Family history sites, compared
Family history sites do one of two things well. Records sites such as Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch and Findmypast are built for searching: billions of records, and a tree to hang them on. Life-story services such as StoryWorth, Remento and Tell Mel are built for asking. A parent or grandparent answers questions, and the answers become a book or a memoir.
Heirstory joins the two. Gene, an AI genealogist, finds your family in the public records and talks with each relative, aloud or by typing. What they say is kept beside the people it is about, every fact with its source, private to your family.
Many families use a records site and Heirstory together: one to search, the other to keep. Bring your tree from any of them as a family-tree file.
Side by side
| Tree | Records | Interviews the family | Who sees it | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancestry | Yes | About 71 billion | No | Public or private; living people hidden | US $24.99 to $59.99 a month |
| MyHeritage | Yes | Over 40 billion | No | Set for each family site | Free to 250 people; £85 to £295 a year |
| FamilySearch | One shared world tree | Over 22 billion | No | The dead shared with all; the living private | Free |
| Findmypast | Yes | British and Irish | No | Not checked | £9.99 to £24.49 a month |
| StoryWorth | No | No | Weekly questions; phone calls | Those on a sharing list | US $69 to $199 |
| Remento | No | No | Recorded answers to prompts | Private by default | US $99 a year |
| Tell Mel | No | No | Live AI phone calls | Only your family | US $39 to $219, then $39 a year |
| Heirstory | Yes | Public records online, for those who have died | Yes, aloud or by typing | Only your family; each person decides | Free to build; Gene’s work uses credits |
Prices and facts were checked on 28 October 2026, from each company’s own pages. Each comparison names its sources.