I already had a pretty good idea of my past due to previous family members doing extensive research. I was looking for the " skeleton in the closet" so to speak. As far as I knew no one had done a DNA test. The results came back pretty much as expected: Scandanavian, German, British. The 12% Italian Was a surprise. But the real find was the 1% Nigerian. That's the kind of thing I was looking for. I think 23 & Me might give more detail so I have decided to try to get a little more info that way.

me much more detail than Ancestry. You should try that before paying for another test if MyHeritage gives you your raw DNA file.

that "Nigerian" is probably statistical noise/something to do with their reference populations. Both of my parents, whose ancestry was reported by Ancestry DNA as 100% European, got some minuscule percentage of Nigerian from MyHeritage when I uploaded their results. People who Scandinavian Europeans have also reported getting some small percentage Nigerian from MyHeritage. I would personally disregard that.

while I did Ancestry. Her results were more detailed than mine or else she just inherited different DNA showing 2-3 more ethnicities inherited than me. I'm going to retest with 23 & Me as well.

and have noticed lately they have been doing a LOT of system maintenance, whereby my tree was unavailable. (OK, this week, anyway.)

However... I believe that MyHeritage and Ancestry use same/similar public databases. State and federal census data, military data, and published genealogy compilations (from libraries) and the like.

I signed off on Ancestry about 6 months ago, and just recently renewed. They still had my tree online, and when I re-upped, I was able to begin working on it again.

I always stop at the international "pay wall" - if you want access to records other than USA, ya gotta pay extra. That sucks for my Italian and Portuguese side, but my USA (Scotch-English) goes back to 1623. So I think I've gone as far as I can go.

It all depends on how important it is, and how much you're willing to dish out.

catalog of databases. I didn't really see anything unique so I think at 175.00 I'm going to take a pass.

The one thing I did like was their free tree building software which I downloaded a couple weeks ago. They have a export excel spreadsheet function which is very handy. I use FamilyTreeMaker and they do not have that feature.

I prefer Ancestry because I've been able to find more family there than anywhere and I like the way it works. I still have a few brick walls, but I'm making headway. I've also had good customer service from Ancestry a couple of times when I needed it. To be fair, I haven't played with My Heritage very much.

As for DNA, I got that through Ancestry and had results that were consistent with the facts I knew and a couple of surprises besides.

I was wondering if MyHeritage might have them. I am still trying to figure out how this all works - if record depositories sell access to genealogy sites and make some kind of limited time deal for exclusive access. Or if it's just a matter of who is willing to do the work to scan and index the records.

I ended up re-signing up with American Ancestors because I know they have a project with the Boston Archdiocese to get sacramental records online and this will be helpful.

My DNA results for the most part were consistent with what I know but DNALand gave me more detail on the 33% Europe South and Caucasus. My brother is also doing an Ancestry DNA test so I'm looking forward to comparison.

It seems that different sites have different strengths and weaknesses. Which one fits better for the searcher is the one to use.

to MyHeritage for their off-site access genealogy search. Ancestry.com can be used at the library only. So far, I'm not impressed by MyHeritage. Their search function seems limited. For example, I put in a name, birth year and place of residence. Hit search. Up came a list of names (some are somewhat similar, but most are not), different birth years and location all over the place. I used their Advanced Search to narrow down the criteria, hit search, and came up with the exact same list as in the first search. And the page indicator said there were 50 pages (seems that for every search there are 50 pages, no matter what the criteria) so a page-by-page search is tedious and not necessarily productive. I've also found mistakes in the census indexing. Their index says one thing, but when I looked at the actual census return, the data was different. Names misspelled in the index where they are clearly visible in the original document. Listed one woman as the wife but the actual census indicates she was the daughter-in-law. It may be useful in placing someone in a particular location, but the data should be verified by other means. Yup, so far, not impressed.

seem worthwhile at this point especially with no option to try it out for just a month.

I have been finding a lot of errors lately in Ancestry. I suppose they can't do much when the source of the info provides incorrect info but both my mom's and dad's descendants along with spouses were listed incorrectly in the obituary info. My mom's spouse listed my husband's name - crazy!

I found a funny error in one of the census listings in Ancestry for someone I initially though was family. It showed her address as the AL Gon Gloin club and I was thinking (because she was Irish) it might be some private Irish club. Turns out it was the Algonquin Club in Boston which is fairly famous and seems, based on the census address, it would have been easy to check.