WEBVTT

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- In this session, I would like to talk the most

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about my passion for family history

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and my own family research and through this,

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I hope that you'll get to know me a bit better

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and maybe get a better understanding of MyHeritage.

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And so my love affair with genealogy began at the age of 13.

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I've been doing genealogy for about 35 years

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and it all started with the school project

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that you have to do in Israel to cover your roots

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and you can see the pictures of it here.

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And as you know, genealogy is never complete,

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it's never finished.

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I had unfinished business with that school project

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and I always wanted to get back to it and continue it.

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And about 15 years ago, after a career in high tech,

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I summoned the courage to create MyHeritage as a startup,

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as a one-man company from my home

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in the hope of turning my hobby of genealogy into my job.

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And the rest is history.

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It was very difficult to start a company from scratch

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in genealogy and I can fill a whole talk

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about the adventures of that, but I'll just describe

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a few moments in the journey along the way.

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Here you can see the original logo candidates

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that were presented to me by the designers

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and I chose the one on the top left

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and you can see that the name of the product

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was supposed to be heritage with an exclamation mark

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because my point was that

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despite what some people may think,

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heritage is very exciting.

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It's very technological, it's a lot of fun

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so it was heritage with an exclamation mark.

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Later I had to change it to MyHeritage

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and this is the sketch of the first website in 2004.

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And you can see that the name at the top is Inbal.

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That's actually how I named the company originally.

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Inbal is my daughter.

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This was supposed to be a family company

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for family history and you can see the motto

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at the center of the screen, which says it all.

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When a hobby becomes a passion.

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That really sums it up for me.

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You can also see at the bottom all the language logos

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because it was very important for me

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from the very start of the company

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to make it an international company

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that supports many languages and today,

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we support 42 of them.

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We had very humble beginnings, the first two years

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from my home.

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Then we expanded into another home

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and this is a German templar house

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in the same village where I live

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and we came here when there were two of us

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and continued until they kicked us out

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when we were 70 people.

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The team started very small

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and here we are, all of us, in 2007.

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This is the Israeli version of Halloween, it's Purim.

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And the team grew, here in 2008.

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Some of you may recognize on the right hand side

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Daniel Horowitz, also Uri Gonen joined

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and many other good people who are still with us.

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Here, this is a historical moment.

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Our chief architect, Ran, is about to press Enter

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on the keyboard and launch into the website

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our SuperSearch engine for historical records.

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It was April 2012 and the 1940 US census,

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which was the first collection we've ever digitized ourselves

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and since then, we have more than nine billion records

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for you guys, but this was the second

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when it was launched.

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And now as you can see, we've gone a long way.

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There are about 430 of us all around the world.

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This is a picture taken earlier this year

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from our headquarters in Israel.

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We also have offices, two offices in Israel,

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and offices in California, in Utah, in Ukraine

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and we have representatives in many countries

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around the world.

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And now I want to tell you a little story of my own family.

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We are genealogists and we all love stories

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and my story comes from the small city of Bialystok

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which is in north eastern Poland today.

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It used to be part of Russia, changed hands a lot

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and it was quite a small city.

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Today it's about the 10th largest

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in terms of population in Poland and in the old days,

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it was mostly a Jewish town.

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In the Russian empire census of 1897,

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about 63% of the population was Jewish.

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So Bialystok, despite being a very small town

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had some contributions to the world.

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I wonder, I guess most of you can...

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Can understand what this means.

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It says, I love genealogy,

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but do you know what language this is in?

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All right.

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We have some Esperanto speakers in the house!

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This is indeed Esperanto.

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It's one of the world's most successful

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constructed languages.

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It has about two million speakers

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and it was created by Ludwig Leyzer Zamenhof

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who came from the small Jewish community of Bialystok.

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Now, my family also came from that small town

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and it was a very typical Jewish family, and we were tailors.

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Here, in this oldest photo of my family that we have

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from about 1905 from Bialystok,

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you can see my grandfather was is this small kid.

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And together with him you see in the center, his parents

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and even his grandmother who looks like an ancient dinosaur.

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(laughs)

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Interestingly, those of you with sharp eyes,

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may notice that she has Asian features

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and she has, we think, some Mongolian and Chinese DNA

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which was sometimes found in the Jews from Russia

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and it is very interesting

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and I intend to research that further.

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So I'm very pleased to introduce you to my grandfather

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whom I will talk about.

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He was born in 1900 in Bialystok

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by the name of Chaim Patt.

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Chaim in Hebrew means life.

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Later he changed his surname from Patt to Japhet,

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which is my current last name.

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Japhet is biblical and it was common

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for pioneers arriving into Israel to pick for themselves

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a nice Biblical name.

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So that was the end of Patt.

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And you can see here from the pictures

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that my grandfather, as much as pictures can tell a story,

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was a very young, idealistic, fiercely determined young man.

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I can also add - handsome!

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He was unstoppable.

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He came to Israel in 1920 when he was only 20 years old

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and I'll tell you a bit later on

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the specifics of this remarkable story.

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He married my grandmother in 1926 in Israel.

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So you can see here, grandfather Chaim,

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grandmother Rosa, and as a small kid,

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my father, Gideon Japhet.

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This was taken in 1932.

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Now because I'm going to focus on my grandfather,

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I thought it would be appropriate to say a few words

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about my grandmother, Rosa.

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She was born in Valkininkai in Lithuania

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and she was from a family of Zionists

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who believed that the future of the Jewish people

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lies in Israel and so the family immigrated to Israel

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in 1911 when she was a young child and she became a nurse

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and she studied in the first ever school of nurses

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and she's a graduate of the first cycle of nurses.

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One of the only 22 that made it out of 400.

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And you can see her in this picture

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along with Henrietta Szold, who is founder of Hadassah,

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founder of this nurse school

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and founder of social welfare in Israel.

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And Henrietta Szold plays an important role

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also in the life of my grandfather as you will soon see.

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So back to my grandfather, Chaim.

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I loved him very much.

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I suffered a deep loss when he passed away

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when I was 15 years old

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and I have many great memories from him.

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He's one of the reasons

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that I was attracted to genealogy because for some of us,

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it's the connection with a loved grandparent

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and wishing to connect to them after they are gone

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and learn more about them through genealogy.

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And so it was for me, and here you can see him

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in my Bar Mitzvah when I was 13.

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I want to tell you a little bit

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about my grandfather's remarkable story.

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He left everything behind and left Bialystok in 1920,

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coming to Israel to forge a new future

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for himself in Israel.

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He dreamed about that moment all his youth

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and he prepared for it.

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He studied Hebrew, which he knew

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was going to be very important in Israel.

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And he came with nothing.

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He was completely penniless.

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He had no job and he was sent like many other pioneers

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to build the roads in the new country.

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That was very difficult physical labor

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with almost no pay.

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Very, very tough.

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My grandfather was out and he loved sports.

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He was a gymnast from Maccabi Bialystok.

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He loved to exercise.

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He was building the roads, but in the weekends,

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what do you do?

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You go to the holy city of Jerusalem

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and I think he had another motive - of finding a better job.

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So he goes to Jerusalem

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and the first thing he asks everybody

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is there any gym in the city, I want to practice?

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So they're saying, well, we have only one.

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They point his way to the only gym in Jerusalem

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and he goes there and he starts to exercise

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and everybody around him is very impressed.

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They say, you are fantastic.

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You've got to be our instructor.

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Unfortunately, we can't pay you.

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But they found a solution.

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There was a job opening as assistant gardener

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and so they made my grandfather an assistant gardener

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so that he could work during the day

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and be a gym instructor for free at night.

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And this way he left the roads

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and a new chapter opened for him.

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Now he was lucky, but sometimes people say

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that luck comes to those who deserve it.

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There was going to be a big political convention

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in the same gym where he was instructing

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and the gardener was assigned to decorate the hall.

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What do you do when you have an assistant?

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You assign the job to your assistant.

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My grandfather being a very talented

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and hardworking young man,

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he jumped up and down and he decorated the hall

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like it was never seen before in Jerusalem.

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When the convention happened,

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it was for newly a formed organization in Israel

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called Va'ad Leumi.

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Va'ad Leumi was the first organization

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that tried to organize the lives of the Jews

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in the Holy Land.

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This was 30 years before Israel became an independent state

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but that was the beginning.

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So they were having a convention

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and they asked, who decorated this hall so beautifully?

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They said - this guy.

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They called him up and said, Chaim, can you do some more things?

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Can you speak Hebrew?

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Can you read and write?

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Are you literate?

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Are you a scholar? And they were very impressed with him

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because the answer was yes.

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And so that was the end of his career

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as an assistant gardener

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and they recruited him immediately into the Va'ad Leumi

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and they made him a secretary at first.

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He was a secretary and he was in charge

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of writing the protocols for all the meetings

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in multiple languages, and he was assigned

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to work on a stenotype, which is a very early version

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of a typewriter, the only one in the country

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that was adjusted to work in Hebrew.

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He was proud to be the boss of that machine

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and we will see soon the significance of that.

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And he was promoted through the ranks

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until he was spotted by Henrietta Szold,

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the founder of social welfare in Israel

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and she said, you've got to be my deputy.

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And he became her deputy and right hand man.

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And together with her, over several decades,

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he was the founder of social welfare in Israel.

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And he became the director of social welfare in the country.

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He didn't like politics so much,

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so the most that he was was deputy minister

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00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:39.720
in the first Israeli government that was formed.

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00:13:39.720 --> 00:13:44.100
This is how he had this remarkable Cinderella story

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00:13:44.100 --> 00:13:46.553
and he used was to say, it's all thanks to sports!

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00:13:51.570 --> 00:13:55.210
And as a genealogist, I'm obsessed with collecting

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00:13:55.210 --> 00:13:58.270
any bits of information I can about my grandfather

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00:13:58.270 --> 00:14:00.940
and here are some of his diplomas, certificates

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00:14:00.940 --> 00:14:04.073
throughout his life, showing also my grandmother.

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00:14:08.170 --> 00:14:10.500
The family in Bialystok was very poor.

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00:14:10.500 --> 00:14:13.720
So every bit of money that my grandfather could save

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00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:16.210
from his work in the Va'ad Leumi,

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00:14:16.210 --> 00:14:19.520
he collected the money and he sent it back to Bialystok

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00:14:19.520 --> 00:14:21.253
to save the family from poverty.

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00:14:22.590 --> 00:14:24.371
But he was also a fierce believer

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00:14:24.371 --> 00:14:28.640
that the future of the Jews in Europe was dark

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00:14:28.640 --> 00:14:31.270
and that they've all got to come to Israel

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00:14:31.270 --> 00:14:33.830
and create a better future for themselves.

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00:14:33.830 --> 00:14:38.300
So he worked relentlessly to convince his family members

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00:14:38.300 --> 00:14:41.713
to follow in his footsteps and come to Israel with him.

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00:14:43.270 --> 00:14:46.740
And he even wrote articles for the Jewish newspapers

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00:14:46.740 --> 00:14:49.800
in Bialystok encouraging the entire population

284
00:14:49.800 --> 00:14:50.700
to come to Israel.

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00:14:52.330 --> 00:14:55.110
Thanks to his efforts, four of his siblings

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00:14:55.110 --> 00:14:57.660
did come to Israel in the 1920s

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00:14:57.660 --> 00:15:00.210
and all of them who left Bialystok

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00:15:00.210 --> 00:15:03.490
were in fact saved from the Holocaust

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00:15:03.490 --> 00:15:07.810
because they married and raised families in Israel.

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00:15:07.810 --> 00:15:10.950
And here you can see his sisters and brother

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00:15:10.950 --> 00:15:13.143
who followed him to Israel and were saved.

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00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:19.090
But Chaim could not save everyone

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00:15:20.009 --> 00:15:22.870
and some members of the family stayed behind.

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00:15:22.870 --> 00:15:25.720
This is a tragic photo taken in 1939

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00:15:25.720 --> 00:15:27.560
on the eve of the Holocaust.

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00:15:27.560 --> 00:15:30.830
The occasion was that Yantche,

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00:15:30.830 --> 00:15:34.730
who was my grandfather's nephew, he is marked in orange,

298
00:15:34.730 --> 00:15:36.593
was about to immigrate to Israel.

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00:15:37.500 --> 00:15:41.070
My grandfather worked relentlessly to bring all his family,

300
00:15:41.070 --> 00:15:44.280
his siblings, his nephews, everyone he could.

301
00:15:44.280 --> 00:15:49.280
So here in 1939, Yantche poses for a farewell photo

302
00:15:49.373 --> 00:15:52.140
with the members of the Patt family from Bialystok

303
00:15:52.140 --> 00:15:54.000
who stayed behind.

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00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:55.810
One year after this photo was taken,

305
00:15:55.810 --> 00:15:58.990
my great-grandfather died of natural causes.

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00:15:58.990 --> 00:16:02.910
I marked him in green, but everyone else in this photo

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00:16:02.910 --> 00:16:05.063
was murdered by the Nazis in Treblinka.

308
00:16:06.650 --> 00:16:09.070
And this includes three other brothers

309
00:16:09.070 --> 00:16:13.060
and sisters of my grandfather and their spouses

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00:16:13.060 --> 00:16:14.960
and their six children.

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00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:17.910
And in fact, many more members of my family

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00:16:17.910 --> 00:16:19.610
from Bialystok perished.

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00:16:19.610 --> 00:16:21.544
All the cousins of those that you see here.

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00:16:21.544 --> 00:16:25.680
So you can see that my grandfather had the foresight

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00:16:25.680 --> 00:16:30.100
to save himself and large parts of his family

316
00:16:30.100 --> 00:16:33.353
and I think thanks to him, MyHeritage exists, in fact.

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00:16:37.900 --> 00:16:39.730
A small interjection.

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00:16:39.730 --> 00:16:43.520
I use MyHeritage to preserve the memory of my grandfather

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00:16:43.520 --> 00:16:45.440
and to collect all the photos

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00:16:45.440 --> 00:16:47.460
and share them with my family members.

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00:16:47.460 --> 00:16:50.030
Here you can see a MyHeritage screen

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00:16:50.030 --> 00:16:53.119
showing pictures where my grandfather appears.

323
00:16:53.119 --> 00:16:56.480
I have thousands and thousands of historical photos

324
00:16:56.480 --> 00:16:58.600
from my family that I'm collecting

325
00:16:58.600 --> 00:17:01.583
and I keep working on that even till this day.

326
00:17:03.920 --> 00:17:06.990
And I tag all the photos because it's much easier

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00:17:06.990 --> 00:17:10.075
to see who is in each photo.

328
00:17:10.075 --> 00:17:13.640
MyHeritage is the first genealogy service

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00:17:13.640 --> 00:17:16.570
to support tagging of people in photos.

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00:17:16.570 --> 00:17:19.450
I know that because I invented this.

331
00:17:19.450 --> 00:17:22.970
Back in 2004, there were no applications at all

332
00:17:22.970 --> 00:17:26.600
that supported tagging people in photographs.

333
00:17:26.600 --> 00:17:28.220
And I did not want to put a photo

334
00:17:28.220 --> 00:17:30.100
and say that my grandma is seventh

335
00:17:30.100 --> 00:17:32.280
from the left on the fourth row from the back

336
00:17:32.280 --> 00:17:34.705
and have people counting the faces.

337
00:17:34.705 --> 00:17:38.750
So I invented photo tagging and that was many years

338
00:17:38.750 --> 00:17:41.810
until it became a natural activity on Facebook

339
00:17:41.810 --> 00:17:43.440
and other websites.

340
00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:45.770
I encourage all of you to use these facilities

341
00:17:45.770 --> 00:17:49.023
to tag each and every person in your historical photos.

342
00:17:51.661 --> 00:17:54.780
MyHeritage has also another feature

343
00:17:54.780 --> 00:17:58.190
where you can add the reverse side of a photo

344
00:17:58.190 --> 00:18:01.120
and it's still the only genealogy service today

345
00:18:01.120 --> 00:18:02.404
that supports it.

346
00:18:02.404 --> 00:18:05.330
You use Family Tree Builder to do that

347
00:18:05.330 --> 00:18:08.880
because this is in recognition that a lot of photos have

348
00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:10.650
a dedication or inscription behind

349
00:18:10.650 --> 00:18:13.040
that's important to show side by side.

350
00:18:13.040 --> 00:18:15.630
This is the wedding photo of Chaim and Rosa

351
00:18:15.630 --> 00:18:18.257
and behind it he wrote a love poem for her.

352
00:18:23.830 --> 00:18:28.830
Now I wanted to create a chart of the family

353
00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:31.530
and you want to hang the chart on your wall.

354
00:18:31.530 --> 00:18:34.720
So I was looking for the most condensed format

355
00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:37.400
for a family tree chart of descendants

356
00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:39.283
with the most amount of people

357
00:18:39.283 --> 00:18:42.460
in the smallest amount of space.

358
00:18:42.460 --> 00:18:47.120
And to do this, I was inspired by a Jewish descendant

359
00:18:48.550 --> 00:18:50.580
chart format that was common

360
00:18:50.580 --> 00:18:54.340
in the community of Corfu in Greece that I was researching.

361
00:18:54.340 --> 00:18:57.970
You can see here one of these original charts

362
00:18:57.970 --> 00:19:01.900
and it was very clever because people had more space

363
00:19:01.900 --> 00:19:05.650
if they had more descendants in the following generations.

364
00:19:05.650 --> 00:19:08.580
I wanted to do something like this,

365
00:19:08.580 --> 00:19:10.900
but you know now that I love photos

366
00:19:10.900 --> 00:19:14.030
and so I invented the Sun Chart,

367
00:19:14.030 --> 00:19:19.030
which is a modern rendition of the Corfu chart

368
00:19:19.180 --> 00:19:20.220
but with photos.

369
00:19:20.220 --> 00:19:23.330
This is the world's only descendant fan charts

370
00:19:23.330 --> 00:19:26.580
that has photos, and the algorithm

371
00:19:26.580 --> 00:19:28.070
was brilliantly implemented

372
00:19:28.070 --> 00:19:30.420
by my talented colleague Uri Gonen

373
00:19:30.420 --> 00:19:33.257
and now all of you can enjoy that also in MyHeritage

374
00:19:33.257 --> 00:19:37.300
and this is what I have hanging in my office

375
00:19:37.300 --> 00:19:40.353
and I sent copies of it to all my family members.

376
00:19:41.490 --> 00:19:43.010
When you zoom in you can see

377
00:19:43.010 --> 00:19:44.830
that the detail is fantastic

378
00:19:44.830 --> 00:19:47.673
and you can add as much information as you like.

379
00:19:48.670 --> 00:19:50.970
This is the part showing my grandfather

380
00:19:50.970 --> 00:19:55.033
and my father and myself zooming in into that Sun Chart.

381
00:19:56.970 --> 00:19:58.980
I make it a point that every time

382
00:19:58.980 --> 00:20:01.060
I'm photographed for the press,

383
00:20:01.060 --> 00:20:05.702
I ask them to include that Sun Chart of the Patt family.

384
00:20:05.702 --> 00:20:07.050
MyHeritage was recently selected

385
00:20:07.050 --> 00:20:09.600
as one of the most promising startups in Israel

386
00:20:09.600 --> 00:20:11.930
in the Israeli Press, and you can see me

387
00:20:11.930 --> 00:20:16.010
holding a picture of my mother and behind me,

388
00:20:16.010 --> 00:20:19.083
the family tree chart of my paternal side.

389
00:20:21.490 --> 00:20:24.210
Here is how you generate the Sun Chart for yourself.

390
00:20:24.210 --> 00:20:27.350
You go to the Family tree menu, Print charts and books

391
00:20:27.350 --> 00:20:31.090
and then you select the Sun Chart among the other formats,

392
00:20:31.090 --> 00:20:33.740
for those of you not familiar with this great format.

393
00:20:37.340 --> 00:20:42.340
Now, even for us experienced genealogists,

394
00:20:42.380 --> 00:20:44.560
there is always more to discover.

395
00:20:44.560 --> 00:20:47.280
And even in my grandfather's family,

396
00:20:47.280 --> 00:20:50.610
I hit a brick wall, a dead end

397
00:20:50.610 --> 00:20:53.910
and it was the mysterious uncle of my grandfather.

398
00:20:53.910 --> 00:20:57.083
His name was Yehuda Tzadik Patt.

399
00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:01.260
My grandfather mentioned that this uncle

400
00:21:01.260 --> 00:21:03.280
and I had him in the family tree

401
00:21:03.280 --> 00:21:05.100
but I knew nothing about him

402
00:21:05.100 --> 00:21:07.620
and no information about descendants

403
00:21:07.620 --> 00:21:10.010
and I was always wondering what happened

404
00:21:10.010 --> 00:21:11.713
to the family of Yehuda Patt.

405
00:21:16.580 --> 00:21:21.580
As a genealogist, I decided to go deep into research

406
00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:24.670
and to try to unravel that mystery.

407
00:21:24.670 --> 00:21:27.420
I went to the Ellis Island database

408
00:21:27.420 --> 00:21:30.880
and I searched for everyone from the city of Bialystok,

409
00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:32.870
who ever came to the United States.

410
00:21:32.870 --> 00:21:34.880
We're talking about thousands of people.

411
00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:37.310
I went over them one by one by one by one

412
00:21:39.380 --> 00:21:42.720
until I hit the discovery that I was looking for.

413
00:21:42.720 --> 00:21:46.290
I found the passenger manifest of a traveler

414
00:21:46.290 --> 00:21:48.450
named Berl Adin.

415
00:21:48.450 --> 00:21:51.520
He was going to New York to a certain address

416
00:21:51.520 --> 00:21:54.160
and he was about to join his father-in-law,

417
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:57.560
Yudel Zadik Pass, which is the Yiddish pronunciation

418
00:21:57.560 --> 00:22:02.560
of Yehuda Tzadik Patt and that was in 1905.

419
00:22:03.260 --> 00:22:05.160
So that was an amazing discovery.

420
00:22:05.160 --> 00:22:07.510
The long lost uncle was in fact

421
00:22:07.510 --> 00:22:10.830
in the United States in 1905.

422
00:22:10.830 --> 00:22:14.580
I was very happy because as I've explained to you,

423
00:22:14.580 --> 00:22:18.077
if you stayed behind in Bialystok, you would not survive

424
00:22:18.077 --> 00:22:22.190
and if a family member managed to get to the United States,

425
00:22:22.190 --> 00:22:25.646
they would probably stay there and raise a family

426
00:22:25.646 --> 00:22:29.230
and I would find the descendants. Because for me,

427
00:22:29.230 --> 00:22:33.510
genealogy is not so much about finding dead ancestors,

428
00:22:33.510 --> 00:22:35.140
but it's more about finding

429
00:22:35.140 --> 00:22:37.400
and connecting with living relatives.

430
00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:38.970
Of course you need the dead ancestors

431
00:22:38.970 --> 00:22:40.470
to find the living relatives!

432
00:22:41.530 --> 00:22:46.530
I was really excited when I found this passenger record.

433
00:22:48.630 --> 00:22:52.920
Unfortunately, you can see that the stamp here says deported

434
00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:54.970
and my happiness was short lived

435
00:22:54.970 --> 00:22:57.420
because a few days later he was sent back to Europe

436
00:22:57.420 --> 00:23:00.850
from the United States because he had tuberculosis

437
00:23:00.850 --> 00:23:02.910
and they would not let him in.

438
00:23:02.910 --> 00:23:05.550
And that unfortunately sealed his fate

439
00:23:05.550 --> 00:23:08.350
because I looked for him in the Yad Vashem database

440
00:23:08.350 --> 00:23:11.730
and found that Berl Adin with his wife,

441
00:23:11.730 --> 00:23:13.890
daughter of Yehuda Tzadik Patt

442
00:23:13.890 --> 00:23:17.313
perished in the Holocaust eventually, in Treblinka.

443
00:23:18.430 --> 00:23:20.870
So that was still a dead end

444
00:23:20.870 --> 00:23:23.720
and all the signs pointed at Yehuda Tzadik

445
00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:28.470
also returning from the United States back to Europe

446
00:23:28.470 --> 00:23:31.693
and maybe it was because the family was deported.

447
00:23:32.670 --> 00:23:34.273
So that was still a dead end.

448
00:23:36.010 --> 00:23:37.910
But you know, sometimes you get lucky.

449
00:23:39.129 --> 00:23:43.270
Last year, a woman from the United States

450
00:23:43.270 --> 00:23:46.810
who is also a genealogist found me on MyHeritage.

451
00:23:46.810 --> 00:23:50.130
She was looking for some ancestor of hers

452
00:23:50.130 --> 00:23:53.030
with the last name of Patt from Bialystok

453
00:23:53.030 --> 00:23:56.160
and she thought, I may know something about that.

454
00:23:56.160 --> 00:23:58.610
We compared notes and it turns out

455
00:23:58.610 --> 00:24:00.800
that her ancestor was misspelled.

456
00:24:00.800 --> 00:24:05.800
He was Yehudi Ztodok Patt but I could easily see

457
00:24:06.730 --> 00:24:08.990
that this was the missing uncle of my grandfather.

458
00:24:08.990 --> 00:24:13.100
He was her ancestor and we took DNA tests

459
00:24:13.100 --> 00:24:15.570
and they confirmed the connection.

460
00:24:15.570 --> 00:24:20.570
So we found the last branch of my grandfather's uncle

461
00:24:20.620 --> 00:24:22.600
and it's a lovely branch.

462
00:24:22.600 --> 00:24:24.970
They live today in the United States.

463
00:24:24.970 --> 00:24:27.740
They still kept the last name of Patt

464
00:24:27.740 --> 00:24:29.100
and they are all descendants

465
00:24:29.100 --> 00:24:31.510
of one child of Yehuda Tzadik Patt.

466
00:24:31.510 --> 00:24:35.530
His name was Isaac, who made it to the United States

467
00:24:35.530 --> 00:24:38.470
and built a life for himself there

468
00:24:38.470 --> 00:24:41.963
and he was a first cousin of my grandfather Chaim.

469
00:24:44.560 --> 00:24:49.180
I did some research about this Isaac Patt, the cousin

470
00:24:49.180 --> 00:24:51.950
and I got a beautiful picture of him and his wife

471
00:24:51.950 --> 00:24:54.650
from the family in the United States

472
00:24:54.650 --> 00:24:56.560
and I found his immigration record

473
00:24:56.560 --> 00:25:01.560
to the United States in 1904. As a genealogist,

474
00:25:02.100 --> 00:25:04.790
I try to file in my brain

475
00:25:04.790 --> 00:25:07.610
all kinds of useful and useless information

476
00:25:07.610 --> 00:25:11.280
in the hope that something will come out of it eventually.

477
00:25:11.280 --> 00:25:13.850
And I immediately noticed that the address

478
00:25:13.850 --> 00:25:17.830
that Isaac Patt was traveling to in New York

479
00:25:17.830 --> 00:25:21.800
was the very same address that Berl Adin was traveling to

480
00:25:21.800 --> 00:25:25.590
to join his father-in-law Yehuda Tzadik Patt.

481
00:25:25.590 --> 00:25:30.590
They were all living in one apartment in New York.

482
00:25:30.670 --> 00:25:33.280
Now, after this, when I realized

483
00:25:33.280 --> 00:25:35.870
the importance of this question,

484
00:25:35.870 --> 00:25:37.400
which relative are you joining

485
00:25:37.400 --> 00:25:40.650
that immigrants were asked at Ellis Island.

486
00:25:40.650 --> 00:25:45.600
I asked the MyHeritage staff to digitize those answers

487
00:25:45.600 --> 00:25:47.950
in all the Ellis Island records.

488
00:25:47.950 --> 00:25:51.240
And this is why today, MyHeritage is the only website

489
00:25:51.240 --> 00:25:53.330
with an Ellis Island collection

490
00:25:53.330 --> 00:25:57.470
that has the additional names of the family relatives

491
00:25:57.470 --> 00:25:59.980
that the passengers were joining in the United States

492
00:25:59.980 --> 00:26:02.430
and leaving behind in their homeland.

493
00:26:02.430 --> 00:26:06.140
26 million additional names that you will find

494
00:26:06.140 --> 00:26:07.530
only on MyHeritage.

495
00:26:07.530 --> 00:26:11.560
So Yehuda Tzadik Patt can now be found in the index

496
00:26:11.560 --> 00:26:13.130
and you don't need to go over

497
00:26:13.130 --> 00:26:16.380
thousands of manifests records manually

498
00:26:16.380 --> 00:26:17.530
to find things like that.

499
00:26:17.530 --> 00:26:19.362
All of you can take advantage of that now.

500
00:26:19.362 --> 00:26:22.470
Now, following this recent discovery,

501
00:26:22.470 --> 00:26:25.800
I now realize the importance of addresses

502
00:26:25.800 --> 00:26:29.660
and I'm going to ask my team now to index

503
00:26:29.660 --> 00:26:33.200
all the addresses that the passengers were going to

504
00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:34.890
in the United States.

505
00:26:34.890 --> 00:26:37.550
Because if you are a smart genealogist

506
00:26:37.550 --> 00:26:39.584
and you're going to search by that address,

507
00:26:39.584 --> 00:26:42.520
knowing where your ancestors had been,

508
00:26:42.520 --> 00:26:45.300
you're going to discover some additional relatives

509
00:26:45.300 --> 00:26:47.810
with different surnames that were traveling

510
00:26:47.810 --> 00:26:50.880
to the same address and you will make more discoveries.

511
00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:54.850
I promise you that this will come also to MyHeritage

512
00:26:54.850 --> 00:26:58.423
and it's all thanks to actually doing genealogy hands-on.

513
00:27:02.780 --> 00:27:05.470
I continued to research Isaac Patt

514
00:27:05.470 --> 00:27:09.540
and I found his World War I draft record from 1918

515
00:27:10.420 --> 00:27:14.780
and I filed the address where he was living at in Chicago

516
00:27:14.780 --> 00:27:18.163
in my memory for later, and you'll soon see its significance.

517
00:27:21.460 --> 00:27:23.640
And now, for something really interesting.

518
00:27:23.640 --> 00:27:28.500
My grandfather left me a real treasure, his suitcase.

519
00:27:28.500 --> 00:27:30.580
He could've been nostalgic.

520
00:27:30.580 --> 00:27:31.413
I don't know.

521
00:27:31.413 --> 00:27:33.260
This could have been the suitcase that he actually used

522
00:27:33.260 --> 00:27:37.523
to immigrate to Israel in 1920 or it was a later suitcase,

523
00:27:37.523 --> 00:27:40.400
but it was an old suitcase.

524
00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:44.320
And inside he left lots of letters and documents

525
00:27:45.670 --> 00:27:47.703
and it was handed over.

526
00:27:48.600 --> 00:27:50.710
I was supposed to receive it,

527
00:27:50.710 --> 00:27:53.520
but some other member of the family got it

528
00:27:53.520 --> 00:27:57.220
and it was only recently that it was passed on to me

529
00:27:57.220 --> 00:28:01.740
and inside, there were notes by my grandfather to me

530
00:28:01.740 --> 00:28:04.490
because he somehow believed

531
00:28:04.490 --> 00:28:07.340
that I'm going to be the historian of the family.

532
00:28:07.340 --> 00:28:10.170
I was only 13 years old when he left those notes

533
00:28:10.170 --> 00:28:14.210
but somehow he said, Gilad will inherit the suitcase

534
00:28:14.210 --> 00:28:16.610
and will take good care of this.

535
00:28:16.610 --> 00:28:19.370
So the suitcase got to where it was supposed to

536
00:28:20.290 --> 00:28:22.993
and inside there were many, many treasures.

537
00:28:23.890 --> 00:28:27.810
The most important one was a huge package of letters,

538
00:28:27.810 --> 00:28:30.170
correspondence between my grandfather

539
00:28:30.170 --> 00:28:33.389
and his family in Bialystok from the early years,

540
00:28:33.389 --> 00:28:37.737
1920 until 1926 when he was the only family member

541
00:28:37.737 --> 00:28:39.460
in Israel.

542
00:28:39.460 --> 00:28:42.093
We're talking about more than 500 letters.

543
00:28:43.170 --> 00:28:45.640
That's a huge treasure because that period

544
00:28:45.640 --> 00:28:48.733
in the history of Israel is scarcely documented.

545
00:28:50.887 --> 00:28:54.840
Now remember that he was assigned the stenotype

546
00:28:54.840 --> 00:28:58.820
and he wanted extra practice and I think he was also proud.

547
00:28:58.820 --> 00:29:03.820
So he used it to write all the letters and it kept a copy.

548
00:29:03.830 --> 00:29:08.540
Now, whoever had a photocopy machine in 1920? Nobody!

549
00:29:08.540 --> 00:29:10.310
This was in fact the only way

550
00:29:10.310 --> 00:29:12.750
that he could retain a copy of the letters.

551
00:29:12.750 --> 00:29:16.200
The letters were sent to Bialystok and they were lost.

552
00:29:16.200 --> 00:29:17.470
They were destroyed.

553
00:29:17.470 --> 00:29:19.820
But I have the copies of each and every letter.

554
00:29:26.860 --> 00:29:28.080
That's an amazing treasure

555
00:29:28.080 --> 00:29:30.240
and the fact that they were written by this machine,

556
00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:32.290
means that they're easy to read

557
00:29:32.290 --> 00:29:35.940
and I don't need to tackle horrible handwriting

558
00:29:38.040 --> 00:29:39.840
which I know many of you have faced.

559
00:29:40.830 --> 00:29:45.495
We are talking about more than 800 pages, very dense.

560
00:29:45.495 --> 00:29:49.528
He didn't know about carriage return and line break!

561
00:29:49.528 --> 00:29:51.180
(laughs)

562
00:29:51.180 --> 00:29:52.950
Lots and lots of content.

563
00:29:52.950 --> 00:29:56.690
He was documenting what life was like in the early years

564
00:29:56.690 --> 00:29:59.830
in the Holy Land and that's very, very rich

565
00:29:59.830 --> 00:30:03.690
historical content with events that he documented

566
00:30:03.690 --> 00:30:05.220
from a firsthand experience.

567
00:30:05.220 --> 00:30:06.956
He really touched history

568
00:30:06.956 --> 00:30:11.700
combined with the rich genealogical family stories.

569
00:30:12.780 --> 00:30:15.860
This is a dream come true for every genealogist.

570
00:30:15.860 --> 00:30:17.973
It's a once in a lifetime discovery.

571
00:30:23.340 --> 00:30:27.913
And it's quite intimidating, all that material.

572
00:30:28.950 --> 00:30:30.690
And I've always said, one day

573
00:30:30.690 --> 00:30:33.120
I'm going to publish it in a book

574
00:30:33.120 --> 00:30:35.800
and I decided recently that the day has come

575
00:30:35.800 --> 00:30:38.070
and I've started working on this again

576
00:30:38.070 --> 00:30:40.340
and I've read all the material again.

577
00:30:40.340 --> 00:30:41.890
It's quite emotional.

578
00:30:41.890 --> 00:30:45.640
I was shaken, but there are some parts of it in Yiddish

579
00:30:45.640 --> 00:30:46.980
that I don't understand.

580
00:30:46.980 --> 00:30:49.003
So I'm having that translated right now.

581
00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:53.550
And one of the questions that puzzled me

582
00:30:53.550 --> 00:30:58.550
was - did my grandfather know his cousin Isaac Patt in Chicago

583
00:30:58.750 --> 00:31:01.500
from the branch of Uncle Yehuda.

584
00:31:01.500 --> 00:31:04.750
So I looked at the very tiny slips of paper.

585
00:31:04.750 --> 00:31:07.800
Very, very small that my grandfather kept

586
00:31:07.800 --> 00:31:11.760
because he sent his letters to Bialystok in registered post

587
00:31:11.760 --> 00:31:14.800
and he scribbled the addresses.

588
00:31:14.800 --> 00:31:18.530
And Lo and behold, I found the address of Isaac Patt.

589
00:31:18.530 --> 00:31:22.090
It was attached to a letter that says to my dear cousin.

590
00:31:22.090 --> 00:31:24.240
So I had no idea who it was going to,

591
00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:26.700
but it was going to Mr. Patt in the same address

592
00:31:26.700 --> 00:31:29.500
of Isaac Patt from the World War I record.

593
00:31:29.500 --> 00:31:31.860
So they had in fact been in touch

594
00:31:31.860 --> 00:31:34.710
and this is the beauty of our work as genealogists.

595
00:31:34.710 --> 00:31:37.310
We are righting the wrongs of history

596
00:31:37.310 --> 00:31:41.920
and we are reconnecting ties that were broken for 100 years.

597
00:31:41.920 --> 00:31:45.250
This connection was severed in 1921

598
00:31:45.250 --> 00:31:49.440
and now in 2018, I am now back in touch

599
00:31:49.440 --> 00:31:51.912
with the descendants of Isaac Patt

600
00:31:51.912 --> 00:31:55.293
and celebrating the heritage of our family.

601
00:31:58.400 --> 00:32:01.590
Now I'm going to give you a worldwide scoop.

602
00:32:01.590 --> 00:32:03.720
You are the first to hear about it

603
00:32:03.720 --> 00:32:05.910
and it's from another bit of treasure

604
00:32:05.910 --> 00:32:09.520
that I found in the suitcase and I found it quite recently

605
00:32:09.520 --> 00:32:11.078
when I was paying more attention

606
00:32:11.078 --> 00:32:14.800
to some of the papers that I previously put aside.

607
00:32:14.800 --> 00:32:17.480
Now, I find it very significant

608
00:32:17.480 --> 00:32:19.640
that I'm telling you this in Oslo

609
00:32:19.640 --> 00:32:22.970
because Oslo was the site of the last successful peace talks

610
00:32:22.970 --> 00:32:25.200
between Palestinians and Israelis

611
00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:28.310
and that led to the Oslo Peace Accords.

612
00:32:28.310 --> 00:32:31.736
What I'm about to tell you now is a secret memo

613
00:32:31.736 --> 00:32:35.950
in the possession of my grandfather, about secret peace talks

614
00:32:35.950 --> 00:32:38.513
between the Jews and the Arabs in 1924.

615
00:32:39.530 --> 00:32:41.780
And this material was never published before.

616
00:32:43.320 --> 00:32:47.270
The protagonist that you see here is King Abdullah I.

617
00:32:47.270 --> 00:32:52.020
He was a ruler of Trans Jordan in 1921 and for 30 years.

618
00:32:52.020 --> 00:32:54.763
Later, he became formally the king of Jordan.

619
00:32:56.355 --> 00:33:01.050
He was assassinated in 1951

620
00:33:01.050 --> 00:33:05.380
because people heard that he was about to negotiate

621
00:33:05.380 --> 00:33:07.583
and sign a peace treaty with Israel.

622
00:33:08.450 --> 00:33:10.630
History could have been different.

623
00:33:10.630 --> 00:33:15.630
And so this king Abdullah hosted in 1924

624
00:33:16.920 --> 00:33:18.864
a delegation of Jewish leaders.

625
00:33:18.864 --> 00:33:22.270
My grandfather was not one of those leaders.

626
00:33:22.270 --> 00:33:24.970
He was only a secretary in the Va'ad Leumi,

627
00:33:24.970 --> 00:33:29.613
but he got to type up the memo on his stenotype.

628
00:33:31.230 --> 00:33:33.960
This is a seven-page memo that describes

629
00:33:33.960 --> 00:33:38.251
the entire protocol of the secret meetings in Jordan

630
00:33:38.251 --> 00:33:42.580
between the Jewish leaders and the Jordanian leadership.

631
00:33:42.580 --> 00:33:45.190
They were discussing how the Jews and the Arabs

632
00:33:45.190 --> 00:33:48.960
can cooperate in harmony and build the land,

633
00:33:48.960 --> 00:33:50.693
the Holy Land together.

634
00:33:52.130 --> 00:33:54.350
The delegation included the famous Zionist

635
00:33:54.350 --> 00:33:56.730
called Colonel Kisch from the British Army

636
00:33:56.730 --> 00:34:00.790
and David Yellin, who was a chairman of the Va'ad Leumi

637
00:34:00.790 --> 00:34:03.053
and also the chief rabbi of Israel.

638
00:34:06.400 --> 00:34:07.920
And this is the only copy

639
00:34:07.920 --> 00:34:11.810
because this has never seen the light,

640
00:34:11.810 --> 00:34:13.450
has never been published.

641
00:34:13.450 --> 00:34:15.970
I'm planning now to publish it in Israeli media,

642
00:34:15.970 --> 00:34:18.750
so look out for it in the next few days.

643
00:34:18.750 --> 00:34:21.710
I'm hoping that it will inspire the current generation

644
00:34:21.710 --> 00:34:24.900
to pursue peace, that it will show people

645
00:34:24.900 --> 00:34:27.750
the very brave actions of the former leaders

646
00:34:27.750 --> 00:34:29.690
who almost made it and maybe

647
00:34:29.690 --> 00:34:31.343
it will happen in our generation.

648
00:34:34.280 --> 00:34:38.510
By the way, in the assassination of Abdullah I,

649
00:34:39.600 --> 00:34:42.120
that happened actually in Jerusalem,

650
00:34:42.120 --> 00:34:45.660
his grandson, King Hussein, who was a young boy,

651
00:34:45.660 --> 00:34:49.030
was injured but there was a medal on his chest

652
00:34:49.030 --> 00:34:51.900
that deflected the bullet and he was saved

653
00:34:51.900 --> 00:34:55.900
and eventually, King Hussein pursued the same path

654
00:34:55.900 --> 00:34:58.962
of his grandfather and signed the peace treaty

655
00:34:58.962 --> 00:35:01.680
with Israel in 1994.

656
00:35:01.680 --> 00:35:04.150
And it's tragic that the Israeli prime minister,

657
00:35:04.150 --> 00:35:08.620
Isaac Rabin was assassinated one year later in 1995

658
00:35:08.620 --> 00:35:10.920
for pursuing peace in the Middle East.

659
00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:12.450
So we have tragic history,

660
00:35:12.450 --> 00:35:14.423
but we always dream of a better future.

661
00:35:17.560 --> 00:35:21.270
And my grandfather, I bet he was very proud

662
00:35:21.270 --> 00:35:25.160
to have been close to history and he touched history

663
00:35:25.160 --> 00:35:28.473
and that's why he left this memo behind for us.

664
00:35:29.880 --> 00:35:31.400
And two other small anecdotes

665
00:35:31.400 --> 00:35:36.100
from that magical suitcase that were dear to my grandfather.

666
00:35:36.100 --> 00:35:39.280
This is an arm band that was assigned to him

667
00:35:39.280 --> 00:35:42.570
when he was a very junior secretary in 1921

668
00:35:42.570 --> 00:35:45.160
and he wrote on it in his handwriting

669
00:35:45.160 --> 00:35:48.050
that he wore this when he was an usher.

670
00:35:48.050 --> 00:35:52.330
He was taking care of order in a very important event

671
00:35:52.330 --> 00:35:55.610
attended by Lord Balfour, sitting right next to him

672
00:35:55.610 --> 00:35:57.170
and Balfour was the man who made

673
00:35:57.170 --> 00:35:59.110
the famous Balfour Declaration,

674
00:35:59.110 --> 00:36:02.490
promising the Jews a homeland in Palestine.

675
00:36:02.490 --> 00:36:05.850
So again, my grandfather touched history

676
00:36:05.850 --> 00:36:09.472
being so close to this person and he kept that arm band

677
00:36:09.472 --> 00:36:13.683
that has the formal stamps that allowed him the entry.

678
00:36:15.680 --> 00:36:17.280
And I told you that my grandfather

679
00:36:17.280 --> 00:36:19.600
loved sports and exercise.

680
00:36:19.600 --> 00:36:21.870
He was a gymnast from Maccabi Bialystok.

681
00:36:21.870 --> 00:36:25.260
He really passed that on big time to my father

682
00:36:25.260 --> 00:36:27.840
and my father passed it on to me.

683
00:36:27.840 --> 00:36:30.900
That's why I was one of the only ones to be seen yesterday

684
00:36:30.900 --> 00:36:33.993
jogging in my shorts in the park of Oslo.

685
00:36:35.260 --> 00:36:37.834
So that's really strong in my family.

686
00:36:37.834 --> 00:36:41.220
And here in a letter from 1921,

687
00:36:41.220 --> 00:36:43.150
my grandfather Chaim is organizing

688
00:36:43.150 --> 00:36:46.090
one of the first football teams in Israel.

689
00:36:46.090 --> 00:36:49.600
He's writing a letter asking the Va'ad Leumi

690
00:36:49.600 --> 00:36:53.530
to release early on Tuesday afternoons, the clerks,

691
00:36:53.530 --> 00:36:57.460
they are forming a football team and my grandfather said,

692
00:36:57.460 --> 00:37:00.850
you must understand the importance of physical exercise

693
00:37:00.850 --> 00:37:02.520
for these people.

694
00:37:02.520 --> 00:37:05.390
So this is another small anecdote.

695
00:37:05.390 --> 00:37:08.150
Not history perhaps, but equally important to me

696
00:37:08.150 --> 00:37:09.583
and I'm very proud of this.

697
00:37:12.330 --> 00:37:15.100
In the last few days, I've found the time

698
00:37:15.100 --> 00:37:17.410
and I updated my family tree

699
00:37:17.410 --> 00:37:20.510
with the entire descendants of Isaac Patt.

700
00:37:20.510 --> 00:37:22.780
Of course there was a genealogist on the other side,

701
00:37:22.780 --> 00:37:25.720
but I had to verify every bit and every piece of information

702
00:37:25.720 --> 00:37:28.400
and I found even more about that branch

703
00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:31.890
all added to the Sun Chart of the Patt family,

704
00:37:31.890 --> 00:37:34.409
more than 100 people magically added

705
00:37:34.409 --> 00:37:37.573
to my paternal descendants chart.

706
00:37:40.060 --> 00:37:41.720
So to conclude this story,

707
00:37:41.720 --> 00:37:45.397
first, I hope my grandfather would have been proud of me.

708
00:37:45.397 --> 00:37:49.140
And you can see here a lovely picture of the two of us.

709
00:37:50.220 --> 00:37:53.040
Really, genealogy is never done.

710
00:37:53.040 --> 00:37:55.960
Even if you are a very experienced genealogist,

711
00:37:55.960 --> 00:37:57.790
even if you think you know it all,

712
00:37:57.790 --> 00:37:59.050
you think you found it all,

713
00:37:59.050 --> 00:38:01.880
there are always more amazing stories

714
00:38:01.880 --> 00:38:03.820
waiting for you to discover them.

715
00:38:03.820 --> 00:38:06.930
And I want to end this part of my talk

716
00:38:06.930 --> 00:38:08.590
with the saying by Geoff Rasmussen

717
00:38:08.590 --> 00:38:10.580
who introduced me this morning.

718
00:38:10.580 --> 00:38:11.860
Life is short -

719
00:38:11.860 --> 00:38:13.870
Do Genealogy first!

720
00:38:13.870 --> 00:38:14.982
Thank you.

721
00:38:14.982 --> 00:38:17.232
(applause)

722
00:38:32.370 --> 00:38:34.180
Okay, so that was pleasure.

723
00:38:34.180 --> 00:38:36.290
Now we move on to business but still

724
00:38:36.290 --> 00:38:38.203
business mixed with pleasure.

725
00:38:40.670 --> 00:38:43.510
I want to make some new announcements in this conference

726
00:38:43.510 --> 00:38:45.963
and some of them for the very first time ever.

727
00:38:47.420 --> 00:38:48.762
Now I have to tell you this.

728
00:38:48.762 --> 00:38:53.070
we still have ahead of us two fantastic days

729
00:38:53.070 --> 00:38:56.070
full of lectures by my colleagues

730
00:38:56.070 --> 00:38:58.270
and I don't want to steal their glory.

731
00:38:58.270 --> 00:39:01.270
So I'm not going to give you the whole roadmap

732
00:39:01.270 --> 00:39:04.330
of MyHeritage. Our VP Product Maya,

733
00:39:04.330 --> 00:39:06.777
will do that later this afternoon.

734
00:39:06.777 --> 00:39:09.053
I will steal only a little bit from her.

735
00:39:13.220 --> 00:39:15.023
So some new announcements.

736
00:39:16.140 --> 00:39:20.140
The first one is about DNA and genealogy.

737
00:39:20.140 --> 00:39:23.800
Now, as most of you already know,

738
00:39:23.800 --> 00:39:27.540
the most useful aspect of DNA testing

739
00:39:27.540 --> 00:39:32.090
is finding relatives through DNA matches.

740
00:39:32.090 --> 00:39:34.240
You can also find the ethnicity,

741
00:39:34.240 --> 00:39:36.780
but at MyHeritage, we think that the DNA matches

742
00:39:36.780 --> 00:39:39.990
are more important and we've been putting more focus

743
00:39:39.990 --> 00:39:41.403
on the DNA matching side.

744
00:39:43.100 --> 00:39:44.440
Now, one of the biggest challenges

745
00:39:44.440 --> 00:39:47.890
is that you take a DNA test and it finds

746
00:39:47.890 --> 00:39:50.230
thousands of relatives or hundreds of relatives

747
00:39:50.230 --> 00:39:53.030
and then the challenge is to figure out

748
00:39:53.030 --> 00:39:56.190
how exactly you are related to your DNA matches

749
00:39:56.190 --> 00:39:58.631
because DNA will often not tell you that

750
00:39:58.631 --> 00:40:02.650
and the DNA result can tell you that this person

751
00:40:02.650 --> 00:40:05.670
is probably your third cousin or your fourth cousin

752
00:40:05.670 --> 00:40:07.371
but it's up to you to figure out

753
00:40:07.371 --> 00:40:09.363
how exactly you are connected.

754
00:40:10.490 --> 00:40:12.860
We've been releasing a lot of useful tools

755
00:40:12.860 --> 00:40:14.620
that make that easier.

756
00:40:14.620 --> 00:40:17.016
We have a Chromosome Browser

757
00:40:17.016 --> 00:40:20.151
that you can look at the segments and try to determine

758
00:40:20.151 --> 00:40:25.151
which ancestor you have in common with your DNA match.

759
00:40:26.550 --> 00:40:29.490
We give you Smart Matches between your tree

760
00:40:29.490 --> 00:40:32.270
and the tree of the match.

761
00:40:32.270 --> 00:40:36.146
If they have a tree, we look at surnames

762
00:40:36.146 --> 00:40:40.370
of the ancestors of your DNA match and your own ancestors

763
00:40:40.370 --> 00:40:43.260
and we try to look for identical surnames

764
00:40:43.260 --> 00:40:46.860
because if you have a certain Patt ancestor,

765
00:40:46.860 --> 00:40:51.193
that gives away immediately how you are probably related.

766
00:40:52.710 --> 00:40:55.410
These tools are very useful, but additional tools

767
00:40:55.410 --> 00:40:56.963
and clues are always welcome.

768
00:40:58.610 --> 00:41:00.690
I'm very proud to introduce to you

769
00:41:00.690 --> 00:41:05.200
our new mega feature, Shared Ancestral Places.

770
00:41:05.200 --> 00:41:07.580
That is already live on the website

771
00:41:08.470 --> 00:41:13.470
since yesterday, silently and now formally announced

772
00:41:13.610 --> 00:41:14.883
for the first time ever.

773
00:41:16.210 --> 00:41:21.210
Shared Ancestral Places are places of birth and death

774
00:41:21.220 --> 00:41:26.220
of the ancestors of both sides of the DNA match.

775
00:41:26.560 --> 00:41:30.430
These are the locations where the ancestors lived.

776
00:41:30.430 --> 00:41:32.400
Whenever you have a DNA match,

777
00:41:32.400 --> 00:41:36.570
we check the family trees of you and the DNA match

778
00:41:36.570 --> 00:41:40.850
and we try to find if there are ancestral places in common

779
00:41:42.041 --> 00:41:45.260
because if there are, they are important clues

780
00:41:45.260 --> 00:41:48.203
that can show how the two of you are related.

781
00:41:49.130 --> 00:41:51.100
You could have done it manually,

782
00:41:51.100 --> 00:41:54.430
but it's impossible to look through the ancestries

783
00:41:54.430 --> 00:41:56.100
of thousands of DNA matches

784
00:41:56.100 --> 00:41:58.420
and look at the places of birth and death

785
00:41:58.420 --> 00:42:00.350
of each one of your DNA matches.

786
00:42:00.350 --> 00:42:01.623
We have done it for you.

787
00:42:03.060 --> 00:42:05.640
So here on a DNA match card,

788
00:42:05.640 --> 00:42:09.623
we highlight if there are shared ancestral places.

789
00:42:10.580 --> 00:42:12.979
And in the Review Match page,

790
00:42:12.979 --> 00:42:16.900
there is a new lovely interactive component

791
00:42:16.900 --> 00:42:20.770
that shows you on the map, the ancestral places

792
00:42:20.770 --> 00:42:23.670
from your side and the DNA match

793
00:42:23.670 --> 00:42:26.570
and we highlight with purple pins

794
00:42:26.570 --> 00:42:29.690
if there are shared locations.

795
00:42:29.690 --> 00:42:32.350
And we show you the ancestral events.

796
00:42:32.350 --> 00:42:35.694
Which ancestor of yours and the other match

797
00:42:35.694 --> 00:42:38.780
occurred in that location,

798
00:42:38.780 --> 00:42:41.170
and this is not just done at the level of country,

799
00:42:41.170 --> 00:42:45.530
but also down to the level of city, town or village

800
00:42:45.530 --> 00:42:48.970
which can be enlightening and we show that on a map

801
00:42:48.970 --> 00:42:53.000
because you might see an ancestral location of yours

802
00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:54.970
that is in fact not identical

803
00:42:54.970 --> 00:42:59.653
but very close to an ancestral location of your DNA match.

804
00:43:00.500 --> 00:43:04.690
We show this to you and this is a very powerful clue

805
00:43:04.690 --> 00:43:08.823
and tool to help you make sense of your DNA matches.

806
00:43:11.310 --> 00:43:13.120
Here is an example from my own family tree.

807
00:43:13.120 --> 00:43:16.030
I have this match with someone called Richard

808
00:43:16.030 --> 00:43:18.970
and it's showing me that he has ancestors

809
00:43:18.970 --> 00:43:22.480
from Bialystok and Poland, same as me.

810
00:43:22.480 --> 00:43:25.910
This kind of discovery alone could have allowed me

811
00:43:25.910 --> 00:43:30.170
to find the last branch of Yehuha Tzadik Patt.

812
00:43:30.170 --> 00:43:32.460
Though in this case it was chicken and egg.

813
00:43:32.460 --> 00:43:34.910
First I found them, then I DNA tested them,

814
00:43:34.910 --> 00:43:38.810
but sometimes DNA comes first

815
00:43:38.810 --> 00:43:40.840
and then you make the discovery

816
00:43:40.840 --> 00:43:43.110
and you can see how easy it would have been

817
00:43:43.110 --> 00:43:45.970
and you can see the other shared locations

818
00:43:45.970 --> 00:43:48.580
that his family has and my family has.

819
00:43:48.580 --> 00:43:51.110
We also show you ancestral places

820
00:43:51.110 --> 00:43:54.620
that only you have or only the DNA match has

821
00:43:54.620 --> 00:43:56.873
and of course those that are shared.

822
00:43:58.520 --> 00:44:01.790
The technology that compares the places is very smart.

823
00:44:01.790 --> 00:44:03.870
It's based on geocoding,

824
00:44:03.870 --> 00:44:06.740
which means that we convert the place names

825
00:44:06.740 --> 00:44:08.800
into coordinates.

826
00:44:08.800 --> 00:44:12.750
We don't do a naive textual comparison.

827
00:44:12.750 --> 00:44:15.250
So if you wrote Bialystok in one spelling

828
00:44:15.250 --> 00:44:18.480
and the other guy wrote it in Hebrew or Russian or Greek

829
00:44:18.480 --> 00:44:20.870
or spelled it differently, it doesn't matter.

830
00:44:20.870 --> 00:44:24.290
We figure out the location and then we match

831
00:44:24.290 --> 00:44:26.635
thanks to the location and in fact,

832
00:44:26.635 --> 00:44:30.160
we are going to display these place names in your language.

833
00:44:30.160 --> 00:44:32.470
So if you are a user from Norway,

834
00:44:32.470 --> 00:44:34.180
you're going to see the place names

835
00:44:34.180 --> 00:44:35.720
translated to your language

836
00:44:35.720 --> 00:44:39.283
because we know how to translate names as well.

837
00:44:40.650 --> 00:44:41.894
It's a very smart feature.

838
00:44:41.894 --> 00:44:46.513
Someone has to pay the bills, so it's also a paid feature.

839
00:44:47.350 --> 00:44:49.990
It's available for MyHeritage subscribers

840
00:44:49.990 --> 00:44:52.890
and to people who upload the DNA data to MyHeritage,

841
00:44:52.890 --> 00:44:55.480
but only if they do it until December 1st.

842
00:44:55.480 --> 00:44:57.400
After that it will become paid

843
00:44:57.400 --> 00:44:59.863
for people who upload after that date.

844
00:45:01.392 --> 00:45:03.400
This is the first release.

845
00:45:03.400 --> 00:45:06.682
We have a lot of improvements planned.

846
00:45:06.682 --> 00:45:11.154
This is the work of the genius engineering team in Israel

847
00:45:11.154 --> 00:45:13.380
and it was led and supervised

848
00:45:13.380 --> 00:45:16.680
by our very talented DNA product manager, Ran Snir

849
00:45:16.680 --> 00:45:19.130
who is here in Oslo and he will present to you

850
00:45:19.130 --> 00:45:21.830
probably right after this or soon after this.

851
00:45:21.830 --> 00:45:24.820
So you can hear it from the man himself

852
00:45:24.820 --> 00:45:27.300
and it's live on MyHeritage right now.

853
00:45:27.300 --> 00:45:30.013
Don't go away, but take a look at it later.

854
00:45:31.530 --> 00:45:33.553
So that's Shared Ancestral Places.

855
00:45:35.531 --> 00:45:37.781
(applause)

856
00:45:42.950 --> 00:45:46.024
You can have the best technologies in the world

857
00:45:46.024 --> 00:45:49.304
but you also need the historical records

858
00:45:49.304 --> 00:45:53.900
to make historical, fascinating and amazing discoveries

859
00:45:53.900 --> 00:45:57.166
and we keep adding more and more historical records

860
00:45:57.166 --> 00:45:59.360
for your benefit.

861
00:45:59.360 --> 00:46:02.410
So here, I'm happy to announce for the first time

862
00:46:02.410 --> 00:46:04.349
that we're working on a massive project,

863
00:46:04.349 --> 00:46:09.010
the US city directory project, in advanced stages,

864
00:46:09.010 --> 00:46:13.350
coming soon to MyHeritage with about one billion records.

865
00:46:13.350 --> 00:46:17.270
This is a huge, huge collection and extremely useful.

866
00:46:17.270 --> 00:46:19.460
The city directories are an old version

867
00:46:19.460 --> 00:46:22.670
of the phone directories and they exist

868
00:46:22.670 --> 00:46:25.415
even before the invention of the phone.

869
00:46:25.415 --> 00:46:28.210
I think it was invented in 1876

870
00:46:28.210 --> 00:46:32.205
and the city directories began earlier in the 19th century.

871
00:46:32.205 --> 00:46:37.090
They are listing everyone and the address where they lived

872
00:46:37.090 --> 00:46:38.330
and in many locations,

873
00:46:38.330 --> 00:46:40.900
we have them year after year after year.

874
00:46:40.900 --> 00:46:43.350
So this is a great census supplement.

875
00:46:43.350 --> 00:46:45.650
The census in the United States is every 10 years,

876
00:46:45.650 --> 00:46:47.614
in some states, every five.

877
00:46:47.614 --> 00:46:52.614
Here, you can track people in between these census years

878
00:46:53.360 --> 00:46:56.770
and you can find out who lived in the household.

879
00:46:56.770 --> 00:46:59.050
So if you do the detective work

880
00:46:59.050 --> 00:47:01.290
and you look very closely at these records,

881
00:47:01.290 --> 00:47:04.270
you will be able to find exactly who lived in the household,

882
00:47:04.270 --> 00:47:07.000
what was the occupation, people coming and going,

883
00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:09.410
people getting married and people dying.

884
00:47:09.410 --> 00:47:11.310
This is a fantastic resource.

885
00:47:11.310 --> 00:47:15.800
Now, the US city directories are already found

886
00:47:15.800 --> 00:47:17.330
in a few places on the Internet.

887
00:47:17.330 --> 00:47:20.277
This is not going to be exclusive for MyHeritage,

888
00:47:20.277 --> 00:47:23.463
but the MyHeritage collection will be the smartest one.

889
00:47:24.660 --> 00:47:28.357
We are taking the time to process these records

890
00:47:28.357 --> 00:47:30.240
and do a good job of it.

891
00:47:30.240 --> 00:47:34.520
We are converting the records into structured data

892
00:47:34.520 --> 00:47:38.370
and we are actually understanding the abbreviations.

893
00:47:38.370 --> 00:47:39.860
As you can see on the right,

894
00:47:39.860 --> 00:47:42.090
sometimes it's a bit cryptic to read this.

895
00:47:42.090 --> 00:47:45.490
Every city in every state had their own abbreviations.

896
00:47:45.490 --> 00:47:48.660
We figured it out and we are creating a database

897
00:47:48.660 --> 00:47:51.420
that is also consolidated.

898
00:47:51.420 --> 00:47:55.270
If your relative lived in the same location year after year,

899
00:47:55.270 --> 00:47:57.690
we're going to consolidate that into one record

900
00:47:57.690 --> 00:47:59.650
instead of having 20 records appear

901
00:47:59.650 --> 00:48:01.400
in your search results and pollute them.

902
00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:05.480
So you can look forward to a fantastic collection

903
00:48:05.480 --> 00:48:07.395
if you have relatives in United States

904
00:48:07.395 --> 00:48:10.133
of about one billion records.

905
00:48:11.080 --> 00:48:13.580
It's going to be the smartest collection of its kind.

906
00:48:13.580 --> 00:48:15.330
It's not available on MyHeritage yet,

907
00:48:15.330 --> 00:48:18.460
but we're working hard on it and it will be coming soon.

908
00:48:18.460 --> 00:48:20.260
And now it's announced here for the first time

909
00:48:21.700 --> 00:48:24.260
and then I will invite you to track your ancestors

910
00:48:24.260 --> 00:48:25.503
year over year.

911
00:48:29.190 --> 00:48:33.700
For our European users and for all our users

912
00:48:33.700 --> 00:48:35.810
who have ancestors from Europe,

913
00:48:35.810 --> 00:48:38.100
I'm happy to say that we are working now

914
00:48:38.100 --> 00:48:43.100
to add newspapers from Europe to MyHeritage,

915
00:48:43.860 --> 00:48:44.833
millions of them.

916
00:48:45.950 --> 00:48:48.070
We are going to adjust our unique

917
00:48:48.070 --> 00:48:51.910
newspaper matching technology to the other languages

918
00:48:51.910 --> 00:48:54.926
it currently works in English so that we will match

919
00:48:54.926 --> 00:48:57.686
the newspaper articles automatically

920
00:48:57.686 --> 00:48:59.900
to the individuals in your family tree

921
00:48:59.900 --> 00:49:02.740
and deliver them to you as Record Matches.

922
00:49:02.740 --> 00:49:06.260
In the first wave we have millions of newspapers

923
00:49:06.260 --> 00:49:08.290
coming from the Netherlands and Austria

924
00:49:08.290 --> 00:49:11.100
and in subsequent waves we will be adding

925
00:49:11.100 --> 00:49:13.410
many more countries.

926
00:49:13.410 --> 00:49:18.260
Now you might say, okay, the newspapers in Norway or Sweden

927
00:49:18.260 --> 00:49:21.560
are already available online and I can search them.

928
00:49:21.560 --> 00:49:23.790
That's true, but on MyHeritage,

929
00:49:23.790 --> 00:49:26.220
they will be matched automatically to your family tree

930
00:49:26.220 --> 00:49:30.690
and few of us have the time to search for every person

931
00:49:30.690 --> 00:49:33.680
in the newspapers, and the MyHeritage technology

932
00:49:33.680 --> 00:49:37.000
works with synonyms whereas searching with newspapers

933
00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:38.863
is typically exact words.

934
00:49:40.350 --> 00:49:43.820
So we'll be able to find your relatives in the newspapers

935
00:49:43.820 --> 00:49:45.890
like no one is able to do

936
00:49:45.890 --> 00:49:49.250
even if the newspapers are available elsewhere

937
00:49:49.250 --> 00:49:50.400
and we are now working hard

938
00:49:50.400 --> 00:49:53.050
to bring those European newspapers to MyHeritage

939
00:49:53.050 --> 00:49:57.050
and we have the best technology for utilizing them.

940
00:49:57.050 --> 00:49:58.660
These are European newspapers

941
00:49:58.660 --> 00:50:01.600
describing the sinking of the titanic.

942
00:50:01.600 --> 00:50:02.600
This is interesting.

943
00:50:06.090 --> 00:50:08.720
We have a great partnership with FamilySearch

944
00:50:08.720 --> 00:50:11.800
and we are working together on digitizing new collections

945
00:50:11.800 --> 00:50:16.340
that they have microfilmed around the world.

946
00:50:16.340 --> 00:50:21.340
We are working in various stages on unique content

947
00:50:21.700 --> 00:50:24.010
that has never been digitized before.

948
00:50:24.010 --> 00:50:26.710
For example, the Czech Republic census.

949
00:50:26.710 --> 00:50:28.010
We are working on that.

950
00:50:28.010 --> 00:50:30.990
We are working on Brazil records

951
00:50:33.360 --> 00:50:38.340
and these are meetings in Brazil archives that took place

952
00:50:40.660 --> 00:50:42.433
and we also working on German records

953
00:50:42.433 --> 00:50:44.680
that have never been indexed before.

954
00:50:44.680 --> 00:50:48.820
Now these projects are in various stages.

955
00:50:48.820 --> 00:50:53.530
For example, the German project has been signed and started.

956
00:50:53.530 --> 00:50:57.010
It will take some time before the content

957
00:50:57.010 --> 00:50:59.980
reaches MyHeritage, but it will.

958
00:50:59.980 --> 00:51:03.160
The content is all flowing in various stages

959
00:51:03.160 --> 00:51:05.714
and millions of new records are coming.

960
00:51:05.714 --> 00:51:09.120
We are leaving no territory unhandled

961
00:51:09.120 --> 00:51:13.500
because we realize that genealogy is international.

962
00:51:13.500 --> 00:51:16.270
So all of you will probably have

963
00:51:16.270 --> 00:51:18.343
new records relevant to your research.

964
00:51:24.340 --> 00:51:28.920
And now I'm switching to something else

965
00:51:28.920 --> 00:51:30.620
and I'm going to make it a little bit

966
00:51:30.620 --> 00:51:32.403
of a controversial statement.

967
00:51:33.810 --> 00:51:36.562
My analogy is that the DNA of your ancestors,

968
00:51:36.562 --> 00:51:39.830
it's like great wine, like fine wine

969
00:51:39.830 --> 00:51:42.043
and you have it, but diluted.

970
00:51:43.690 --> 00:51:46.603
For example, if I think about my grandfather Chaim,

971
00:51:47.780 --> 00:51:51.910
I can find his relatives by getting matches for me

972
00:51:51.910 --> 00:51:56.100
but I have on average only 25% of his DNA.

973
00:51:56.100 --> 00:51:58.740
So my ability to find his relatives,

974
00:51:58.740 --> 00:52:02.210
my own relatives that are related through his branch

975
00:52:02.210 --> 00:52:06.883
is quite limited when I have only 25% of his DNA inside me.

976
00:52:07.770 --> 00:52:12.480
There is more of his DNA in my siblings and in my cousins

977
00:52:12.480 --> 00:52:13.710
but it's separated.

978
00:52:13.710 --> 00:52:15.010
It's not brought together.

979
00:52:16.510 --> 00:52:17.633
And so,

980
00:52:21.020 --> 00:52:22.830
it's quite interesting if I could get

981
00:52:22.830 --> 00:52:24.720
the DNA of my grandfather, Chaim.

982
00:52:24.720 --> 00:52:26.603
Wouldn't that be interesting.

983
00:52:29.150 --> 00:52:31.990
Now this is what I'm going to focus on

984
00:52:31.990 --> 00:52:33.493
in the next 10 minutes.

985
00:52:34.440 --> 00:52:37.760
This is just a brief diagram, a primer

986
00:52:37.760 --> 00:52:40.410
about how DNA matching works.

987
00:52:40.410 --> 00:52:42.770
Many of you here are DNA experts,

988
00:52:42.770 --> 00:52:45.060
so this will bring you to sleep.

989
00:52:45.060 --> 00:52:48.630
Some of you may not have tried DNA testing yet,

990
00:52:48.630 --> 00:52:51.210
so this could be interesting for you.

991
00:52:51.210 --> 00:52:53.840
DNA is an extremely important part

992
00:52:53.840 --> 00:52:56.700
in the future of genealogy and I really encourage all of you

993
00:52:56.700 --> 00:52:59.950
who have not jumped in yet, to embrace it.

994
00:52:59.950 --> 00:53:01.950
It doesn't replace traditional research.

995
00:53:01.950 --> 00:53:05.100
It only augments it and you may find new things

996
00:53:05.100 --> 00:53:06.910
that you would not find otherwise.

997
00:53:06.910 --> 00:53:10.870
So this is another important tool in your toolbox

998
00:53:10.870 --> 00:53:13.853
and a good genealogist should use every tool available.

999
00:53:15.220 --> 00:53:16.939
Here at the bottom of this diagram,

1000
00:53:16.939 --> 00:53:21.500
we see two first cousins and you can see

1001
00:53:21.500 --> 00:53:23.450
that the father of one of them

1002
00:53:23.450 --> 00:53:26.271
was the sibling to the mother of the other

1003
00:53:26.271 --> 00:53:30.330
and they share two grandparents.

1004
00:53:30.330 --> 00:53:34.140
Now I'm showing here a single chromosome for simplicity,

1005
00:53:34.140 --> 00:53:37.170
but imagine that this is repeated 23 times

1006
00:53:37.170 --> 00:53:38.620
for each pair of chromosomes

1007
00:53:39.530 --> 00:53:41.900
and you can see by the way of DNA inheritance

1008
00:53:41.900 --> 00:53:46.900
and recombination that each of us gets 50% from our father

1009
00:53:47.647 --> 00:53:51.600
and 50% from our mother, but they represent

1010
00:53:51.600 --> 00:53:54.130
a mixture from our grandparents.

1011
00:53:54.130 --> 00:53:58.500
So we don't exactly get 25% of each grandparent.

1012
00:53:58.500 --> 00:54:02.520
We can get 20% and 30% as long as the total

1013
00:54:02.520 --> 00:54:07.520
is 50% from each side and statistically it happens

1014
00:54:09.880 --> 00:54:14.880
that we inherit the same segments of DNA from our ancestors.

1015
00:54:16.262 --> 00:54:20.750
From my father, I have exactly 50% of his DNA.

1016
00:54:20.750 --> 00:54:25.437
From my grandfather, I have on average 25% of his DNA

1017
00:54:25.437 --> 00:54:28.310
and that arrives in segments.

1018
00:54:28.310 --> 00:54:32.620
In this example, the two cousins have this segment in common

1019
00:54:32.620 --> 00:54:34.740
that is marked in orange.

1020
00:54:34.740 --> 00:54:37.380
Each of them got it from the parent

1021
00:54:37.380 --> 00:54:40.753
and it came from the shared grandparents.

1022
00:54:41.610 --> 00:54:44.240
And this is how DNA matching works.

1023
00:54:44.240 --> 00:54:47.880
We look at your DNA, we compare your DNA

1024
00:54:47.880 --> 00:54:51.470
to the DNA data of all the other users on MyHeritage.

1025
00:54:51.470 --> 00:54:54.170
There are nearly two million kits by now.

1026
00:54:54.170 --> 00:54:57.336
Two million people in the DNA database,

1027
00:54:57.336 --> 00:55:02.043
1.9 plus million, and we look for segments

1028
00:55:02.043 --> 00:55:07.000
that are identical and by the quantity

1029
00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:11.500
and length of those segments, we tell you statistically

1030
00:55:11.500 --> 00:55:14.580
what is the relationship between you and your DNA match.

1031
00:55:14.580 --> 00:55:18.780
For example, if it's 25%, this could be your grandfather,

1032
00:55:18.780 --> 00:55:20.430
this could be your grandson

1033
00:55:20.430 --> 00:55:23.063
and this could be your half-brother, for example.

1034
00:55:26.090 --> 00:55:29.350
So trust me on this, when I tell you

1035
00:55:29.350 --> 00:55:33.230
that you really need and you want your ancestor's DNA.

1036
00:55:34.550 --> 00:55:36.893
All of it, not just 25% of it.

1037
00:55:39.564 --> 00:55:43.070
So our recommendation is for people

1038
00:55:43.070 --> 00:55:45.530
to always test themselves

1039
00:55:45.530 --> 00:55:48.770
and to test the oldest family members and ancestors

1040
00:55:48.770 --> 00:55:51.010
in their family while you still can,

1041
00:55:51.010 --> 00:55:53.180
because we don't want you guys

1042
00:55:53.180 --> 00:55:56.234
digging up anyone from the grave, do we?

1043
00:55:56.234 --> 00:55:58.860
(laughs)

1044
00:55:58.860 --> 00:56:00.733
Don't do that.

1045
00:56:04.410 --> 00:56:08.300
But you really want the DNA of your ancestors

1046
00:56:08.300 --> 00:56:11.600
because it amplifies your signal

1047
00:56:11.600 --> 00:56:14.250
and I'm going to illustrate that with a few examples.

1048
00:56:15.260 --> 00:56:18.120
If you're looking for a first cousin, it's quite easy.

1049
00:56:18.120 --> 00:56:23.120
You will have on average a 12.5% match of the same DNA.

1050
00:56:24.710 --> 00:56:26.700
That's impossible to miss.

1051
00:56:26.700 --> 00:56:28.810
You won't miss your first cousin

1052
00:56:28.810 --> 00:56:33.810
but if you had your grandparent's DNA in the database,

1053
00:56:33.890 --> 00:56:37.580
the grandparent would match that cousin 25%.

1054
00:56:37.580 --> 00:56:39.550
So that will be a double match

1055
00:56:39.550 --> 00:56:41.760
and that becomes more significant

1056
00:56:41.760 --> 00:56:44.100
when you are looking for slightly more distant relatives

1057
00:56:44.100 --> 00:56:46.480
like your second cousins and even your third cousins.

1058
00:56:46.480 --> 00:56:48.980
Because if you look at your second cousin,

1059
00:56:48.980 --> 00:56:53.470
you match that person on average by around three percent,

1060
00:56:53.470 --> 00:56:57.880
but if you had your great grandparent's DNA in the database,

1061
00:56:57.880 --> 00:57:01.050
the signal will be amplified by four

1062
00:57:01.050 --> 00:57:06.050
and it will be matching on average by 12 and a half percent.

1063
00:57:06.160 --> 00:57:08.020
So it will be really useful

1064
00:57:08.020 --> 00:57:11.790
if you could have the DNA of your ancestors in the database

1065
00:57:11.790 --> 00:57:14.260
and you could look at the matches

1066
00:57:14.260 --> 00:57:16.170
that this DNA generates

1067
00:57:16.170 --> 00:57:19.035
because that is like illuminating a beacon

1068
00:57:19.035 --> 00:57:22.265
and finding relatives from that branch

1069
00:57:22.265 --> 00:57:27.265
in much better resolution, in a much larger signal

1070
00:57:27.622 --> 00:57:32.550
and you would then know exactly how they're related to you.

1071
00:57:32.550 --> 00:57:35.550
Because if this is a match of your grandfather,

1072
00:57:35.550 --> 00:57:39.506
you may also match that person but much smaller.

1073
00:57:39.506 --> 00:57:44.506
You get quite closer to the truth and you can do that

1074
00:57:45.690 --> 00:57:47.510
not for all your ancestors,

1075
00:57:47.510 --> 00:57:51.550
but for those that you have a particular interest in.

1076
00:57:51.550 --> 00:57:54.240
You know how it is when a parent

1077
00:57:54.240 --> 00:57:56.890
is not supposed to have a favorite child,

1078
00:57:56.890 --> 00:57:59.030
but some of them have a favorite child.

1079
00:57:59.030 --> 00:58:02.605
So us genealogists, some of us have a favorite ancestor

1080
00:58:02.605 --> 00:58:07.560
that we put more focus in our research

1081
00:58:07.560 --> 00:58:10.440
and so that's natural and human.

1082
00:58:10.440 --> 00:58:14.520
So you really want to have the DNA of that ancestor

1083
00:58:14.520 --> 00:58:19.363
in the database so you can get matches direct to the source.

1084
00:58:21.280 --> 00:58:24.700
Problem is, ancestors are for most of us deceased.

1085
00:58:24.700 --> 00:58:27.383
They are in heaven, we would like to think.

1086
00:58:28.340 --> 00:58:31.813
How do we get their DNA into the database?

1087
00:58:33.520 --> 00:58:36.770
We're going to offer you two solutions for this

1088
00:58:38.020 --> 00:58:40.463
and this is where it gets really interesting.

1089
00:58:43.910 --> 00:58:45.981
The first solution is to reconstruct

1090
00:58:45.981 --> 00:58:50.120
the ancestral DNA because it got distributed

1091
00:58:50.120 --> 00:58:53.200
to the descendants of that ancestor.

1092
00:58:53.200 --> 00:58:56.760
I have 25% of my grandfather on average

1093
00:58:56.760 --> 00:59:00.950
and my sister will have 25% on average also

1094
00:59:00.950 --> 00:59:03.800
but some of that 25% will be different

1095
00:59:03.800 --> 00:59:08.500
and if I can combine the DNA of my grandfather that she has

1096
00:59:08.500 --> 00:59:11.670
an I have, I can gradually build

1097
00:59:11.670 --> 00:59:14.190
more and more of my grandfather's DNA

1098
00:59:14.190 --> 00:59:18.130
and if I could test my father, but he's deceased also,

1099
00:59:18.130 --> 00:59:20.710
then I would have 50% of my grandfather.

1100
00:59:20.710 --> 00:59:22.280
So first I need to reconstruct

1101
00:59:22.280 --> 00:59:26.240
actually the DNA of my father and so on.

1102
00:59:26.240 --> 00:59:30.096
So the way you do this is you give DNA tests

1103
00:59:30.096 --> 00:59:33.930
to your cousins, to your second cousins,

1104
00:59:33.930 --> 00:59:38.930
to the cousins of your parents, and like I said,

1105
00:59:39.125 --> 00:59:43.110
you start with the eldest family members

1106
00:59:43.110 --> 00:59:46.217
because genealogy is a race against time.

1107
00:59:46.217 --> 00:59:49.083
You give them the DNA kits.

1108
00:59:51.500 --> 00:59:53.850
In my experience, if you give them a free kit,

1109
00:59:53.850 --> 00:59:57.140
if you buy the kit for them, they will usually test it.

1110
00:59:57.140 --> 00:59:58.940
Don't expect them to purchase the kits,

1111
00:59:58.940 --> 01:00:01.890
but if you sponsor the kits for them,

1112
01:00:01.890 --> 01:00:04.090
many of them will agree to test

1113
01:00:04.090 --> 01:00:05.636
and then you have the benefit

1114
01:00:05.636 --> 01:00:10.636
of if they allow you to manage their kits on MyHeritage,

1115
01:00:10.690 --> 01:00:13.560
then you know where they are on the family tree.

1116
01:00:13.560 --> 01:00:16.990
The kit can be assigned to that individual

1117
01:00:16.990 --> 01:00:17.943
in the family tree.

1118
01:00:19.180 --> 01:00:22.220
And then lots of interesting things can happen

1119
01:00:22.220 --> 01:00:25.700
as you reconstruct the DNA of your ancestors,

1120
01:00:25.700 --> 01:00:30.700
which is a job that MyHeritage intends to automate for you

1121
01:00:30.970 --> 01:00:31.893
and do it for you.

1122
01:00:33.780 --> 01:00:35.863
If I go back to this example,

1123
01:00:36.860 --> 01:00:38.970
if I know that this is a cousin.

1124
01:00:38.970 --> 01:00:43.040
If I gave my cousin a kit and the DNA result

1125
01:00:43.040 --> 01:00:44.860
proves that they are a cousin,

1126
01:00:44.860 --> 01:00:48.830
then MyHeritage can automatically find the common segment

1127
01:00:48.830 --> 01:00:52.940
and escalate it to my matches father and to my own mother

1128
01:00:54.070 --> 01:00:56.180
and it comes from one of the two grandparents.

1129
01:00:56.180 --> 01:00:57.620
We don't know yet which one,

1130
01:00:57.620 --> 01:01:00.000
so I'm going to put that segment in the middle

1131
01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:01.700
between the grandparents,

1132
01:01:01.700 --> 01:01:05.421
but I can already escalate the segment one generation.

1133
01:01:05.421 --> 01:01:08.010
And if I test the second cousin,

1134
01:01:08.010 --> 01:01:11.370
then I can escalate the segments two generations,

1135
01:01:11.370 --> 01:01:13.900
right to the grandfather or grandmother

1136
01:01:13.900 --> 01:01:16.633
and in the middle of the great-grandparents.

1137
01:01:18.119 --> 01:01:21.010
MyHeritage will not do this if you get a first cousin match

1138
01:01:21.010 --> 01:01:22.580
who is an unknown stranger

1139
01:01:22.580 --> 01:01:25.030
because we don't know exactly how you're related,

1140
01:01:25.895 --> 01:01:28.632
but if you sponsor a kit and you give it to your cousins,

1141
01:01:28.632 --> 01:01:33.030
which many, many thousands of our users,

1142
01:01:33.030 --> 01:01:35.900
tens of thousands of our users are doing already,

1143
01:01:35.900 --> 01:01:37.850
then MyHeritage will take the information

1144
01:01:37.850 --> 01:01:41.301
from the DNA results of the kits that you're managing

1145
01:01:41.301 --> 01:01:43.852
together with a family tree data

1146
01:01:43.852 --> 01:01:47.286
and we will automatically escalate the segments

1147
01:01:47.286 --> 01:01:52.286
to reconstruct the DNA of your ancestors in heaven

1148
01:01:53.020 --> 01:01:55.960
and we will allow you to create virtual kits

1149
01:01:55.960 --> 01:02:00.250
from those ancestors so you can generate matches for them,

1150
01:02:00.250 --> 01:02:05.250
which is exactly the DNA of my beloved grandfather, Chaim,

1151
01:02:05.730 --> 01:02:10.130
which I can then build from all of us in the family

1152
01:02:10.130 --> 01:02:11.990
and then I can have his DNA.

1153
01:02:11.990 --> 01:02:13.740
It does not have to be complete.

1154
01:02:13.740 --> 01:02:15.660
It's not going to be complete, but it can be

1155
01:02:15.660 --> 01:02:20.000
80%, 90% of his DNA, which is better than 25%

1156
01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:24.010
that I have today and I'm going to get fantastic matches

1157
01:02:24.010 --> 01:02:27.503
and make new discoveries with a stronger signal.

1158
01:02:28.630 --> 01:02:30.250
So this is the technique

1159
01:02:30.250 --> 01:02:32.370
that we're going to add to MyHeritage.

1160
01:02:35.170 --> 01:02:38.420
And by having this, you will gain other benefits

1161
01:02:38.420 --> 01:02:42.398
because we will have information about different segments.

1162
01:02:42.398 --> 01:02:44.543
So if you have a match,

1163
01:02:44.543 --> 01:02:46.790
we'll be able to look at the segments

1164
01:02:46.790 --> 01:02:48.930
that you have in common and tell you,

1165
01:02:48.930 --> 01:02:53.690
oh, we know the segment because we've escalated it

1166
01:02:53.690 --> 01:02:55.920
to your grandmother, Rosa.

1167
01:02:55.920 --> 01:02:59.540
So obviously, you are related to this DNA match

1168
01:02:59.540 --> 01:03:03.810
through grandmother Rosa and it brings you closer

1169
01:03:03.810 --> 01:03:07.460
to find the MRCA, the most recent common ancestor

1170
01:03:07.460 --> 01:03:09.182
between you and the match

1171
01:03:09.182 --> 01:03:13.150
and it allows you to focus on DNA matches

1172
01:03:13.150 --> 01:03:15.070
of your favorite people,

1173
01:03:15.070 --> 01:03:18.403
the people that you care about in your genealogy research.

1174
01:03:19.760 --> 01:03:23.080
And it makes it easier to achieve

1175
01:03:23.080 --> 01:03:26.110
to find the holy grail in DNA matching

1176
01:03:26.110 --> 01:03:29.540
which is to understand exactly how you are related

1177
01:03:29.540 --> 01:03:31.620
to your DNA matches.

1178
01:03:31.620 --> 01:03:33.236
What I've described to you now

1179
01:03:33.236 --> 01:03:37.615
is the first technique that we're going to provide

1180
01:03:37.615 --> 01:03:41.873
to get the DNA of your ancestors and use them.

1181
01:03:42.740 --> 01:03:44.490
But there is another technique

1182
01:03:44.490 --> 01:03:46.960
that you can start to use even sooner

1183
01:03:48.940 --> 01:03:53.530
and that is from old envelopes and stamps.

1184
01:03:53.530 --> 01:03:55.780
Now those of you who like me

1185
01:03:55.780 --> 01:03:57.830
are passionate stamp collectors,

1186
01:03:57.830 --> 01:04:00.174
we are an extinct kind, but you know,

1187
01:04:00.174 --> 01:04:03.593
I'm magnetically drawn to this penny black.

1188
01:04:04.470 --> 01:04:07.403
I don't know why I see it and I smile.

1189
01:04:08.540 --> 01:04:11.490
I'm a stamp collector and unfortunately,

1190
01:04:11.490 --> 01:04:15.410
I'm very sad to see this hobby becoming slowly extinct.

1191
01:04:15.410 --> 01:04:17.150
Less people are doing stamp collecting.

1192
01:04:17.150 --> 01:04:20.520
They're playing too many games with smartphones

1193
01:04:20.520 --> 01:04:24.030
and they don't have time for good old education

1194
01:04:24.030 --> 01:04:26.117
that can come from stamp collecting

1195
01:04:26.117 --> 01:04:29.670
and people are hardly using stamps today

1196
01:04:29.670 --> 01:04:31.210
and hardly writing letters.

1197
01:04:31.210 --> 01:04:35.563
It's all emails and emoticons, emojis.

1198
01:04:37.510 --> 01:04:41.560
But the good news is that in the good old days,

1199
01:04:41.560 --> 01:04:44.213
our ancestors loved to write letters

1200
01:04:44.213 --> 01:04:49.160
and most of them did and many of us genealogists

1201
01:04:49.160 --> 01:04:53.320
have in our possession, letters that our ancestors

1202
01:04:53.320 --> 01:04:56.130
and other relatives wrote to each other.

1203
01:04:56.130 --> 01:04:58.074
And I hope that like me,

1204
01:04:58.074 --> 01:05:01.740
you have kept those letters as treasures

1205
01:05:03.930 --> 01:05:07.270
and maybe our ancestors did not realize it

1206
01:05:07.270 --> 01:05:10.320
when they were licking those stamps

1207
01:05:10.320 --> 01:05:12.460
and the envelope flaps.

1208
01:05:12.460 --> 01:05:15.423
They were sealing their precious DNA for you forever.

1209
01:05:16.878 --> 01:05:21.010
So we can now go to those envelopes

1210
01:05:21.010 --> 01:05:24.710
and it's not going to be DNA in the letters themselves,

1211
01:05:24.710 --> 01:05:26.090
but in the envelope.

1212
01:05:26.090 --> 01:05:29.100
And it's such a shame that a lot of the stamp collectors

1213
01:05:29.100 --> 01:05:32.470
would put a bath of water and peel away the stamp

1214
01:05:32.470 --> 01:05:34.450
and throw away the envelope

1215
01:05:34.450 --> 01:05:36.610
and put the stamp in our collection.

1216
01:05:36.610 --> 01:05:38.920
But those of you who did not do that

1217
01:05:38.920 --> 01:05:41.040
and who kept the envelope,

1218
01:05:41.040 --> 01:05:45.050
the envelope has the DNA protected under the stamp

1219
01:05:45.050 --> 01:05:50.050
and inside the self adhesive gum, glue of the envelope.

1220
01:05:50.810 --> 01:05:55.040
And it is possible to extract the DNA from that

1221
01:05:55.040 --> 01:05:57.333
with very high success rates.

1222
01:05:58.390 --> 01:06:03.100
And the stamp can be fresh, a few years old

1223
01:06:03.100 --> 01:06:05.030
and it can be 100 years old.

1224
01:06:05.030 --> 01:06:06.800
The DNA is still there.

1225
01:06:06.800 --> 01:06:08.650
And the more DNA, the more stamps,

1226
01:06:08.650 --> 01:06:12.160
the more envelopes you find, the better your chances.

1227
01:06:12.160 --> 01:06:15.475
So MyHeritage is going to form a partnership

1228
01:06:15.475 --> 01:06:18.840
with a company that specializes

1229
01:06:18.840 --> 01:06:21.940
in the extraction of DNA from these conditions.

1230
01:06:21.940 --> 01:06:26.215
And the partnership will allow you to send over an envelope

1231
01:06:26.215 --> 01:06:29.820
and get the results loaded into MyHeritage,

1232
01:06:29.820 --> 01:06:32.640
just like a regular cheek swab kit

1233
01:06:32.640 --> 01:06:35.250
which you can then assign to an individual

1234
01:06:35.250 --> 01:06:39.110
in your family tree and we expect you to do that

1235
01:06:39.110 --> 01:06:40.283
with your ancestors.

1236
01:06:42.230 --> 01:06:44.693
So my dear grandfather, Chaim,

1237
01:06:45.810 --> 01:06:50.580
in his suitcase, there are some envelopes.

1238
01:06:50.580 --> 01:06:53.550
Here is a letter, a postcard that he sent

1239
01:06:53.550 --> 01:06:55.640
in the last two years of his life,

1240
01:06:55.640 --> 01:06:58.620
but the address was wrong and it was returned to the sender.

1241
01:06:58.620 --> 01:07:00.000
It was returned to him.

1242
01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:03.990
How lucky, because the postcard has two stamps

1243
01:07:03.990 --> 01:07:06.773
and knowing my grandfather, he would lick them himself.

1244
01:07:08.810 --> 01:07:12.020
So I have his DNA here and that's only 35 years old

1245
01:07:12.910 --> 01:07:17.103
and that's recent, but I have an even better option.

1246
01:07:18.460 --> 01:07:22.530
My grandfather was a proud member of the workers union

1247
01:07:22.530 --> 01:07:24.110
and I found his booklet.

1248
01:07:24.110 --> 01:07:26.420
Every month he would pay taxes

1249
01:07:26.420 --> 01:07:28.410
and he would get a small stamp

1250
01:07:28.410 --> 01:07:33.070
to affix in there are about 500 stamps that he licked

1251
01:07:33.070 --> 01:07:34.400
in that booklet.

1252
01:07:34.400 --> 01:07:39.400
That's enough DNA for 1000 DNA kits.

1253
01:07:40.160 --> 01:07:42.263
So already as we speak,

1254
01:07:43.138 --> 01:07:45.692
these samples are in the lab being extracted.

1255
01:07:45.692 --> 01:07:50.130
Grandfather Chaim's DNA on its way to MyHeritage

1256
01:07:50.130 --> 01:07:53.203
and then I will be able to make even more connections.

1257
01:07:56.380 --> 01:07:59.083
Grandmother Rosa is a tougher challenge.

1258
01:08:00.010 --> 01:08:02.610
Unlike my grandfather, she didn't write many letters

1259
01:08:03.500 --> 01:08:07.840
but she wrote two love letters to my grandfather in 1926

1260
01:08:07.840 --> 01:08:08.673
and he kept them

1261
01:08:08.673 --> 01:08:11.640
because he was an archivist historian himself

1262
01:08:11.640 --> 01:08:13.480
and I've got those letters.

1263
01:08:13.480 --> 01:08:16.570
So I have from my grandmother two stamps

1264
01:08:16.570 --> 01:08:18.428
and the sealed envelope.

1265
01:08:18.428 --> 01:08:21.500
I think I have her DNA now.

1266
01:08:21.500 --> 01:08:22.773
We will know pretty soon.

1267
01:08:26.050 --> 01:08:27.573
Now, why stop there?

1268
01:08:29.917 --> 01:08:31.900
(laughs)

1269
01:08:31.900 --> 01:08:34.550
I see you're one step ahead of me reading the slides.

1270
01:08:35.930 --> 01:08:38.130
You know in the Starship enterprise,

1271
01:08:38.130 --> 01:08:42.260
the TV series, Star Trek that I used to watch as a kid,

1272
01:08:42.260 --> 01:08:44.620
to boldly go where no one has gone before,

1273
01:08:44.620 --> 01:08:47.820
that's what I love doing and this is what I want to try

1274
01:08:47.820 --> 01:08:48.853
here with DNA.

1275
01:08:50.580 --> 01:08:52.460
I happen to have one of the world's

1276
01:08:52.460 --> 01:08:55.810
largest collection of autographs, historical autographs

1277
01:08:55.810 --> 01:08:58.230
because I am as you know by now,

1278
01:08:58.230 --> 01:08:59.680
a passionate lover of history

1279
01:09:00.828 --> 01:09:03.240
and I've been collecting these autographs

1280
01:09:03.240 --> 01:09:05.360
throughout decades.

1281
01:09:05.360 --> 01:09:10.360
Now, they suddenly have a hidden use and as we speak,

1282
01:09:10.790 --> 01:09:14.500
DNA is being extracted from some fantastic items.

1283
01:09:14.500 --> 01:09:16.100
I'd like to share that with you.

1284
01:09:17.120 --> 01:09:20.270
The first is Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism.

1285
01:09:20.270 --> 01:09:23.490
He had the vision of bringing the Jews

1286
01:09:23.490 --> 01:09:27.227
back to the Holy Land in establishing an independent state.

1287
01:09:27.227 --> 01:09:29.510
Herzl had a tragic life.

1288
01:09:29.510 --> 01:09:32.850
He died in 1904 at a very young age

1289
01:09:32.850 --> 01:09:36.960
and his line of descendants was cut.

1290
01:09:36.960 --> 01:09:40.890
He had three children and they did not survive.

1291
01:09:40.890 --> 01:09:43.970
He had one grandchild who is dead.

1292
01:09:43.970 --> 01:09:46.830
The line is extinct and very little is known

1293
01:09:46.830 --> 01:09:48.278
about his relatives.

1294
01:09:48.278 --> 01:09:51.870
I have in my collection an extremely rare postcard

1295
01:09:51.870 --> 01:09:54.408
written by the daughter of Herzl.

1296
01:09:54.408 --> 01:09:55.590
Truda Herzl.

1297
01:09:55.590 --> 01:10:00.311
It is perhaps the only thing anyone has of the daughter

1298
01:10:00.311 --> 01:10:04.200
and there is a stamp there.

1299
01:10:04.200 --> 01:10:08.970
So I can get 50% of Herzl's DNA through his daughter.

1300
01:10:08.970 --> 01:10:11.567
Now I'm probably not going to check if Herzl

1301
01:10:11.567 --> 01:10:14.900
and his wife were 100% Ashkenazi Jewish,

1302
01:10:14.900 --> 01:10:16.250
although that would be fun.

1303
01:10:17.220 --> 01:10:20.579
I would like to find relatives of Herzl

1304
01:10:20.579 --> 01:10:23.600
because no one knows who they are.

1305
01:10:23.600 --> 01:10:28.483
This is an area that has big ethical considerations.

1306
01:10:30.570 --> 01:10:32.090
There's a lot of things here

1307
01:10:32.090 --> 01:10:37.090
and one needs to tread very carefully and be very cautious.

1308
01:10:37.820 --> 01:10:38.850
This is a new field

1309
01:10:38.850 --> 01:10:41.023
and the ethics still have to be developed.

1310
01:10:42.750 --> 01:10:44.770
Herzl does not have any known descendants,

1311
01:10:44.770 --> 01:10:46.853
so I don't think anybody will complain,

1312
01:10:48.653 --> 01:10:51.760
but this has got to be done very, very carefully

1313
01:10:53.010 --> 01:10:55.160
and I promise to share the results with you

1314
01:10:56.130 --> 01:10:58.180
but I have only one stamp.

1315
01:10:58.180 --> 01:11:01.110
So the chances of obtaining the DNA are 50/50

1316
01:11:01.110 --> 01:11:02.860
and I hope this will be successful.

1317
01:11:05.190 --> 01:11:08.220
I also have in my collection other amazing items.

1318
01:11:08.220 --> 01:11:13.220
For example, envelopes handwritten by Albert Einstein

1319
01:11:13.220 --> 01:11:14.920
and Winston Churchill.

1320
01:11:14.920 --> 01:11:17.660
Their DNA is coming to MyHeritage very, very soon

1321
01:11:17.660 --> 01:11:20.450
and I think it will be amazing for people to find

1322
01:11:20.450 --> 01:11:22.240
if they're related to Winston Churchill

1323
01:11:22.240 --> 01:11:24.007
or to Albert Einstein.

1324
01:11:24.007 --> 01:11:26.496
No other database has their DNA

1325
01:11:26.496 --> 01:11:30.773
so this is going boldly where no one has gone before.

1326
01:11:31.720 --> 01:11:34.500
Perhaps after my talk, some of you will go back home

1327
01:11:34.500 --> 01:11:37.050
and start looking for those precious envelopes.

1328
01:11:37.050 --> 01:11:39.790
Perhaps some of you have celebrity envelopes.

1329
01:11:39.790 --> 01:11:41.946
Remember where you got the idea first!

1330
01:11:41.946 --> 01:11:44.029
(laughs)

1331
01:11:46.650 --> 01:11:50.960
DNA is a bold new world that opens new frontiers.

1332
01:11:50.960 --> 01:11:52.640
Some good, some bad.

1333
01:11:52.640 --> 01:11:53.853
I think mostly good.

1334
01:11:54.830 --> 01:11:57.113
It's very important to use it wisely.

1335
01:12:01.120 --> 01:12:05.600
So to summarize, I hope I've convinced you

1336
01:12:05.600 --> 01:12:07.120
that it's extremely important

1337
01:12:07.120 --> 01:12:10.320
to obtain the DNA of your ancestors,

1338
01:12:10.320 --> 01:12:14.500
that it will allow you to get a bigger signal

1339
01:12:14.500 --> 01:12:16.283
to find your own relatives.

1340
01:12:17.410 --> 01:12:20.550
We're going to offer you two methods for doing that.

1341
01:12:20.550 --> 01:12:23.540
One, by reconstructing the DNA of your ancestors

1342
01:12:23.540 --> 01:12:24.970
from your own relatives

1343
01:12:26.347 --> 01:12:29.213
and you need to buy some more DNA tests for that.

1344
01:12:30.790 --> 01:12:33.940
And the other is by using stamps and envelopes

1345
01:12:33.940 --> 01:12:36.717
of your ancestors, extracting the DNA

1346
01:12:36.717 --> 01:12:38.715
and we will provide you a method

1347
01:12:38.715 --> 01:12:41.760
to get the data directly into MyHeritage.

1348
01:12:42.730 --> 01:12:46.823
And so this is part of the future of genetic genealogy.

1349
01:12:48.380 --> 01:12:52.370
And if you are a DNA fanatic like me

1350
01:12:52.370 --> 01:12:55.670
and I'm recognizing some DNA fanatics here in the audience,

1351
01:12:55.670 --> 01:12:58.150
I'm sure you will be all over this.

1352
01:12:58.150 --> 01:13:01.030
If you have not tried DNA yet, start with yourself

1353
01:13:01.030 --> 01:13:02.773
and we will go from there slowly.

1354
01:13:06.870 --> 01:13:08.650
So to close my presentation

1355
01:13:08.650 --> 01:13:11.253
and leave some time for questions,

1356
01:13:12.780 --> 01:13:16.390
I just want to say that as you have seen,

1357
01:13:16.390 --> 01:13:21.090
MyHeritage was created by genealogists for genealogists.

1358
01:13:21.090 --> 01:13:23.510
We care about genealogy, we love genealogy.

1359
01:13:23.510 --> 01:13:26.083
We are going to continue to care for genealogy.

1360
01:13:26.960 --> 01:13:28.670
We've been around for 15 years.

1361
01:13:28.670 --> 01:13:30.483
We plan on sticking around with you.

1362
01:13:32.750 --> 01:13:37.560
Our focus is on innovating technology for genealogy.

1363
01:13:37.560 --> 01:13:41.490
DNA is a big part of the future of genealogy

1364
01:13:41.490 --> 01:13:43.780
and new records and new technologies

1365
01:13:43.780 --> 01:13:46.110
are coming to MyHeritage every day

1366
01:13:46.110 --> 01:13:49.400
and exciting things are coming in the near future as well.

1367
01:13:49.400 --> 01:13:51.640
The future is very, very exciting.

1368
01:13:51.640 --> 01:13:52.986
Thank you.

1369
01:13:52.986 --> 01:13:57.986
(applause)