MyHeritage Launches Global Pro Bono Initiative

MyHeritage has launched a new global initiative called Tribal Quest. The purpose of this pro bono initiative is to record the family histories of tribal people living in remote locations and to preserve their stories for future generations.

According to MyHeritage, tribal people in remote communities lack access to modern technology and tools for researching, preserving, and sharing family history. With urbanization on the rise, indigenous communities and their unique traditions are also at risk. Many attempts are underway to document these communities before they are lost forever, but those projects mainly focus on the anthropological level.

MyHeritage is a global leader in family history, and believes that every story counts. People who live in remote locations with limited access to modern technology don’t have the tools to digitize their rich family histories, and they are often left unrecorded.

MyHeritage is helping to create an ever-expanding database of these invaluable stories. Their teams have begun visiting tribal communities around the world. They will bring with them the tools to help people record and preserve their family histories for future generations.

MyHeritage has completed its first two Tribal Quest expeditions to Namibia and Papua New Guinea, meeting elders and families of the Himba people in Namibia, and different tribal groups in Papua New Guinea. Collaborating with local guides, MyHeritage teams spent three weeks in each destination, interviewing hundreds of community members, taking thousands of photos, gathering information at cemeteries, and attending local community events and rituals.

The teams then processed all the data they gathered, cross-correlated it, tagged it, and organized the family history information of over 6,000 members of tribal communities in 55 richly-detailed family trees. This information is now saved online on MyHeritage, preserving cultural heritage and personal family histories of tribal people forever.

Right now, you can view a video and some of the family stories from the data that MyHeritage teams gathered in Namibia on the Tribal Quest website. The information from Papua New Guinea is coming soon. There are further expeditions to remote destinations that are currently being planned.

MyHeritage points out that one of their driving forces as a company is to do good. They place particular emphasis on initiating pro bono projects that increase people’s engagement with genealogy – wherever we may live. MyHeritage recognizes that, across a diverse range of cultural practices and geographic locations, every family has its own stories waiting to be told and shared.

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