MyHeritage: Family Tree & DNA

I only wanted this app for its ability to automatically fix old scanned photos - so first I’ll talk about that. Amazing - it fixes scratched, torn, faded, etc photos, it uses AI to get amazing detail like strands of facial hair, a cut on a child’s lip. It colorized old black and white/sepia photos and it fixes color issues with old faded, poorly colored photos. Finally, it can animate a still photo. Imagine having a short video of your great grandmother turning to the camera and smiling at you. Incredible. But then there’s the feature I swore I had no need for - the family tree. With a few pieces of info (like maiden names, country of birth, year of birth) it was able to help complete a family tree and get photos we didn’t have like my mother’s 1950’s high school spanish club photo, signatures of my grandparents ellis island immigration, and more. Then there’s abilities like family members adding their own photos, correcting/filling out data, etc. You have to try it all out for yourself. I went with the 1 year full plan - money well spent.

I clicked on the free trial before buying this app. I enjoyed its features, and relative (pardon the pun) ease of use. It’s the best one I’ve tried so far. I hemmed and hawed as to whether or not to subscribe for a year. Well, I decided not to at this time, went in the settings to decline the $99 subscription, it let me. I thought. Until I got a receipt telling me that my credit card was just charged $99 plus tax for the My Heritage app. There appears to be no way to undo this charge, so I’m stuck with it. I’m not going to pursue a refund, however, just a fair warning...if you are still in the free trial mode, I suggest you decide at least a couple of days before your trial period ends, to cancel. The small print says to give at least 24 hours notice. I believe that was my mistake. I gave it 23 hours maybe. I don’t know. Anyway, now that I have it for a year, I guess I’ll explore my crazy family tree that I know will be a challenge because it’s all over the place. This is a really good app, and I highly recommend playing with the animation feature with old portraits of dead people if you have them! It’s freaky. I have a 72-year-old friend who adored his father who died at age 56. I animated a photo for him as a surprise, and he burst into tears of joy and nostalgia. That alone was worth the hundred bucks! Nice app, I really do recommend it, but be wary of the free trial time limit.

Love My Heritage but am becoming quite frustrated with the myheritage app for iOS. I will confirm something that adds a bunch of stuff and it always says when I go to add to my tree, “Something went wrong” and to retry which I do only to get same response...I’ve started not even using the app, instead using my heritage off of a website. For paying a fee of $120/yr+ at once (can’t pay monthly like with ancestry), I kinda feel cheated. I love the layout though at times it’s easy to accidentally make duplicates and for the sight or app doesn’t tell you and I haven’t found a way to merge it. I also hate that there’s not a way to save a tree or layout to a pdf. It would be nice to download your tree to take it with you. I’m getting close to my yr being up...considering not renewing my subscription. As I find that ancestry has been more user friendly and I don’t keep getting a “something went wrong” every time I use the app. Very frustrating!!! The app has been up to date and my iPhone keeps updated also. App does same thing on my iPad. So it must be the app and not the user (me) because I don’t have same issue when I access my tree on internet. Also wish I could do more than one tree on my acct as I have parents and step parents and it’s easier if I do just my maternal line in one tree, paternal in the other...then my dad’s adoptive father in another as he was more of a grandpa and his family was more family than my blood grandpa’s...you get the point. Please fix.