Ancestry.com
Online genealogy company based in Utah
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February 1 2025 | Howard Hochhauser succeeded Deb Liu as Ancestry's President & CEO, continuing to serve as a Board member while the company initiates a search for a new CFO. |
2024 | All RootsWeb hosted websites were converted to read-only status, with all user logins disabled. |
March 2024 | Newspapers.com expanded its database to over 25,000 searchable newspapers from ten different countries, significantly increasing its historical content coverage. |
2023 | Ancestry.com expanded its genetic testing services to include DNA testing for dogs, offering comparisons to over 400 breed profiles through their 'Know Your Pet DNA' service. |
2023 | Became the largest provider of consumer DNA testing worldwide, with a network of over 25 million users and DNA testing available in 128 countries. |
July 2023 | Half a million military records added to the Forces War Records/Fold3 portal, enhancing the platform's service as a premium military genealogy resource with both transcriptions and source document images. |
April 2023 | Forces War Records begins using the same dataset offerings and web architecture as Fold3, repositioning its service in the UK market. |
April 2023 | Fold3 rebranded as Forces War Records in British & Commonwealth nations, expanding its military genealogy portal's market presence. |
March 2023 | Ancestry won a contract to digitize over 3 million British Army service records, planned for release from 2024 through 2029. |
November 2021 | Ancestry acquired the French Genealogy Company Geneanet. |
August 31 2021 | Ancestry.com announced its acquisition of Geneanet, a genealogy website, following unsuccessful negotiations between Geneanet and Filae. The acquisition aimed to expand Ancestry's genealogical research capabilities while allowing Geneanet.org to remain autonomous. |
May 24 2021 | Ancestry acquires Forces War Records, a British military genealogy-specialist website, with the aim of helping people discover and contextualize their family's military history. |
February 2021 | Ancestry announced Deb Liu, a former Facebook executive, as their new CEO, effective March 1. |
December 4 2020 | The Blackstone Group acquired Ancestry.com in a deal valued at $4.7 billion, marking a significant milestone in the company's ownership history. |
August 2020 | The Blackstone Group announced plans to acquire Ancestry for $4.7 billion. |
July 2020 | Ancestry claimed their DNA database contained 18 million completed customer DNA kits. |
2018 | The company reported 3 million paying subscribers and had sold 18 million DNA kits to customers. |
December 2018 | Ancestry.com announced a strict data policy preventing DNA profile use in criminal investigations without a valid legal process, in response to concerns about genetic privacy. |
November 2018 | Ancestry reported having 10 billion historical records available to users, which would later triple to 30 billion records by an unspecified date. |
December 20 2017 | A security breach exposed a file containing 300,000 RootsWeb user names, passwords, and email addresses, with 55,000 of these records being Ancestry.com login credentials. |
November 2017 | Ancestry launched 'We Remember', a free online memorial platform that enables users to create digital spaces for preserving and sharing photos and videos about deceased individuals. |
June 2017 | Ancestry.com began migrating all applications and data to Amazon Web Services (AWS). |
2016 | Family Tree Maker software was purchased by Software MacKiev, transferring ownership of the genealogy software product. |
April 2016 | GIC Private Limited and Silver Lake purchased equity stakes in Ancestry.com, with the company's market value estimated at over $3 billion by 2017. |
July 16 2015 | Ancestry launched AncestryHealth and appointed Cathy A. Petti as Chief Health Officer. The company also partnered with Calico (Google subsidiary) to research human longevity and heredity. |
September 5 2014 | Ancestry shut down MyFamily.com, terminating the platform that previously allowed members to create private family and group websites. |
June 2014 | Ancestry.com discontinued its paternal Y-chromosome DNA and maternal mitochondrial DNA tests. |
March 2014 | Ancestry.com launched a mobile app to enhance user access to genealogical research tools. |
September 30 2013 | Ancestry.com acquired Find a Grave, a genealogy website, with site editor Jim Tipton noting the site's value for family history research. |
2012 | Ancestry spun off its digitized online newspaper components into a standalone service called Newspapers.com, creating a separate platform for historical newspaper archives. |
2012 | Ancestry acquired Archives.com for $100 million, expanding its genealogy website collections which included 11.8 billion photos, newspapers, census, and vital records. |
October 2012 | Ancestry.com was acquired by a private equity group for $1.6 billion and simultaneously purchased the photo digitization service 1000Memories. |
September 2012 | Ancestry.com expanded international operations by opening European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, which included a new call center and product, marketing, and engineering teams. |
March 2012 | Ancestry.com acquired DNA assets from GeneTree. |
2011 | Footnote.com was rebranded as Fold3, following its acquisition by Ancestry.com in the previous year. |
2011 | Ancestry launched Android and iOS mobile applications. |
December 2011 | Ancestry.com moved the Social Security Death Index search behind a paywall and stopped displaying Social Security information of recently deceased individuals due to identity theft concerns. |
2010 | Ancestry.com acquired iArchives, Inc. and its service footnote.com, gaining digital microfilm digitization capabilities and assets. |
2010 | Ancestry sold its book publishing assets to Turner Publishing Company and expanded domestic operations by opening a new office in San Francisco, California with engineering, product, and marketing teams. |
May 2010 | MyFamily.com closed its Bellevue, Washington development office, releasing its entire staff after no employees accepted relocation to Provo. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article Ancestry.com, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.