Mightier Acorns

part of a series, “Harmonizing Across Multiple Platforms“

When I conceived of this HAMP series, one of the first sites I intended to talk about was MyHeritage (myheritage.com) – but I ended up putting the draft on the back burner because of changes in the genealogy landscape.

Family Tree DNA (ftdna.com) announced in the summer of 2024 that it was replacing its in-house family tree builder with MyHeritage. In 2025, 23andMe went bankrupt, and since 23andMe and MyHeritage had partnered up a decade before (starting in 2014), that raised a lot of questions about the security of DNA data in the industry, and made me take a “wait and see” approach.

Around the same time, WikiTree and FTDNA announced a partnership, too, which I wanted to see in action before I tried writing about any of these new developments.

Now, it has been over a year, and while my Ancestry membership was paused, I took some time to tinker with MyHeritage and see what’s what.

My Experience

My site on MyHeritage is called “Mightier Acorns” (of course).

An Ancestry membership gives you access to three times as many historical records as MyHeritage – 60 billion versus 20 billion. Where MyHeritage may have an edge is in access to European databases that Ancestry lacks. Of course, I am taking the word of others on that – I have not taken the plunge to try a full MyHeritage membership, yet.

Memberships can cost half as much at MyHeritage, but if you watch for promotional discounts around holidays, you may be able to get an all-access membership at either site for a limited time.

From the outside, some of the differences between the sites feel cosmetic; for example, Ancestry bought Find A Grave several years ago, and your hints and search results will include Find A Grave memorials. MyHeritage has integrated with BillionGraves, and will suggest results from their database.

On the whole, I don’t see a benefit to using MyHeritage at their “free” level over Ancestry. They limit the size of your tree to 250 people, for one thing, and while I have been peppered with notifications that other people have “verified matches” to people in my tree, I can’t see or interact with those matches without paying for an upgrade.

For me, for now, I’ve maxed out the 250 people I can have in hopes that someone searching for DNA matches might be able to find their way to me. But unless there is some compelling “killer app” that I’m missing out on, I don’t see the need to try the upgraded levels.

YOUR Experience?

I am certain that there are those among you who have had more experience with MyHeritage. Maybe you’ve blogged about it, or maybe you’ve just been dying for a chance to talk it up.

Feel free to say so in the comments.