Prologue — The Year We Made the Dead Move
On the first weekend of MyHeritage's Deep Nostalgia launch in February 2021, Twitter timelines flooded with GIFs of great-grandmothers smiling and nodding inside their black-and-white photographs. Within days more than 10 million images had been animated. Some users wept. Others raged that "you shouldn't move the dead without consent." It was the genealogy industry's first mass-cultural AI moment.
Five years later, in 2026, that moment is no longer a shock. AI is embedded at every stage of family history work.
- Photo restoration — colorizing, upscaling, creating facial expressions, converting stills to short videos.
- Document OCR — auto-indexing 18th-century parish books, 19th-century Korean household registers, and Meiji-era 戸籍.
- Name matching — clustering different spellings of the same person (Kim Chul-soo / 김철수 / 金哲洙).
- DNA matching — auto-estimating cousins and second cousins.
- Story generation — assembling scattered documents into a narrative life of one person.
At the same time, 2025 brought the shock of the 23andMe bankruptcy. A consumer DNA star once valued at $6 billion was undone by quarterly losses, the aftermath of a 2023 breach, and the absence of a durable business model; 15 million users' genetic data went onto a sale table.
This guide walks through the 2026 landscape — tools, institutions, DNA, AI, and Korean–Japanese traditions — through that storm of change.
Chapter 1 · The 2026 Genealogy Landscape in Numbers
First the market size. Estimates as of May 2026.
- Global genealogy SaaS + DNA revenue — roughly USD 6 billion, extending the 2024 Allied Market Research line.
- Cumulative DNA kits sold — approximately 55 million worldwide. AncestryDNA 25M, 23andMe 15M, MyHeritage 8M, FamilyTreeDNA 2.5M, LivingDNA 1M are the main veins.
- Genealogy memberships — Ancestry around 4M paying, MyHeritage around 6M registered (a fraction paying), FamilySearch around 20M free accounts, WikiTree around 1M.
- Digital record counts — FamilySearch 10B records, Ancestry 30B, MyHeritage 20B, Findmypast roughly 5B.
Main player categories.
- Commercial integrators: Ancestry, MyHeritage, Findmypast
- Nonprofit/free: FamilySearch, WikiTree, Geni (MyHeritage-owned), Open Genes
- DNA kits: AncestryDNA, MyHeritage DNA, FamilyTreeDNA, LivingDNA, CRI Genetics, 23andMe (in bankruptcy)
- Third-party analytics: GEDmatch, DNA Painter, DNAGedcom, Genetic Affairs
- AI photo restoration: MyHeritage Photo Enhancer, Remini, Vance AI, Hotpot.ai
- Regional specialists: Academy of Korean Studies, Korean Genealogy Museum, National Archives of Japan, Japan Search
Chapter 2 · The Five-Layer Stack for Family History Work — 2026 Standard
The tooling stack used by veteran genealogists organizes into five layers.
[Family History Work Five-Layer Stack — 2026]
L1. Tree authoring — Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, WikiTree, RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker
L2. Record databases — Ancestry Records, MyHeritage SuperSearch, FamilySearch Catalog, Findmypast
L3. DNA analysis — AncestryDNA, MyHeritage DNA, FamilyTreeDNA, GEDmatch, DNA Painter
L4. AI assistance — Deep Nostalgia, AI Time Machine, LiveStory, Reimagine, MyHeritage AI Biographer
L5. Visualization/preservation — Family Echo, Treelines, Permanent.org, FamilySearch Memories
Beginners (3–4 generations direct line) get by with L1+L2. Serious researchers (10+ generations) need L3 DNA matching. L4 AI assistance shines on photos and stories. L5 matters when long-term preservation is the goal.
Chapter 3 · Ancestry — The Market Giant, Owned by Blackstone
Ancestry (www.ancestry.com) began in 1983 in Utah, moved to the internet in 1996, and was acquired by Blackstone for USD 4.7 billion in August 2020. Still the genealogy market's #1.
- Members — approximately 4M paying subscribers; cumulative registrations exceed 50M.
- DNA — over 25M AncestryDNA kits sold, the largest genealogy DNA database.
- Records — over 30 billion. U.S. censuses in full, UK BMD, German/Italian/Irish immigration are particularly strong.
- Pricing — US Discovery roughly USD 24.99/month, World Explorer 39.99, All Access (with Newspapers.com) 49.99.
In 2024 Ancestry launched AI Story, which gathers a person's birth/marriage/death/migration/census records and lets AI generate a short biography. Users verify and edit, attach photos, and produce a family book. In 2025, AI Search arrived: a natural-language query interface ("a Smith family farmer in 1850s Kentucky") for records.
Drawbacks.
- Subscription dependency — cancel and the tree stays, but record links are cut off.
- AI accuracy — the Story feature occasionally merges two same-name individuals into one.
- DNA matching pool — U.S.-centric, weaker for Asian matching.
Chapter 4 · MyHeritage — The Absolute Leader in Photos and AI
MyHeritage (www.myheritage.com) was founded in 2003 in Bnei Atarot, Israel, by Gilad Japhet. The global #2 after Ancestry and the undisputed #1 in AI photo features.
- Members — roughly 100M registered (free included), 6M paying.
- DNA — 8M cumulative kits.
- Records — 20 billion. European, Middle Eastern, and Israeli records are especially strong.
- Photo tools — Deep Nostalgia, AI Time Machine, LiveStory, Reimagine.
MyHeritage's AI photo lineup has become the market standard.
- Deep Nostalgia (Feb 2021) — animates black-and-white photos into short videos, based on D-ID technology.
- Photo Enhancer (May 2020) — automatic resolution restoration for blurry photos.
- Photo Colorizer (Nov 2020) — black-and-white to color.
- AI Time Machine (Nov 2022) — turns user selfies into period portraits (19th-century aristocrat, medieval knight, 1980s Cyndi).
- LiveStory (Jun 2023) — generates a short documentary video from photos and text.
- Reimagine (Oct 2023) — mobile photo scanner plus color, resolution, and blemish removal.
- AI Biographer (Nov 2024) — autobiographical-style prose from one person's family tree data.
Pricing — Premium Plus + Data around USD 299/year, DNA kits about USD 89 (USD 39 on sale).
MyHeritage acquired Geni.com in 2012, and in 2017 launched SmartMatch and Theory of Family Relativity, taking the lead in integrated DNA + tree matching.
Chapter 5 · FamilySearch — The World's Largest Free Database
FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org) is the nonprofit genealogy site operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, the Mormon Church). Its origin is the 1894 Genealogical Society of Utah; the site moved online in 1999.
- Members — about 20M free accounts. Open to anyone, non-LDS welcome.
- Records — over 10 billion, with about 500M added each year.
- Microfilm — 2.4M reels preserved at the Granite Mountain Records Vault in Utah, digitization ongoing.
- World tree — a single global tree (shared wiki model); the same person edited by multiple users.
Every core feature on FamilySearch is free. A large fraction of what Ancestry and MyHeritage charge for — U.S. censuses, UK BMD, German parish records — sits free on FamilySearch. Some images require login due to partner contracts.
In 2024 FamilySearch quietly opened a beta of Get Started AI, a chatbot interface that asks beginners "where to begin" and guides them. In 2025 AI Search Enhanced added natural-language queries and automatic Latin translation.
The strengths are free access plus an enormous database. The weakness is the single-tree model — other users editing the same person can introduce conflicts.
Chapter 6 · 23andMe — A Wind-Down in Progress
23andMe was founded in 2006 in Mountain View, California, by Anne Wojcicki, Linda Avey, and Paul Cusenza. The first kit launched at USD 999 in 2008; growth exploded in 2017 when the FDA cleared certain health reports including BRCA1/BRCA2.
- 2021 SPAC listing — market cap USD 3.5B, falling to USD 60M by 2024.
- October 2023 data breach — about 6.9M users' DNA Relatives data exposed via credential stuffing; USD 30M settlement.
- March 23, 2025 — Chapter 11 filing. Anne Wojcicki resigns as CEO. The board opens a sale process.
The sale state as of May 2026.
- May 2025 — Regeneron Pharmaceuticals agrees to acquire core assets for about USD 256M.
- June 2025 — Wojcicki re-enters with a higher bid; bidding reopens.
- June 13, 2025 — Wojcicki's nonprofit TTAM selected as preferred bidder at about USD 305M.
The core issue throughout was data privacy. The California Attorney General issued a public statement urging every 23andMe user to exercise their data deletion rights, and some states attempted to block the sale altogether.
What genealogy users should know.
- DNA Relatives matching will continue — whoever buys it, the service is likely to keep running.
- Download your data now — Raw DNA, Relatives list, Health Reports — pull all of it.
- Back up to GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA — uploading your Raw DNA elsewhere diversifies your matching pool.
Chapter 7 · Findmypast — Champion of UK Records
Findmypast (www.findmypast.co.uk) began in 2003 in London. Owned by DC Thomson, the Scottish media group.
- Members — about 500,000 paying.
- Records — over 5 billion. UK censuses 1841–1911, UK/Irish newspapers 70M pages, British India Office records, and similar collections are the strengths.
- Pricing — Premium around GBP 19.99/month, World around 24.99.
Findmypast holds the 1939 Register (the pre-WWII UK list) and the 1921 Census exclusively. For anyone tracing UK or Irish roots, it's effectively essential.
In 2024 Findmypast launched Newspapers AI Search, a natural-language search across 70M newspaper pages. In 2025 it announced Family Stories Beta, which auto-collects newspaper mentions for people in your tree.
Chapter 8 · WikiTree — The Single Global Tree Ambition
WikiTree (www.wikitree.com) is the nonprofit collaborative tree founded in 2008 by Chris Whitten.
- Members — about 1M registered (free), with around 70,000 active.
- Person profiles — roughly 40M as of May 2026.
- Single-tree model — similar to FamilySearch but with stricter sourcing and verification policies.
Every WikiTree profile is public and searchable. A person's page shows birth/marriage/death plus biography, family relations, citations, and DNA information.
Strengths.
- Fully free — almost no advertising (donation-supported).
- Verified trees — high source-quality standards in Pre-1700, Pre-1500, and Notables projects.
- DNA integration — Y-DNA, mtDNA, and atDNA match notes shown directly on profiles.
The drawback is that the single-tree policy means you don't fully control your own data. Unsupported family lore is hard to enter.
Chapter 9 · GEDmatch and DNA Painter — Two Pillars of DNA Analysis
DNA kit companies only show matches within their own users. AncestryDNA users can't see 23andMe matches. GEDmatch and DNA Painter break that wall.
GEDmatch (www.gedmatch.com), founded in 2010 by John Olson and Curtis Rogers, is a free DNA analysis site. Users upload Raw DNA files from any company and match against every other user.
- Members — about 2M uploaded kits.
- 2018 — used by police in the Golden State Killer case, sparking controversy.
- 2019 — switched to opt-in: explicit consent required for law-enforcement matching.
- December 2019 — acquired by Verogen after a security incident.
- 2023 — QIAGEN acquires Verogen, which includes GEDmatch.
Core features include One-to-Many, One-to-One, Triangulation, and Phasing — all the standard DNA analyses. Tier 1 (paid, around USD 10/month) unlocks advanced tools.
DNA Painter (www.dnapainter.com), founded in 2017 in the UK by Jonny Perl, is the standard for chromosome mapping.
- Function — paint shared DNA segments from each match onto a chromosome diagram, visualizing which segment came from which ancestor.
- Pricing — one free tree; paid Subscriber around USD 55/year.
GEDmatch grows your matching pool; DNA Painter interprets what the matches mean. Serious DNA genealogists run both.
Chapter 10 · FamilyTreeDNA · LivingDNA · CRI Genetics — Specialist DNA Kits
FamilyTreeDNA (www.familytreedna.com) was founded in 2000 in Houston by Bennett Greenspan. The originator of Y-DNA and mtDNA testing.
- Y-DNA STR/SNP tests — paternal-line tracing, 12 to 700 markers.
- mtDNA Full Sequence — maternal line.
- Family Finder — autosomal, compatible with AncestryDNA and 23andMe data.
- Big Y-700 — full Y-DNA SNP sequencing, fine-grained paternal haplogroup resolution.
FamilyTreeDNA hosts the most active Y-DNA project communities: surname projects, regional projects, haplogroup projects. Some Korean surname projects (Kim, Lee) are run there too.
LivingDNA (www.livingdna.com) is the UK company. Famous for finely grained UK regional results across 21 zones (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall, etc.).
CRI Genetics (www.crigenetics.com) is a U.S. company. Marketed on deep-ancestry reports going back 26 to 50 generations, but academia is skeptical of the accuracy.
Chapter 11 · MyHeritage Deep Nostalgia — The AI That Animates the Dead
On February 25, 2021, MyHeritage launched Deep Nostalgia. By licensing the driver-video technology of the Israeli company D-ID, it animates faces in black-and-white photos with short motion clips (smiles, nods, eye movement).
- Launch weekend — 10M photos processed.
- Free non-members — limited to 5.
- Paid members — unlimited.
- Output — about a 10-second GIF/MP4 with a watermark.
How the technology works.
- Face alignment — the photo face is aligned to a canonical position.
- Expression model — pretrained driver videos (motion clips of living people) supply motion vectors.
- Application — those motion vectors animate the still image into video.
Controversy.
- Ethical concern — "videos of the dead without their consent" was a common critique.
- MyHeritage's response — many users said "I want to see my mother as if she were alive again"; the output is clearly marked as AI-generated.
- Deep Story (2022) — extends Deep Nostalgia so the person in the photo appears to tell their own story.
In 2026 Deep Nostalgia has become the standard for animated-photo features in genealogy. AncestryDNA released a Photo Restoration tool, but for video animation MyHeritage remains decisively ahead.
Chapter 12 · MyHeritage AI Time Machine · LiveStory · Reimagine
AI Time Machine (Nov 2022) takes 10–20 user selfies and generates images of the person in various historical styles — 19th-century British aristocrat, medieval knight, 1920s flapper, 1980s Cyndi.
- Technology — Astria.ai partnership; Stable Diffusion fine-tuning via DreamBooth.
- Output — 10–30 images per theme.
- Pricing — first theme free (30 images), then paid credits.
LiveStory (Jun 2023) turns photos and text into a short documentary video. A person's family story becomes a 1–3 minute auto-edited video.
- Inputs — multiple photos of one person plus birth/marriage/death records plus family notes.
- Output — a short video with music, captions, and narration.
- Use — family reunions, memorials, anniversaries.
Reimagine (Oct 2023) is the mobile app. It scans paper photos while simultaneously colorizing, upscaling, and restoring them. The tool for quickly digitizing a whole album.
All three features are bundled into MyHeritage Complete (USD 299/year) or available via individual credits.
Chapter 13 · AI Photo Restoration Tools — Remini · Vance · Hotpot
Outside genealogy, the AI photo restoration market is crowded.
Remini (remini.ai) is owned by Bending Spoons (Italy). Specializes in restoring blurry photos to crisp.
- Mobile app — iOS/Android, monthly active around 100M.
- Free trial — limited, paid around USD 4.99/week.
- 2023 AI Photo Generator — selfie to virtual profile photo.
Vance AI (vanceai.com) is a Chinese-origin SaaS. A bundle of Photo Restorer, Photo Colorizer, and Photo Enhancer tools. Heavy genealogy usage.
Hotpot.ai (hotpot.ai) is a U.S. company. AI Photo Restorer and Picture Colorizer with free trials. Lower output quality than MyHeritage, but nearly free.
PhotoRoom (photoroom.com) is a French company. Background removal is the core, with applications to family-photo background restoration.
Photomyne (photomyne.com) is an Israeli company. Specializes in paper-album scanning with auto-cropping. Competes with Remini.
Chapter 14 · Record Digitization — National Archives · National Archives of Japan · Korean National Archives
The raw material of family history is government archival holdings. 2026 progress at the major institutions.
U.S. National Archives (NARA, www.archives.gov) was founded in 1934. The goal is roughly 5 billion pages digitized by 2025.
- Census — 1790–1950 fully public.
- Immigration — Ellis Island and Castle Garden manifests.
- Military service — from the Revolutionary War through Vietnam.
UK National Archives (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk) at Kew houses everything from the 1086 Domesday Book to modern government records.
Korean National Archives (www.archives.go.kr) was founded in 1969, with branches in Daejeon, Busan, Gwangju, and Seongnam.
- Public records — colonial-era 호적, land surveys, and post-liberation government documents.
- Government library — official publications.
- 2024–2025 digitization — 1910s 호적 of about 50M pages OCR'd and now searchable.
Academy of Korean Studies (www.aks.ac.kr) was founded in 1978. It runs the Korean Historical People Comprehensive Information System.
- People system — about 50,000 figures: Joseon civil-service exam passers, officials, scholars.
- Jangseogak — Joseon royal records, yangban family genealogies, classical Chinese manuscripts.
- AI hanja translation — beta in 2025.
Japan's National Archives (www.archives.go.jp) was founded in 1971.
- Government documents — official records from the Meiji era onward.
- Japan Search (jpsearch.go.jp) — a unified search across Japanese government, library, and museum holdings, officially launched in 2020.
National Diet Library (www.ndl.go.jp) leads in digitizing newspapers, magazines, and books. As of 2024, 3.5M volumes are full-text searchable.
Chapter 15 · Newspaper Archives — Newspapers.com · Chronicling America
Newspapers are essential for family history — BMD announcements, obituaries, and society pages reconstruct a life in daily detail.
Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com) is an Ancestry subsidiary. About 700M pages as of May 2026, mostly U.S. with some UK, Canada, Australia.
- Pricing — Basic around USD 19.95/month, Publisher Extra 39.95.
- Ancestry All Access — bundled.
- AI Search — natural-language queries, beta in 2025.
Chronicling America (chroniclingamerica.loc.gov) is a joint program of the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Free.
- Coverage — 1690–1963.
- Newspapers — about 4,000 titles, 20M+ pages.
- Free downloads — JP2, PDF, OCR text.
British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) is a British Library and Findmypast collaboration. 60M pages of UK and Irish newspapers.
Trove (trove.nla.gov.au) is the Australian National Library's free digitization of Australian newspapers.
Korean Joseon-era newspaper archives — National Library of Korea's newspaper archive and the Korean History Integrated Information System cover from 1883 (Hanseong Sunbo) onward.
Chapter 16 · Korean Genealogy — Digitizing 보학 (Bohak)
Korea's genealogical tradition is among the best-documented in East Asia. Yangban families published genealogies reaching back 30+ generations, and the scholarly discipline is called 보학 (Bohak).
Terminology.
- 족보 (jokbo) — book recording all descendants of one surname/origin clan; classified into 대동보, 파보, 세보.
- 본관 (bongwan) — the founding ancestor's hometown. Gimhae Kim, Andong Kwon, Gyeongju Lee.
- 동성동본 (dongseong dongbon) — same surname and origin clan; treated as kinship.
- 종친회 (jongchinhoe) — clan associations by origin clan, in charge of genealogy publication, maintenance, and ancestral rites.
Major digital tools and institutions.
- Academy of Korean Studies — Korean Historical People Comprehensive Information System (people.aks.ac.kr) — 15,000 Joseon civil-service exam passers, 30,000 officials, 50,000 figures total.
- Korean Genealogy Museum (jokbo.re.kr) — opened in Daejeon in 2010; about 8,000 jokbo titles, 500,000 volumes. Partial digital access.
- National Archives colonial 호적 — Government-General of Korea household registers 1910–1945, about 50M pages OCR'd.
- Jangseogak Digital Archive (jsg.aks.ac.kr) — royal and yangban hanmun materials.
Commercial tools.
- Mobi (www.mobi.kr) — Korean family tree app. Mobile-friendly, free plus premium.
- 세계의 족보 apps — Android/iOS, search by origin clan.
- 24Genetics Korean service — Spanish DNA kit company with Korean marketing.
- Theragen Etex — Korean clinical genomics company with some genealogy analysis.
Debate: the yangban vs. commoner population ratio dispute. Scholars estimate yangban at 7–15 % of Joseon's 1900 population, but by the 1910 colonial-era registration roughly half of household heads claimed yangban status. Wide-scale 19th-century status purchasing and jokbo forgery is the implication. Korean genealogy research must always grapple with the gap between pre-19th-century yangban records and registered status.
Chapter 17 · Japanese Genealogy — 戸籍 · 過去帳 · 家系図作成
Japan has a related but distinct family history system.
Terminology.
- 戸籍 (koseki) — family registration introduced by the Meiji government in 1872. Births/marriages/deaths recorded per household.
- 戸籍謄本 (toshohon) — a copy of the 戸籍, obtainable from city hall by the person, spouse, or direct ancestors/descendants.
- 除籍簿 (jōseki bo) — registers where every member has been removed (by marriage, death, etc.).
- 改製原戸籍 (kaisei genkoseki) — old 戸籍 superseded by legal revisions; two large rounds in 1947 and 1994.
- 家系図 (kakeizu) — family tree, the drawn diagram.
- 過去帳 (kakochō) — Buddhist death registers held at temples. A treasure pre-戸籍.
- 侍系図 (samurai keizu) — samurai genealogies from the Edo period.
Core sources.
- 戸籍 + 除籍 + 改製原 — obtainable at city hall by the person or direct ancestors/descendants going back about six generations. Pre-Meiji-5 (1872) records are essentially absent.
- 過去帳 — viewed at the family's bodaiji (ancestor temple). Reaches back into Edo.
- 武鑑 — Edo-era samurai registers. Digitized at the National Diet Library.
- 分限帳 — domain-specific samurai rosters, kept by prefectural archives.
Commercial and free tools.
- myojiyurai.net — Japanese surname origin dictionary. Free; search by 苗字 returns origin clan, history, distribution.
- MyHeritage Japan — Japanese UI; roughly 300K Japanese members.
- FamilySearch Japan — partial digitization of Meiji 戸籍 in collaboration.
- 家系図作成 services — 行政書士 firms handle 戸籍 acquisition and 家系図 production for about JPY 50,000 to 300,000.
- Genogram Japan — niche app for family psychology and medical pedigrees.
- 武家家伝 (www2.harimaya.com) — free encyclopedia of samurai houses.
2025–2026 trends.
- AI hanmun OCR — beta tools at the National Institute of Japanese Literature for auto-recognition of Edo period 古文書 (variant kana and kanji).
- 戸籍 digitization — by municipality, but no unified search yet.
- Samurai genealogy + DNA — research showing Y-DNA haplogroup D-M55 (Jōmon-lineage) at roughly 30 % of Japanese men remains a hot topic in genealogy communities.
Chapter 18 · Chinese Genealogy — 族譜 (Zupu)
China is the origin of the Korean and Japanese traditions. The 族譜 (zupu) is the family record of one surname, and some lineages claim to reach back over 100 generations (often unverifiable).
Shanghai Library Family Trees (jiapu.library.sh.cn) is the Shanghai Library's digital genealogy database, with about 40,000 Chinese jiapu digitized.
FamilySearch China — for political reasons after 1949 mainland China digitization is restricted. Taiwan and Hong Kong are the main sources.
Geni Chinese Surnames — a handful of user groups.
The overseas Chinese diaspora (Malaysia, Singapore, U.S. Chinatowns, Korean ethnic Chinese) is actively running grass-roots digitization of family zupu.
Chapter 19 · AI Deepfakes and the Ethics of Genealogy
Since Deep Nostalgia, the family-history industry has had to grapple with two ethical questions.
1. Consent of the dead. Is animating a deceased great-grandfather's photo something he would have wanted? MyHeritage watermarks the AI output, but once a GIF spreads on social media the source disappears. Some families said "it felt like grandma was alive again, and it brought comfort"; others said "my mother would never have made that expression" and were unsettled.
2. Misuse of historical figures. When AI animates photos of Lincoln, Churchill, or King Jeongjo, the boundary between an authentic expression and a fabrication becomes blurry. In 2023 a social media account uploaded a fabricated "Hitler apology video"; fact-checking groups immediately pushed back.
3. Same-name merges. The AI Story feature has merged two different people who happen to share a name (such as two John Smiths in 1850s Kentucky) into a single fabricated biography. Users must verify.
4. AI hallucinated lineages. Asking general LLMs like ChatGPT to "trace my ancestry" can yield invented ancestors via hallucination. Always corroborate against primary records.
5. Photo-synthesis scams. A few cases have appeared where Deep Nostalgia videos are sent to elderly users posing as long-lost relatives.
Chapter 20 · DNA Privacy — The 23andMe Breach and After
DNA is data you cannot revoke once leaked. The 2023–2025 genealogy DNA crises pushed policy forward.
October 2023 — 23andMe data breach.
- Attack vector — credential stuffing using passwords leaked from other sites.
- Scope — roughly 6.9M users.
- Exposed data — DNA Relatives matches, lineage information, some Health Reports.
- Settlement — USD 30M finalized in September 2024.
2024 — EU GDPR and DNA.
- DNA is explicitly named as Article 9 "special category" data.
- Explicit consent is required for processing.
- Fines up to 4 % of global revenue for violations.
2024 — Korea's PIPA (Personal Information Protection Act) and DNA.
- Genetic information is classified as sensitive data.
- Separate consent is needed for collection and use.
- Overseas kit companies such as 24Genetics must provide Korean-language consent to Korean users.
2025 — Japan's APPI (Act on Protection of Personal Information) and DNA.
- The 2022 revision added genetic information to "要配慮個人情報" (special-care personal information).
- Third-party transfers require additional consent.
2025 — privacy controversy in the 23andMe sale.
- The California Attorney General urged users to exercise their data-deletion rights.
- Some states (North Carolina, Texas) raised concerns or sued over the sale itself.
- In the end, the nonprofit TTAM (under Wojcicki) was selected as preferred bidder, easing some concerns.
Principles for genealogy DNA users.
- Review opt-in options on each site — law enforcement matching, medical research participation, match sharing.
- Download Raw DNA files and store safely — prepare for service shutdowns or sales.
- Account for your cousins' consent — testing yourself partially exposes a cousin's DNA information.
- Keep sensitive data separate — never upload Health Reports to genealogy sites.
Chapter 21 · Adoption + Birth Family Search — Korean Single Holt · 325 Korea
DNA matching has revolutionized not only genealogy but birth family search. Roughly 200,000 Korean children were adopted abroad between 1953 and 1990, and many are now adults seeking biological parents.
Korean Single Holt — founded in 1955 by Harry and Bertha Holt. Korea's largest adoption agency. Now also operates birth family search and reunion support.
325Kamra (325kamra.org) is a nonprofit run by Korean adoptees. It distributes free DNA kits in Korea to increase the chance that adoptees will match birth families.
Korean Birth Mother Project + DNA — MyHeritage has sponsored some free kits.
KAS (Korean Adoption Services) — under the Ministry of Health and Welfare; supports adoption-record search.
Japanese adoption — smaller in scale than Korea, but with diverse cases including war orphans and 特別養子. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and orphanage records.
DNA-found birth family reunions are reported in the dozens to hundreds each year. But due to Korea's incomplete 1953–1980s adoption records (fake parental information, fabricated birth certificates), paper records are usually insufficient. DNA is effectively the only thread.
Chapter 22 · Comparison — Which Tool When
A summary of frequently asked tool choices.
[2026 Genealogy Tool Selection Guide]
Ancestry — Beginner-to-intermediate U.S./UK/Ireland/Western Europe. Overall #1.
MyHeritage — Eastern Europe/Middle East/Israel + AI photo features. Top pick.
FamilySearch — Free + 10 billion global records. Recommended supplement for everyone.
Findmypast — UK/Ireland, 1939 Register, British India needs.
WikiTree — Collaborative free tree. Verification-minded serious researchers.
Geni — Single tree + MyHeritage integration. Notable/historical figures.
AncestryDNA — Largest matching pool. U.S.-centric.
MyHeritage DNA — European/Israeli matching + integrated AI tools.
FamilyTreeDNA — Y-DNA/mtDNA precision. Surname projects.
LivingDNA — Fine-grained 21-region UK/Ireland breakdown.
23andMe — In bankruptcy. New purchases not recommended; existing users should download data.
GEDmatch — Free cross-platform matching pool. Upload all kits.
DNA Painter — Chromosome mapping. Essential for serious DNA analysis.
Academy of Korean Studies — Joseon figures + hanmun materials. Yangban research.
Korean National Archives — Colonial 호적 + post-liberation government records.
Japan National Archives — Meiji onward government and imperial records.
Japan Search — Japanese unified search.
myojiyurai.net — Japanese surname origins.
Chapter 23 · Cost and Time Scenarios
When people start family history research the first question is "how much will it cost?"
Beginner (4–5 generations direct, 12-month goal).
- FamilySearch free + Ancestry one month USD 25 + AncestryDNA kit USD 89 + Newspapers.com one month USD 20.
- Total around USD 134.
- Time — 2–3 hours/week, 6–12 months.
Intermediate (direct + collateral 6–7 generations, 2–3 year goal).
- The above plus MyHeritage USD 299/year + FamilyTreeDNA Big Y-700 USD 449 + Korean jokbo or Japanese 戸籍 copies around USD 200.
- First-year total around USD 1,300.
- Time — 5–10 hours/week.
Serious researcher (10+ generations, 5–10 years).
- Ancestry All Access + MyHeritage Complete + Findmypast World + Newspapers.com Publisher Extra + AncestryDNA + MyHeritage DNA + FamilyTreeDNA Big Y + GEDmatch Tier 1 + DNA Painter + supplemental cousin/second-cousin kits USD 500 + paper records and expert consultations USD 1,000.
- Total around USD 3,000–5,000 per year.
- Time — 10–20 hours/week.
Korean yangban research.
- Family jokbo purchase + clan-association dues + Academy of Korean Studies + National Archives 호적 requests + hanmun translation services.
- First-year total around KRW 2,000,000.
Japanese samurai research.
- 戸籍 + 除籍 + 改製原 acquisition (行政書士) + 過去帳 copies + 武鑑/分限帳 viewing.
- First-year total around JPY 300,000.
Chapter 24 · Conclusion — Genealogy after 2026
The 23andMe bankruptcy is the end of an era. The consumer DNA kit boom of 2017–2022 is over, and the market is slowly stabilizing. AncestryDNA has secured the matching-pool lead, MyHeritage holds the AI features crown, and FamilyTreeDNA owns Y-DNA precision.
AI now permeates every layer of family history. Five years ago genealogy was paper-and-pencil work; in 2026 a blurry photo can be restored in one click, the dead can be turned into short videos, and 18th-century Latin parish books are auto-indexed. At the same time, AI merges same-name strangers, hallucinates ancestries, and creates ethical friction over animated photos of the deceased.
Korean and Japanese genealogy traditions are themselves rich primary archives. As hanmun and 古文書 OCR matures, the Bohak, 戸籍, and 過去帳 corpora will become accessible even to English-language users. 2026 sits in the middle of that digital transition.
The most important advice is unchanged. Family history must start with primary sources — birth/marriage/death records, direct DNA matches — and AI is a helper, never a substitute for verification. Before animating a dead relative, think first about the feelings of the living family. Before swabbing your DNA, consider your cousins' privacy. And above all: always download and keep your data. That is the bitter lesson 15 million 23andMe users learned in 2025.
Chapter 25 · References + Links
- Ancestry — www.ancestry.com
- AncestryDNA — www.ancestry.com/dna
- MyHeritage — www.myheritage.com
- MyHeritage Deep Nostalgia — www.myheritage.com/deep-nostalgia
- MyHeritage AI Time Machine — www.myheritage.com/ai-time-machine
- FamilySearch — www.familysearch.org
- Findmypast — www.findmypast.co.uk
- WikiTree — www.wikitree.com
- Geni — www.geni.com
- 23andMe — www.23andme.com
- FamilyTreeDNA — www.familytreedna.com
- LivingDNA — www.livingdna.com
- CRI Genetics — www.crigenetics.com
- GEDmatch — www.gedmatch.com
- DNA Painter — www.dnapainter.com
- Newspapers.com — www.newspapers.com
- Chronicling America — chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
- British Newspaper Archive — www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
- US National Archives — www.archives.gov
- UK National Archives — www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
- Korean National Archives — www.archives.go.kr
- Academy of Korean Studies — www.aks.ac.kr
- Korean Historical People — people.aks.ac.kr
- Korean Genealogy Museum — jokbo.re.kr
- Japan National Archives — www.archives.go.jp
- Japan Search — jpsearch.go.jp
- National Diet Library — www.ndl.go.jp
- myojiyurai.net — myojiyurai.net
- 武家家伝 — www2.harimaya.com
- Shanghai Library Family Trees — jiapu.library.sh.cn
- 325Kamra — 325kamra.org
- Korean Single Holt — www.holt.or.kr
- Remini — remini.ai
- Vance AI — vanceai.com
- Hotpot.ai — hotpot.ai
- PhotoRoom — photoroom.com
- Photomyne — photomyne.com
- 23andMe Bankruptcy Coverage — www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/23andme-files-bankruptcy-2025-03-23
- Regeneron 23andMe Bid — www.regeneron.com/news
- GDPR + Genetic Data — gdpr-info.eu/art-9-gdpr
- Mobi — www.mobi.kr
- 24Genetics — 24genetics.com