Ancestry.com Inc. (formerly The Generations Network) is a private held Internet company. It is based in Provo, Utah, United States. It is the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world. The company operates a network of genealogical and historical record websites.[2] These websites are focused on the United States and nine foreign countries. The company also develops and markets genealogical software, as well as other genealogical related services. As of December 2013, the company provided approximately 12.7 billion records and had 2.14 million paying subscribers. The website includes 191 million uploaded photos and more than 16 million uploaded stories. These were provided by people who use their website.[3]
| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Online services Genealogy Online publishing Software publishing |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Headquarters | Provo, Utah, US |
Key people | Tim Sullivan, President/CEO[1] |
| Products | Ancestry.com Archives.com Family Tree Maker software Fold3.com Genealogy.com MyFamily.com Newspapers.com Rootsweb.com |
| Revenue | US $399.7 million (2011) |
| Owner | Permira and co-investors |
Number of employees | Over 1,000 worldwide (2012) |
| Website | International: corporate.ancestry.com Europe: ancestryeurope.lu |
The company operates other websites including Archives.com, Fold3.com, ProGenealogists, 1000memories.com, Newspapers.com, Genealogy.com, MyFamily.com, and Rootsweb.com.[4] Family Tree Maker was created by the company that advertised it as "the #1 selling family history software". Ancestry.com operates foreign sites that provide access to services and records specific to other countries in the languages of those countries. These include several countries in Europe (covered by Ancestry.com Europe S.à r.l.[5]) as well as Australia, Canada, and China.
On January 1, 1997, Infobases' parent company, Western Standard Publishing, purchased Ancestry, Inc.[6] The website was a publisher of Ancestry magazine and genealogy books. The website was founded in 1983 by John Sittner. Originally, the website was a newsletter about genealogy. The Ancestry magazine had been launched in January 1994. Western Standard Publishing's CEO was Joe Cannon. He was the main owners of Geneva Steel.[7] In July 1997, Allen and Taggart purchased Western Standard's interest in Ancestry, Inc. That same month, Ancestry, Inc., purchased Bookcraft, Inc., a publisher of books written by leaders and officers of the LDS Church.[8][9] By this time, Allen and Taggart began operating Ancestry, Inc. independently.[10]
The MyFamily.com website launched in December 1998. More free sites opened up in March 1999.[11] MyFamily.com, had one million registered users within its first 140 days.[10] The company raised more than $90 million in venture capital from investors.[10] On November 17, 1999, the name of the company changed from Ancestry.com, Inc. to MyFamily.com, Inc. Its three Internet genealogy sites were then called Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com, and FamilyHistory.com.[12] Sales for 2002 were about $62 million, and those for 2003 were $99 million.[13] The company opened a call center in Provo, Utah, in March 2004.[14] On December 19, 2006, the company changed its name to "The Generations Network".[15] The company allowed free access to Ancestry.com at LDS Family History Centers. This service was removed on March 17, 2007. This was because of the lack of a mutual agreement. In 2010, Ancestry restored its access to its site at Family History Centers.
On July 6, 2009, the company changed its name back to Ancestry.com.[16] A year later, Ancestry sold its book publishing assets to Turner Publishing.[17] That same year, Ancestry magazine was no longer publishing after 25 years.[18] On November 5, 2009, Ancestry.com became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ (symbol: ACOM).[19][20] It's first public offering was at 7.4 million shares priced at $13.50 per share. The company had a partnership with NBC for a television series called Who Do You Think You Are?.[21]
In 2010, Ancestry.com expanded its location to San Francisco, California. The San Francisco office focuses on the technology aspects of the company. Their recent works include an iPhone and iPad app. In December 2011, Ancestry.com removed the Social Security Death Index for people who died within 10 years.[22] These records were removed because of identity theft concerns. In September 2012, Ancestry.com expanded its international operations with the opening of its European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. The Dublin office includes a new call center for international customers, as well as product, marketing and engineering teams.[23][24]
In October 2012, Ancestry.com agreed to be acquired by a private equity group consisting of Permira Advisers LLP, members of Ancestry.com's management team, including CEO Tim Sullivan and CFO Howard Hochhauser, and Spectrum Equity for $32 per share or around $1.6 billion.[25][26] At the same time, Ancestry.com purchased a photo digitization and sharing service called 1000Memories.[27] In September 2013, Ancestry.com announced its acquisition of Find a Grave.[28] A month later, the company announced it had purchased the family history records of South African genealogy website Ancestry24 which stopped operating in February 2013.[29][30]
Ancestry.com is a subscription-based genealogy research website. It has 5 billion records online.[31] Most of the records are from the United States. However, records are being added for other countries, such as Canada, the UK, and European countries. Some records are free for anyone to access. Most records on Ancestry.com are only available for paying subscribers. Family Tree Maker (FTM) is advertised as "the #1 selling family history software".[32] FTM allows the researcher to keep track of information collected during research and to create reports, charts, and books containing that information.
On June 22, 2006, Ancestry.com completed the indexing and scanning of all of the United States Federal Census records from 1790 through 1930.[33][34] The website was nominated for a 2007 CODiE Award in the "Best Online Consumer Information Service" category.[35] The website offers a genealogical DNA tests of autosomal DNA, paternal Y-chromosome DNA and maternal mitochondrial DNA.[36] In June 2014, Ancestry.com no longer sold the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA testing.[37]
Website traffic
In the first quarter of 2012, Ancestry had 1.87 million users.[38] According to Quantcast, as of April 2012, Ancestry.com reached a rough estimate of 8.3 – 8.4 million people in the US.[39] In the second quarter of 2014, Ancestry had 2.11 million users, for a loss of 52,000 subscribers when compared to the first quarter of 2014.[40]
This is a list of all websites Ancestry.com., Inc. owns.
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