This week, MyHeritage.com added nine new languages - Danish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Malay, Arabic and Farsi - making a total of 34 languages supported on the site.
More than 26 million members around the world connect and communicate with their extended family networks and research family history with MyHeritage tools.
Says founder/CEO Gilad Japhet, “Families everywhere want to learn about their history and stay in touch with relatives who may be spread around the world.” The company is committed to making itself the most inclusive online destination for families, regardless of location or language. The additional languages make it even easier.
Gilad and I first met - long before the company went live - at a genealogy conference in Israel and discovered we were related through the Diskin family of Mogilev, Belarus.
Every few months or so, we'd speak and I'd ask what was happening with his interesting concept. When MyHeritage went live, I wrote one of the first articles - in the Jerusalem Post - about the company.
In Israel, it is rather common for people to know several languages. It is, after all, a country of immigrants from countries around the world who have brought their own languages and then learned Hebrew, English and other common languages.
It was no surprise, therefore, that Gilad's concept included offering the site in a multitude of languages, making it even easier to connect with extended family while researching and sharing family histories.
In regards to data, users can enter information instantaneously in two languages of choice, making it simple to share family history with people in far off places who may not be proficient in your own native language. For example, I can look at my data in English and Russian or Hebrew.
As a genealogist, this feature helped me personally as I have easily learned what my names of interest look like in different alphabets. Recognizing given names and surnames in various languages is a useful, practical skill for all researchers.
Visit MyHeritage on the web or by downloading a simple free piece of software and set up a family website so you and your extended family can share information and research.
Also, take a look at the new photo tagging technology that automatically recognizes and labels faces in digital photos, making it even easier and faster to organize, search for, and share pictures with family and friends.
05 November 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
We had an exciting find through MyHeritage.com just a few days ago! Massimo, the son of a long lost relative of my husband's who was born and raised in Italy found his great-grandparents on the family tree that I put up on MyHeritage.com. He speaks Italian, not English, so fortunately he had access to and could understand MyHeritage.com. We have been corresponding by e-mail these last few days with the help of babelfish, since I speak no Italian. Because I had uploaded pictures onto the family tree on MyhHeritage, he saw and recognized his great-grandmother's picture and knew we were his family. He is so deeply grateful to have found his extended family, since it has been over 20 years since those who raised him died and he knows of no siblings or cousins. He was delighted to show us pictures of his wife and young daughter.
ReplyDeleteJudy Simon