In his keynote address at the first-ever MyHeritage LIVE family history conference in Oslo, Norway, MyHeritage Founder and CEO, Gilad Japhet, talks about his passion for family history and recounts the milestones in his genealogy journey. He also outlines his roadmap of the future of genealogy and makes industry-changing announcements about genetics (including reconstructing ancestral DNA and obtaining DNA from old envelopes).

Watch the video here.

I began day 2 of MyHeritage Live 2018 (see day 1's post here) by taking an early morning stroll through Oslo's parks. It was so quiet and peaceful - and then the church bells began to ring and filled the town. I could get used to this place.

After attending Thomas MacEntee's class "Newspaper Research Strategies Using MyHeritage," Professor Yaniv Erlich's class, "Genetic Insights From a Huge Collaborative Family Tree," and eating a delicious lunch, I got to address the conference with my class, "Using MyHeritage and Learning from FamilyTreeWebinars.com." I shared my 6 favorite things about MyHeritage (which included both Legacy and our webinar series!) and it seemed to be received well.

Speaking of favorite things - my favorite quote from the conference was made by Aaron Godfrey (VP Marketing) who quoted Gilad Japhet (CEO) as saying, "Here at MyHeritage we want to do well. But we also want to do good."

This feeling about doing good seemed to summarize the entire conference. The 401 in-person attendees from 28 countries left Oslo feeling good. Good about what they learned. Good about how the conference was organized. Good about how family history brings us together.

More than 60,000 viewers from around the world also checked in. If you missed it, the recordings of the live streams are still available on the MyHeritage Facebook page and will be available via our FamilyTreeWebinars.com library soon.

While Oslo was beautiful (view from my hotel room)...I hope MyHeritage considers doing MyHeritage LIVE 2019 edition in, say, Honolulu next year? Where would you like to visit and mingle with other genealogists?

Of the hundreds of genealogy conferences I've attended as an exhibitor, speaker, attendee, and even as conference Chair, MyHeritage LIVE here in Oslo, Norway is by far the most unique and energy-filled family history conference I've seen. With about 450 attendees from 28 countries it might also be the most internationally diverse genealogy conference too.

As I ponder the events of day one and wonder why is this conference so different, I think it is because I am literally seeing the genealogy industry advance right before my eyes. I mean...how often do you see the founder and CEO go from making industry-changing announcements in a keynote speech...

...to attending class...just like the rest of us?

As a genealogist first, Gilad Japhet (MyHeritage founder and CEO) has a most unique perspective on what the genealogy industry needs and wants, and he was not shy about publicly sharing the private roadmap of MyHeritage's future plans. Perhaps most exciting were the DNA-related announcements. Roberta Estes, one of the conference's presenters and DNA experts, shared it best in a Facebook post this morning:

What every genealogist is doing today? Digging around their house looking for envelopes! #MHLIVE2018

That's exactly what I will be doing when I return home. Gilad announced that MyHeritage will soon be able to process the DNA from stamps and old envelopes and then link the DNA to the ancestor. This is big news - imagine having the DNA results for one of my great-great-great grandparents!! I can see the brick walls coming down now.

And if we don't have an old envelope, Gilad also announced plans to recreate our ancestors' DNA through segment painting and segment escalation.

Later in the day, Maya Lerner, Vice-President of Product at MyHeritage, continued the transparency into MyHeritage's future plans where she announced the Theory of Family Relativity, which will help us easily discover how our DNA matches are related to us. She said that MyHeritage is developing technology that, with a 95% accuracy rate, will determine exactly how two matches are related to each other. This announcement was received with "oohs" and "ahs" throughout the audience.

She also recapped the major new additions to MyHeritage's record collections in 2018:

...and announced which records are next in line:

Who does that (announces a company's inner workings)? Apparently MyHeritage does. Okay, my excitement may be getting a little out of hand here. It's just so energizing to be a part of something that really does have an every-day impact on genealogists worldwide.

All of this, and I haven't even said a word about the other speakers here. Leaders in our field like Thomas MacEntee, Lisa Louise Cooke, Dick Eastman, Diahan Southard, Roberta Estes, Mike Mansfield, Daniel Horowitz and Geni's Mike Stangel - all here! My favorite pic of the day wasn't of Thomas teaching, but of our tech go-to-guy attending class:

After all of the classes, I personally interviewed many of the attendees to see how they enjoyed day one. They were thrilled to have such a well-organized, educational and fun conference come to them - so close to their homes. This really is fulfilling one of my genea-passions - to help bring genealogy education to people throughout the entire world. If you couldn't be here in person - every class has been live-streamed, and will continue for Day 2 at https://live2018.myheritage.com, including my class today, "Using MyHeritage & Learning with FamilyTreeWebinars.com." If you missed any of Day 1's classes, the recordings of the live-streams are available on https://www.facebook.com/myheritage/ and will be available on our www.familytreewebinars.com in the future.

I hope MyHeritage LIVE will repeat itself each year. Hopefully they'll accept my recommendation that we next do this in Hawaii. OK, I'm off to get ready for Day 2 now. #MHLIVE2018

It's almost here. I get to personally rub shoulders with some of our industry's finest educators and mingle with many of the top minds at our new parent company, MyHeritage. I'll pack my winter coat, as the weather forecast looks a bit cold in Oslo, and if you're coming too, be sure you do the same.

If you won't be in there in person, you'll still get to be a part of MyHeritage LIVE 2018. I've just learned that both the genealogy and DNA tracks will be live streamed on the MyHeritage LIVE conference website, so please tune in from 9:00 a.m. Oslo time on November 3 (time zone calculator here). Here's the complete agenda: https://live2018.myheritage.com/#agenda

Mitch Yurkovich, 37, from Bad Axe, Michigan, was adopted as a baby. Married with four children, he was always curious about his biological family and had searched for information over many years. It changed his life when he found his biological parents, who were still together, and who had married and had more children! It was made possible thanks to DNA Quest, MyHeritage’s pro bono initiative to help adoptees search for biological family members.

THANK YOU MyHeritage for starting the DNA Quest project.

I know my story is just one of MANY happy results from the program.

My life is changed (for the BETTER) because of this test. I cannot thank your team enough!

Mitch just met his family in person for the first time. His story was just featured on “Good Morning America”:

Click here for the rest of the story.

MyHeritage has brought together many long lost relatives thanks to DNA Matching technology and a huge database of family trees and historical records. In this webinar, our research team will present a few of our favorite heartwarming reunions.

Join us and MyHeritage's Roi Mandel for the live webinar Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 2pm Eastern U.S. Register today to reserve your virtual seat. Registration is free but space is limited to the first 1,000 people to join that day. When you join, if you receive a message that the webinar is full, you know we've reached the 1,000 limit, so we invite you to view the recording which should be published to the webinar archives within an hour or two of the event's conclusion. 

Or register for multiple webinars at once by clicking here.

Not sure if you already registered?

Login to view your registration status for this webinar (available for annual or monthly webinar subscribers).

Test Your Webinar Connection

To ensure that your webinar connection is ready to go, click here.

Can't make it to the live event?

No worries. Its recording will be available for a limited time. Webinar Subscribers have unlimited access to all webinar recordings for the duration of their membership. 

About the Presenter

With 15 years of experience in journalism as a news and magazine correspondent and a great love of history and human stories, Roi is responsible for finding and researching the amazing stories of MyHeritage users and reuniting families all over the world. He and his team are also using MyHeritage’s incredible database, every day, to shed light on historical figures and events. Married with two children, Roi was born in Israel and has a B.A. in Media Studies and History. He joined MyHeritage in 2015, immediately making his mark with the "Real Uncle Sam" story that was published in the New York Times, and an intensive historical research on the Jewish community in Corfu, Greece. In the past three years, he has facilitated many family reunions of MyHeritage users around the world.

With our Google Calendar button, you will never forget our upcoming webinars. Simply click the button to add it to your calendar. You can then optionally embed the webinar events (and even turn them on and off) into your own personal calendar. If you have already added the calendar, you do not have to do it again - the new webinar events will automatically appear.

Webinar time

The webinar will be live on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at:

• 2pm Eastern (U.S.)
• 1pm Central
• 12pm Mountain
• 11am Pacific

Or use this Time Zone Converter.

Here's how to attend:

1. Register at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com today. It's free!
2. You will receive a confirmation email containing a link to the webinar.
3. You will receive a reminder email both 1 day and 1 hour prior to the live webinar.
4. Calculate your time zone by clicking here.
5. Make sure you have the latest version of Java installed on your computer. Check at www.java.com.
6. Check your GoToWebinar connection here.
7. Click on the webinar link (found in confirmation and reminder emails) prior to the start of the webinar. Arrive early as the room size is limited to the first 1,000 arrivals that day.
8. Listen via headset (USB headsets work best), your computer speakers, or by phone. 

We look forward to seeing you all there!

I first told you about DNAQuest back in April - a pro bono initiative of MyHeritage to help adoptees and their birth families reunite through genetic testing. Since then, thousands of adoptees participated in the project and we're now beginning to learn of some of their amazing reunions. Just today, MyHeritage published the first heart-warming story. Watch the reunion below and read the entire story here.

In this webinar, you will learn how to use your mobile device to expand your family history research. From recording your family's story to sharing your discoveries, your mobile device has a wealth of tools that allow you to continue your research wherever you are. 

Join us and MyHeritage's Guy Tsype for the live webinar Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 2pm Eastern U.S. Register today to reserve your virtual seat. Registration is free but space is limited to the first 1,000 people to join that day. When you join, if you receive a message that the webinar is full, you know we've reached the 1,000 limit, so we invite you to view the recording which should be published to the webinar archives within an hour or two of the event's conclusion. 

Or register for multiple webinars at once by clicking here.

Not sure if you already registered?

Login to view your registration status for this webinar (available for annual or monthly webinar subscribers).

Test Your Webinar Connection

To ensure that your webinar connection is ready to go, click here.

Can't make it to the live event?

No worries. Its recording will be available for a limited time. Webinar Subscribers have unlimited access to all webinar recordings for the duration of their membership. 

With our Google Calendar button, you will never forget our upcoming webinars. Simply click the button to add it to your calendar. You can then optionally embed the webinar events (and even turn them on and off) into your own personal calendar. If you have already added the calendar, you do not have to do it again - the new webinar events will automatically appear.

Webinar time

The webinar will be live on Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at:

• 2pm Eastern (U.S.)
• 1pm Central
• 12pm Mountain
• 11am Pacific

Or use this Time Zone Converter.

Here's how to attend:

1. Register at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com today. It's free!
2. You will receive a confirmation email containing a link to the webinar.
3. You will receive a reminder email both 1 day and 1 hour prior to the live webinar.
4. Calculate your time zone by clicking here.
5. Make sure you have the latest version of Java installed on your computer. Check at www.java.com.
6. Check your GoToWebinar connection here.
7. Click on the webinar link (found in confirmation and reminder emails) prior to the start of the webinar. Arrive early as the room size is limited to the first 1,000 arrivals that day.
8. Listen via headset (USB headsets work best), your computer speakers, or by phone. 

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Still thinking about joining us at MyHeritage LIVE in Oslo this November? Here's a quick preview of some of the things I'll get to talk about at the conference. Also with me will be Dick Eastman, Thomas MacEntee, Lisa Louise Cooke, Diahan Southard, Daniel Horowitz and many others. Hope to see you there.

Here are 9 more reasons to join us in Oslo.

For more information, or to register, visit https://live2018.myheritage.com

Congrats to both Kim and MyHeritage for this wonderful story! Another family reunited thanks to DNA.