Using theoretical results from complex rotation calculations and data from experimental photoionization cross sections, the quantum defects, the widths, the oscillator strengths and the shape parameter of Rydberg series of autoionizing resonances in helium, excited with synchrotron radiation from the ground state, are reviewed and analysed systematically. The relation of these resonance properties to the propensity rules for radiative and non-radiative transitions in two-electron atoms is established.