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Genealogy Company MyHeritage to Retire Brands It Acquired in 2011

The Israel-based company lets users create family trees and discover their genealogical roots through genetic testing and algorithmic matching

Tofi Stoler 11:4104.06.18

Online genealogy company MyHeritage Ltd. is retiring two brands and one service it acquired in 2011—online family tree backup service BackupMyTree, and two databases, Family Link and World Vital Records. All three products will be decommissioned and deleted Sept. 1, the company announced in a Sunday blog post.

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According to the blog post posted by MyHeritage, BackupMyTree had only a few thousand users at its peak, and recent updates to Windows made the software obsolete. Family Link and World Vital Records, both developed by FamilyLink.com Inc., provided searchable databases of historical records that were since integrated into MyHeritage’s main service.

MyHeritage founder and CEO Gilad Japhet. Photo: Shaul Golan

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Or Yehuda, a town in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, MyHeritage lets users create family trees and discover their genealogical roots by searching through historical documents such as census, immigration, marriage and burial records, as well as newspaper articles. MyHeritage attempts to automatically match records about relatives by cross-referencing family trees, historical records, and by using variations on family names including language crossovers.

MyHeritage has raised $49 million in equity funding to date from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners and Index Ventures. The company employs 430 people in offices in Israel, the U.S., and Europe.