MyHeritage: FTB 4, maps, albums and more!

This past week, while visiting New York, Tracing the Tribe has had several opportunities to discuss MyHeritage.com's Family Tree Builder.

A friend's daughter was taking a summer genealogy course but organizers did not provide or seem to recommend software. The mother had been drawing charts on large sheets of paper and posterboard. I told her about MyHeritage, and she's already working with it!

A cousin, originally from Russia, asked what he could use that would also make sense to family back in the FSU and branches in Israel. He's now using it and can enter family data in Cyrillic and in Hebrew, so it is easily accessible to most of the family. Besides being easy to use, the multi-lingual aspect of the software and site was a very useful benefit.

Even better, MyHeritage.com has just released its new Family Tree Builder 4.0, which offers maps, family chats and a new family toolbar. To learn more about the new version, view this animated slideshow.

The leading family and genealogy website is always improving, and these new tools and features make it even better. And, to frost this particular cake, see the great offer at the bottom of this posting!

According to MyHeritage.com founder/CEO Gilad Japhet, the new features will help researchers who want to know more about where their ancestors come from. The new map feature provides a visual for a family's journeys, the ability to map family members' addresses, find events and photos relevant to a particular geographic location and even standardize place names using smart suggestions.

As for the possibilities, a researcher could map all the towns where ancestors were born, lived or died; map the ports they used when they immigrated; or mark the location of ancestral towns for those in a DNA project. There are many possibilities.

These features can help researchers pull together more pieces of the family puzzle to make better sense of it all.

The key improvements in the new FTB 4.0 release are the map module, a family toolbar with Family Chat and more support for albums to organize photos, videos and documents.

The new toolbar offers direct access to MyHeritage family sites, adds a powerful genealogy search and features Family Chat – a text, audio and video chat system built specifically for family use. Members can receive birthday reminders on the toolbar without leaving the Web page they are viewing.

Download the free software here.

Are you already using a previous FTB version? No problem. Just download and install the new 4.0 release on top of your current version. This won't impact your family tree data and is recommended by MyHeritage. If you're currently using a different product, try out FTB 4.0 by using the GEDCOM import tool.

The software makes it very easy to add photos, text, documents, videos and all sorts of digital media. Users can produce slideshows and screensavers with their tagged family photos. Combined with a family site, it makes staying in touch and connecting globally very easy.

Regardless of skill level, everyone - from experienced researchers to absolute beginners - can build family trees, research their families, add photos and videos and obtain matches with other family trees encompassing people from around the world.

And what about setting up a family site on MyHeritage? The basic site is still free, and if you have more names and/or require more storage for photos and documents, there are also premium subscription sites. Right now, get a Premium site subscription at a 35% discount for a limited time.

For $3.95 per month, your online MyHeritage family site may include up to 2,500 names and 500MB of storage, with access to all the Premium features (current and future) of FTB 4.0, as well as priority support.

That reminds me - When I get home, I'll have to update my own site and add new photos and other items. When it's so easy to label, organize and search for photos, it's fun - not work - to update and add information.

Family Tree Builder has already been downloaded more than 5 million times. The company claims it is the world's most popular free genealogy software.

If you're not yet familiar with MyHeritage and its features, check it out.

For more information, Randy Seaver of GeneaMusings has published two posts detailing his experiences with the new FTB 4.0 version. He does a great job with these technical posts, while making them very easy to understand, even for non-techies.