There’s an easy, free way to analyze your family tree for patterns! Discover your ancestors’ average life expectancy, most common first names, how long they stayed married, and more. Share the results at your next family reunion, or use them to understand your family health history just a little bit better. Here’s how.
Whether you’re a paying subscriber to MyHeritage or are signed up as a free user, you have access to a little-known but fascinating tool on the site: Family Statistics.
You’ll find this tool under the Home tab:
Use this tool to explore various statistics and patterns in your family history, and to spot the “record-holders” on your tree. You don’t have to enter any information. Just click the topic on the left that you want to view (overview, places, ages, births, marriages, children, divorce). Easy-to-read infographics and summary charts will appear:
The Family Statistics tool will tell you:
- the most common places of birth, death, and residence
- most common surnames and male/female first names
- average life expectancy for men and women
- longest-lived and shortest-lived ancestors
- oldest/youngest living relatives on tree
- most common birth month, and how many people were born in each month
- number of marriages, and the longest and shortest marriages
- age at first marriage and who was the youngest/oldest when they married
- the biggest age differences in a couple
- total number of divorces, as well as the average age (and oldest/youngest) age at divorce, and the longest marriage ending in divorce
- average number of children per family and people with the most children
- the youngest/oldest age when having a child
- the average and biggest/smallest age difference between oldest and youngest children
You can run these statistics for all your trees together or individually. Here are some of the different ways to use the data:
For your research: Watch for possible errors or omissions on your family tree. Do you really have a relative who lived to be 112 years old, or did someone neglect to enter a death date?
For fun: Watch for interesting things to share in a trivia game or quiz at your next family reunion. You might even consider creating a “Hall of Fame” for that great-grandfather who lived to be 103, or that great-aunt who had 14 children. (Remember, don’t embarrass anyone by sharing sensitive or confidential information about living relatives or the recently-deceased.)
For understanding: Do certain patterns tend to run in your family, such as having children at a younger or older age?
For family health history: Longevity–age at death–is a measure in Family Statistics that relates to your family health history. You can’t look at cause of death with this tool, but click here to read about a clever way to look at causes of death in your family.
MyHeritage is known for the technology tools on its site, such as its new Collection Catalog, the Discoveries pages, its DNA matching (click here to upload your raw data for FREE!), automatic record matching in unindexed content such as books, and automatic name translation in the search function.
Get up to speed on what MyHeritage has to offer in our totally-affordable MyHeritage Quick Guide, newly updated for 2017! Also check out our brand new quick guide, Genealogy Giants: Comparing the 4 Major Websites Quick Guide, which compares MyHeritage to what you’ll find on Ancestry, FamilySearch and Findmypast. Each has fantastic features you’ll want to know about!
Use an “alternate family tree” to emphasize unique or interesting patterns in your family history, such as eye or hair color, birthplace, age at death, or adoption. Here’s how to do it–and WHY.
How does this view of your family tree make you feel?
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Here’s a teaser from our conversation on passport applications: 
