The following news release was received from Ancestry.com this morning. It’s so nice to see Ancestry and FamilySearch working hand-in-hand to get records digitized and posted online. That’s sooo different than the competitive and somewhat adversarial relationship the firms had not all that long ago. In reading the announcement, I take it that Ancestry will now be posting records that have already been digitized and posted at FamilySearch. Although free at FamilySearch, these records will add substantially to the number of records available at the subscription-based Ancestry, allowing their membership to find FamilySearch digitized records within Ancestry’s databases, in place of having to do separate searches at the two websites. It looks like a winner all around to me.
Following is the press release:
Additional 1 Billion Global Records From 67 Countries to be Available on Ancestry.com
PROVO, Utah, Jan. 21, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Ancestry.com announced today an extension of their collaborative efforts with FamilySearch International that will make more than 1 billion additional records from 67 countries available on Ancestry.com. These already digitized records, provided by FamilySearch, are in addition to the agreement the two largest providers of family history resources announced a few months ago that will help digitize, index and publish an expected 1 billion global historical records never before published online from the FamilySearch vault over the next five years.
These additional records, which are already digitized collections, represent a significant expansion to Ancestry.com, which hosts the largest collection of global records available online. The records also add to the aggressive international digitization efforts already in place by Ancestry.com.
As stated previously by the company, Ancestry.com has a long-term content strategy, which is committed to investing $100 million to digitize and index new content over the next five years. The company is focused on providing access to a global collection of records and expand family history interest in its current markets and worldwide.
The additional collections include more than 1 billion digitized and indexed records and over 200 million images containing birth, marriage, death, census and church records from Europe, Latin America, South Africa, South America, Asia and more. These collections will provide Ancestry.com customers with rich details that will help them discover new information about their ancestors from around the world.
“We are excited to be expanding our exclusive, groundbreaking agreement with FamilySearch. In addition to the previously announced plan to together digitize 1 billion records never before published online, we’re thrilled to be able to provide our members with access to this additional 1 billion records from 67 countries,” said Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry.com. “These new global records will mean even more discoveries for our members.”
A focus on adding global content isn’t new to Ancestry.com, who has offices around the world and 12 billion global records already on the website. The site currently hosts record collections dating back to the 1300’s that include records around the census, immigration and naturalizations and military, just to name a few. In fact, hundreds of millions of records from Germany, Italy, Mexico, and Eastern Europe have been added in recent years to the billions of records from the company’s primary operating markets and record digitization projects are underway for collections from many more countries.
These 1 billion additional records are expected to be available on Ancestry.com starting in January and fully published over the next few months. To search records from around the world currently available on Ancestry.com visit www.ancestry.com.
About Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com is the world’s largest online family history resource with approximately 2.7 million paying subscribers across all its websites. More than 12 billion records have been added to the Ancestry.com sites and users have created more than 55 million family trees containing more than 5 billion profiles. In addition to its flagship site www.ancestry.com, the company operates several Ancestry international websites along with a suite of online family history brands, including Archives.com, Fold3.com and Newspapers.com and offers the AncestryDNA product, sold by its subsidiary, Ancestry.com DNA, LLC, all of which are designed to empower people to discover, preserve and share their family history.
