(click the images to expand)
How the Ancestry vs MyHeritage battle came about
If you’ve read my first post, you’ll know that initially, I advocated for free research sites. I’ve always been the sort of person who likes to get as much as I can, for as little as I can.
In the very beginning, my genealogy research was the same. But, things get very different when you get past the basics.
At first, looking for things like birth and marriage records is fairly easy using free resources. If you know where the person you’re researching lived and you have an idea of the date, it’s fairly easy to pick the correct record.
If you want to go any deeper though, everything is much more complicated.
For example, let’s say I wanted to see what information I could find about my Great Great Grandfather. So, you enter his full name, year and place of birth, year and place of marriage and the full names of his mother and father.
FamilySearch, returns 34,015 results. Seems like a lot right? Until you enter exactly the same search terms into Ancestry.co.uk. Ancestry returns 59,707 results!
Now FamilySearch has 2 Billion records online. Ancestry reports having 30+ Billion records. So maybe the 25,000 extra results isn’t that bad after all.
The benefit of using a subscription site, like Ancestry, or My Heritage, or FindMyPast, etc., is that subscribed members get access to billions of actual documents. On the free resource sites, you generally only have access to indexes and transcribed records.
Luckily for me, I had 2 pieces of good luck.
The first was that I discovered my Great Grandfather, James George was married to Annie Elizabeth Saunders. Not in itself anything to write home about. But, my youngest daughter, Stacey, has been in a relationship with Stevie Saunders for about 9 years. And Annie’s Grandmother, Elizabeth Saunders (1816-1907), moved to Bridgwater after the death of her husband.
Stacey wanted to find out if the 2 Saunders’ families were linked in any way, so got herself a subscription to Ancestry.co.uk.
Shortly after, I told my eldest daughter Katrina about the discovery. She told me that back in February, she’d paid for a 12-month subscription to MyHeritage.com, that she’d never used!
These 2 subscriptions gave me options I didn’t have before. So I decided to give them both a try.
As with most things, personal choice is the deciding factor. Both of these sites do the same thing. They both allow you to host your family tree and find records to validate findings.
My thoughts on Ancestry.co.uk
So, I’ll start with Ancestry and give you my thoughts from the first few weeks. Like I say, from my perspective.
What I like…
The first thing I noticed is that the tree display is nice and uncluttered. Almost the entire screen (on a desktop monitor), is filled with the tree information. This makes everything look clean and efficient.
I also like the fact that when you click on an individual, a small pop up opens, giving you the option to view the profile of the person or make changes to the entry.
I like that if you choose to view the profile, all the facts you’ve collected about that person’s life are listed on one page, in chronological order. Together with a list of all the sources.
And the whole thing is very intuitive.
So, that’s what I like. But it’s not all sunshine and roses. There are a few things that I wish I could change…
Firstly, in the Pedigree view, you can only see four full generations at one time. I realise that for most people this wouldn’t be a problem, and maybe ‘problem’ is the wrong word.
For me, I sometimes like to see where I’ve got the most information missing. And being able to see 5, or even 6 generations would be incredibly helpful. (see MyHeritage below 🙂 )
The other thing that frustrates me is the algorithm they use for search functions.
For example… Using the same search terms I used in the image above. If I select ‘exact’ in the search parameters for the marriage year, it returns zero results! Even though I know the year is correct.
It’s as though when you enter a ‘loose’ search term, it returns any item that might fit that criteria. But as soon as you begin to look for an exact search term, if the record doesn’t contain that exact term, it returns nothing.
It can be very frustrating!
My thoughts on MyHeritage
The design of MyHeritage is entirely different to Ancestry. The tree layout is difficult to describe.
It’s very clean and sharp, but at the same time, to me, it can be a bit distracting.
I know that by designing the layout like that, they can get more information about each person displayed. But everything looks cramped to me.
I’m also not keen on the layout of the menu, etc. Again this is a personal thing, but for example, the search function is hidden under the research menu. Once you know where it is, there’s no problem. But everything in that menu is related to the search function, so why not call it SEARCH?
It’s only a little thing, but why not call it what it is?
The other thing that I find unnecessary is the space that’s wasted by unnecessary use of menus and self-advertising that goes on on pages like the ‘Family View’ page.
In the screenshot above, their advert for the MyHeritage DNA Pack, together with the top menu, main menu and page title, take up over 30% of the available page height.
When you compare that to Ancestry, they manage to have everything (except self-advertising) within less than 5% of the page height!
But, as I said, these are all just personal things.
One thing that is very frustrating for me is their pricing model.
Every other family tree website allows you to pay a subscription that follows the same model…
- Store and display an unlimited number of ancestors on your family tree
- Access the records available in their database, dependent on your level of membership (usually ‘key UK records only’, ‘All of UK and Ireland records’, ‘All records’, etc.)
Ancestry charges £19.99 for unlimited ancestors, in unlimited family trees and access to its entire set of available records. A total of £240 per year if you cost it annually. By the way, if you want to pay a yearly subscription, they reduce the price to £200!
To get the same thing with MyHeritage, there are three problems for me.
The first one is that they only offer yearly subscriptions and not everyone can afford a year-long subscription.
The second is that for a year-long subscription to the same things from MyHeritage, they charge £398! They reduce that price to £249 for the 1st year, but from year 2, it’s back to full price again.
There are though, ways to reduce your cost.
- You can have up to 2,500 people and unlimited data access for £318 per year.
- You can have up to 250 people and access the data for those 250 people for £129 per year.
- or weirdly, you can have a tree with up to 2,500 people, but only review records for 250 of them, for £218.
And the third issue I have is that, as you can see above, the overall pricing structure is so convoluted it doesn’t make any sense to me.
Again, why make things so complicated… KEEP IT SIMPLE!!
Anyway, now I’ve told you what I don’t like, let’s get on to what I do like…
I like the fact that you can see 6 full generations of the family on one page in Pedigree view.
I also very much like that when you click on an individual, their details show up in a sidebar. This leaves the pedigree view intact for reference. Very helpful 🙂
Also, I love the way that MyHeritage shows a pop up of the edit details page when you click the Edit button underneath an individual. If you remember, everything you want to do in Ancestry requires you to open a completely new page.
Again, this saves so much time.
MyHeritage also has a selection of free guides, checksheets, research plans and projects to download.
Summary
When I look at the two offerings together my favourite place to build my family tree would be MyHeritage. It has everything I need. Its design structure works the way I like to work and it’s very clean and neat. (I have to say I even love the orange!)
But, unfortunately, when it does come time to choose, I’ll go with Ancestry.
I guess it’s very much the same as the PC vs Apple argument. But, I can’t afford to pay double for a very similar product.
Sorry MyHeritage, but for me, I can’t warrant paying nearly £400 for something I can get for £200, just because it looks much nicer 🙁
