Modern Software Experience

2017-08-07

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MyLegacy

MyHeritage buys Legacy Family Tree

MyHeritage has bought Millennia Software, the makers of Legacy Family Tree and peddler of genealogy webinars.
Both MyHeritage and Millennia have blog posts about the acquisition. While Millennia, the smaller party being acquired, call this deal a merger, MyHeritage has no trouble calling this an acquisition.

MyHeritage acquisitions

  1. Pearl Street Software
  2. Kindo
  3. OSN Group
  4. Zooof
  5. Bliscy.pl
  6. BackupMyTree
  7. FamilyLink
  8. Geni.com
  9. Millennia

MyHeritage acquisitions

MyHeritage notes that this is their 9th acquisition. The sidebar provides a list of all nine acquisitions. The 2010 article MyHeritage growing through Acquisitions was the first to note MyHeritage's growth-through-acquisition policy.
MyHeritage buys technology (Pearl Street Software's Smart Matching), to enhance its products and services, buys small but fast-growing companies like Kindo and OSN Group (Verwandt, DynasTree) before they become serious competitors, buys content to expand and improve its offerings (the FamilyLink buy was really about WorldVitalRecords), and gained a presence in the one-big-tree space by buying Geni.com.

The acquisition of the OSN Group grew the number of family tree profiles from 434 million to 536 million, an instant 24% growth that bumped MyHeritage's total number of profiles above 500 million. The 102 million profiles they added were created by an international user base, and the combination made MyHeritage a more global company.
The acquisition of Zooof did not even add half a million profiles, only 347.916 profiles created by 9.814 users, which makes it a minor acquisition hardly worth mentioning, but it did provide an excuse for a press release that begot press mentions worth way more than the acquisition cost.

price

MyHeritage has never disclosed the price of any of the acquisitions. There is no reason to assume that MyHeritage pays generously. On the contrary, the acquired companies were either eager to sell (Pearl Street), practically inactive (Zooof), unsure of future success (Kindo, OSN), having a hard time being profitable (Geni.com), or overly ambitious and failing hard (FamilyLink).
The presumably low prices that MyHeritage pays for acquisitions are easier to swallow for the management of the acquired company when the world does not know just how little they settled for.

The Legacy acquisition seems to fit right into pattern. In fact, the Millennia blog post explicitly states that Legacy [Millennia] is interested in the stability, financial security, and expanded technical resources that MyHeritage provides., and Legacy Family Tree suffers the same major problem as The Master Genealogist (TMG) does; it is 90s software that, despite the many features that have been tacked on over the years, just cannot compete with a modern product.

Millennia Software

Millennia Software started back in 1995, and released Legacy Family Tree 1.0 in June of 1997, just over twenty years ago. In 2010, Millennia started doing webinars. They did just four webinars that first year, but it is a money-making subscription service now.

genealogy cruises

The Legacy software and the webinar business are the two big things, but there is third thing that Millennia is known for. Millennia started doing Legacy Family Tree cruises in 2004. The MyHeritage blog post does not even mention it, the Millennia blog post only mentions that the promised 2017 cruise will take place. This suggests that MyHeritage is not really interested in the cruises. It would be interesting to see MyHeritage continue the cruises, but it is not unlikely that MyHeritage considers the effort involved to be too much for the monetary return, so it is not impossible that the 2017 cruise is the last one.

MyHeritage did not really buy the desktop software or the webinar service, but the user base.

MyHeritage says that they bought the Legacy Family Tree product and the webinar platform. Never mind that platform is a rather big word for it, or the wrong word. The more important thing is that MyHeritage did not buy the software for the software, nor the platform for the platform. MyHeritage did not really buy the desktop software or the webinar service, but the user base.

Legacy Family Tree

MyHeritage has been promoting their own MyHeritage Family Tree Builder software for years as, well, essentially the best genealogy in the world. It would be very odd for them to suddenly say that they bought Legacy Family Tree because it is better. What's more, even if they thought so (they don't), they would not admit it. MyHeritage is not about to replace Family Tree Builder with Legacy Family Tree; that would be a significant step backwards.

Unicode

Millennia has not kept up with the industry. Legacy Family Tree is a feature-rich application, but it is essentially the same application as they wrote back in 1995, with many features added on, and the harsh truth is that Legacy was already outdated they day it was introduced. The major problem with Legacy is that has many features, but lacks the most important one; the ability to get your data in and out again. You cannot get not get your data in, because Legacy isn't a Unicode-based application.
Millennia's claim that Legacy can import PAF, RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker and GEDCOM files should come with a strong disclaimer that essentially says that it cannot, not really. Legacy is not suitable for large databases either; the dated design is limited to 2GB access databases, and that really isn't much nowadays.

Now, back in 1995, Unicode support was still fairly new. But that, two decades later, Legacy still doesn't support Unicode is reprehensible. Legacy isn't a native Windows application, but a Microsoft Access application, and Microsoft Access has been Unicode-based since Access 2000, so Millennia has not even kept up with their chosen desktop database and programming platform.
The writing has been on the wall for a long time now; Millennia needs to upgrade its product to the 21st century or go the way of Wholly Genes, the makers of The Master Genealogist; discontinue the product, and perhaps the company, because informed genealogists aren't buying their seriously dated 90s software anymore. Millennia has been holding out peddling their legacy software longer than Wholly Genes could, simply because Legacy has always been more popular and more affordable than TMG, and many genealogists stick with the software they know. Another reason that Legacy continues to be popular is that Millennia offers a free lite edition. In the past, many users who liked the lite edition were more likely to upgrade to the full edition than to switch to another program. However, with many competitors (including MyHeritage) offering free lite editions of their software, the free edition is no longer the sales driver it once was.

Millennia lacks a strong multi-platform offering, arguably does not have one at all.

multi-platform

Millennia does not have a strong multi-platform offering, arguably does not have one at all. MyHeritage offers a desktop application, a web app and a mobile app. Before Ancestry first discontinued, then disdiscontinued and sold Family Tree Maker, they were offering a desktop application, a web app and an mobile app (and, when it worked, all synchronised). Before RootsMagic offered synchronisation with Ancestry Member Trees, they already offered uploading your database to My RootsMagic, and they offer a mobile app too. Millennia seems to consider FamilySearch Family Tree its web application, and that is not just a major mistake, but also an insult to serious genealogists everywhere. There is a mobile app for Legacy, but TelGen's Families is a third-party app, and unlike the mobile apps already mentioned, it isn't free. Last but not least, while all aforementioned competitors offer software for Mac OS X or at least a ready-made solution for running their Windows software on a Mac, Millennia does not.

Neither MyHeritage nor Millenia mentions Ancestry.com integration. It is a significant topic.

Ancestry.com

Millennia's blog post says this about Ancestry.com: Another potential buyer, Ancestry.com, shut down their Family Tree Maker product, later found a buyer for it in Ukraine, and then sold it off.. This is MyHeritage-owned Millennia slamming Ancestry.com for abandoning Family Tree Maker users. Ancestry.com may deserve that particular slam, but it is odd for Millennia to be doing the slamming. I thought we had agreed that that's my job, and I feel perfectly capable of doing so without quoting Millennia; Ancestry.com is successfull despite a string of disqualifying management blunders such as not making server backups. See? No problem.

This is also a rather peculiar usage of the phrase potential buyer. This is Millennia strongly suggesting (but only suggesting, not claiming) that Ancestry.com wanted to buy Legacy Family Tree, and that they snubbed Ancestry.com. I believe this to be Millennia malarkey; I do not believe that Ancestry.com ever showed any interest in buying Legacy.
You may remember that Ancestry.com, when they announced the discontinuation of Family Tree Maker on 2015 Dec 8, mentioned the declining desktop software market as the reason for their decision. It would be remarkable incongruous for Ancestry.com to show any interest in buying any genealogy desktop software less than two years later. I find it much easier to believe the opposite scenario; that Millennia tried to sell Legacy Family Tree to Ancestry.com and that Ancestry.com snubbed them, told them they were not interested.

Ancestry.com integation

Neither MyHeritage nor Millenia mentions Ancestry.com integration. It is a significant topic.
It stands to reason that Millennia contacted Ancestry.com about access to their new Ancestry Member Trees API. Now that Ancestry.com got their new Ancestry Member Trees API working with Family Tree Maker 2017 and RootsMagic 7.5, they might be willing to start working with other parties, and I do no doubt that Millennia was eager to be the third party to use the Ancestry.com API.
It is practically certain that Millennia asked for access to the Ancestry.com API, they would be crazy not to ask for it, but Ancestry.com did not say yes, partly because Ancestry.com wants to be sure everything is really working fine before involving another vendor with another desktop application, and partly because Ancestry.com isn't eager to travel back into the past and deal with code-page applications any more. I imagine Ancestry.com did not say no, but simply told Millennia to come back and talk about it again once they have an Unicode application.
This highly likely scenario is a problematic challenge for Millennia. If Millennia finally decided to rebuild Legacy Family Tree, the result could be fantastic, but it would easily take two years to offer all the same functionality, and say another half year to add Ancestry.com support. Even if Millennia hurried, and Ancestry.com offered them the use of the API, they would still not able to compete with Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic until 2020, probably later. So, they decided to give up and sell the company instead.

MyHeritage created itself a reputation as an Ancestry.com copycat, and Ancestry.com has a history of buying desktop software only to discontinue it. Ancestry.com discontinued all the desktop genealogy software they acquired in favour of Family Tree Maker - and eventually discontinued, then disdiscontinued and sold Family Tree Maker.

Ancestry.com desktop software

MyHeritage created itself a reputation as an Ancestry.com copycat, and Ancestry.com has a history of buying desktop software only to discontinue it. When they acquired Family Tree Maker in 2003, they also acquired FormalSoft's Family Origins. The ownership history is a bit convoluted, let's just say that Genealogy.com had already been promoting Family Tree Maker, a product they owned outright, over Family Origins, a product for which they only owned the marketing rights. Ancestry.com did the logical thing, and discontinued Family Origins. That was the end of Family Origins, but FormalSoft started developing a new product, called RootsMagic, and soon changed the company name to RootsMagic too.
Ancestry.com (Genealogy.com) had also acquired Ultimate Family Tree (originally known as ROOTS) and Sierra Generations (originally Reunion for Windows), and then discontinued it. Ancestry.com discontinued all the desktop genealogy software they acquired in favour of Family Tree Maker - and eventually discontinued, then disdiscontinued and sold Family Tree Maker.

MyHeritage already has an desktop genealogy software acquisition history too, and that history does not bode well for Legacy Family Tree.

MyHeritage desktop software

It is far from unfair to bring this up. MyHeritage already has an desktop genealogy software acquisition history too, and that history does not bode well for Legacy Family Tree. This started with their first acquisition, Pearl Street Software. Pearl Street Software were the makers of Family Tree Legends, and they themselves had already discontinued development. They were looking for a buyer to pick development up again, but MyHeritage only bought the company for the Smart Matching technology. Family Tree Legends remained available as a free download for years, but there never was another upgrade or update.
When MyHeritage bought the OSN Group (Verwandt, DynasTree), they also bought DynasTree Home Edition, also known as It's Our Tree - and discontinued it. Now, It's Our Tree is actually a lite edition of Ahnenblatt, and Ahnenblatt continues to be available. Still, in the light of this history, it is perfectly natural to wonder whether MyHeritage is planning to discontinue Legacy, perhaps even Family Tree Builder.

MyHeritage Family Tree Builder users need not worry; MyHeritage is certainly not abandoning Family Tree Builder.

Family Tree Builder 8.0

For many years, MyHeritage made the same mistakes as Millennia, focussing on many nice-to-have features such as photo management, instead of making sure the basics are in order. The last few years though, they have come around.
MyHeritage is rewriting Family Tree Builder in several major steps. In 2013, they introduced Family Tree Builder 7.0, the first version that's Unicode based, and in 2016, they introduced Family Tree Builder 8.0, which looks and feels the same as Family Tree Builder 7 on the outside, but is different on the inside; Family Tree Builder 8.0 is based on a real database engine, providing a solid basis for future versions to build on. It is likely that Family Tree Builder 9.0 will focus on improving performance, the user interface, and adding a few advanced features.
Starting with version 7.0, MyHeritage also provides a ready-made download that lets you run Family Tree Builder on Mac OS X.

MyHeritage Family Tree Builder users need not worry; MyHeritage is certainly not abandoning Family Tree Builder. MyHeritage has spend considerable effort redeveloping Family Tree Builder into a very modern and competitive product, and continues to do so. MyHeritage Family Tree Builder is MyHeritage's prime desktop genealogy software. MyHeritage is not abandoning Family Tree Builder, nor replacing their modern Unicode-product with a dated code-page product in dire need of an overhaul.
In fact, the Millennia blog post states unequivocally that they will not invest in a rebuild of Legacy...

Legacy's immediate future looks pretty good now.

immediate Legacy future

Legacy's immediate future looks pretty good now. Both the MyHeritage and Millennia blog posts states that MyHeritage will continue to develop Legacy Family Tree, and explicitly mention that they will work together to release Legacy Family Tree version 10. They even announced version 10's major new feature, and it is just what you would expect: syncing Legacy databases with MyHeritage online trees.

MyHeritage even promises that they will allow users to make updates to their family trees on the Legacy software using the MyHeritage mobile app.. You have to read that sentence carefully. MyHeritage is not promising a direct sync between Legacy and their mobile app, they're merely saying that changes made in the mobile app can be propagated to the Legacy application, and given MyHeritage's focus on having your tree online, it is reasonable to assume that this will only work if you choose to upload and synchronise your tree on MyHeritage (and having a tree on MyHeritage isn't free).
It would be nice if MyHeritage were to offer direct sync between Legacy and their mobile app, but they are not likely to do so; why would they if they can simply tell you that you should upload your tree to MyHeritage? Moreover, it would make the mobile app more complex and harder to maintain; if MyHeritage wanted to offer direct sync between Legacy and a mobile app, it would make more sense for MyHeritage to buy TelGen, issue a celebratory press release for its 10th acquisition, and start offering TelGen MyHeritage Families as a free mobile app for Legacy users.

MyHeritage bought Millennia, the company. Millennia is a MyHeritage company now and the Millennia employees have become MyHeritage employees. They same team will continue to develop the same software, just with different owners, and in slightly different direction. For the immediately future, emphasis will be quite naturally be on integration with MyHeritage services.
Having the original Legacy developers, who know the Legacy code well, working as MyHeritage employees, together with MyHeritage developers who know the MyHeritage API well, should result in a relatively swift integration of the MyHeritage services into Legacy.

paid versus free

You may wonder how it can make any sense for MyHeritage to offer both Family Tree Builder for free and Legacy Family Tree for money, to give the better product away for free and charge for the lesser one.
It is true that Legacy Family Tree is paid software and that Family Tree Builder is free software, but neither is the complete truth; both products are available as a free download, and both require payment to enjoy the full version. MyHeritage continues to downplay this fact, but Family Tree Builder actually comes in two editions; Family Tree Builder Free and Family Tree Builder Premium. Most of the more interesting features that MyHeritage touts for Family Tree Builder as if there is just one edition are only available in Family Tree Builder Premium, and that includes features that continue to be unlocked after your subscription ends.
The two products have different marketing models; Legacy Family Tree requires a one-time payment to unlock all features for the current version, and major upgrades will cost you. Family Tree Builder requires a MyHeritage subscription to unlock all features of whatever is the current version, all upgrades are free.

Neither the MyHeritage nor the Millennia blog post mentions changes to marketing of Legacy Family Tree, so it is reasonable to assume that Legacy will continue to be marketed the same way, but neither company has stated that either. We'll have to wait and see.
It would not be a bad idea for MyHeritage to start giving the full version of Legacy Family Tree away, to attract more users, especially once the MyHeritage integration is in place. It would not be unselfish magnanimity on their part; giving the full version away is likely to attract more Legacy users, and that means more users uploading their tree to MyHeritage and using MyHeritage record collections, instead of uploading to Ancestry.com and using Ancestry.com record collections.

two desktop applications

It does not make long-term sense for MyHeritage to maintain two desktop applications. MyHeritage is currently offering Legacy Family Tree in addition to Family Tree Builder, and even planning a new version, to satisfy existing Legacy customers. That makes short-term sense. It would be real foolish for MyHeritage to immediately discontinue Legacy; if they tried to force all Legacy users to convert to Family Tree Builder, many upset users would flee to Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic instead, flee to Ancestry.com services instead of MyHeritage services.

The MyHeritage blog post states that they are not planning to merge to two products; no of course not, they couldn't if they wanted to, the programming platforms and techniques are too different.
They can, and probably will make sure that database conversions from one to the other work well.
Right now, Family Tree Builder can import Legacy databases (albeit not really directly), but Legacy cannot import Family Tree Builder databases. It is reasonable to expect the next releases of Legacy Family Tree and Family Tree Builder to offer near-perfect direct import of each other's databases, and that would be a Good Thing.

Millennia's continual unwillingness to invest in their own product through a rewrite was effectively their first long drawn-out step towards discontinuation of Legacy.

no rewrite

The planned improvements to Legacy Family Tree are complicated by the fact that, for twenty years now, Millennia has been adding features to an application not designed for those features, so it is safe bet that the code has become hard to maintain. Legacy should have been completely rewritten more than a decade ago, but Millennia was unwilling to make that investment. They kept postponing it, and the more they postponed it, the more daunting this task became, making them postpone it more. Millennia's continual unwillingness to invest in their own product through a rewrite was effectively their first long drawn-out step towards discontinuation of Legacy. It probably was the major factor in Millennia's decision to sell too; their product is in need of a more significant investment than they are willing and able to muster.

Millennia has agreed to MyHeritage not investing in Legacy's future, and that seals the product's fate; Millennia has just taken the second step towards Legacy's discontinuation.

All the integration and conversion that MyHeritage wants to do with Legacy would be so much easier if Legacy were a Unicode application, so much easier if dated messy code were replaced with freshly structured code.
MyHeritage and Millennia have stated that Legacy will continue to be developed, and MyHeritage has just the expanded technical resources that Legacy so desperately needs; seasoned developers with experience in changing a code-page product to a Unicode product, so you might expect that Millennia made sure that MyHeritage applies their technical expertise.
Alas, the Millennia blog post unequivocally states that the long-overdue rewrite of Legacy is still not happening:

Will Legacy version 10 support Unicode?
A. Sadly, no. That would require a complete rewrite of the Legacy software from scratch and such a rewrite is not planned. Version 10 will include improvements and features requested by users, not inside-out changes.

Millennia has agreed to MyHeritage not investing in Legacy's future, and that seals the product's fate; Millennia has just taken the second step towards Legacy's discontinuation.

Both Family Tree Builder and Legacy Family Tree are multilingual, ...but only Family Tree Builder is international.

global

MyHeritage is a company with a global outlook and global ambitions. Both Family Tree Builder and Legacy Family Tree are multilingual - you can change the application's language - but only Family Tree Builder is international. Legacy Family Tree may seem good enough to many American genealogists, but is wholly inadequate in many others markets. American genealogists who believe that Legacy Family Tree is such a great application that MyHeritage is going to replace Family Tree Builder with Legacy Family Tree, are going to get a reality check.

This deal benefits MyHeritage users.

MyHeritage users

This deal benefits MyHeritage users.
The integration of MyHeritage services into Legacy Family Tree will result in more trees being uploaded to MyHeritage, and thus provide more trees to match against, more distant cousins to connect to, more hints for their own research.

This deal benefits Legacy users.

Legacy users

This deal benefits Legacy users, and not just because they are going to be offered discounts on MyHeritage subscriptions.
Legacy has been going the way of The Master Genealogist for years; it has become a painfully dated application that needs to be either rewritten or discontinued, and Millennia has kept postponing the former until it seems nearly impossible to do. It may be disappointing that MyHeritage is not willing to invest in a rebuild of Legacy, but you're not worse off than when Millennia didn't do it.
In fact, now that MyHeritage owns Millennia, Millennia is likely to continue to develop Legacy a bit longer than they would have on their own.
Whatever Millennia's chance of getting access to the Ancestry.com API was, now that Millennia is owned by MyHeritage, that chance is practically zero, but MyHeritage is gonna help the Millennia team integrate MyHeritage services into the next version. Maybe Millennia would have done that anyway, maybe not, but having Smart Matching right in the desktop application you've been using for years is nice; it may help solve that brick wall. MyHeritage is also likely to make sure that Legacy and Family Tree Builder can read's each other files, and that is another Good Thing.

Have no illusions; Legacy's days are numbered, have been numbered for years.

Have no illusions; Legacy's days are numbered, have been numbered for years. MyHeritage is going to release Legacy Family Tree 10, but is not gonna release new versions for ever. MyHeritage is going to discontinue development of Legacy at some future date, but it is not happening today, and there is no reason to panic. Software does not stop working just because development discontinued; many genealogists continue to use PAF, which received its last update 15 years ago. If you like what you have, you can keep using it.
Then again, now that you've been forewarned, you can start planning for the future discontinuation of Legacy Family Tree, and start looking at other desktop genealogy applications, but you don't have to; MyHeritage is sure to offer a reasonably smooth upgrade path to Family Tree Builder.

This deal benefits Family Tree Builder users.

Family Tree Builder users

This deal benefits Family Tree Builder users.
Recall that MyHeritage bought Pearl Street Software, discontinued Family Tree Legends, but integrated Smart Matching into their own products and services. Family Tree Builder is the technically superior product, but Legacy has more features, and MyHeritage is likely to copy the most worthwhile ones. One major Legacy feature is citation templates; these are conceptually nice, but it isn't so hot that the citation templates of Legacy, RootsMagic and Family Tree Maker aren't compatible with each other, so it will be interesting to see whether MyHeritage considers Legacy's template a system worth keeping; perhaps they'll do something similar but different to make it fit their design ideas and record collections better. One thing I expect MyHeritage to include in a future version of Family Tree Builder is the County Checker; it is U.S.A.-centric, but it is darn nice to have.

The inclusion of some Legacy features in Family Tree Builder will make Family Tree Builder more attractive to Legacy users, and provide a smoother migration path. What's even more attractive to Legacy and Family Tree Builder users is that you may be able to sway some decisions by letting MyHeritage know which features you really like.

why

MyHeritage isn't buying Legacy for the product, but for the user base and their family trees. It does not matter that they are using Legacy instead of Family Tree Builder, it does not even matter that most are using the free lite edition of Legacy, what matters is the user base. The real product being sold isn't the Legacy application or the webinar business, it is the user base and their data.
There are several million Legacy users. That is several million additional users to sell MyHeritage services too, several million users who can upload their tree to expand MyHeritage's collection of online trees, thus making that collection yet more attractive to existing and new users.

webinar business

MyHeritage bought all of Millennia, and that includes the webinar business - a webinar business that Millennia started as a fall-back position. This deal is not about MyHeritage acquiring some technology platform as the press release in the blog posts might lead you to think. In fact, Millennia is using a third-party product (GoToWebinar), and MyHeritage will probably spring for a more expensive subscription, to accommodate more than 1.000 users while live streaming.
This deal is not really about acquiring the existing 500 presentations, Legacy webinars have a well-deserved reputation for being mediocre and aimed at beginners, with annoying sales pitches at the beginning and end. This deal is about entering the genealogy webinar business, by acquiring the main player, thus eliminating competition and acquiring some content and the subscriptions, to have a running start, in one move.

Expect webinar subscriptions remain separate from MyHeritage subscriptions, at least for now, with MyHeritage offering some bundles and special prices for existing MyHeritage customers.

The question is not whether MyHeritage will discontinue Legacy, but when MyHeritage will discontinue Legacy.

Legacy's future

The long-term Legacy future is crystal clear; MyHeritage is going discontinue the product. Both companies have stated that they'll release Legacy Family Tree version 10, and that it will include MyHeritage services, have not commited to anything more, but have stated they will not invest in the necessary rewrite.
The question is not whether MyHeritage will discontinue Legacy, but when MyHeritage will discontinue Legacy. A quick answer is that this time is probably best measured in years.

The future of Legacy for Macintosh release is uncertain.

It is worth mentioning that Millennia has been working on a Macintosh release. I would be surprised if that turned out to be a native Mac OS X application worth having; I expect they are wrapping Legacy in some compatibility layer, just like Family Tree Builder, Ancestral Quest and RootsMagic, and are having some trouble making this happen because the Legacy code is so dated.
The future of Legacy for Macintosh release is uncertain. Millennia spokesperson Geoff Rasmussen left this comment on his blog post:

we talked with MyHeritage about the Mac version just this afternoon. Yes, it's high up on the list. We're almost done with it. Yes, we've been saying that for a while, but this acquisition will hopefully give us more time to work on Legacy instead of all of the other things that come with developing Legacy AND running a business. :)

That is too little and too late; it isn't an actual promise and doesn't make much sense to introduce Windows Legacy on the Mac when Legacy itself is going to be discontinued. Millennia may not have been very sensible about Legacy development anyway, but the decision rests with MyHeritage now.

Neither MyHeritage nor Millennia has promised to develop Legacy version 11, but there will probably be one. It is even possible that Legacy 11 is a completely rewrite, as neither company has ruled it out, but it is highly unlikely considering what Millennia has stated, and how little sense it would make for MyHeritage to invest that much in a second desktop application, when they could invest the same effort in exciting new features for Family Tree Builder.
How long MyHeritage continues to invest in Legacy, and how long they continue to offer the latest version of Legacy for download are business decisions, made for business reasons. I expect MyHeritage to continue to develop Legacy as long it makes business sense to do so, so simply put, as long as Legacy makes them a profit; one reason Millennia gave for selling to MyHeritage is financial security, so that probably isn't very long. MyHeritage wants to keep the Legacy users, so they won't abandon Legacy until they have a reasonably smooth migration from Legacy Family Tree to Family Tree Builder.

I do not expect MyHeritage to remove FamilySearch Family Tree (FSFT) support, or add Geni.com support, I expect MyHeritage to discontinue Legacy development.

Family Search Family Tree

I do not expect MyHeritage to remove FamilySearch Family Tree (FSFT) support, or add Geni.com support, I expect MyHeritage to discontinue Legacy development.

continuation

I expect MyHeritage to give the full version of Legacy away once they stop selling it, and to keep offering Legacy for download long after development has discontinued, as a courtesy to existing users needing to reinstall.

The long-time future of the Legacy team may be working on Family Tree Builder, perhaps to recreate the many reports Legacy offers. The current Family Tree Builder still relies on The Complete Genealogy Reporter for reports, and MyHeritage probably wants to remove dependencies on third-party products. When the Millennia team starts working on MyHeritage Family Tree Builder, starts influencing Family Tree Builder features and desing, Family Tree Builder will, in some sense, be a continuation of Legacy Family Tree.

Legacy Charting is the best thing about Legacy Family Tree. Legacy Charting is a product worth keeping.

Legacy Charting

Millennia has a product called Legacy Charting for making wall charts, and it is in a completely different quality bracket than Legacy Family Tree. Legacy Charting is the best thing about Legacy Family Tree. Legacy Charting is a product worth keeping. Legacy Charting has its own website, where you can download a free trial version, but there currently is only one way to unlock the full version; buy a Legacy Family Tree code. I've stated before that Millennia should unbundle Legacy Family Tree, and sell it to everyone, whatever genealogy application they use. Perhaps MyHeritage will do so, perhaps they will start giving it away as MyCharting, perhaps they can integrate it into Family Tree Builder.

Frankly, Legacy users should not worry about Legacy support or even MyHeritage support, but about Family Tree Builder support.

customer service

Some people worry that the Legacy customer service will deteriorate, because MyHeritage has a bad reputation. That makes no sense to me. Whatever bad reputation MyHeritage has is related to such things as sales practices, marketing practices and credit card charges. From what I hear, customer service for actual customers is fine.
Frankly, Legacy users should not worry about Legacy support or even MyHeritage support, but about Family Tree Builder support.

This deal even benefits users of other genealogy applications, and the genealogy industry as a whole.

beneficial deal

This deal benefits everyone. Millennia gets money. MyHeritage gets users. Legacy users get another version of their favourite genealogy software, MyHeritage services and a migration path. MyHeritage users get matches from new trees uploaded by Legacy users. Family Tree Builder users will get some Legacy features.

This deal even benefits users of other genealogy applications, and the genealogy industry as a whole. It does not matter whether MyHeritage rebuilds Legacy or discontinues it; either way, the last well-known and popular pre-Unicode desktop application is clearly going away now.
There are still a few lesser known and less popular code-page applications left, but this is cause for celebration nonetheless. The genealogy industry is growing up, leaving code-page problems and limitations behind.

industry changes

MyHeritage has bought Millennia, and that brings some changes for Millennia customers. MyHeritage will operate the Legacy 2017 cruise, but has not promised to keep organising genealogy cruises. MyHeritage definitely intends to grow the webinar business, but it is not clear that they will improve it. Neither MyHeritage nor Millenia roundly admits this, but it is clear but Legacy Family Tree is continuing its path towards discontinuation. Legacy has been on that path for years, and MyHeritage is not planning to save it from that inevitability. It would be folly to buy Legacy now, or adopt it as your main program when MyHeritage eventually starts giving it away, but there is no need to rush out and buy something else either. MyHeritage-owned Millennia will release Legacy Family Tree 10, which will include MyHeritage features. Longer term, MyHeritage is practically sure to provide a reasonably smooth migration path from Legacy Family Tree to MyHeritage Family Tree Builder.
The future of Legacy for Macintosh is uncertain, but MyHeritage already offers Family Tree Builder for Macintosh.
Legacy users who want Ancestry.com integration should look at Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic, because Legacy is not going to offer that.
Neither company has made any statement about the future of Legacy Charting.

Legacy Family Tree is dead, walking dead, but dead.

This deal is good for everyone; Millennia, MyHeritage, Legacy users, MyHeritage users, Family Tree Builder users, users of other genealogy applications and the genealogy industry as a whole. Legacy Family Tree is dead, walking dead, but dead. Long live genealogy.

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Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.