The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Is Your Connection to Israel 'More Than Just a Feeling'?

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

An ancestry service based in Israel aims to connect people across the globe, helping them explore their family trees and see whether they have any relatives living in the Holy Land today. "People believe that they have a connection to the Holy Land, and I think one of the things we have now through DNA and through family trees is a way to perhaps see whether there's more to that connection than just a feeling," Aaron Godfrey, vice president of Marketing at MyHeritage, told The Daily Signal Podcast in an interview last month. "Perhaps there's a genetic link, perhaps within you, there is some Jewish DNA," Godfrey said. "We have five different strands of Jewish DNA that we're looking at. Perhaps there's relatives that you'll find in your family tree who have moved to Israel. Perhaps there's some record of the family visiting Israel that you never perhaps knew about. And all of this is just a way simply from your own home, finding out whether this connection that you feel in your heart is something more, is something perhaps that actually took place in your story." Godfrey sat down with The Daily Signal at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Orlando last month. Many Israelis spoke at the convention, which prominently featured organizations tying American evangelicals with Jews in the Holy Land. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, July 5th. I'm Virginia Allen. Have you ever wondered about your ancestry? And specifically, have you ever wondered if you might have Israeli ancestry? There is an ancestry service based in Israel that aims to connect people across the globe, helping them explore their family trees and see whether they have any relatives living in the Holy Land. Aaron Goughrey is the vice president of marketing at Mawley. My Heritage. The Daily Signal's Tyler O'Neill sat down with Goughrey at the National Religious

Broadcasters Convention in Orlando to discuss how Americans can discover whether they have Israeli heritage. Stay tuned for their conversation after this. As conservatives, sometimes it feels like we're constantly on defense against bad ideas, bad philosophy, revisionist history, junk science, and divisive politics. But here's something I've come to understand. When faced with bad ideas, it's not enough to just defend. If we want to save this country, then it's time to go on offense. Conservative principles are ideas that work, individual responsibility, strong local communities, and belief in the American dream. As a former college professor and current president of the Heritage Foundation, my life's mission is to learn, educate, and take action. My podcast,

the Kevin Roberts Show, is my opportunity to share that journey with you. I'll be diving into the critical issues that plague our nation, having deep conversations with high-profile guests, some of whom may surprise you. And I want to ensure freedom for the next generation. Find the Kevin Roberts Show wherever you get your podcast. This is Tyler O'Neill, a managing editor at The Daily Signal. I'm joined by Aaron Godfrey, who is VP of Marketing at My Heritage, an Israeli-based family history company. It's great to have you with me. Thank you for having me on the show. My pleasure. So can you talk to us a little bit about what separates my heritage from other heritage companies like Ancestry.com? And why is it based in Israel and why does that matter?

Sure. So like all families, we have a story and I'll start with ours. We were founded by an Israeli genealogist, somebody who had a passion for family history. From a young age, he was obsessed with his family story. and as he got older, was unsatisfied with the tools that were available on the market in order to preserve the work that he'd been doing. And he decided to develop his own tools. And that's the story of how the company got started to be as a place for him to be able to research his own family history.

And I guess at that point, realizing, and perhaps this is linked to being an Israeli company, but realizing that families, as we see in Israel, you know, it's a melting pot of people from all. over the world and realizing that if you really want to be able to find family from different countries who have been spread across the borders, then you need an international global platform to do so. So my heritage was launched as a service for people to discover their family history, to build their family trees, and it was launched in multiple languages in order to reach a wider audience. And if we have all of these people around the world building their family trees, then we're more likely to facilitate connections between people in different countries

because they're all using the same platform. It's very easy to get started. You head to MyHeritage.com. And just by putting in a bit of information about your parents, their names, dates of birth, etc. And maybe your grandparents, if you have it, from that, the system will start finding you matches to other family trees, to historical documents such as birth certificates, censuses, whatever it might be, newspaper records.

And you'll be able to just learn a lot about, your family story. Now, this used to be something that was impossible or incredibly challenging to do. You would have to travel around the world. You'd have to visit archives. You'd have to rely on interviewing. Hopefully, you would have somebody who could translate for you. Like, it was a very challenging thing to do. But now with the technologies we have available, you can do this from the comfort of your own home in your spare time. Yeah. And do you also have a DNA component as well? That's right. So we have. The My Heritage Family Tree in the historical records, we also have My Heritage DNA, which gives you a, it's a simple at-home cheek swab.

You send it to our lab here in Houston. It gives you a breakdown of your ethnic origins from around 2,100 different genetic groups. It also gives you a list of people with whom you share DNA, your DNA matches, relatives. and it's a great way to get into the mindset of what there is out there to discover, but by doing something such a simple task of just swapping your cheek, but realizing that there's this whole world of information out there awaiting you. And, you know, the fact that we're such a global company, the fact that we have millions of users around the world,

means that our database of people who have been doing DNA tests is also very global. And we have people in many countries, We're a great tool if you want to find your European relatives or in other countries by doing the My Heritage DNA test. That's all available to you to do so. We take privacy and security incredibly seriously. We do not sell your data. We in fact do not own your data. We state that we are the custodians of your data. We are simply processing this for you. If you choose afterwards to have it deleted, that's absolutely fine. No problem at all. We're using it in order to provide you with the service of giving you the report.

You can control the privacy settings, you can make the changes, and we just want you to realize that. We're simply processing this to give you your results, and that's it. Anyone can do it. Is it a subscription model system, or how do you, how does that work? So the DNA is a one-time fee for buying the test and getting your results, your ethnicity, your DNA matches. there are other, there is a other services that we offer for DNA as well, which require an additional fee. And the family tree service, myheritage.com, there's a subscription. You can start the free trial, but there's afterwards there's a subscription that will enable you to get historical records, matches,

to be able to see matches to other family trees. And all these things I mention matches and technology, it's all happening automatically, but it's giving you incredible potential for discovery. I mean, we have the most amazing user stories, success stories, happening all of the time, where people are finding out information they never knew. They're finding family members they never knew existed. I mean, I can just tell you from the last week, and some incredible stories that our users have discovered through this matching technology.

Yeah, you mentioned, you know, based in Israel, Have you had users find family members who've moved to Israel that they've gotten in contact with, that they might have stayed with? Can you tell a few of those stories? Obviously, we don't want to have any confidentiality issues. Sure. So I think that specifically here at NRB, you see a strong support of Israel and a love for Israel. People believe that they have a connection to the Holy Land.

and I think one of the things we have now through DNA and through family trees is a way to perhaps see whether there's more to that connection than just a feeling. Perhaps there's a genetic link. Perhaps within you there is some Jewish DNA. We have five different strands of Jewish DNA that we're looking at. Perhaps there's relatives that you'll find in your family tree who have moved to Israel. Perhaps there's some record of the family visiting Israel that you never perhaps knew about. And all of this is just a way simply from your own home, finding out whether this connection that you feel in your heart is something more.

It's something perhaps that actually took place in your story. So I think it's easier than ever. And really, anyone listening to this is just a few weeks away if they do the DNA or even a few days away if they just go to MyHeritage.com from perhaps making these kinds of discoveries. So looking at the differences between genealogy and genetics, there was a fascinating book that I recently read called the genealogical Adam and Eve, saying that if you trace genealogy back, you can find a universal common ancestor for most people after only a few thousand years. Have you seen, you know, strange connections between people groups showing up? in the ancestral records or in the DNA records?

So the DNA goes back several hundred years. And I guess some of those, not guess, but some of those groups that we can identify you two from several hundred years ago have established stories of thousands of years. So, yeah, you're seeing it all the time. You're seeing people find out that their ancestors, distant ancestors lived in specific locations around the globe

that they perhaps had no idea about. We have what we call genetic groups over 214 genetic groups which can identify not only the country that your ancestor live but what community they were in and also migration patterns speaking to somebody here yesterday

and they know that they have a lot of strong they saw through my heritage. There's a strong Irish DNA but there's a group of Irish expats who moved to the US to a specific place and his DNA connects to that group. Now all of this is a great way for starting your family tree, especially people who perhaps don't know so much about their genealogy,

because suddenly you have now a place that you can search records for and start or pinpoint where you might begin your research. And having the technology to do this, I mean, you know, it feels like we're living in the future, right? It just is a different world from what it used to be. just a few years ago. And are you originally, like, have you always lived in Israel, or did you make Aliya? So I was born and raised in the UK, as the accent may give away, although I'm sure some of the

list is thinking, who's that Australian or South African? I get that a lot. No, I'm from the UK, and in 2008, decided with my wife to move to Israel without two children. It was always been my dream since the age of eight years old. I remember specifically I made my first trip to Israel with my parents for my cousin's wedding. And since that moment, I had always wanted to live in Israel. And I knew I was going to make it happen, right, when I was even getting married. That was, this is the deal, right?

We're going to be going to Israel. And luckily, I found someone who also wanted to go to Israel as well. And since 2008, we've lived there. And I've been with my heritage since 2012. and to be able to combine both, you know, working and a professional life, but with a company that does something so meaningful. I mean, the end result of what we do is changing people's lives. And it's just very special, you know, I just feel very blessed to be able to do so.

Well, is there anything else about my heritage, about Israel, about this conference that you'd like to share? I mean, I don't understand if anyone is still listening. I expect them now to have gone to my heritage. and it's got started. But if you are listening, I think now is the time. The technology is available for all of you

to be able to go and get started, to make those discoveries. I look forward to hearing about them and share, you know, please, if you have a great discovery, please share it with us. We always love hearing what our users find out. I think this conference is a great way

of, has been a great opportunity to explore a little bit more, the connection and love of Israel that I've seen so prevalent here. And it really, I guess, helps me connect that idea that people have this strong love and support for Israel, and we're so grateful for it. But now perhaps people could use technology to prove if it's more than just the feeling.

But even if it isn't, we're grateful for that feeling. We're grateful for the love and friendship and support. Well, so listeners should go to myheritage.org. Myheritage.com. Dot com. That's a lot. Yes. And how can they reach out to you personally or to report interesting stories to myheritage.

So there'll be contact information available on the website. Just go to MyHeritage and you can see us on social media. We're everywhere. And please, yeah, read your name. reach out to us in any way that it's comfortable for you. Great. Well, thank you so much, Aaron Godfrey, from My Heritage, for joining us. Thank you, Tyler. It's been great to be here. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast. If you haven't had the chance, be sure to check out our evening show.

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