MyHeritage launches "Treasure Family Photos" and Family Tree Maker Announces September Release of Upgrade

Launch of MyHeritage's "Treasure Family Photos"

MyHeritage released the following announcement on August 6, 2013 and I am sure you have seen this, or similar announcements, regarding their new initiative:

"I wanted to let you about a a global initiative MyHeritage is launching today called - Treasure Family Photos - to encourage people to learn more about their family's history from their old photos and to preserve these precious artifacts online for future generations.

This initiative is endorsed by the New England Historic Genealogical Society and we're also thrilled to be working with Maureen Taylor, the world renowned "Photo Detective", who'll be sharing tips for understanding photos through a video, a webinar, and appearances on US national television as we speak.

We've launched a special website detailing ways to get involved. It's full of tips and tricks for helping people understand the clues in their old family photos and explains the importance of family photos for family history research. We give suggestions for preserving photos and creative ideas for getting the younger generations involved.

We've also announced today that we have the world's largest international collection of old family photos online. MyHeritage users from around the world have contributed and shared family photos on the site and those that were shared publicly are searchable by name, date, location and keywords via SuperSearch.

Lastly, we've doubled our free photo storage allocation to enable users to upload and share more photos on their private family sites at no cost."

More information about "Treasure Family Photos" can be found at www.myheritage.com/photos. 

I took the opportunity recently to conduct a search of the data base of photos provided by "Treasure Family Photos".  I entered just the surname "Ritchhart" and conducted a search.  It came up with 6,033 photographs with names ordered by similarity to the entered surname.  I think that the first 75 names were reasonably similar enough to "Ritchhart"  that I would  entertain the possibility that they might be related.  The next big batch of names (143) were Ricciardi/Ricciardo from Italy, but I have no evidence of any Italian connection in my Ritchhart family line. That was followed with another 70 or so with the surnames Richart/Reichard, who could be related.

I then checked my O'Malley heritage and found over 27,000 entries my Deans produced over 37,000 entries.  I am sure some of them might be related; but not sure how to sort them all out.   Likewise with my Bush line, which had around 7,400 photos.

In summary, it is a sizable data base and I think most of the photos were embedded in the family trees that people have uploaded onto MyHeritage's Family Tree Builder Family Tree.  Just in scanning through the photos and accompanying data, it appears that they have a very good representation from the International (mostly European) community.  This is in line with MyHeritage's strong European membership.

Disclaimer:  I have no affiliation with MyHeritage, nor have I received any form of compensation from them.  They did, however, send me the above press release and ask me to consider posting it in my blog.  (Surprised they knew about my blog!)

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New Edition of Family Tree Maker Coming

The following announcement from Family Tree Maker (FTM) indicates that a new version of FTM will be released in September.  They are offering a 40% discount if you pre-order now.  The three advertised new features are a New Family View, New and Improved Charts and Reports, and Improved TreeSync.  The release will be a PC version only--the MAC version is listed as "coming soon".

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The new Family Tree Maker. Everything you've been waiting for, and it's 40% off. Save 40% on the new Family Tree Maker.

Pre-order* now Hurry — this offer ends September 9th.

The new Family Tree Maker® is almost here and now is your chance to experience its powerful, easy-to-use tools and new, time saving features — all for our biggest discount yet. Pre-order today to upgrade to the latest version and save. Save 40% for a limited time Pre-order* now Available for Windows only. Mac version coming soon. You spoke. We listened. Here are just some of the recent updates that make the new Family Tree Maker even easier to use. • New Family View™ gives you a broader view of your tree • New and improved charts & reports offer more organizing and print options • Improved TreeSync™ is more robust than ever, and includes more of your tree information. *Order today for September delivery. You will be notified when the new Family Tree Maker is available to download. When I clicked to explore signing up for the offer the following additional information about the new features was provided.  The discounted price for the upgrade is advertised as $23.99 vice the regular price of $39.99.  What’s new in Family Tree Maker? New Family View — see your family tree in a new way. This additional view makes navigating easier, especially when you want to see extended family members. Improved TreeSync — lets you easily synchronize your tree in Family Tree Maker with an online Ancestry.com tree. A more robust TreeSync™ lets you sync even more of your family tree info. Easily share your tree with your family and work on it together. Family and friends can view the online version of your tree without software or a subscription. Collaborate with the largest, most active family history community in the world. Keep your online tree private or make it public so that others researching your family can find you. You may connect with others who have insight on your ancestors, discover rare family photos, or even find relatives you didn’t know you had. More organizational tools — stay organized with new tools that let you sort children automatically by birth order and view people by location, grouping them by country, state, county, and city. New and improved charts and reports — more options and views let you display an individual’s ancestors, spouses, and children together. Also, the Index of Individuals Report has been expanded with options for anniversary, birthday, and contact lists, and more. New tree branch export — a new export option makes it much simpler to export a single branch of your tree. More editing options — save time with the ability to copy and paste facts including related source citations, media items, and notes. Disclaimer:  I have no affiliation with Family Tree Maker nor do I receive any type of compensation from them.  The opinions are strictly my own.