i Researching family history can be a fun and meaningful experience. Plus, it helps you preserve your memories, traditions, and family ancestry for future generations. There are a variety of different platforms that can help you research family history, but one of the most popular is MyHeritage. 

With over 20 years of experience preserving family memories, Capture put together this overview and review of MyHeritage to help you determine if it’s the perfect choice for your family history & memories.

Keep reading to learn about MyHeritage, their DNA testing services, family tree builder, pricing, and user experiences. 

Jump to:

• Background of MyHeritage
• MyHeritage DNA Testing
• Family Tree Builder and Genealogy Tools
• User Experience
• Pricing and Subscription Plans
• Pros and Cons of MyHeritage
• User Reviews and Testimonials
• Comparison with Competitors
• Conclusion

Background of MyHeritage

MyHeritage.com is an online genealogy platform that was introduced by a company in Israel in 2003.  They have a massive database of over 19 billion historical records like birth certificates, marriage certificates, and death certificates. 

Users can upload and browse through old fashioned camera photos and digital images to build their family tree and family legacy. You can even colorize photos, animate photos, and enhance photos to update your priceless family memories. 

In addition to allowing you to search their records and use the MyHeritage family tree builder, they also offer a MyHeritage DNA test that will reveal your ethnic background and match you with your family members' distant relatives, even those you may not know with different surnames.   

With 6 billion profiles and 51 million family trees, they are one of the biggest and most popular genealogy platforms. They also offer a MyHeritage app for Apple and Android devices. 

Let’s take a deep dive into their two unique features: MyHeritage DNA test kit and family tree builder & genealogy research tools.

MyHeritage DNA Testing

Using your DNA results, MyHeritage will help you discover your origins across 2,114 geographic regions. Whether you’re Irish, American, British, Welsh, European, Scottish, African, or any other ethnicity, the DNA data combined with their algorithms will not only help you learn where your family originated, but also allow you to connect with relatives.

They have two packages. The first option offers only the DNA sample, genealogy tracing, and smart matches with your relatives, while the more expensive package includes building your family tree, uncovering family history, 20.8 billion historical records access, and all their photo tools to preserve memories. 

So, how does their genetic testing work? They will send a MyHeritage DNA kit that only takes about 2 minutes. You use the cheek swab to collect raw DNA to ship back to them. Within 4 weeks, you’ll receive your DNA test results including ethnicity estimates, new relatives with shared DNA, and even information about your health risks within their chromosome browser. 

One of the biggest concerns we had with our MyHeritage DNA review was privacy. After all, autosomal DNA testing can contain private information including health reports and genetic background. 

While we can’t speak for the accuracy of their claims, MyHeritage seems to take privacy seriously, offering multiple layers of encryption to secure your DNA data. Not only that, but their laboratory is CLIA-certified and CAP-accredited. That was enough for us, but if privacy is a concern for you, then you can contact their customer support for more info. 

Family Tree Builder and Genealogy Tools

The other main feature of the MyHeritage website is their family tree builder. It’s not only easy to use, but it’s also free to get started with a tree of up to 250 people. After signing up, you can start adding yourself and your loved ones to your family tree. 

Then, you can add photos, dates, stores, and memories of mom, dad, grandma, and all your other relatives. However, if you have old photos, Polaroid pictures, and photo slides that aren’t digitized, then you’ll need to first use a photo scanning service like Capture before you can upload them. 

The good news is that Capture can digitize your photos at an affordable price, creating high-quality digital copies. Plus, we offer the first-ever touchless photo album scanning services, meaning we can scan all the photos in your photo albums without anyone ever having to remove them. 

After that, you can share your family tree with your relatives so they can also add photos and stories. Then, you can search through billions of historical records including obituaries, marriage certificates, census records, and other resources to thoroughly reveal your family history. 

User Experience

Overall, we had a great experience using MyHeritage. Compared with some other options, it’s incredibly easy to use. You simply follow their prompts to start creating your family tree, testing your DNA, and building your family history. 

They also have great customer support, ready to assist you throughout the entire process. Even better, their community is thriving, with billions of members and millions of family trees. It looks like MyHeritage will be here for a while, which is important when you want to create a lasting family legacy with their services. 

So, is it worth the price?

Pricing and Subscription Plans

MyHeritage has two DNA kit packages. The first is $35 + shipping and includes your origins and finding new relatives using your DNA. We find this to be an extremely reasonable price. The other option is $35 to get started and then $149 for the first year, moving to a subscription style pricing. This includes original tracing, new relatives, family history, a family tree, historical records, and photo colorization and enhancement tools. 

The rest of the MyHeritage pricing uses a yearly subscription model for their historical records, smart matches, advanced DNA features, and photo enhancement. Here are the MyHeritage subscription plans you can choose from:

• Premium - $129/yr (first year $89): Includes family tree of up to 2,500 people, smart matches, and advanced DNA features
• PremiumPlus - $209/yr (first year $149): Includes everything in premium plus instant discoveries & tree consistency checker. 
• Data - $189/yr (first year $129): Includes access to 20.8 billion historical records, record matches, and saving records to your tree.
• Complete - $299/yr (first year $199): Includes everything in PremiumPlus and Data plans, plus photo enhancement features
• Omni - $399/yr (first year $239): Includes everything from all packages, plus the rest of MyHeritage features like historical newspapers from OldNews.com, Geni.com Pro and over 2,000 webinars, and a way to scan photos with their app. 

Overall, we find that MyHeritage provides a lot of value for money. While we prefer the Complete Plan, you can also get a lot of value by starting with the $35 DNA testing kit that comes with the PremiumPlus plan. However, you do have to pay with credit card or debit, with no easy way to pay with cash. 

Pros and Cons of MyHeritage

Pros

• Very easy to use
• Free family tree builder for up to 250 people
• MyHeritage customer support is great
• DNA data privacy 
• Huge MyHeritage database of historical records

Cons

• Search engine is fairly inaccurate
• Can be overly salesy with phone calls and upgrade upsells 
• Many people prefer the DNA results from Ancestry.com and 23andMe
• More popular with more records in Europe than the United States

User Reviews and Testimonials

Overall, MyHeritage user reviews are mostly positive. They have a “Great” 3.8-star rating on Trustpilot, with over 40,000 reviews. Even better, more than half of those reviews are 5 stars. 

Many reviews praise their customer service, fast DNA results, detailed genealogy, and easy-to-use family tree builder. For example, one verified review by Sharon D. says, “I am so impressed with MYHERITAGE.com! I have been a member for about 10 years… I was offered a plan that is especially economical for me, and I could not refuse it because one of my most fun things to do is to solve "puzzles" and finding my heritage and my personal ancestors.”

Another positive experience said, “The purchase itself was simple, and affordable. The information I researched also indicated that this would be effective enough to be worth the value against its competitors.”

However, there are also some recurring themes among the negative feedback, with 1 star being the second most with 23% of reviews. Many people say they were charged without warning while others disliked their dishonest services, expensive pricing, and inaccurate DNA test results. 

For example, one unhappy user says, “If you have recently bought a DNA test and are happy with the reduced price, beware, so they will take money from the bank account you used. If you have gifted a few kits to people you will lose hundreds! Keep checking your bank, dispute it immediately, and do not let them just give you half back!”

Another negative review reads, “The sole purpose in doing a DNA test was to confirm a Scottish connection in my family tree. The groupings were so broad that all of the UK and Ireland are grouped together.”

To really determine if it’s the best choice for your family history, we will compare MyHeritage vs Ancestry, 23andMe, and FamilyTreeDNA. 

Comparison with Competitors

MyHeritage is one of the most popular genealogy tools available for a reason. They are one of the most affordable options compared with Ancestry and 23andMe.

They are also about the same price as FamilyTreeDNA, while offering a bigger database, better reviews on Amazon and Trustpilot, and more accurate results. However, FamilyTreeDNA does offer paternal y-DNA ancestry and maternal mtDNA ancestry separately if that’s something you’d like to focus on. 

So, we believe MyHeritage is the clear choice between those options, but it becomes less clear with the more popular Ancestry.com and 23andMe. While MyHeritage is still more affordable, AncestryDNA has a larger customer database, more accurate reports, and additional details. They also have a better database, increasing your chances of finding new relatives. 

What about 23andMe? MyHeritage offers a faster DNA vial turnaround time of 4 weeks versus 4 to 6 weeks. Both companies offer a similar geographic coverage of 2,114 regions for MyHeritage and 2,000+ for 23andMe. 

Plus, MyHeritage has a family tree builder. However, you’ll get more ancestry details, health information, and even information about physical traits with 23andMe.

So, in summary? MyHeritage pricing is unbeatable, and their family tree builder is exceptional. On the other hand, you’ll get better DNA matches from 23andMe and Ancestry tests.  

Conclusion

MyHeritage is a great tool for preserving your family history, creating a family tree, and getting smart matches for your DNA to locate relatives. It’s affordable and very easy to use. Plus, you can upload, colorize, and enhance photos. 

However, to upload photos, you’ll need digital copies. Capture offers top-quality photo scanning, turning your photo prints, negatives, and slides into digital heirlooms. Tap here to learn more.