNA account today, connect your family tree with MyHeritage, and start exploring your family tree like never before.
If you need help connecting your accounts or linking your matches, visit our Help Center or contact Customer Support. Once you have connected your accounts, please visit the MyHeritage Help Center for help with your tree.
*Some features and tools, like access to MyHeritage’s records database, require a paid subscription. FamilyTreeDNA will receive a commission, at no additional cost to you, if you purchase a MyHeritage subscription after connecting your tree.
About the Author
Katy Rowe-Schurwanz
Product Manager at FamilyTreeDNA
Katy Rowe-Schurwanz has always been interested in genealogy, inspired by her maternal grandparents, who told her stories about their family and family history when she was little. After studying anthropology and history in college, she joined FamilyTreeDNA in 2015 and became the Trainer for Customer Support. Katy created and improved training processes and was fundamental in the creation of the Big Y Specialist team. In September 2021, she became Product Manager and has focused closely on improving FamilyTreeDNA’s genetic genealogy products.