Back in May at the NGS Conference I found myself waiting
for Dear Myrtle at the MyHeritage booth.
While I was there I spent my time talking to the great guys manning
it. Honestly, they are really nice
people and we were having a great time.
Well, anyway, one thing lead to another and after I mentioned that I was
a writer and blogger I found myself being set-up with an account.
Not exactly what I had planned. I mean how many family tree accounts can one
person have right? However, the demo and
the way they answered my questions kind of hooked me. Well, I will admit, I was
intrigued by what they could offer me that was different from the other sites
out there. A lot of the same record
sties, just searched in a different way.
I do have an Ancestry tree and the beginnings of a Family
Search tree. I am also lazy about my own
family research. Seriously. Over the last year I have been so focused on
lectures, teaching, and writing that my poor shrub has started to gather dust
and be decorated by spiders.
It took a lot for me to say that I would give this a try and
have them help me set-up my account.
Now, this is where I need to admit something to you. I have a free premium plus subscription to
try MyHeritage and blog about my experiences.
You all should know that I will be honest with you about those and I did
warn them that I could be a bit opinioned.
Now they knew I would not be able to really delve into
the site until August. The summer is
always crazy for me with kids home, vacations, outings, and parental visits to
name a few, but, true to my word I sat down last week and played with the site
for a few hours. Oh my, it’s addictive. Just what I didn’t need!
To put it through its paces I decided to start from
scratch. Well, start with what I have in
my head only. It would be super easy to
transfer information over from another site or my computer database but I
wanted to try it like a “real” person.
You know, someone who is just starting out and might only have what is
in their head, what their parents told them, and a shoe box of pictures or
documents.
It was actually very easy to get started. However, I didn’t fill in all the miscellaneous
information the site asked for. Like
what were my parents hobbies, interests, likes, and dislikes. That may have to wait for the Christmas visit
where I will interrogate them one on one.
I can hear them groaning now.
In this first session I managed to enter me, my husband,
our kids, our parents, their siblings, and our grandparents. I figured that was a good first week since I
am trying to get as much as I can remember down about them, with pictures if
possible, before I start uploading documents later. What I couldn’t believe was the record hits
that happened very quickly. Even for my
husband!
I plan to do 2-4 hours a week on this site for the next
couple of months, giving you updates and progress reports as I go. Also reviews of how I like the functionality
of the site and if I run into anything I really don’t like. After I get the tree up and running I am
interested how connecting with others and gathering documents from the site
will work. Plus I just downloaded the app, let's see if I hate it or love it next time!
On that note, I hope you will stick around and see what happens. It should be fun!
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