MyHeritage

Until September 2016 I was pretty satisfied with MyHeritage. Then an update for the software FTB was introduced. After that, the synchronization of the Family Tree Builder FTB software with the online web page confused all the photos. They were partly not linked at all or linked to wrong persons. The problem is still not solved correctly.
On my website there are 10 family trees with 1331 persons and 2166 photos.
After 19 e-mails with the support department, my supervisor explained, "I have to consult the development department, as it seems to be a bug." That was on 6 December 2016.
Then a new supervisor took over my case. After 21 mails with instructions and data exchange, she writes: "It seems to be a bug. I'll lead it to the appropriate department. "That was on July 12,2017, 10 months after the catastrophic update of September 2016.
The supervisors were always polite and helpful. They did everything they could to help me. But that was not enough. They depended on the work of the development department.
In July 2017 there was again an update for the offline program FTB. But still some photos are synonymous with the site synced to the album, but not linked to the person records. Photos that are assigned to «events» in the FTB are not synchronized at all. There is no consistency of the errors. Thus the texts of the "biography" and the "events" are synchronized to some of my family trees, to others not.
I spent a few hundred hours trying to correct sync errors, reimport photos, share data with MyHeritage's support department, and follow their instructions. After update 2017 the communication with the support department is torn off. The last thing I heard a few weeks ago is, "We're working on your concerns."
All the more emails I receive concern to matches that I could check for an additional fee and advertising for the analysis and deposit of my genetic heritage, the DNA. Synchronization error of photos I can recognize, but I can not detect any error of my DNA.
However, the joy of MyHeritage has passed. I am now taking my time to get to know the platforms "FamilySearch" and "Ancestry". I avoid www.geni.com. This platform belongs to MyHeritage.

When I joined My Heritage I really wasn't expecting much. I knew absolutely nothing about my father's side of the family except for a few brothers and sisters who were much older than him and a couple of his nephews. I did not know the name of either of his parents as they had passed away in the late 1920's and my father never spoke about them, probably because I didn't have the sense to ask. I did know that they came here from Germany before my father was born. I utilized the sale they were having to have my DNA done, which was a learning experience in itself. So I learned I'm not German at all and a whole lot of things that I had no idea were in my bloodline, but most of all I actually found all sorts of things out about his mother, her mother and father and my grandmothers siblings and his father's name. How awesome is that! I also found I had kin still living that were doing research on my father's side of the family, which is how I found most of the information. I also found lots of information on my mother's side of the family that I did not know, including great grandparents, where they were born, when they died, etc, etc. So I really have to say this site has been great for me!
I found the site to be very easy to maneuver around in, lots of information you could look up and lots, and lots of matches you could look up and confirm or not.
The only problem I had was in trying to find information. You had to go through pages and pages to try to find what you were looking for which was very time consuming. It would have probably been easier if I had more information to put in the search engine, but of course I didn't.
I would definitely recommend this site based on the good experience I had with My Heritage.

Both my mother and my brother did their DNA through another company. I essentially have an idea where my family likely comes from, I also have a an idea of migration patterns based on new DNA and Halogroup breakdowns for Ireland and Scotland and I know there's likely a bit of British/English and one old connection to West Europe.
I know my dad is old Irish (so I would suspect typical 80-90% Irish, with some Iberian, Scandinavia maybe Finnish Northwest Russia). My mom id her DNA and she got over 50% Great Britain, 34% Irish, Europe West and Italy Greece. Which sort of fits old migration patterns to the British Isles. My Brother who would have some of my dad's gene got 66%+ Irish, 16% Great Britain, 6% Finland NW Russia, 3% Iberian, Europe West, Italy Greece, which also fits. With My Heritage I got 65.3% Irish, Scottish, Welsh and 34.7% English, which is so basic and generic. Clearly they have no data base. It is like they threw and ink blotter on the Map of the British Isles. SO I download my DNA file into Gedmatch and in less then a minute I have similar breakdown of ethnicity to my mother and brother. So clearly the information contained in my DNA can be further broken down. I feel clearly ripped off. I wanted to see if anything was different is wasn't. I also do know how DNA is distributed and not all siblings are the same but this was just NO EFFORT INVOLVED. All my family already has been told not to use this DNA test. Vague and simply useless. My video was less than 30seconds with an Irish jig follow by an English melody, poof!

MyHeritage is an Israel based service with satellite offices in the US. If you are comfortable with sharing all of your family history with complete strangers including the DNA information as a result of collaboration between 23andMe then this is the site for you. I has fewer records, by a large margin, than Ancestry and my own personal experience with the company was less than satisfactory. However, my major complaint with all the online genealogical services is that you provide you do all the work by researching and recording your family tree and they then get to exploit that research for a profit. As a long time researcher, I find this model abhorrent. By all means use the service for research (I personally use Ancestry because of its much larger records base), but I record all of my data offline and make it available to proven relatives through my own website. A second reason is that many of the "family trees" that show up on these sites are very poorly researched and documented, are generally incorrect, and multiply to other branches of the family like a virus which only amplify the errors. In that respect, and in my opinion, the best genealogical software was The Master Genealogist (TMG) (now out of business) which I continue to use because of the power and flexibility of the database design. I also have Ancestry, Roots Magic, GRAMPS, and Legacy programs but do not use them because they are " amateurish" by comparison. Although I self-host my own website, the best genealogical software for online genealogical research that I have found is "Webtrees" a free and feature rich program that rivals any of the commercial programs. The operator(s) of Webtrees offer web-hosting services for an acceptable price. In my opinion, if you are a serious researcher, get a copy of TMG and read TMG Tips to see the power of the database model, or use Webtrees to develop your family tree. Only use the online services for research - don't let them exploit your work to attract more unwary customers and fatten their bottom line!

DO NOT USE THIS SITE. They are happy to take out a number of costs as renewal time without telling customers that there are multiple fees. When I complained I got the basic too bad email and am unable to have a refund made to my now overdrawn account because of this. NEver, ever trust this money hungry, uncustomer driven company. We have laws in place to protect consumers from this type of shady behaviour and I will be taking this further.

I tried to contact this "Dean" as he requested, however I got a reply from someone different with the exact same respone. I am told this company on a number of occasions I do not want this and they are refusing to cancel it and refund my monies. DO NOT TRUST THIS COMPANY IN ANY WAY UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED TO PAY THEM FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

I am still trying to get my money back without any success.

I have finally had some success. They have sent me an email refunding my monies and also giving me a free years subscription to the site (i have noted the end date) to amke up for the frustration that was caused. I am waiting fior thr refund to go back into my account.