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MyHeritage is the leading global platform for family history discovery. It enriches the lives of people worldwide by enabling them to uncover more about themselves and where they belong.
With a suite of intuitive features and innovative products, MyHeritage creates a meaningful discovery experience that is deeply rewarding. Users build family trees and discover new information and relatives through advanced matching technologies and billions of historical records from across the globe. MyHeritage also offers an affordable at-home DNA test revealing an ethnicity breakdown across 79 ethnicities and 2,114 geographic regions, and AI-powered features to repair, colorize, and animate old photos.
The MyHeritage platform is enjoyed by tens of millions of people around the world who treasure and celebrate their heritage. MyHeritage offers full privacy controls and is available in 42 languages.
MyHeritage Reviews Summary
MyHeritage is generally well-regarded for its user-friendly platform and extensive database, which many customers find invaluable for tracing their ancestry and connecting with relatives. Users appreciate the regular updates and the powerful search capabilities that facilitate discoveries. However, concerns arise regarding customer service, particularly related to billing issues and the difficulty of reaching support. Some users have reported feeling overwhelmed by the volume of information and have encountered challenges in verifying data. Overall, while the service is praised for its features, improvements in customer support and communication are necessary to enhance user satisfaction.
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I was Having dreadful troubles, as i'd mucked up something in my tree and couldn't solve the problem myself. I was doing everything the Heritage staff were telling me, nothing seemed to help.
To my surprise Heritage had arranged a direct call to me from the tech team. The gentleman Eden was so kind and understand as i'm not very savvy with all this stuff.He fixed my problem and was so kind and patient. I can't praise him highly enough.
Kind regards
Margaret Jose
Published 2 seconds ago
Recently I changed my computer Hard
Recently I changed my computer Hard Disc and during the process I could not trace my photos, even though my Family Tree still contained all data (except the relative Photos). I asked for assistance from MyHeritage Support and was contacted back immediately. Within a surprisingly short time, I received information on where to trace my photos. Following these instructions, I managed find my photos in another web site and merges them back into the Family Tree Builder.
I contacted MyHeritage that I was unable to load DNA data to their system. Within a few minutes the customer service person made some changes to my account and the problem was solved.
My questions were answered quickly and efficiently. I would not hesitate to ask for help if the need arises.
My Heritage is The site for all serious searchers of their roots. Their support system us unsurpassed. I have been a members for Years and naturally if have inched further back in time searching for my ancestors so i have from time to time had need iof support regarding me managing my site etc. My issue has always been solved.
I am pleased that finally additions can be made to my family tree without the constant reminder to upgrade. With my religious affiliation it was my understanding this service was provided without charge. Obviously, I had not properly registered. I thank you for providing the means to correct my concern.
This website offers everything you need to get your family tree started. The best part is the customer service team in Tel Aviv. When i called for information about merging my trees, I was handled very professionaly. This gave me confidence in their Business model, and i knew i could trust these people. They stand behind their product and were very willing to answer all of my concerns.
Smart matches no longer working, now you want more money for it. Also how can i remove your sales pitch on my website seems you are more interested in selling rather than helping grow my tree. Very reluctant to ask anyone in tree to join since you are going to sell them a subscription aggressively.
I have been a user of the My Heritage Application for seven months now. Each time I got stumped about how to accomplish my goal, I called their tech support and was rewarded with even more info
Than my original concern, guiding me further into my quest of searching my ancestry. With a little effort most questions solve themselves before I call them, the site is easy to use and I thank the latest
Rep to help me, Maor for his patiently dealt out help.
Read your Subscription - if you think you have the option of being charged monthly you do not. It was explained that they only list the 9.95 to show a monthly comparison. I was offered 50% of my money back (I was thinking I was being charged 9.95 for the monthly fee and was going to use the program for a month to see if it was worth it - - I was charged an annual fee with no refund option as per their policy. Probably my fault for not reading through the information and assuming I could go month to month. I should also note that the information I could access on this site was no different than free sites if you do some digging.
Dear Leslie,
I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.
I agree that it is always wise to review the details before you purchase anything.
Myheritage informs all of the annual charge and its price on the automatic e-mail that is sent out after you enroll in the membership and after every renewal. Also, one may view the status or cancel an annual subscription and a free trial at any time when logging in to MyHeritage from the My Purchases page and incur no annual charge.
Your feedback is very important to us. We really do value the satisfaction of its customers and do offer a thirty (30) day money back guarantee.
Our terms and conditions read that If you are not satisfied with your purchased plan you may request a full refund by contacting Customer Support within thirty (30) days of the initial purchase date of the subscription.
The money back guarantee applies to site subscriptions, Data subscriptions and Complete subscriptions.
I haven't been able to locate your account yet but I am assuming perhaps 30 days has passed on your initial purchase if you were issued a partial refund.
If you have any more questions about this charge or about your membership, please e-mail me directly at [email protected]. I'd be glad to investigate this.
Sincerely
Rafael
Myheritage
Myheritage Support Team was awesome! They've helped me out time after time and always resolved my problems quickly and satisfactorily. I thank you so very much, Support Team!
Honestly, this was one of the best customer service interactions I have ever had. I was confused about the details of an offer, and Markus walked me through it, helped me streamline my family trees, explained away some of the problems I'd been having, and gave me some help in getting up to speed on the site. I couldn't have asked for a clearer, more helpful interaction. He has really made me feel good about my choice of sites.
June 9 I ordered a premium subscription because I thought I could fix misinformation regarding my mothers family. They put her brother and sister as half siblings and it's just not so! Believe me I asked every member of the family! Also I did the DNA test and that was confusing. My mothers side came from Ireland and yet I have no Irish in me at all. My twin brother has 33 %! I want to cancel my subscription, delete my account and the tree. Denise M
Dear Denise,
I am sorry to read about your negative experience and I will do all I can to resolve all the issues you report.
The issue you report in regards to your mothers side of your family tree usually stems from when you added or connected your family members on your tree.
In the case of adding half siblings, there is a specific way to add this and I'm going to help you fix this.
Regarding your DNA ethnicity estimate results, I'd like to go over your DNA uploaded and Ethnicity Estimate with our DNA department to investigate why this is so.
In order to help you with all of this, I am in need of locating your account with us. Please contact me via e-mail at [email protected].
Your issues are my priority and I will be looking for your e-mail to assist you with everything as soon as possible.
Sincerely
Rafael
Myheritage
Don't deal with this company.
1- The available information you get and pictures are from the hard work of other people/genealogist. Plus that information is not always accurate. They go with the voting system of "this is the most common answer".
2- No renewal notice each year. They take your money without prior notice. A company that respects their customers and value their membership let them know. Even if you try cancelling the same day, no refund, not with them, not with Paypal, not with your credit card. You're $#*!ed.
3- Price change and important increase without prior notice. Try debating this, even if it's in their agreement, you're still $#*!ed.
4- You want more data? Opps... pay a lot more and we'll let you peek.
5- Gave your dna from another company? It, s their now. You're double $#*!ed. How do you like that?
I will never, EVER got back with this company. I'm deleting everything after my forced re-membership. Want a company that respects you? Go on Ancestry. Go on anywhere else but them.
Hi Chantal,
I am sorry you feel this way about Myheritage and we are sorry for the misunderstanding and inconvenience and I will do all I can to help.
I have located your account and In investigating this issue I have ensured that you receive a full refund.
I'd also like to clarify the facts as I see you have written some spurious information.
It is indeed been proven that sharing information has benefited millions of researchers all over the world to locate and find clues about ones heritage.
That being said, Myheritage offers an assortment of privacy settings built in your site that will ensure your information is private if you do not choose to share your information.
While it is legitimate to investigate a Smart Match before you allow it to be merged into your research, we give you options to review and contact the site manager of the match (source) to debate any information shared.
The bottom line is if you don't want to use a matching feature to research your family, you certainly have the choice to disable this and maintain a private site.
Concerning subscription renewals, we inform everyone of the annual charge and its price on the automatic e-mail that is sent out after you enroll in the membership and after every renewal.
Also, one may cancel an annual subscription at any time when logging in to MyHeritage from the My Purchases page and incur no annual charge.
Furthermore, We are a refund friendly company and if you are unhappy with your purchase, our terms and conditions clearly explain one may cancel and get a full reimbursement
Regarding subscriptions, It is not possible for us to offer many record collections without a fee considering historical data comes from partners that require royalties on its use by customers.
Nonetheless, some records in SuperSearch are free (e.g. BillionGraves, Social Security Death Index).
We do offer a complete subscription that offers all research tools but many of our users prefer to only pay for some features as they don't really use the entire array of tools Myheritage does offer.
Because of this, we offer an assembly of subscriptions that will fit your research and budget including a free basic membership and a free downloadable Family Tree Builder program.
Lastly, your comment about our DNA is inaccurate. Myheritage will never hang on to your DNA sample or information if you do not want us to. Our Terms and conditions clearly state the following:
"The license you grant to us is not perpetual, and it is revocable as you are able at any time to delete your DNA Results and DNA Reports permanently from the Website and to have us destroy your DNA samples."
In closing, please know that your feedback is very important to us. I personally would like to help you in regards to your DNA privacy or any other questions you might have.
Please contact me anytime at [email protected].
Always happy to help
Rafael
Myheritage
I also got bogus DNA results from this site. There is no way that I have 40% Greek and I would like for them to re-test. Every time I try to call them the wait on the phone is forever and for technical questions (that I am assuming my question would fall under) the message outgoing tells me to call back during 7-4PM eastern. I have called during these times. I feel like this company just tries to get as many people to participate and doesn't do their science correctly and then ignores you. If a rep reads this BAD review then please contact me. My number is: Kit: MH-2AC3B2
Dear Lisa,
I know how frustrating it may be to on hold for hours and I can assure you that your question is very important to us.
We do currently have a large influx of our many Myheritage members calling us with questions and at times, our phone lines do require a hold time that varies depending on the issue.
I'd be more than happy to go over your DNA results with you and answer any questions you may have about it.
Please contact me directly via e-mail at [email protected].
You are already one of my first priorities here as I will be looking for an e-mail from you.
Looking forward to assisting you.
Rafael
Myheritage
Just received by DNA results, unless my birth certificate is inaccurate or our families are hiding a deep dark secret. Test results indicate that I'm at least 52% Chinese, 20 % Italian, and thats impossible. For that to be accurate one of my parents would have to be 100% Chinese. My mother doesnt have any Chinese and my father is at least 50% Hawaiian, because his mother, my biological grandmother was 100% Hawaiian. We have already confirmed that because a lot of benefits available to Hawaiians are determined by blood quantum. Because benefits are so scarce the officials that manage these programs are very particular and have to be very accurate about blood quantum. The DNA results don't even indicate that we are at least 25% Hawaiian/Polynesian, and I don't want to even mention being Italian, there is no Italians in my family, long lost or not. A micro biologist friend said, that DNA results can vary a lot depending on the type of test you run. Blood DNA is the most accurate. DNA test using saliva can also vary depending on something as innocuous as were the sample was pulled from the swab. So DNA testing in many cases is a crap shoot, unless you have access to blood DNA testing and thats not available to many of us. Our friend (micro-biologist) recommended that of you can afford it, have your siblings tested too and cross test with other DNA testing sites, like Ancestry.com. So for those of you who have already tested with MyHeritage, unless you have other coroborating data to cross reference your results, what you might have may not be accurate. I'll follow-up when I retest with the other sites, so stay tuned.
Hi Timothy,
I'm sorry to read the bad review have given Myheritage.
While your friend may have very good insight on DNA testing, i'd like to give you more information on how it is done at Myheritage.
As you may already realize, testing and comparing your DNA are two different things. To estimate your ancestral ethnicity, MyHeritage compares your DNA with people around the globe whose genetic ethnicity is known. We call these people the Founder Populations.
Currently our genetic models are based on 42 ethnic groups around the world. But this will improve thanks to our Founder Population project, the largest study of this kind ever conducted.
More than 5000 participants have been handpicked to serve as references for this project by virtue of their family trees exemplifying consistent ancestry from the same region or ethnicity for many generations.
The results of these tests will yield a rich DNA data set. As you most likely understand already, bio-geographical estimates are complex.
It is true that different companies analyzing the DNA of the same person in different ways can come up with different Ethnicity Estimates based on various factors, such as the reference populations used for comparison and the algorithms used. With the MyHeritage test, as with some other autosomal tests, we cover about 700,000 SNPs.
However, this does not mean that each test necessarily covers the exact same SNPs, therefore, there can be a very slight difference of chemical nature and processing of algorithms with different companies.
In regards to testing, while there are pros and cons to both swab and blood tests and it is truly your decision. The bottom line is that most people get a similar result from both. This can be verified on various forums.
In my opinion, Swab tests from buccal epithelial cells (cheek cells) seem to be easier to extract, quicker, painless and more affordable than a blood sample.
We appreciate all of your feedback and wish you all the best in your research.
Kind Regards
Rafael
Myheritage
My parents were born and raised in different parts of the Philippine islands. I received my results from MyHeritage. 64% Chinese 30.1 Thai and Cambodian 3.8 oceanic and 2.0 south Europe.
So I send a email explaining that my parents born and raised in the PI and I don't have any % of PI in me. They send me a email explaining how they do things. Ok I understood that.
Then 1 month later I get a email from MH with new results. 100% Filipino and that's it. Nothing else. Are you kidding me? They email:
After the initial launch of the Ethnicity Estimate (Beta 0.90), we have used the feedback from our users to improve and refine our Ethnicity Estimate. We therefore launched a new Ethnicity Estimate (Beta 0.95) with an enhanced display of ethnicity results, newly added ethnicities now presenting 42 ethnicities and a greater accuracy. On 12. 5. 17 you have contacted us and complained that the Ethnicity Estimate doesn't show your Filipino Ethnicity Estimate. One of the Ethnicities that we have added to the new model 0.95 beta is "Filipino, Indonesian, and Malaysian", which is now reflected in your results.
I'm getting another test done from another company we'll see. Waste of time with MH.
Hi Bob,
I regret to find that you are unhappy with your Ethnicity Estimate results.
Your feedback is extremely important to us as we are constantly working on updating the essence of our ethnicity estimate model.
The estimate we provide is based on an autosomal DNA test that analyzes DNA inherited from both your parents, estimating where your ancestors lived a few hundred years ago.
In some regions of the world, a unique set of genetic characteristics are shared between the offspring of native populations and neighboring countries.
Therefore a newer model was launched along with the older model to give you a better Ethnicity Estimate with more specifics about your DNA and ethnic origin in the Philippines.
If you have any more feedback, questions or if you would even just like to chat about this, please feel free to contact me directly at [email protected].
Sincerely
Rafael
Myheritage
I signed up for the free trial a few months ago. The site was not nearly as user friendly as Ancestry.com, and there is a limit as to how big your family tree can get, which is how they get people to pay.
I canceled my free trial and opted out of any future emails from them. I still receive emails from them even though I've blocked every email address that comes through, and have repeatedly clicked on the "remove my email address" link and entered my email address. Nothing works.
I've contacted their supposed "help line/customer support" more than 30 times, and every time an automated woman's voice comes on saying "we're unavailable-please call back later." There is no option to hold. There is no email address to contact My Heritage, so anyone who actually needs to speak to someone is screwed. I've even called the Canada help line, and the "other" help line with the same results.
This is bs. I've never had so much difficulty getting ahold of a company. Especially one that is supposedly there to help people. Absolutely ridiculous. I'm only giving it 1 star because there is no option for 0.
Hi Alisha,
I regret to hear about your bothersome attempt in deleting your account and in contacting our support center.
I'd be more than happy and willing to help you ensure that you do not receive any more e-mails and your account is fully removed by all means.
In order to do so, I'm going to need to locate from which account these alerts are coming from.
Please e-mail me directly at [email protected] with the e-mail you are receiving these messages from so I may help you with this as soon as possible.
You are already my first priority here and I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards
Rafael
Myheritage
The outstanding customer service was worth the telephone wait. Markus was knowledgeable, friendly and solved my problem in record time. I use My Heritage weekly and have found it very helpful with building my family tree.
I uploaded my AncestryDNA test results (dna data) to myheritage because I had received the following:
"MyHeritageDNA's new DNA Ethnicity Analysis is available to all who have previously or will get tested at MyHeritage. It is also available to anyone who has tested with another company and uploads their results to MyHeritage. It's 100% free to upload and includes free matching for life. And we recently confirmed that those who upload their results can contact their matches on MyHeritage for FREE! "
So I followed the instructions and did it which is a miracle because I'm not a techie at all. I called MyHeritage to ask more specific questions and the young man was very helpful to me. He answered all my questions and was awesome! Thank you MyHeritage.
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Dear Oscar,
I'm sorry to read your bad review. I can assure you that it is our interest for you to grow and research your family history.
Indeed, MyHeritage family sites are based on subscriptions but, basic sites and our genealogy software can be downloaded for free.
Nonetheless, millions of our members do benefit from a Premium, PremiumPlus, data or complete subscriptions.
In clicking on a feature that allows you to view a smart match, you are directed for more information on upgrading your subscription to use the specific research tool.
These subscriptions offer an assembly of tools that are designed to assist you with your research but that doesn't mean that you cannot add to your tree and research your family with a free membership.
To avoid these advertisements, we do give you the option to turn off smart matches to abstain from viewing these messages and advertisements.
To disable Smart Matches, please do the following:
1. Log into your family site.
2. Click on your name in the upper right-hand side of the screen.
3. Select ‘My Privacy’.
4. Than look under the ‘Content’ section that is shown.
Here you can find two options: 'Enable Smart Matching™ on MyHeritage (recommended)' and 'Enable Smart Matching™ with other MyHeritage websites and partners'.
You can un-check any of them (or both) according to your preferences.
Please let me know if you need more help with this by e-mail me at [email protected].
Happy to help
Rafael
Myheritage