“Which big genealogy website should I use?” Genealogy Gems takes on that ambitious family history question in ongoing comparative coverage of the “Genealogy Giants,” Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. (Disclosure: this article contains affiliate links. we will be compensated if you make a purchase. Thank you for supporting this free blog.)
millions of historical records from around the world;
powerful, flexible search interfaces;
family tree-building tools;
automated record hinting (if you have a tree on the site);
Help/tutorials for site users.
But each has unique strengths and weaknesses, too. You may determine that one or two of these sites meets your needs now. But your family history research needs may change. For example, you may discover an Irish or Swedish ancestor whose records may be hosted on a different site than the one you’ve been using. Or you may find that you need DNA to push back further on your family tree. It’s critical to which sites offer what records and tools, so you know your options when your needs or interests change.
Comparing the Top Genealogy Websites
There are so many features on each site–and an apples-to-apples comparison isn’t easy.
Here’s one example: how many records are on each site? Some sites include DNA results and user-submitted family tree profiles in their total record count. Others don’t. One site has a universal family tree–ideally with one record per person who has ever lived–and the others host individual trees for each user, leading to lots of duplication. Does a birth record count as one record? FamilySearch thinks so. But other sites may count a birth record as three records, because a baby, mom and dad are all named. So it’s not easy to compare historical record content across all the sites.
Click here to learn more about the historical record collections Sunny Morton loves on Findmypast, including British Isles resources and content for tracing your U.S. ancestors!
Do your DNA with MyHeritageDNA! You can also upload your DNA resultsfrom other testing companies to MyHeritage for free and enjoy free matching and analysis tools!
Click here to read what Genealogy Gems loves about MyHeritage.
Reviews of “Genealogy Giants”
“You may have asked, ‘Which is the best online genealogy service for me to use?’….I suspect this video [presentation by Sunny Morton at RootsTech 2017] will answer most of your questions. Topics covered include cost, record types, geographic coverage, genetic testing, DNA matching, search flexibility, languages supported, mobile-friendly, automated matching, and a lot more. Sunny provides the most information about these four sites that I have ever seen in any other one document or video. This is a keeper! I have been using all four of these web sites for years and yet I learned several new facts about them, thanks to Sunny’s online video presentation. I suspect you will learn some things as well.” – Dick Eastman, Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter
“We want to tell you how much we enjoyed the presentation about the comparison of the four major websites. [Sunny] did an excellent job and we were so thrilled with her presentation. She was so prepared and presented it in such a manner as to be understood. Give her our best.” – Eldon and Dorothy Walker
“I am incredibly thankful for your Big 4 session. I’ve never had interest in Findmypast or MyHeritage as I felt FamilySearch and Ancestry had it all…and hadn’t heard of PERSI either. With newly found Irish roots (via DNA), I’m excited to extend some lines that have gone cold.” – a FamilySearch employee
Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!
New at Ancestry.com are Boston Catholic records, thanks to a partnership with the New EnglandHistorical Genealogical Society. Also new this week are big updates for the Big Apple with lots of new and updated collections for New York. Additional new collections for the United States, Australia, and New Zealand are highlighted this week.
Boston Catholic Records Now at Ancestry.com
Ancestry and New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) have collaborated to make Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records now available on Ancestry.com. This unique collection includes approximately 10 million names from Massachusetts Catholic records from the late 1700s to the early 1900s.
“The detailed documents in this collection are a critical resource for researchers, historians, and genealogists, especially when secular records are spotty or lost,” said Brenton Simons, President and CEO of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. The records within the bound volumes contain several sacraments of the Catholic Church, including baptism, confirmation, holy communion, marriage, holy orders, and the anointing of the sick.
Big Updates for New York
You can search a free index of New York City marriages, 1908-1929, at Internet Archive, thanks to a “Reclaim the Records” initiative. This is an index to an important set of records originally kept by the New York City Clerk’s Office: “the 1908-1929 application, affidavit, and license for a marriage, a…three-page document that is generally dated a few weeks before the actual marriage took place.” MyHeritage has also just added the New York City Marriage License Index 1908-1929.
You’re likely to spot some famous folks like Humphrey Bogart in this NYC Marriage License Index at MyHeritage!
Also new at Findmypast is an Image Browse collection of New York State Religious Records 1716-1914. The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society transcribed and published religious records of baptisms, marriages, and deaths from dozens of New York State churches of various denominations.
Back over at MyHeritage is a collection of New York Newspapers, 1806-2007 with nearly 2 million pages from various cities and towns throughout the state. Lastly, the Troy Irish Genealogy Society has published Transcriptions from the St. Agnes Cemetery Tombstones in Menands, NY. From the description: “The inscriptions are overwhelmingly of Irish immigrants to the Capital District Region. While some inscriptions merely say “Ireland” a large number are more specific and identify the County in Ireland along with the name of the town and the name of the Parish.”
Additional United States Collections
Illinois. The State of Illinois has repaired and digitized 57 maps that the Illinois National Guard used during World War I. According to the description, “the maps feature the guard’s 33rd division, which was the only distinctly Illinois division that saw active service during the war in France.”
North Carolina. The State Archives of North Carolina has announced the launch of the Brimley Collection Online. Named for Herbert Hutchinson Brimley, the first leader of The North Carolina State Museum of Natural History, this collection of photographs from the late 19th and mid-20th century include people both common and renowned, scenes of cities and towns, rural landscapes and farms, agricultural activities and products, industrial concerns, and more.
Arkansas. More than 200 issues of the Commonwealth College Fortnightly are now searchable online. This newspaper ran from 1926 to 1938 and this digital collection provides a complete record of activity at Arkansas’ historic radical labor school.
Australia & New Zealand Databases
You have to love records that include photographs! Ancestry.com has a new collection for Queensland, Australia, World War I Soldier Portraits, 1914-1918. This unique collection comes from portraits taken at the soldier’s camp at Enoggera, Queensland and published in The Queenslander newspaper until the end of the war in 1918.
A newly digitized archive for New South Wales is now available online. Prisoners in Pictures details the stories of nearly 50,000 prisoners incarcerated in New South Wales between 1870 and 1930. The prisoner stories are told through photography, text, an online catalog, and short films with interviews from archivists such as the one below:
https://youtu.be/QJmBRdEmXS0
In New Zealand, the Victoria University of Wellington has released a database of 12,000 imperial soldiers who fought in the New Zealand Land Wars of the 1860s. From the description: “The database provides searchable public access to the names, regiments, and dates of service of soldiers who fought in New Zealand. It is the first installment of what will grow into a larger publicly accessible resource.”
AUDIO PODCAST SHOW NOTES: Whether you want to visit the village where your ancestor was born on your next vacation, or you just want to find their records, you’ll need to know the exact place name and location. Professional genealogist Rich Venezia of Rich Roots Genealogyjoins me in this video to help us pin down those ancestral places.
This interview is also available in video form here on the show notes page (below). And if you’re a Genealogy Gems Premium Member, you’ll be able to download those show notes as a PDF cheat sheet in the Resources section at the bottom of the page.
Listen to the Podcast Episode
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Archives is an invaluable resource if you want to make your family history research simple and affordable. Visit Archives.com and let your family history journey begin.
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AUDIO PODCAST SHOW NOTES: Discover more than 100,000 old family photos on Dead Fred. Founder Joe Bott explains how to find photos of your relatives on this free website, as well as how to post your unidentified photos. Who knows, someone else may spot your photo and have the answers.
This interview is also available in video form here on the show notes page (below). And if you’re a Genealogy Gems Premium Member, you can download the show notes as a PDF cheat sheet in the Resources section at the bottom of the page.
Listen to the Podcast Episode
To Listen click the media player below (AUDIO ONLY):
Click to learn more about Genealogy Gems Premium Membership.
Genealogy Gems Podcast App
Don’t miss the Bonus audio for this episode. In the app, tap the gift box icon just under the media player. Get the app here.
Get the Free Genealogy Gems Newsletter
The Genealogy Gems email newsletter is the best way to stay informed about what’s available with your Premium eLearning Membership. Sign up today here.
Archives is an invaluable resource if you want to make your family history research simple and affordable. Visit Archives.com and let your family history journey begin.
Newspapers.com
Get 20% off a Publisher Extra subscription. Click here and use coupon code GenealogyGems
AUDIO PODCAST SHOW NOTES: In episode #289 of the Genealogy Gems podcast, Lisa Louise Cooke covers the groundbreaking LiveMemory™ tool from MyHeritage, a revolutionary advancement that harnesses the power of AI to transform still photos into mesmerizing short videos.
Launched on November 22, 2024, this innovative feature is an exciting evolution of the Deep Nostalgia tool introduced in 2021, which focuses on animating individual faces. Now, with LiveMemory™, users have the remarkable opportunity to breathe life into their cherished memories by creating stunning five-second videos with just a few taps in the MyHeritage app.
This tool offers an unprecedented and captivating way to reconnect with the past, allowing users to share their family stories in a dynamic and engaging format that resonates across generations. Don’t miss out on this unique chance to see your family’s history come alive!
Listen to the Podcast Episode about LiveMemory™
To Listen click the media player below (AUDIO ONLY):
LiveMemory™ is a new photo animation tool from the MyHeritage. It allows you to upload a digitized old family photo and turn it into a short video clip using AI technology. According to MyHeritage, “It animates the scene in the photo, reimagining it as if you had traveled back in time to watch it live. It’s the ultimate way to reminisce.”
MyHeritage is on the forefront of bringing new and exciting things to family history, ways to tell stories, to get people interested in family history and genealogy. In addition to all of the records, the tree building and the DNA, they have also focused a lot of their energy on photographs. I love that because I learn and I get inspired by seeing things visually, as do many of our relatives. So, it makes a lot of sense to focus on the photos that we have as a way to bring family stories to life.
What role does Artificial Intelligence (AI) play?
Not surprisingly, in today’s age, MyHeritage is accomplishing these photo innovations with artificial intelligence (AI).
LiveMemory™ springboards off of a tool that MyHeritage launched in 2021 called Deep Nostalgia™. It’s still available on the MyHeritage website in the menu under Photos. That feature had the ability to take a static photo, identify the faces and give you the option to select one of those faces to be animated. It was truly amazing.
Understandably, many of us looked at that and thought, “that’s great, but when are you going to be able to animate the whole photo?” Well, that’s exactly what LiveMemory does. It brings the photograph to life using AI.
AI has been able to “learn” how people and objects typically move by analyzing the massive amount of video online . This is much like how machine learning first got going by devouring all the digitized books on Google Books. It was able to learn language and then shape it. Now you can use AI chatbot products like Gemini or Chat GPT to create language by uploading documents, providing prompts, and so on. So, it’s not surprising that AI has been able to devour all of this video content and determine that arms move this way and legs move that way. Clothing flows in certain ways when you’re running. The minute details that can be internalized and used are endless.
How long are LiveMemory Photo animations?
MyHeritage’s LiveMemory animations aren’t very long. They currently run approximately five seconds.
Would you like a longer video clip? One way to achieve that is to download the .MP4 file and then import it into a video editor. Within the editor you can copy the clip and loop it. This allows you to generate a slightly longer video so your viewers can really take in the magic of it.
Within a video editor application you could take it further by adding some text that identifies the people or other elements of the video. You can also zoom in and out and add other features depending on the app you use.
How much does MyHeritage’s LiveMemory cost?
According to the company’s announcement, there are a variety of ways to gain access to LiveMemory to animate your photos. At the time of this writing, MyHeritage is making LiveMemory available for free but for an unspecified very limited number of videos. To create more than a few videos, an annual Photo plan or Omni subscription plan is required.
The annual Photo plan currently runs $49.90 yearly and is available exclusively on the MyHeritage app. It provides unlimited access to all of the MyHeritage photo features including MyHeritage In Color™, Photo Enhancer, Photo Repair, Deep Nostalgia™, and the Photo Scanner.
The Omni plan provides access to all of MyHeritage’s features. It currently runs $399 a year, with the first year being available for $239.
MyHeritage states, “As a thank you for their loyalty, Complete subscribers are eligible for a 25% discount on the Photo plan, and can purchase it for just $37.”
How many videos can I create?
Users with a MyHeritage Omni plan can create 30 videos annually. Photo plan users can create 20 LiveMemory™ videos annually.
No, there isn’t a desktop version of LiveMemory, at least not yet. Currently, you’ll need to use the MyHeritage app to create your videos. You can download the app for free from your app store. If you already have the app, you’ll want to ensure that it’s up to date. If you don’t see the LiveMemory “Try it now” banner at the top of the app screen, update your app.
How do I animate a photo with LiveMemory?
Tap the orange “Try it now” button on the Home screen of the MyHeritage app. You can also navigate to LiveMemory through the menu in the upper left corner of the screen.
Select a photo from the photos you’ve already added to your account or upload a photo from your phone. If you store old family photos on a cloud service like Dropbox, you can open the Dropbox app, select a photo and download it to your phone so it’s ready to use in the MyHeritage app.
Once selected, tap Next. Be aware this will activate the LiveMemory processing. Since there is a limit to the number of videos you can generate, be sure it’s the photo you want before tapping Next.
You’ll see a message on the screen that your video is being processed and that you will be notified by email. In a few moments or minutes, check your email. The video will be attached to the email sent to the email address attached to your MyHeritage account. Currently MyHeritage says they are saving the videos to your account; however, I don’t see a way to download them from their site or app. So, you will find the video attached to the email.
Click it to download it to your computer or phone. I like that it encourages us to retain the final content ourselves on our own computer, which I’m a big advocate of because I think it’s really important to not just have your family history on somebody else’s website. Even if they eventually store the videos in your account, download a copy to your computer where you have automatic backup installed. I’ve used Backblaze as my online backup for years. (Here’s my affiliate link which supports this free podcast: https://Backblaze.com/lisa)
Be prepared to be amazed when you watch your video!
My first attempt was a photo from the late 1950s of my husband Bill, he’s probably about six, with his family and his dad is playing the organ. His mom is pregnant with his youngest sister, Carol. This photo has hung on the wall by our piano for decades. And now MyHeritage has brought it to life!
Does AI ever get the animation wrong?
The animation is based on best estimates by AI. It usually comes out pretty natural-looking, but sometimes not so much. I did notice that sometimes the faces change a little bit as they’re moving and look some of the authentic look of the original photo.
Sometimes, things are just sort of this world. An example of that is the photo of my dad and I in the late 1960s playing on homemade Romper Stompers. Do you remember romper Stompers? If you watched Romper Room as a kid like I did, you’ll recall that they were sort of cups with long strings that you’d stand on and walk making yourself a sort of marionette. Hhmm, if you haven’t seen it. That doesn’t probably sound like it makes any sense! Back then we thought it was so cool. Well, my mom made me my own set of Romper Stompers with two tin cans that my dad drilled holes in and ran ropes through them. My photograph is of me and my dad on the back porch standing on Romper Stompers. You can only imagine what AI tried to make out of that. It didn’t understand that you lift one leg at a time. In the video, I end up hopping along two legs at a time, which would have been quite a feat!. My dad is even wider, leaping up and hanging in mid-air! So that video is a winner with my grandkids!
All this to say, keep this in mind as you are selecting photographs that might lend themselves more to movement and accuracy. if it’s an unusual action taking place, AI might not quite be able to make total heads or tails of it, but it’s entertaining anyway.
How can you tell if a video is a LiveMemory animated photo?
It’s important that family historians can differentiate between AI-generated content and the “real thing”. MyHeritage has stated their commitment to the responsible use of this technology. They add an “AI” watermark to all videos so everyone can tell the difference.
MyHeritage describes the video results as “highly realistic” “reenactments”, which is an interesting way to put it. They are reenactments created by artificial intelligence. They’re not authentic, so they distinguish them with that AI watermark around the area of privacy.
Are my MyHeritage LiveMemory videos private?
MyHeritage says they will not license or sell your photos to third parties and will not use them to train internal AI models. They also say in their blog post that it’s “based on technology from a third party that does not obtain rights to your photo or the output video. Your explicit consent is required granting MyHeritage permission to process your photo before activating the LiveMemory™ feature.”
They do ask you to use the tool responsibly and consider carefully the photos that you’re uploading. They do not allow pornography or offensive subject matter, or military scenes or photos of dead people. They actually have live people who will review the videos for violations.
As I saw the live memory results, I knew how I was going to be using it. Back in 2008 on the Genealogy Gems Podcast I talked about that we had received a box of Bill’s grandfather’s belongings from a cousin. Back in the day, Raymond and his wife Isabelle both played in the orchestra for silent films. In fact, that’s how they met. Bumpa played violin, and Nanna played the piano and organ. Later in the 1950s they used to get together quite often with the family for evenings of music. One evening they recorded the live music on a reel-to-reel audio tape and years later I had it digitized.
I’ve had this audio in the form of an mp3 file for years. And I have just one photograph from the 1950s of Nanna and Bumpa, dressed up in old-timey costumes, playing together. He’s playing the violin, she’s playing the piano. Finally, I had a way to create a video with the original music!
Raymond and Isabelle Cooke circa late 1950s (from the collection of Lisa Louise Cooke)
So, I animated the photo through the LiveMemory tool. Then I used my video editing skills to pull in the 5 second video and the audio file. I replicated the five second video clip a couple times, applied some zooming effects, added color adjustments, and added the music mp3. It all came together in a 35 second video of this photo coming to life complete with music.
I would not be surprised if down the road, MyHeritage finds a way to bring in audio. Perhaps some royalty-free music backing tracks. I’m sure that must be on their radar, because it’s just a logical extension of being able to expand into animating your photos. But if you want to see it now, here’s my version:
Here’s the video I posted on the Genealogy Gems podcast Facebook page and Instagram:
If you like what you see, head to the Comments section below and let me know. Then check out the links in the Resources section below to my video editing tutorial videos.
Spot This Genealogy Error and Fix It FAST!
I recently spotted what could be called “fake family history” on TV news program recently. Get the show notes and watch SpotThis Genealogy Error and Fix It Fast! as I share this weird example of mistaken identity on online & television news. I’ll explain how I went about solving the case. Then, try out these techniques when you spot errors in your own family history whether they occur on TV, in books, online family trees, genealogy blog posts or elsewhere.
Comment below:
What would you like to see next from MyHeritage? Longer clips? Full video editing capabilities? The ability to purchase a larger number of videos?
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