MyHeritage DNA in Genealogy Research

MyHeritage DNA
MyHeritage was founded in 2003 and has been selling DNA tests since 2016. They are headquartered in Or Yehuda, Israel.

MyHeritage sells DNA tests with a base price of $89. They also accept uploads from other companies. In order to get full access to an uploaded kit, you will need to either pay a one time fee of $20 or obtain a MyHeritage subscription.

MyHeritage's biggest strength is their auto cluster tool. The autocluster tool analyzes your DNA matches from the 2nd cousin level and more distant to figure out which matches are all related to each other and probably represent one branch of your family. Once the autoclusters are generated, you can look at the matches in each to figure out which cluster if any represents the line you are interested in. You can then start focusing your research on the trees of the people in that cluster to try and find the common ancestor.

MyHeritage offers a chromosome browser that allows you to compare your DNA against up to seven genetic matches at a time. Like 23andme they are fairly liberal with the information they give. You can usually see about how old the match is which helps figure out how the generations line up and when looking at shared matches, you can see the predicted relationship between the match you are comparing against and their shared matches and the amount of centimorgans they share with each other. This means you can quickly see that to matches might be closely related such as brother-sister, father-son without having to contact both of them and ask for their trees.

Another potential advantage to MyHeritage is they use a cheek swab whereas 23andme and Ancestry both use spit tubes. If you are trying to test someone who is old and unable to produce enough spit, FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage are great options since they both use swabs.

MyHeritage is the best company for testing your small children who are too young to understand how to use a spit tube. A cheek swab is much easier to use on a child, but FamilyTreeDNA will not accept the DNA of any test taker under the age of 13. MyHeritage will allow samples from children if they are submitted by their parents or legal guardians.