MyFamily Alternative

MyFamily.com announced today that they are shutting down. My family and I have a long history with MyFamily.com– we started in January of 2000. In 2007 I invited my family to try Spokt.com instead and they liked it and stayed. We have a lot of history still stored at myfamily.com and now I’m working on migrating that data to Spokt. Would this be useful to you? Let me know in the comments.

Try our demo to see how you like it!

240 thoughts on “MyFamily Alternative”

  1. BillR says:

    We have 1250 registered users on our MyFamily.com site, but not all of those are active. I count about 225 members who have logged in within the last year.

    1. danhixon says:

      BillR, consider that trophy transferred to you 🙂

  2. Val says:

    Good morning. First I want to say that all of my family, who were tentative at first when switching from MyFamily to Spokt are now delighted and we feel like we have found a new home.

    One quick question about the avatars. For some people they are just fine, but for others they are upside down or sideways depending what device (laptop, ipad, desktop, phone) others use to log on. Any suggestions?

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Val, So glad you’re a finding a new home here. Change is usually difficult in the short term but we hope you find this change good in the long run.

      Currently you can’t rotate avatars. We’ll fix that as soon as we can!

      For now I wonder if users can try to “pre-rotate” their images on their iPads/phones or use a computer. I know this isn’t ideal and I’m sorry about that!

      -Dan

  3. Hello Dan,
    I am part of Janet Post’s Rhinebeck H.S. Alumni Site, which she had created in 2000, so we have tons of memories & history sleuthing that we are trying to salvage from MyFamily, in addition to photos. I am testing Spokt with Janet and a few others & have a some questions concerning features I have not found yet.

    One feature I have used innumerable times on MyFamily is to click on a Member’s Name, go to their Profile, and then click on “View Postings by this Member”. It brings up all of a Member’s Postings in each Section with subject name of their Posts/Replies and the date, which I can click on to go to that specific Post. It is invaluable in finding something from past years. (when I recall who Posted the Memory, but not the subject title.) Do you expect to add that feature to Spokt?

    I also have used the upper right drop down menu in a person’s Profile that is just above their picture on MyFamily and it lists every member alphabetically (& because of the way Janet had us set up, it gives the girls’ maiden name, yr. of grad. & state of residence now), so again it is a list that is so easy to use to locate a Member {past alumni from numerous Class Grad. Yrs}(who maybe hasn’t logged in for awhile) and then go to their Postings, or locate their Profile w/contact info, etc. Do you expect to add this feature to Spokt?

    One other thing, &, I am not particularly computer-savvy, but when I add a picture on Spokt within a News Post, as an attachment, it is HUGE and I can’t find a way to reduce the width within an Edit as I did on MyFamily. A photo added within your Photo section is just fine sizewise.

    And….so far Spokt is the closest thing to Heaven in our search for a MyFamily Alternative which will accommodate our needs. Thank You!

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Roxanne,

      We may want to use this phrase as a testimonial: “Spokt is the closest thing to Heaven in our search for a MyFamily Alternative”

      We’re very glad you found Spokt. We have enhancements planned that will help you with these problems. For now we ask for patience as our top priority is the migration tool.

  4. Curt Cornell says:

    I am looking to move over from MyFamily. If I do, is it possible to use my email list of users to send invitations to my members to join me at Spokt?

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Curt, I emailed you to let you know that you can send me a list of email addresses with names and I’d be happy to send out the invitations for you. Excel, plain text, or whatever works for you.

  5. Feel free to use my phrase as a testimonial!! Thank you for the quick response and I will be patient. AND, please, we will love you forever if you find a way to migrate our News Posts with text content!

  6. Melanie says:

    I’m another my family.com refugee trying to figure out where to move my family site to… I’m currently downloading every item form my site to my computer because I don’t trust ancestry.com anymore to do the right thing and give me a full, complete export of what is on my site. Your site looks very interesting but I am wondering a couple of things.

    1. Can I link my family tree to my hub?

    2. Can I add a timeline link to my hub?

    3. Will I be able to organize pictures by album?

    4. What assurance, if any, can you give me that you won’t “do an ancestry” in a few years and abandon the hubs and all the data they contain? I trusted ancestry as the biggest, most genealogically oriented site out there when I chose to put my family site there and to have them just walk away and leave us all hanging and struggling to save our data and wonder where to move it to is incredibly frustrating and stressful. I think I have some trust issues now and I don’t want to be let down again by another site… I know you don’t have a crystal ball, but what are the chances you won’t get bought out/eaten up/go out of business in the future??

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Melanie, I’m not sure what you mean by linking to your hub. Could you elaborate? We currently don’t have photo organizational tools but plan to add them later this year.

      I don’t know what I can say to assure you that we won’t “do an ancestry” but when we decided to make Spokt almost 8 years ago one of the reasons we chose to do so was the poor customer service we received from MyFamily.com. They were frustrating before and what they’ve done now is simply unprecedented. We do not have plans to sell our business and we don’t plan on shutting it down. I don’t want to let you down.

  7. LisaF says:

    I agree with another poster about fears that MyFamily will self-distruct before we can get our stuff exported. Currently, I can’t even post news. As soon as I hit “send” it goes back to the sign-in page, and the post is lost. I think I will start exporting everything I can, in whatever format I can, onto a removable drive this weekend JUST IN CASE. Wow… that will be very tedious.

    How’s that export tool coming along? lol

  8. Melanie says:

    Hi Dan,

    Thanks for your reply…. Members of my current site are able to click on the “Tree” tab and it takes them to our family tree, hosted on ancestry.com…. My site is mainly a way of discussing and sharing the family history and research progress, so I’m wondering if it can be set up so people can also access the tree via the hub, through a link, or tab, or something similar…

    Equally, I’ve seen timelines on some other blogs/pages that look great and it would be nice to tie one of those to the hub also…

    Don’t know if these things are possible, but they might be useful for the my family exiles…

    Also, if there was a way to sort photos by albums it would be really helpful, as I categorize mine by the different branches of my family spread over several countries. I would also like to be able to add descriptions and sources to each photo.

    Tagging is essential!

    I like what I’m reading here so far, and your commitment to customer service is above and beyond anything ancestry has ever offered. I’m just really nervous about a repeat of this month’s debacle with ancestry so I’m going to watch and wait for a bit and let the dust settle and see what the alternatives are.

    So far, it all sounds good. “Free” makes me nervous, however.

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Melanie, I understand those items better now. It’s interesting to learn how different groups of people use these tools. Stay tuned to what we’re doing over the next few weeks and months.

  9. Cindy says:

    Whew! I just read ALL the comments and didn’t see this concern addressed: I love that unread posts are listed for me. What I would LOVE to see is those unread comments highlighted somehow (myfamily.com does this for me) so that my eyes can quickly pick them out as I scroll through the original post. (Because not every comment is an end-post comment.)

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Cindy, that’s a lot of reading! The unread comments show up in a bold font, but not for long. We’ve got something new coming this week.

  10. Zola says:

    I’m so glad to see that someone is trying to give the MyFamily orphans a home. Thank you! I will keep watch to see what you can offer.

    1. danhixon says:

      Thanks Zola, glad you found us. I hope you like what you see.

  11. Larry Czarnik says:

    We are desperate for someplace to come. But we need our messages migrated. We have over 10 years and 269 pages of message with 300 users.

    Email me if you need any other support.
    Cost? I haven’t even looked at your site yet.
    Larry
    2014JN13 16:50 Sydney Australia

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Larry, I’m glad you found us, I hope you like what you see! We temporarily suspended our payment system but a single hub subscription with unlimited members and 30GB of space costs $29 per year.

  12. Denruth Lougeay says:

    Simple questions:

    1 What is an estimated date for a migration tool? I know you all are working hard but we have extensive vacation plana that I may need to delay to have space to successfully migrate. July? August? September itself when myfamilytree goes dark?

    2 how do you pronounce SPOKT and what does the name mean?

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Denruth, We know we need to get the migration tool running as soon as possible in order to get the data out before the MyFamily.com shutdown.

      We pronounce it like “spoked” like a wheel: http://spokt.com/faq#pronounce

  13. Janet Post says:

    We are an alumni site and have class lists with member’s names from the 30’s to present time. I am inputting them from the lowest number to highest hoping they sort right in a list. BUT a couple are NOT in the correct place in my list. Will you have a sorting feature so that anything put in numerically or alphabetically will appear in a search list that way??

    Thank you.

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Janet, our membership list is currently very limited. We will take your needs into account as we work to improve that feature. Thanks for letting us know.

  14. Janet Post says:

    On MyFamily I sorted my albums starting with a plain text post as the name of the album, then adding photos to it underneath using html to make them really big.

  15. Keith says:

    We are very interested in myfamily.com site migration. Results from the export tool at myfamily.com suggest that ancestry.com plans to just delete our many years worth of news and photo comments. We need a new home AND our family history from myfamily.com. Please keep us posted on progress! Thanks!

    1. danhixon says:

      Thanks Keith, glad you found us, we’ll keep you posted as we make progress!

  16. BillR says:

    Hi Dan, the other major contender for a MyFamily replacement appears to be “Family Lobby”. Are you familiar with their site. Any comments on contrasts or differences between that site and Spokt?

  17. BillR says:

    Oops, I meant to say “Family Crossings” (which is also advertising a site transfer tool), not “Family Lobby”, though Family Lobby is also being looked at by other MyFamily site admins.

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Bill, I’m not familiar with either of those sites but I am familiar with Spokt and our commitment to giving our users an excellent experience. Many MyFamily.com refugees have started hubs here and are very happy–And many more users have been using Spokt.com for many years.

  18. Jim Keeley says:

    One member can not sign in. Says he is already on the site. I did a photo update and text cut and paste. Worked fine but takes too long. Thanks.

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Jim, I’ve emailed you requesting more info regarding the user who cannot log in. We want to improve the photo upload experience but for now remember that the larger the photo file is the longer it will take to upload.

  19. LisaF says:

    BillR, Family Crossings’ prices are way out of line compared to the limited amount of space they offer — 500mb?? Not nearly enough. — and that is their “premium” plan.

    They would have to do better. Much better.

  20. LisaF says:

    …and I should mention… That is 500mb for $99/year.

  21. BillR says:

    Thanks for the feedback, Lisa. I think many MF site admins are grasping for anything they can find and the fact that Family Crossings is offering transfer assistance is probably attractive to them, even if they have to pay more.

    For out site, I’m trying not to rush into anything and see how the alternatives work out for the early adopters, and to give places like Spokd a chance to get their new features rolled out.

  22. Janet Tan says:

    Dear Dan,

    We have been members of MyFamily.com since 2000 and it had held memories of birthdays,outings, holidays,food pictures, celebrations announcements and invites to families, grandchildren growing up in the website. Really sad and sorry that it is been retired.
    We are very excited to read about “Spokt” and that we are able to export all our treasured events and pictures at “Spokt”. Please keep us informed as to how we can export our MyFamily.com over without loosing whatever we have built up as a family over. Great news and thanks for the fantastic feedback.

    1. danhixon says:

      Janet, Glad you found us, stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks.

  23. LisaF says:

    Question:
    Once and invite has been sent to a family member, how long does it typically take for them to receive it?

    I’ve invited just a few members so far (earlier this morning), and so far it doesn’t seem they’ve received the email…

    Again… Thanks SO MUCH for all you are doing. MUCH appreciated!!

  24. LisaF says:

    Also…
    The search too seems to work for “news” items, but not for photos. I have only 2 photos posted so far, and tried a search using a word from the title of each photo, but got 0 results.

  25. LisaF says:

    Search *TOOL*

    🙂

  26. Hi Dan,
    We are also castaways from MyFamily. We have a small family of 22 members, and about ten of us have used our MyFamily site nearly daily for 15 years, with others visiting occasionally. Since our first post there in 1999, we’ve logged in over 500 pages of news, 5000 photos and almost 3 GB of content. Although we’re a family that’s thrown to the four winds (all living in different states, and some in different countries)we are a very close, very connected family, and we all quickly credit our MyFamily website as being a big part of our ability to stay so close. Every event of the last 15 years, big and small, has been shared there. We’ve celebrated joys together(9 babies born during that time… we’ve laughed about our virtual waiting room), and we’ve sadly mourned our losses together. We’ve embraced our family there, enjoyed, supported, celebrated and loved each other, plain and simple. Alongside, because of our constant running conversations, we’ve planned and carried out many, many family reunions, far flung though we may be, and when we see each other, there’s no “catching up”, not at all. We ARE caught up. I know there are a lot of other MyFamily people reading this, nodding their heads… it was a great site, wonderful for many years.

    MyFamily’s abrupt dumping of its customers sent a shock wave through our family that is hard to describe. Almost like a death, for us.. but we quickly got to work trying to find a replacement — we HAD to, it’s been falling apart over there. And let me tell you, it was depressing. Nothing seemed even close to the friendliness of what we’d had, or had the features we’d need to continue with the same amount of our hearts invested. After a few false starts that were edged with panic and were very disappointing, we finally found Spok’t… and we’ve stayed. THIS is our new home, there’s no question. I smile as I tell you that we’re all here on our new Spok’t family site now, every day.

    We are grateful that you are so responsive to suggestions and needs, and that you are clearly trying to provide lost MyFamily souls with a vital and valuable place to go. This (long) comment is simply to let you know just exactly what that means to us, and to say thank you, Dan, very much, from all of us. We’re very happy to be here.

    p.s. Whew, that got long, sorry! We’re ALL like this…. that’s how we wracked up 3 GB!

    1. danhixon says:

      Jessica, Your comment gave me goose bumps. I can relate as my family uses Spokt in the same way– we are caught up when we get together. I’m humbled to receive such kind words from you. Thank you and we’re glad you found us!

  27. LisaF says:

    One more thing… My avatar looks fine when viewed on my iPad, but is UPSIDE-DOWN when viewed on my laptop.

    Your thoughts??

  28. Liz says:

    Like LisaF & Carole above I’ve found I can’t find photos using the search tool (not just in the demo hub). Polls don’t come up either. Is this a known problem?

    I’ve also found that news items I’ve just added don’t show up in search results until I log out & log in again. This isn’t really a problem I just thought I’d mention it in case it shed any light on the other problem with search.

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Liz,
      Yes we are aware of the search issue. An update will be out this week! Thanks!

  29. Kathy Dalbey says:

    Is there a way to only include the person’s name and not include the picture when viewing a discussion in the “news”. It would be easier to read and not take up as much screen space. I could not find that type of option in the demo.
    Kathy

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Kathy, there is no such feature. Be sure to check out the update that is coming later this week. You may like the improvements to the avatar and name.

  30. bee says:

    A quick change that will result in more confidence for potential customers: change the copyright in the footer of the spokt.com site. 2009 makes me think you guys have moved on to greener pastures while this blog says you’re currently working furiously! Keep up the good work!

    1. dan@spokt says:

      bee,
      2009!?!?!? What’s the matter with us? 🙂 We’ll change it!

  31. davewv says:

    Is there an email notification feature (for new postings)?

    1. danhixon says:

      Hi Dave,

      Yes, click “Edit Account” (at the top), then “Preferences” You can configure your notifications for each hub.

  32. Joy says:

    I like the simplicity. Recipes and other files can go under News. However, we need a calendar that shows birthdays and other events. The birthdays should be automatically added from our profiles. Other events (such as vacations) would be added by members. The site should show at least the events coming up in the near future.

    1. RJ says:

      Hi Joy — A calendar feature is in the works and is slated for a future release. You can stay informed through the blog, or via your new hub (of course). 😉

  33. Matt K says:

    Hi Dan,
    We are very interested in switching from myfamily to spokt. (We have been using myfamily daily for 14 years!). Do your posts allow HTML for gifs and inserting pics into responses? Also do your polls allow you to see who voted for what? These are two features we really like about myfamily! Thanks looking forward to news on the import of data as well.

    1. RJ says:

      Matt,
      You can enter a number of HTML tags, as follows:

      ‘div’, ‘span’, ‘p’, ‘br’, ‘a’, ‘img’, ‘i’, ’em’, ‘b’, ‘strong’, ‘font’, ’embed’, ‘object’

      The poll creator can choose what type of poll to use when they create it: (anonymous or standard).

  34. Bob Johnston says:

    Can’t find list of established Spokt sites. Wouldn’t want to start new one when one is already going.

    1. RJ says:

      Can you elaborate on your comment, Bob? I’m not sure I understand your request. Thanks!

  35. Bob Johnston says:

    For Example if one group has a site on the Johnston family in California I would rather join that one, than start up a new one.

    1. dan@spokt says:

      Hi Bob, all hubs are completely private. There is no way to look up existing hubs. If you suspect that one of your family members has already set up a Johnston family hub you’ll have to ask them and request an invitation if they have.

  36. Matt K says:

    We are ready to make the switch! Is it an option to import our myfamily data to spokt? We have a decent amount, when will that be available and how do we proceed with the import?

    1. dan@spokt says:

      Hi Matt, So glad you found us. We have begun work on an import tool. We’ll announce our progress soon here on the blog.

  37. Mark says:

    How do you pronounce “spokt”?
    Is it like “spoke” or “spock”?

    1. dan@spokt says:

      We pronounce it “spoked” like a wheel.

  38. Jean Cecala says:

    I’ve started a spokt account and added a photo. How can you delete photos? I only want current photos up…

    1. RJ says:

      Hi Jean,

      On the “Hub Home” page there is a small grid of the most recent images that have been uploaded to your hub. This grid will show only the 6 most recently uploaded images. As new images are uploaded, they replace previous images in that spot. If you click one of them, it will take you to that photo’s post page, where you can see the larger view of the image as well as any responses. There you have the option to leave replies to or edit that photo, or there is a smaller link under the photo marked “delete”.

      For most folks there is no real need to delete images as they will automatically be updated in the feed and on the photos section of Hub Home. However, if you feel you need to delete the images, I’ve attached a screenshot highlighting the delete button found on each photo page:

      delete-photo

      Hope that helps!

  39. Mark says:

    Questions:

    How can I tell how much space I have used in my hub?

    How can I tell the size of each uploaded photo or video?

    Is there any way to have comments entered as “replies” appear without the avatar of the poster (so that the comment thread is more compact)?

    Where are the “terms and conditions” now found? (The link I saw did not work.)

    1. dan@spokt says:

      Hi Mark, The terms and conditions link was broken but it is now fixed. Our terms can be found here: http://spokt.com/terms

      As far as managing hub usage we will provide tools for that in the future but until then you should have plenty of space. 30GB is enough for tens of thousands of photos and several hours of videos. In practice no single hub is using more than 10GB and our oldest, most-active hubs have been on Spokt for 7 years.

  40. Kathie Black says:

    Hi SPOKT Team – Well, you now have a feel for what mother birds feel trying to keep all those chirping mouths satisfied… Fantastic effort you make for all of us and wanted to let you know it is appreciated.

    Regarding the migration from MyFamily and/or future feature enhancements:

    1.) Will you need our userID to be exactly the same as currently in MyFamily for any reason?

    2.) Will you need our first and last names to be exactly the same as currently in My Family?
    Seems like we can make a profile change after the migration and get the thread records and photo records attached appropriately so the conversations flow. We/or you could schedule HUBS and/or users so your site is not hit all at once.

    3.) Anyway to build a record for members that have passed on? We are a site of “Oldsters” with Vets and classmates that have left. I was going to suggest to our group that I use my email address on invites, post an Avatar so they are there with us. Problem is: re-using the same email is likely not to work. Same for
    “Guest” and or “Test” logons. Check me.

    4.) Time-Outs: I did a poll and find that we have several levels of speed used to access the Internet. Would you think about what a reasonable time-out would be for: a.) photo upload; b.) audio upload; c.) video upload; d.) Video buffer and play; e.) Long threads with lots of text-heavy comments. Not sure what we can do the the user (me) using slug slow, but the impacts on the site should be known and a time-out notice seems easier to take than just getting booted.

    Enough for now. As you may know by now, I believe the nest full of hungry birds will wait forever to get a secure place where we can keep communicating – so just add this to the notes already on the wall, no need to answer right away. Thanks again for your professionalism!!!

    ps – When you re-up the payment process, put a tip jar out there and let us show you how much we appreciate your efforts.

    1. dan@spokt says:

      Hi Kathie,
      1) Don’t worry about having your userIDs match.
      2) No need to match exactly.
      3) We will take this into account. There will probably be several reasons a user who used to use the MyFamily.com site is not part of the Spokt hub.
      4) Are you getting booted? Currently we don’t have a session timeout set. If you don’t log out you will remain logged in. As far as performance we want to see page loads in less than 1 second. Our current average server response time is 230miliseconds. Uploads depend a great deal upon the user’s internet connection as well as the size of the file being uploaded.
      That’s sweet about the tip jar– I don’t think we’ll get that set up but feel free to create an extra hub 😉

  41. Mark says:

    Two more questions after my last four:

    Can you add a way to click forward and back through photos without having to scroll to the bottom of the page each time? (On my PC, I cannot see the “older” and “newer” links without scrolling.)

    How much space or time is allowed in the hub I have created (done in order to test Spokt as a MF alternative) before you want an initial $29?

    1. dan@spokt says:

      Mark,

      Pull up a photo then click it, you’ll see a photo viewing screen: You’ll be able to click the older and newer links at the top.

      We temporarily suspended the payment system to give users like you a long opportunity to try out Spokt. We’ll enable payments later this week and will invite admins to pay within a month or so.

  42. Eamon Aylward says:

    Would be very interested in migrating tool from myfamily.com Have been with them for 13 years.

  43. This site seems to have most of the qualities I am looking for, but desperately need the migrating tool you say is coming. My renewal for myfamily.com is coming up first week in July and hate to pay, just to be shut down, if I can quickly move us. Do you know when it might be available? Would love to transfer as soon as possible. Thank you.

    1. dan@spokt says:

      Hi Barbara,

      According to Ancestry.com’s FAQ you’ll be able to use your sites until September 5:

      If your account is current as of June 5, 2014, you will have continued access to the site throughout the retirement period.

      We will work as quickly as we can in order to get the data out of MyFamily.com – it’s a big job and we don’t have a lot of information ready to announce yet but we’ll post to the blog as we get updates.

  44. davewv says:

    Earlier I had written about an HTML problem. One of my users was seeing html instead of text. The problem seems to be resolved now. NOt sure how it got fixed, but no longer a problem.

    Thanks

  45. Dutch Wiest says:

    Hi, Dan! I am an admin for our group. We are a non-profit group of Cold War vets who served with the Air Force Security Service (USAFSS) in Japan from 1949 to 1979. Our membership is nearly 5,000 and well over 1,000 are active online. Like others above, we too are MyFamily refugees. We started with MyFamily in 2002 and, to date, have used nearly 5GB for postings, photos and documents. You can view our ‘public portal’ website at http://www.usafssmisawa.com .

    After searching far and wide for a new home and some way to get there in short order, I was thrilled to find SPOKT.com as an alternative.

    I’ve read thru all the comments above and will continue to follow this string for new developments – especially your transfer utility.

    Thanks for being there, and keep up the good work. Be sure to let me know if you need any testing done!

    1. dan@spokt says:

      Glad you found us Dutch. I hope you find a good home here!

  46. Janet Post says:

    Well, we can’t even get ON MyFamily today.

  47. LisaF says:

    Yes, Janet, you are so right — it’s as if it doesn’t even exist anymore… I do worry that they will pull the rug out from under all of us before we can get our data properly exported. 🙁

  48. Matt K says:

    Hi Dan,
    If we start up on spokt, will our full history be able to be imported at a later date?

  49. KyleD says:

    It looks like many of Ancestry properties(myfamily, geneaology, rootsweb and findagrave) are down,
    except for the actual Ancestry.com country versions.

  50. KyleD says:

    According to Ancestry’s facebook page their servers were hacked.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

We read every comment. We will reply when appropriate. Some comments are not shown right away and need to be approved first. We may remove any comment that contains content that is not family-freindly or is off-topic. If your comment would be more appropriate as a support request we ask that you contact support here: http://spokt.com/contact.