MyHeritage Family Goals and the FamilyConnect App for iPhone and Android

I recently noticed that MyHeritage has a new app for iPhone and Android called FamilyConnect. It is free to download from the App Store or Android Market. You need a MyHeritage.com log-in to use it, since it connects to your family tree there. The MyHeritage site is also free to use, although to store trees with more than 250 people and/or use more than 250MB of data, someone in the family needs to sponsor a paid subscription. If you set a Family Goal, which I'll talk about it in a bit, your family can share the cost of the site.

After you log-in to the FamilyConnect app with your MyHeritage log-in and select your family site from the list (if you belong to more than one site), it loads the most recent photos uploaded to your family website. From there, there is an option to save a photo you've selected to your phone, or share the photo via email with other family members on the website. I was actually glad to see that you can't share the photo on Facebook or Twitter, since my site is private and membership is by invitation-only. You can also take a photo to share on the family site or share one from your phone. The apps settings include the ability to limit who appears on the apps email contact list by how closely they are related to you.

This seems like a great start for keeping connected with your family through MyHeritage on-the-go. The app is very user-friendly, has a friendly, simple look, and ran quickly on my Motorola Droid running Android 2.2.2.

However, it would be great to see some more options, such as:

• Viewing at least a few generations of your family tree on your mobile phone.
• Being able to see the latest family newsletter from your phone through the app.
• An option to use the MyHeritage message feature.
• The ability to share videos as well as photos. 
• An "invite family members" button.

Generally, it would be nice to see a "light" version of the site on the app, similar to a Facebook or Twitter app. Obviously, that kind of thing requires a great deal of development, so I look forward to seeing updates to the app as they are released. 

Another new feature on MyHeritage.com is the Family Goal. The option to set one up is on the left hand site of the home page once you log in. If you are already paying for a subscription on a monthly basis (as I was), you will have to cancel the plan in order to set up a Family Goal. I chose a PremiumPlus subscription at (unlimited data) $119.40 per year  as this is the only option that could fit all of the data on my site.

I was glad to see that the invitation to donate to the Family Goal was customizable, as I was already uncomfortable asking for money (however, the cost of the site had become difficult to pay on my own), and I didn't want my family members to receive a generic email.

The Family Goal ran for two weeks, and I'm happy to say that my family met the goal, so our site is paid for until next year. Thanks to everyone who donated, I really appreciate it! I do wish the Family Goal could have run for longer than that, to give me a chance to get in touch with more family members. Overall, I was very happy with it, and having the site up for another year is a big relief.

Ancestry Expert Connect Success, School Stalling

Well, I haven't had much to write lately, because I've had to limit the number of classes I'm taking due to financial concerns. However, I am currently in the Analysis & Skills Mentoring Program (Part 1) at NIGS. It has been wonderful to get one-on-one feedback from the teachers there. You have at least two private consultations to discuss your overall progress as well as specific assignments related to the ASM class, and you can schedule more for a fee. There are also, as with the other classes, chats with other students and at least one teacher. The assignments are essentially simple case studies, as well as one which asks you to analyze a scholarly genealogy article (which you then discuss in one of the chat sessions). Overall, an excellent checkpoint after you've completed the first two methodology classes.


I have also been very busy with some small projects through Ancestry's Expert Connect. I have had much luck in obtaining interesting projects, and working with great clients. My one complaint is that I spend a great deal of time rejecting projects that are out of my area. I wish there were a way to help clients pick the right professionals to invite to their projects, to save their time and ours. I don't want to ignore these clients and not respond to them, but sometimes it is just too overwhelming to go through all of the invitations, only to find I can't help many of those clients at all.

Which brings me to my (second-to) last point: Any researchers out there in the Philadelphia area interested in trying out Expert Connect? I have to turn away a great deal of people who need records around Philadelphia, or elsewhere in eastern PA. While I have access to a limited number of these records through the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, these clients need someone who has easier access to more eastern PA records (and many, many people don't realize that it takes about 6 hours to get from one end of PA to the other).

A quick plug for a genealogy program I've been using a lot lately - RootsMagic 4. The interface isn't fancy, but it does have templates to help you cite your sources correctly (very important!!), and the GenSmarts plug-in has helped me kick-start some research with specific suggestions of collections to search. Very cool new toy (and GenSmarts works with some other genealogy programs as well). 

Hopefully I can get back into the habit of posting more often.

Surname Saturday - The Boehm Family of Western Pennsylvania

I hope to keep up with this blogging theme every Saturday, because I have quite a few pieces missing from my family tree, and I'd love to see if anyone out there has any clues. I’ve used Blogger’s awesome new Pages feature to list the most common surnames in my family tree, as well as my boyfriend’s.
Ironically enough, one of the families which I know the least about is the one whose name I carry: Boehm. The history of my own last name is easy enough to trace, because it comes from a geographical area. According to Ancestry.com's surname entry for Boehm, the name originally meant that a person was from Bohemia, a land which is now 2/3 of the Czech Republic. The spelling is close enough that Microsoft Word tries to correct my name to Bohemia every time I type it, lol. Ancestry also indicates that the greatest concentrations of people with that name were located in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio as of the 1920 census. Their surname search provides an interesting profile of your family name.
Here is my line of the Boehm family:

Facial Recognition Software - A Helpful Genealogy Tool

Before I get to the second half of my course review from Sunday, I wanted to point out a couple of very helpful tools I've found in MyHeritage.com and Picasa 3. I recently started scanning in photos - some of people who I recognized; some, I didn't. Using facial recognition tools, I was able to identify quite a few people - to the delight of those related to people in the pictures :)

Here's how: