Ancestry.com

logo

Ancestry.com LLC is a company specializing in genealogy services. Its headquarters is in the US Lehi, Utah where the German branch, Munich and European headquarters in Dublin are. As the world's leading commercial provider of genealogical research , the company maintains an internal computer genealogical network as well as historical records and a genetic genealogy database, which are made available to customers on the website of the same name. In Germany the website is operated as Ancestry.de.

Company history

Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com was founded in 1990 by Paul Brent Allen and fellow student Dan Taggart, who were both studying at the Mormon Brigham Young University in Utah. The initial idea was to build a database of information on floppy disks that would make it possible to establish kinship relationships between Mormons in the United States. In 1996, Allen and Taggart put the databases online, creating Ancestry.com. As the company grew, Ancestry.com later acquired Find a Grave, among other things .

In August 2020, David Kestnbaum of US financial investor Blackstone announced that it would take over Ancestry for $ 4.7 billion from Silver Lake, Spectrum Equity and Permira. Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, GIC, retains its significant minority stake. Ancestry.com has $ 1 billion annual sales in 30 countries with more than three million paying customers.

AncestryDNA

With AncestryDNA, the company offers DNA tests which enable customers to research their genetic family ancestry .

The DNA tests are carried out together with Quest Diagnostics, which is based in Secaucus, New Jersey , USA .

criticism

In 2019 the company received the German Big Brother Award , which is to be understood as a negative price. The reason given by the lenders was that the company “exploits the interest in family research to induce people to give up saliva samples ” and also the genetic data to an unknown number of others, e.g. Partly for profit-oriented companies. Possibly. Profits from the transfer or sale of the data are not shared with the users, but at the same time Ancestry.com expressly forbids those who order the DNA analyzes to pass the analysis results on to others.

Web links

Ancestry® | Genealogy, pedigree, and family history at ancestry.de

supporting documents

↑ Via Ancestry.de. Retrieved December 4, 2019 .
↑ Via Ancestry.de. Retrieved December 4, 2019 .
^ Anna Nowogrodzki: Ancestry Combines Genealogy Research with Genetic Data. Retrieved December 4, 2019 (American English).
↑ Blackstone pays $ 4.7 billion for Ancestry.com. Retrieved on August 28, 2020 (German).
↑ AncestryDNA® | DNA Tests for Ethnicity & Genealogy DNA Test. Retrieved December 4, 2019 .
↑ https://www.darkdaily.com/ancestrydna-collaborates-with-quest-diagnostics-to-provide-home-dna-testing-to-healthcare-consumers-721/
↑ BigBrotherAwards: Biotechnology: Ancestry.com. In: https://bigbrotherawards.de/ . Big Brother Awards Germany, 2019, accessed on May 26, 2020 (German).

[1] Via Ancestry.de. Retrieved December 4, 2019 .

[2] Via Ancestry.de. Retrieved December 4, 2019 .

[3] Anna Nowogrodzki: Ancestry Combines Genealogy Research with Genetic Data. Retrieved December 4, 2019 (American English).

[4] Blackstone pays $ 4.7 billion for Ancestry.com. Retrieved on August 28, 2020 (German).

[5] AncestryDNA® | DNA Tests for Ethnicity & Genealogy DNA Test. Retrieved December 4, 2019 .

[6] ttps://www.darkdaily.com/ancestrydna-collaborates-with-quest-diagnostics-to-provide-home-dna-testing-to-healthcare-consumers-721/

[7] BigBrotherAwards: Biotechnology: Ancestry.com. In: https://bigbrotherawards.de/ . Big Brother Awards Germany, 2019, accessed on May 26, 2020 (German).