RootsTech was an announcement-filled day yesterday with big announcements coming from Ancestry and MyHeritage about new products that are intended to help people share their family history with others.
From a me activity to a we activity
Both companies have created products that can make family history more digestible for relatives who may not be as keen as genealogists to look at dates, details, and documents.
MyHeritage and Ancestry’s new products make family stories more appealing to the Instagram and TikTok generation.
Sharing and connecting
Thesir products are improving the ability to share ancestors’ stories and connect with relatives.
The direction both companies are going is great for the future of genealogy and especially about the potential of attracting young people to learn about their family history.
Ancestry’s CEO Debbie Liu, who spoke on RootsTech’s virtual main stage in a recorded video, said their new tools are moving genealogy “from a me activity to a we activity.”
Photo scanning and enhancement and Ancestry Story
Ancestry announced its exclusive partnership with media preservation and archiving specialist company Photomyne.
Ancestry customers are now able to scan, upload and share photos with their cell phone, using the Ancestry app that auto crops. Other new tools allow users to enhance and colourize photos and upload them to their online tree.
“Almost everyone has a shoebox filled with old family photos and albums that sit on a top shelf in their closet. The problem with that is that no one sees or shares them and they are often forgotten,” said Heather Friedland, Chief Product Officer at Ancestry. “With the Photomyne technology integrated into the Ancestry mobile app, you can now easily and quickly scan full pages of multiple images from your photo albums at once and with a click, have them automatically digitized and saved to Ancestry. Uploading your photos to Ancestry ensures your family memories are preserved and your family’s stories will be cherished for generations.”
Unlike other scanning tools, Photomyne’s AI technology uses the cell phone’s processor and their proprietary algorithms to:
- Auto-detect image boundaries and auto-crop photos
- Scan multiple images from one page and split into individual images
- Enhance and restore the quality of images
Story-telling tool
Ancestry also introduced its new story-telling tool that allows users to create short stories about an ancestor. You can easily add photos and photo techniques, such as panning and zooming out, to animate the story.
No subscription is required for Ancestry’s new tools.
My understanding is that anyone can get started by downloading the Ancestry app and creating a free account. The scanning app is only available for iPhones, with an Android application to come soon.
Learning curve
The key is to play with Ancestry’s new tools. I experienced a bit of a learning curve.
For example, when I first scanned a photo, the reflection of my cell phone appeared in it. Going into a closet and shutting the door didn’t solve the problem.
Then, I pulled my cell phone away from the photo and scanned the photo with a four-inch border of the table around it. Perfect. The app automatically cropped the photo. And there was no reflection of me or my cell phone in the image.
More information about Ancestry’s announcements is in their blog post. Ancestry’s main stage presentation will be repeated today at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time.
MyHeritage — LiveStory
As for MyHeritage’s announcement, once again they’ve taken advantage of the wizardry of AI technology, bringing our ancestors to life. Some may find the application a bit creepy, but I like it.
LiveStory is a groundbreaking new feature from MyHeritage that allows you to create animated videos of your ancestors telling their life story. This new tool gives you a whole new way to document, preserve and share your family stories.
A LiveStory is a video biography, where the narrative is told by a speaking portrait of your ancestor or relative, based on details from your family tree and manually entered text, and is enriched by photographs that illustrate various life events.
MyHeritage’s blog post provides examples of the technology and an easy-to-understand step-by-step guide on how to create your own LiveStory.
You can even select a voice style or accent. Accents include American, Irish, English, Australian, New Zealand, and South African. No Scottish brogues yet.
Look for LiveStory under the Photo tab on MyHeritage’s website.
LiveStory is also available on the free MyHeritage mobile app, which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play. If you already have the app, you’ll need to update it first to make sure you’re using the latest version.
When you create a video using LiveStory, your privacy is protected. The animation and enhancement occur on MyHeritage servers and neither the photos nor the videos are shared with any third party. MyHeritage doesn’t own the resulting video. It belongs to you, as with all photos you upload to MyHeritage.
If you have a complete subscription with MyHeritage, you can create an unlimited number of LiveStories. Other users can create several LiveStories for free.
MyHeritage’s keynote about LiveStory at RootsTech will be repeated today at 5:15 p.m. Eastern time or watch it anytime on YouTube.
