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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancestry.com | 1/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestry.com | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T14:17:34.067164+00:00 | kb-cron |
Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. It is owned by Blackstone Inc., which acquired the company on December 4, 2020, in a deal valued at $4.7 billion. As of 2022, the company said it had provided access to 30 billion historical records, tripling its November 2018 figure of 10 billion records. In 2018 it also reported having 3 million paying subscribers, and to have sold 18 million DNA kits to customers. By 2023, Ancestry was the largest provider of consumer DNA testing in the world with a network of more than 25 million users, and Ancestry DNA testing is available in 128 countries. As well as its main website, Ancestry operates country-specific versions for Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
== History ==
=== Ancestry ===
==== 1983 ==== Ancestry Publishing was founded in 1983, producing genealogical data in print form, with more than 40 family history magazine titles and genealogy reference books published.
==== 1990–1999 ==== In 1990, Paul Brent Allen and Dan Taggart, two Brigham Young University graduates, founded Infobases and began offering Latter-day Saints (LDS) publications on floppy disks. In 1988, Allen had worked at Folio Corporation, founded by his brother Curt and his brother-in-law Brad Pelo. The service was initially to help members of the church to research their ancestors. Infobases' first products were floppy disks and compact discs sold from the back seat of the founders' car. In 1994, Infobases was named among Inc. magazine's 500 fastest-growing companies. Their first offering on CD was the LDS Collectors Edition, released in April 1995, selling for $299.95, which was offered in an online version in August 1995. Ancestry officially went online with the launch of Ancestry.com in 1996. On January 1, 1997, Infobases' parent company, Western Standard Publishing, purchased Ancestry, Inc., publisher of Ancestry magazine and genealogy books. Western Standard Publishing's CEO was Joseph A. Cannon, one of the principal owners of Geneva Steel. In July 1997, Allen and Taggart purchased Western Standard's interest in Ancestry, Inc. At the time, Brad Pelo was president and CEO of Infobases, and president of Western Standard. Less than six months earlier, he had been president of Folio Corporation, whose digital technology Infobases was using. In March 1997, Folio was sold to Open Market for $45 million. The first public evidence of the change in ownership of Ancestry magazine came with the July/August 1997 issue, which showed a newly reorganized Ancestry, Inc., as its publisher. That issue's masthead also included the first use of the Ancestry.com web address. More growth for Infobases occurred in July 1997, when Ancestry, Inc. purchased Bookcraft, Inc., a publisher of books written by leaders and officers of the LDS Church. Infobases had published many of Bookcraft's books as part of its LDS Collector's Library. Pelo also announced that Ancestry's product line would be greatly expanded in both CDs and online. Alan Ashton, a longtime investor in Infobases and founder of WordPerfect, was its chairman of the board. Allen and Taggart began running Ancestry, Inc. independently from Infobases in July 1997, and began creating one of the largest online subscription-based genealogy database services. In April 1999, to better focus on its Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com Internet businesses, Infobases sold the Bookcraft brand name and its catalog of print books to its major competitor in the LDS book market, Deseret Book. Included in the sale were the rights to Infobases' LDS Collectors Library on CD. A year earlier, Deseret Book had released a competing product called GospeLink, and the two products were combined as a single product by Deseret Book. The MyFamily.com website launched in December 1998, with additional free sites beginning in March 1999. The site generated one-million registered users within its first 140 days. The company raised more than US$90 million in venture capital from investors and changed its name on November 17, 1999, from Ancestry.com, Inc. to MyFamily.com, Inc. Its three Internet genealogy sites were then called Ancestry.com, FamilyHistory.com, and MyFamily.com. Sales were about US$62 million for 2002 and US$99 million for 2003.
==== 2000–2009 ==== In March 2004, the company, which had outgrown its call center in Orem, Utah, opened a new call center, which accommodated about 700 agents at a time, in Provo. Heritage Makers was acquired by MyFamily.com in September 2005. On November 5, 2009, Ancestry.com became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ (symbol: ACOM), with an initial public offering of 7.4 million shares priced at $13.50 per share, underwritten by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Jefferies & Company, Piper Jaffray, and BMO Capital Markets.