Got a black and white photo? Have a blurry mug shot? Now's your chance to have these photographs enhanced and colorized. MyHeritage's new technology is now unlocked and free for anyone to use from August 11 through September 10, 2020. From my personal experience, it is incredible! Give it a try for free. Below is the announcement written by MyHeritage.

Starting today we’re unlocking both our popular photo tools — MyHeritage Photo Enhancer and MyHeritage In Color™ — for a whole month, until September 10, 2020. Normally, these features can be used by non-subscribers on up to 10 photos each, while users with a Complete plan enjoy unlimited use. But now, for a whole month, anyone can enhance and colorize as many photos as they’d like for free!

This continues our tradition of giving back to the community. With so many people currently confined to their home and doing their best to stay safe and healthy — we’re giving everyone a fun way to pass the time and enjoy genealogy!

Using these tools, you can get to know your ancestors in a whole new way. Your old, faded, black and white family photos will come to life, in full color and sharp focus — making them look almost as though they were taken yesterday.

This is my great-grandmother before and after using the new Photo Enhancer tool at MyHeritage. Stunning, isn't it?

Enough said. But if you want to know more about it, read the article here.

Visit https://www.myheritage.com/photo-enhancer and upload one of your photographs. It's free to use for your first 10 photographs. If you have a Complete subscription at MyHeritage then you have unlimited access to it.

It's a great time to be a genealogist! MyHeritage is unlocking a members-only database each day during June. See the announcement below.

Last week we announced that we’re opening up a historical record collection for free each day during June! The collections we’ve chosen are rare and valuable, and many are exclusive to MyHeritage.

The collections that we’re opening for free this week are:

And just so you don’t miss any of the ones yet to come, here are all the collections available for free after this week:

We hope you take advantage of this offer, and that it helps you overcome your genealogical brick walls and enlightens you with new information about your ancestors and relatives.

Enjoy!

The recording of today's webinar by Janet Hovorka, "Enlightened Design with the MyHeritage Chart Creation Tool"  is now available to view at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com for free.

Webinar Description

Show off your MyHeritage tree to your family and friends with a beautiful chart. Learn all the hidden tips and tricks to create a customized masterpiece a perfect representation of your family history. Just a few easy steps and your beautiful chart arrives in a tube on your doorstep.

If you could not make it to the live event or just want to watch it again, the 1 hour and 32 minute recording of "‘Enlightened Design with the MyHeritage Chart Creation Tool" is now available to view in our webinar library for free. If you have a webinar membership, it is available anytime.

Webinar Memberships/Subscriptions

Webinar Members get:

• On-demand access to the entire webinar archives (now 1,262 classes, 1,487 hours of genealogy education)
• On-demand access to the instructor handouts (now 5,034 pages)
• On-demand access to the live webinars' chat logs
• 5% off all products at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com (must be logged in at checkout)
• Access to all future recordings for the duration of their membership
• Chance for a members-only door prize during each live webinar
• Access to register for bonus members-only webinars
• Ability to view which webinars you are registered for
• Use of the playlist, resume watching, and jump-to features

Introductory pricing:

• Annual membership: $49.95/year

Register for our upcoming webinars (free)

Print the 2020 webinar brochure here.

Great news for those with Greek roots! Three new important Greek record collections have just been published at MyHeritage:

• Greece, Electoral Rolls (1863–1924)
• Corfu Vital Records (1841–1932)
• Sparta Marriages (1835–1935)

and comprise 1.8 million historical records.

Click here to search the record collections.

The recording of today's webinar by James Beidler, "Leveraging MyHeritage's German Resources Effectively"  is now available to view at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com for free.

Webinar Description

Researching German ancestors? Learn about the German historical records you can find on MyHeritage and how to make the most of them.

If you could not make it to the live event or just want to watch it again, the 1 hour and 23 minute recording of "‘Leveraging MyHeritage's German Resources Effectively" is now available to view in our webinar library for free. If you have a webinar membership, it is available anytime.

Webinar Memberships/Subscriptions

Webinar Members get:

• On-demand access to the entire webinar archives (now 1,254 classes, 1,492 hours of genealogy education)
• On-demand access to the instructor handouts (now 5,037 pages)
• On-demand access to the live webinars' chat logs
• 5% off all products at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com (must be logged in at checkout)
• Access to all future recordings for the duration of their membership
• Chance for a members-only door prize during each live webinar
• Access to register for bonus members-only webinars
• Ability to view which webinars you are registered for
• Use of the playlist, resume watching, and jump-to features

Introductory pricing:

• Annual membership: $49.95/year

Register for our upcoming webinars (free)

Print the 2020 webinar brochure here.

MyHeritage in Color, the new technology that has everyone talking, has some significant enhancements that were announced yesterday. Here's a portion of the announcement, but be sure to click to view the entire article to see how it has improved one of Judy Russell's photographs. It really is amazing to see.

MyHeritage In Color™ is an automatic colorization feature that brings your old black and white family photos to life using sophisticated machine learning technology. It has become one of our most popular features recently, with nearly 11 million photos colorized in less than 3 months!

We are pleased to announce that it is now possible to customize the colorization settings of MyHeritage In Color™, to improve its results even further.

The quality of automatic photo colorization depends on many factors, such as the quality of the original photo, its resolution, lighting, contrast, sharpness, and so on. In most cases, MyHeritage In Color™ will produce excellent results. However, in some cases there is room for improvement. Adjusting the settings allows you to fine-tune the colorization process, giving you more control over your final image and resulting in a higher-quality colorized photo that you’ll be more than proud to share.

Click here for the full article where you can learn how to access the new settings.

Wow, great news from MyHeritage—FREE access to the entire Yearbook collection through May 23, 2020. They've also colorized all of the black and white photos throughout.

I quickly found my Dad, number 30, with his 1971 high school football team. On the left is the original yearbook page. On the right is the same image, but with MyHeritage InColor applied. I love it!

Search for your Dad, or your ancestors, or YOU in the yearbook collection by visiting www.MyHeritage.com/yearbooks. Let me know in the comments below what you find.

Huuuge news from MyHeritage regarding city directories (one of my 'fav records!). They have now published 25,000 public U.S. city directories which comprise 545 million aggregated records that have been consolidated from 1.3 billion records. City directories contain an alphabetical list of adult residents and heads of household (often with their spouse) with addresses and occupations, a business directory, information about local officials, clubs, churches, cemeteries, schools, and a street guide. What this means to you - new opportunities to break down that brick wall. My Marsden Brown case was shattered through the use of an 1871 Minneapolis city directory. Yep, I love these records!

See the full announcement here.

Search the records here.

Happy searching!

If you have ancestors in Hesse, Germany, then you'll enjoy these two new collections at MyHeritage.

Hesse Birth Index (1874–1911)

Hesse Marriage Index (1849–1931)

These collections, totaling 8.5 million historical records, are now indexed and searchable on MyHeritage.

In a shift from traditional church recordkeeping, in the mid-19th century, the German Empire began requiring the civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths for the entire population. These new collections are rich in detail, often providing biographical information that is far superior to that covered by church records. This makes them an excellent resource for German genealogical research.

You can read more in the MyHeritage blog and search now the Hesse Birth Index and Hesse Marriage Index.