MyHeritage releases breakthrough Record Matching technology for family history

Discoveries made easy: Millions of MyHeritage users to automatically receive relevant newspaper clippings and historical records, adding color to their family history

PROVO, Utah & LONDON & TEL AVIV, Israel – September 19, 2012: MyHeritage, the world’s largest family network, today announced the release of Record Matching, an innovative new technology set to change the face of the family history market. Record Matching will help millions of families learn more about their past by automatically discovering relevant historical records and newspaper articles dating back 300 years.

Record Matching is the next generation of family history exploration. It saves time by automating online research for users’ family trees, breaking through “brick walls” for dedicated genealogists, and giving beginners a significant boost with their family tree research. It works by comparing more than one billion profiles in family trees created by MyHeritage users to more than four billion historical records, to find relevant matches. It’s the only service of its kind to automatically research newspaper articles, books and other free text content through semantic analysis, to find articles that can shed light on the actual lives, personalities and achievements of one’s ancestors.  The Internet has helped bring family history to mainstream audiences, by allowing some of the research traditionally done in libraries and archives to be done online. Record Matching now simplifies online research by conducting it automatically.

Supporting 38 languages, MyHeritage has become the trusted home on the web for families worldwide wishing to explore their family history, share memories and stay connected. In addition to its expertise on collaborative family tree building, over the past year MyHeritage has positioned itself as a leading provider of historical records. Record Matching is an add-on feature for SuperSearch, the search engine for historical records successfully released by MyHeritage in June 2012.

MyHeritage Founder and CEO, Gilad Japhet, said: “Record Matching is a family history discovery maker and time saver, designed to delight both dedicated family historians and people with a casual interest in their ancestry. Over the past year we’ve expanded our consumer offering by complementing our social family tree network with a substantial amount of historical content. Record Matching now ties these two assets together, adding exciting new value for our users and giving us a unique edge in the family history market. It’s a significant step towards realizing our goal of bringing family history to the masses.” 

Record Matching utilizes the current global pool of more than four billion records on MyHeritage, including strong collections in the USA, UK, Ireland, Australia and Canada, with more content being added daily for additional countries. Users can receive birth, marriage and divorce documents, gravestone photos, death, burial and census information, military, immigration and other types of records in their Record Matches. More information about the lives of relatives and ancestors can be revealed in Record Matches from the world’s largest historical newspaper collection licensed to MyHeritage (currently about 120 million pages dating back to the 18th century), books and other free text materials. Record Matches also cover the 1930 and 1940 US census records and the content from MyHeritage-owned family history websites, WorldVitalRecords and FamilyLink. 

Developed in-house by MyHeritage engineers and family history experts, Record Matching technology is designed to mimic the work of a family historian as much as possible, finding matches that a human would consider plausible, and ruling out matches that a researcher would consider as incorrect. Based on multiple genealogical algorithms that match information in the record (names, dates, facts, relationships, etc.) to the information in the family tree, semantic analysis, statistical engines and a false positive prevention sub-system, Record Matching provides a high degree of accuracy without sacrificing flexibility. Through its use of massive computational resources and systematic approach of comparing every person to every record, Record Matching makes discoveries that many users would not have the time or luck to find on their own.

Record Matching technology augments MyHeritage’s flagship Smart Matching™ technology that compares family trees to other family trees. The two technologies work together in a cycle that constantly pushes forward the users' knowledge of their family history. MyHeritage users will receive weekly email updates of their new Record Matches. On the MyHeritage.com website, all Record Matches found are consolidated in one interactive report, where users can conveniently review, filter, sort, confirm and reject their matches.

Record Matching has flexible phonetic and multilingual capabilities when researching names, covering many possible synonyms, different spellings and international variations.  Record Matches have an individual confidence score and can be viewed by person or by data collection. Additional features, such as saving information from Record Matches into online family trees, creating references and source citations and displaying real-time matches whenever a new person is added into the tree, will be added before the end of 2012.

As of today, Record Matching will run periodically for every user who has a family tree on MyHeritage. Record Matches found will be displayed for free as a shortened extract. For full access to the historical records delivered by Record Matches, MyHeritage offers affordable data subscription plans and pay-as-you-go credits which are also good for use on SuperSearch, the MyHeritage search engine for historical records. In complimentary collections under license, such as Ellis Island and Find-A-Grave, MyHeritage users will enjoy full access to the Record Matches for free. Family tree enthusiasts interested in receiving Record Matches are welcome to sign up for free at MyHeritage, import their family tree or build a new one using the site’s friendly tools, and receive their matches in less than 24 hours.

About MyHeritage

MyHeritage is the most popular family network on the web. On MyHeritage, millions of families around the world enjoy a private and free place to explore their history and share family memories. Pioneers in making family history a collaborative experience for the entire family, MyHeritage empowers its users with innovative social tools and a massive library of historical content. The site is available in 38 languages. The company is backed by Accel Partners and Index Ventures. For more information visitwww.myheritage.com.

Press Contact

Caroline Cohen, PR Manager for MyHeritage 
Phone: +44 2081231152   Email: caroline@myheritage.com