MyHeritage is a genealogy website that you can use to create your family tree for free. If you want access to more, then you need to purchase a subscription. A few months ago, they unveiled something called SuperSearch. Now, they have added Record Matching to the SuperSearch system.
MyHeritage is a genealogy website that has been around since 2005. It is run by a company that is based in Israel. It has memberships from people who live all around the world. You can use MyHeritage to create your family tree and to do some genealogy research. There are ways to share your research with other members of your family, if everyone has a MyHeritage account.
In July of 2012, MyHeritage released something new called SuperSearch. This new feature was decribed as a “powerful search engine for historical records”. It allows genealogists to search through more than 4 billion records, (including birth, marriage, death records, military and immigration records), and vital records from 16 different countries. It also features 500 million exclusive family tree records and the world’s largest newspaper collection.
The SuperSearch also lets you search for synonyms and initials of first names. For example, if you do a search for William, you also will see results for Bill, Vilhelm, Guillaume, and more. Genealogists can choose to do a global search or narrow it down to one collection.
Now, a new feature has been added to the SuperSearch. It is called Record Matching. According to the MyHeritage website: “It is the world’s first and only technology to find family tree matches in newspaper articles, books, and other free text documents, using semantic analysis.”
MyHeritage has the world’s largest newspaper collection that dates back to the 18th century. It also has a collection of tombstone photos that MyHeritage has under license from Find-A-Grave. Record Matching will run periodically and check for new individuals that have been recently added into family trees. Record Matches are calculated automatically for all family trees that are on MyHeritage.
Genealogists who use MyHeritage will be able to easily see the number of Record Matches that have been found for them. Just log in, and take a look at the sidebar on the left hand side. You can click on it to find more specific information about exactly what was found. You can sort it by collections or by people. After you take a look at the Record Matches, you are encouraged to either confirm them or reject them, based upon how accurate and relevant the information was for your family tree.
Image by Carmichael Library on Flickr