The following announcement was written by The Generations Network (TGN), parent company of Ancestry.com:
Members Add More Than 1 Billion People and 10 Million Family Trees to the Web Site in Less than Three Years
PROVO, Utah, May 12 -- Ancestry.com, the world's largest online family history resource, today announced that its members have added more than 1 billion people to more than 10 million user-generated family trees on the site since the tree-building and -sharing tools debuted in July 2006. Within just the last two years, members have more than tripled the number of people and family trees, and Ancestry.com members continue to benefit from the site's content.
"We are excited about this milestone because it means more success for our members," said Tim Sullivan, CEO of The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com. "As the number of family trees grows, more people are uncovering historical records and meeting distant cousins who may provide missing pieces in their family story. We will continue to improve our member's experience and provide them with the new records and tools they need to make these types of family history discoveries, share their findings and connect with people all over the world."
To help subscribers discover their heritage and add to their family trees, Ancestry.com offers access to more than 8 billion records within 28,000 historical collections, including census records, passenger lists, and birth, marriage and death records, among many others. With these records, people can add new information and individuals to their family trees that they may have never known existed.
When John Harris of Atlanta, Ga, became interested in building his family tree, he only knew his father's and mother's names. After he entered what he knew on Ancestry.com, he quickly began to uncover his family history. "I was hooked after entering this data and getting a green leaf," said Harris. The company's signature green leaves, known as Ancestry Hints, led Harris to more clues about his family and helped him discover a census document that provided details on his father's life, in addition to his father's siblings that John wasn't ever aware of. But the highlight for Harris came when he was able to connect to trees added by other Ancestry.com members. Through his research, Harris discovered nearly 500 new people in his family.
Ancestry.com members create profiles for each individual in their family tree, share memories, upload photos and images, record conversations and interviews, and invite family members to do the same. They can also connect with other members and search Ancestry.com's extensive collection to find historical documents that capture their family story.
Dale Jordan of Winchester, Va., a member since 2003, experienced the true value of Ancestry.com's community connections when he was contacted by another Ancestry.com member who had a photograph of one of Jordan's ancestors. The woman found the photo at a flea market and discovered writing on the back that identified the person in the photo. She checked Ancestry.com, found a profile in Jordan's family tree that matched the name on the photo, and contacted him to return it to the family. "My cousins and I are thrilled to have this photograph, the only one we have ever seen," said Jordan. "I believe that it would have been lost forever if I had not made my family tree available on Ancestry.com."
Since July 2006, millions of people have built family trees on Ancestry.com, some growing their trees to amazing heights. The largest tree includes almost 280,000 people. Another tree has almost 17,500 photos. And one user has shared her tree with more than 260 people.
For more information, or to build your family tree and discover your family history, visit www.ancestry.com.
About Ancestry.com and The Generations Network
The Generations Network, Inc., through its flagship Ancestry.com property, is the world's leading resource for online family history. Ancestry.com has local websites in nine countries and has digitized and put online over 8 billion names and 28,000 historical records collections over the past ten years. Since July 2006, Ancestry.com users have created 10 million family trees containing 1 billion profiles and 20 million photographs and stories. The Generations Network also includes myfamily.com, Genealogy.com, Rootsweb.ancestry.com, MyCanvas.com, dna.ancestry.com, Family Tree Maker and Ancestry Magazine. More than 9.2 million unique visitors spent over 4.7 million hours on a TGN website in March 2009 (comScore Media Metrix, Worldwide).
Dunno.... somehow methinks Ancestry.com inflates its claims... I get auto-charged when I obviously haven't logged in once to the site in a year. MyFamily site has over a 100 members but no one uses it. So I'm guessing those 100+ people are all a part of these #'s. I'd rather see about active users (the 4.7m hours is a good stat for example) and less about auto-billed "members".
Posted by: michael lamb | May 12, 2009 at 11:05 AM
..And in an ironic twist, due to name collectors and drive-by mergers, there are only actually 10,000 unique names in the entire database!
Posted by: Jason Presley | May 12, 2009 at 08:07 PM